Pros
Fivestars has one of the best company cultures that you can find. The atmosphere is friendly and supportive and the perks are great. They offer 20 days of paid time off, some food and snacks in the offices, monthly team outings, bi-annual paid community service opportunities to give back to the community and a $200 passion fund to go towards any experience you are "passionate" about having (ie. ski-diving, a mountain climbing expedition, etc.)
Cons
As an outside sales representative you are expected to perform daily activity that is tracked through a set of metrics. Although your monthly sales performance and how that measures to your quota is going to be the most important measuring stick you are graded by, the daily activity metrics seem a bit like micro-management in a job role that you would think would naturally allow you a ton of freedom. Additionally, trying to sell a loyalty program and customer engagement automation tool to local business owners is like trying to convince a 2-year old they should use their fork to eat. Small business owners don't think about data driven results; they are typically partially clueless as to the real reason they've been successful thus far. It's a hard sell to convince them of their need for a customer retention marketing program. Additionally, local business owners make business decisions like consumers and also, sometimes try to take things back like they bought it at Wal-mart. This job requires you to be able to close on the spot deals. 90% of business owners that don't buy on the spot won't buy later on... not because it's not the right business decision but simply because they forget how the program works, what it will do for their business and only remember the price tag. The Fivestars program is a great marketing tool for local business owners with not a lot of good competition in it's market space, but it's a hard sell because it's not solving a problem most small business owners are aware they even have. As the company grows and expands there is plenty of opportunity eternally to advance your sales career and potentially move into different departments. Just keep in mind that as an outside sales rep selling a product to local businesses, your city-market has a saturation point. Reps that have remained in the same city for more than a year or two work almost solely off of referrals, however most deals are closed from sourcing your own leads and closing deals from a cold approach. After some time, if you want to advance in the company, you will likely need to move to another city that Fivestars is expanding to. To sum up, working as an outside loyalty consultant is one of the hardest sells you can make because you are selling an advanced business solution to local business owners that buy like consumers and are more passionate about their pizza than successfully growing their company. The product is great and there isn't a lot of strong competition in the market space, but the biggest competition you'll have to overcome as an outside rep is creating enough of a sense of urgency in the mind of the local business owner to get him or her to take the risk and move forward with the program.
