I challenge any current/former employee to disagree with anything said here:
This is my take after 3 years with Lincare -- in my final month.
• Complete incompetence from senior management IN MY REGION. Not one decision maker above my direct managers has a college degree or a sense of how to run a business. They are promoted based on time rather than merit. Very few came from sales, but rather were clinicians or customer service reps. Not ALWAYS a bad thing but offers little help to the sales staff.
• Recently several changes have taken place to both salary and products that have made paying bills a chore. Pay is terrible: $24K salary, plus commissions. Once again, this can be good or bad depending upon your area. I have transferred twice and am now making under $30K total. My last area, over $65K. You ask why I left??? Because my wife was transferred for her job. It helps for us to live together while married.
• Speaking of commissions: almost no efficient way to track commissions which means they DO NOT pay you on everything you've sold unless you are diligent about tracking it. I have developed a system to track and recently audited my commissions from 2010. I was paid for roughly HALF of what I was owed. After a three month barrage of emails to management and the ONE lady that handles commissions for the whole company I was presented a long email of why I would not be paid on most of them -- 90% of which were reasons completely out of my control. I lost several thousand dollars because of paperwork errors and technicalities. Any current/former employee who's reading this saying "BS" I give you three words: CDR, CMN and Med4Home.
• Speaking of no tracking: many sales jobs ask for documented results of your sales prowess. Lincare offers none. Makes your task of looking legitimate on paper very difficult when you're finally ready to move on unless you can get your area manager to type up something for you...which looks ridiculous.
• Considering how little you make when you get started, this is also a very expensive job to have. You will be required to purchase lunches for doctors' offices that can cost upwards of $300. Reimbursements, depending upon your area manager, can take a month.
• Once again, name recognition. Turnover is EXTREMELY high in this area, and in many others around the country. Since taking over this territory I have spent months trying to rebuild damaged relationships from turnover and incompetence. Our center recently canned the whole staff and started clean, but not before significant damage was done. Unfortunately sometimes there is little you can do and you struggle to get a decent pipeline established. Even if you do, it can take several months before you see a turnaround and by then you're so broke you've already started sending out resumes...keeping the turnover loop going.
• This is DME. This is not a pharmaceutical job or a device sales job. DO NOT think otherwise. You do not get the same respect in offices at first that the pharma sloths do. If your goal is pharma I recommend looking at companies like ADP or Xerox for your first sales gigs. They recruit successful reps from there. DME is not that great on a resume.
* FINALLY - since there's not a place for advice for job seekers on here - if you are considering a job at Lincare as a sales rep do yourself a favor and look up "pulmonologist" on google in your area. Call a few of the biggest ones in your city discretely and ask them about Lincare to get a feel for reputation (your grandma needs a new O2 provider. You're new to town and found them on the internet...what do you think...blah blah blah). I know there are people in this company making a good living but there are far more that are not. Just be cautious. If you are in a BIG city, generally you will have a harder time than people in smaller areas. Less competition. IF you work hard, have some money in the bank already, and the time to devote to tracking everything, this could be a good job. If you are broke and just desperate for a job, you'll go even more broke working here at first. OR, take it and get a part time night gig. ALSO, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Ask if your area is taking Medicare!!! Several areas in the country are not and it has destroyed commission potential in those areas. Be very cautious with the competitive bidding areas.
