Marketing (and Home Depot’s needs) really run Makita. Understand this going in. Also understand that because it’s Japanese owned that your manager will essentially be a “yes” man. There is truly only so much you can do for your customers. Most every marketing program is crafted around what’s best for Home Depot and because of that you will need to be extremely creative with the programs in order to entice your dealers. Beware though. Most dealers don’t want creative they want simple and lucrative therefore they quite often default to the marketing companies of DeWalt and Milwaukee. These two have figured out how to keep it simple. So, because of how controlling marketing is the upper management team’s hands are tied and this is where the “yes” man comes in. They are paid well and many have been around for quite a few years. They won’t find a better position anywhere else so they are hanging on for dear life and just say yes to whatever their managers say. And most managers have lost site of or were never exposed to what it’s like to sell power tools through distribution in the current business environment. Also, with very few exceptions the upper managers are very unprofessional. They enjoy talking about you to others. Because of all this, the fact that the reps and their managers are underpaid and the regular commission structure changes often not to the reps’ benefit there’s an unusually high level of turnover. It’s a shame. So I suggest really assessing your situation before pursuing and ultimately committing to a job at Makita. Unless upper management and the Japanese will ever change their tune and make some over due changes (marketing control, compensation packages, upper management autonomy to name three) then I believe Makita will continue along the same path of producing a great product but never really making long term strides in the industry. All I have expressed comes from my time at Makita and are just my opinions except for management talking about others while not in their company.
