The worst part of solarcity, as a sales person, is you are hawked over, paid little, and required to do far more than simply sell a good product. In fact the more you sell, the more administrative headaches you get at solarcity. More and more in an effort to cut costs, the salespeople are required to do administrative type of work on customers that have been sold...the average job from start to finish is anywhere from 4 to 6 months, so the customer contacts can be enormous...also there are numerous places where a job can cancel because of various internal installation issues, local building permitting issues, roof issues, etc...you do your job, work 7 days a week and still the jobs get lost (20% company wide), you get your commission taken back....oh yeah and commission....very very low commission now that they have increased their base salary. So low in fact that some jobs will pay you less than $100 and that commission is paid out in 50%, 25% and 25% increments spanning 6 to 7 months....If you leave the company before you have been paid out...you get nothing.
As a career sales person who is used to making 6 figures with relative ease....SolarCity requires you to kill yourself and the chances of you making 6 figures is slim. There are some who do, but they will tell you, they had to create their own system and get away from the company presentations, the company leads, etc. With referral selling you get double the commission because it is a lower cost of acquisition for the company. They should have a 100% commission option. I will leave this company soon because the pay versus the stress level is not worth it at all. referral selling is better b ut there is quite a bit more time involved and $100 or $200 is still next to nothing (small jobs)
SolarCity requires you to sell, create install prelim designs and proposals, lead generate by standing in home depots, attending trade shows, knocking on doors, generating referrals, do follow up admin, work 7 days, nights, mornings, etc, the only thing they have yet to ask sales people to do is install the solar panels, and I am sure this is coming! Your family and personal life will dissappear and your misery level and stress level will go through the roof.
In an effort to cut costs they have screwed their sales people and churn people in and out. Of my training class, over 50% have quit or been fired in less than a year...these are/were all professional sales people, some former sales managers, national sales managers, etc...professionals...and they could not be successful at this company.
It is a shame to, because the product and the concept are great. The competition is fierce, but solarcity is the national leader which helps but also can hurt because they grow so fast they cannot keep up with installs, admin, etc.
