There is a lot of uncertainty and change since Staples was acquired by a venture capitalist firm. That includes territory changes/elimination, program detail changes, lateral job title changes, and management changes.
The first issue is you will be selling a $299 membership to "small and medium sized business." This membership includes basics like free next day delivery, an account manager, etc-- all of which WB and Office Depot offer. However, competitors do not have an upfront membership cost to do business. I found this to be a MAJOR hurdle in selling, especially to smaller companies on a tight budget. If your sales are slacking, they will tell you to "SELL ON VALUE" and by that they mean talk about the useless "employee perk" package included in the membership program (It's basically like Groupon, but NOT FREE). I had one person in my time who was actually interested in the perks. On top of its uselessness, it's difficult to use. The perk program centers around e-gift cards, so it's not like you can print out that your 3% discount to Nike and go to the Nike outlet and use it at the counter.
The compensation structure seems to put people just out of reach of hitting the commission bar. They expect you to sell 4 memberships per month (very hard when the sales cycle tends to be a month since people aren't begging for a new office supply vendor, especially one who wants to charge them to do business). Most people hover around 2-3 memberships per month. 2 doesn't make you any commission. If it's a 5 week month, the commission bar is raised to 3.
Every week felt like there was something new added to our plate of responsibility, even if it contradicted the prior week's initiative. "Focus on large accounts! That's where you'll make big money." *one week later* "We can't just have tunnel vision for large accounts, we need small ones too!"
Last of all, and I think most importantly, management seems to be severely under qualified for sales leadership, or flying by the seat of their pants. There were employees who had been out of training (for their first sales job ever) for 2 months, and had a bad month around the winter holidays. These employees were put on a performance program and threatened with termination by the end of the month if goals were not achieved. Seems counterintuitive for a company, who invested in 4 weeks of sales training in this employee, to let them go 4 months into a job. Anyone with a history in sales knows that scare tactics aren't effective, especially for new employees who are still trying to get their feet underneath them in the field. Unfortunately, management was too young and experienced to know such things.
The office I worked in used to have cubicles for call day. They changed the floor plan to make it more open, which makes it now feel like a call center where your boss can stand over you on the phone. I don't mind being watched. The problem is the noise. You can hear people on the phone across the office 20 yards away. I've had customers say they can't hear me on the phone because of the noise.
The backend of Staples is a mess. I lost accounts due to lay offs in the Account Manager world. Customers were left with no point of contact so they up and left. I was just told to put on another hat and play account manager if I came across this problem, even though it is stressed this is a hunter sales position.
