Sweetwater reviews

4.0

77% would recommend to a friend

(540 total reviews)
avatar

Mike Clem

88% approve of CEO

72% positive business outlook

Sweetwater has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 540 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Sweetwater employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.4 stars).

Reviews by job title

540 reviews
1.0
Aug 20, 2014

Don't drink the coolaide

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cheap and sometimes free gear, mostly good coworkers, free turkey during thanksgiving.

Cons

Insurance is pretty poor. Constant up and down sales. If you don't make 90+ calls a day for your first 3-5 years, then you're not going to do well. Senior SEs watch younger SEs like a hawk. Sales management does not listen to the ideas of their employees. They don't tell the staff the true wholesale cost of items, so you're not really getting the percentage of commission you expect. Long hours. Boring meetings 3 times a week. No advancement. Management monitors you very closely. Even the food at the "Diner" is incredibly underwhelming. Very low base pay, so if you don't sell a lot, then you're going to have issues paying your bills. Very little time off. They just finished a huge expansion of the sales department, but won't expand the support staff, so many of the things that make Sweetwater better than the competitors is starting to become less reliable. The corporate atmosphere is very much cult of personality. If you don't follow the word of Chuck, you're done.

3.0
Apr 6, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You get gear at cost and the facility is state of the art. They have a lending library to try out gear. The training is great and I like the mgmt. They are there to help and Brad and Dave give great advice. If this company were located anywhere else or we could do our job remotely (totally doable), it would be tolerable.

Cons

No room for advancement. You will be a salesperson forever so a lot of industry talent is overlooked. You have to make at least 80 calls when you "roll out" or you will get warned and then fired. You have to come in for 3 early morning meetings that somehow do not show up on your time card. Senior sales guys will try and steal sales with no intervention from mgmt. They will also dig through your sales and try to find referrals that have no or insanely vague connections. If you've dealt with referrals, get ready to be shocked what they consider a legit referral. Eg. A college kid attends a university, the sales guy who "has" that university will try and take the kid. Yes, it's insane and mgmt will not define or clear this up. Also, occasionally the CEO will ask us to do strange things, like walk faster into work. He parades everyone by his Bentley (yes, a Bentley in Fort D'wayne is hilarious) or whatever ridiculously expensive car he drove that day so that's a real moral booster when you're cranking out 28k a year. My poor family probably resents me for moving them to a frozen tundra full of religious zealots and just flat out mean-spirited people. Boy, were we duped,

5.0
Feb 2, 2014

Sales Engineer

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Extensive training, autonomy, solid company, the more you put in, the more you make

Cons

Commission sales; up and down.

Viewing 526 - 528 of 540 Reviews

Glassdoor has 569 Sweetwater reviews submitted anonymously by Sweetwater employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Sweetwater is right for you.