Pros
I came into XPO with no industry knowledge or experience. I learned it started off as a lot of cold calling which turned me off at first, but they pay for you to go to Chicago for two weeks (Flight, food, a nice hotel on michigan ave and Wacker and other expenses) for training, so I accepted; to at least see what it was about. After training I had a pretty thorough understanding of logistics and got to hang out with some cool ppl in Chicago. Most of XPO's offices are in prime location of their respected cities (Chicago, Overlooking Navy Pier; Louisville, 4th Street Live; Cincinnati, Newport on the Levee; etc..).
Cold Calling-
Again, I was very fearful of hiding behind a phone and making anonymous phone calls to businesses who had a logistics need, with leads provided to me... Then I reread that last sentence out loud and realized this was the easiest sell I have ever done in my life (Previous sales experience in face-2-face). Sure you run into a few mean people over the phone but for the most part, you are dealing with people who want you to impress them with the knowledge you learned in training, and then XPO will back the rest of it up with its impressive resources (if you don't believe me look up the news or check our their acquisitions on wall street). I honestly think cold calling is now the easiest way to sell something, especially a service, to someone. Plus once your book of business is built (usually takes like 6 months, took me less but thats an average) you don't really cold call anymore, you just take care of your customers.
Salary-
Base- You start with a good base (check salaries section, account manager is pretty spot on to what it is you start with) and obviously with promotions you make more.
Commission- You make a commission off every load you book. On top of that once you make it over a certain Gross Margin per/month you make money on the whole, not just the per-load. For instance I have ONE account that I roughly make an extra $1,600 a month just off ONE account. It's an uncapped commission plan. Do with it what you will.
Leads-
You are GIVEN good leads, and if you are familiar with sales than you know good leads are something that are hard to come by, and, for the most part, are usually brought by the salesperson through prospecting. It is nice not to have to worry about prospecting.
Random things I like-
paid holidays, pretty decent vacation plan, sweet insurance coverage, paid-for holiday parties, loose office setting, cool people to work with, good hours, upper management is always willing to help, I feel like I have a lot of stupid questions (being new to the industry) but I never feel stupid. Overall its a pretty easy job with a pretty big opportunity. Very advanced software programs only available to our company.Playing checkers, cornhole, or ping-pong when i need a break. Free Parking in parking garage, sweet location. Offices all over the country, so if I ever want to move, they offer transfers. Free unlimited coffee.
I'm a pretty easy going person and it seems to pay off instead of getting salty at every little thing that happens within the company or the office..
Cons
Cold Calling-
Calling on someone who is in a salty mood and wants to just give you a hard time can be annoying.The amount of cold calls that are required when you are busy with dealing with loads. It's still a super young company so I am hoping this will change with time.
Salary-
Base- I will be a typical human being and always want to say I never make enough money but for the amount of work they give you, honestly it's not that bad. You can live off this before commission
Commission-
If you're just doing a load here and a load there, commission is garbage. But once you've built a relationship with someone and get their business you'll see more of a consistent line of business and in turn more commission. That's the honesty about it though. You get out what you put in.
Leads-
XPO has bought A LOT of leads, sometimes you deal with duplicates in the system, its a pain at times and the account will go to whoever has the most traction. Do your research within the system before you start calling on a big account.
Random things I don't like-
Office gossip. Getting worn out on cold calling some days when my customers are slow with loads. Getting to know 3 different software programs, no nap pods (might seem silly, but I love naps and after seeing nap pods in "the internship" I want a gosh darn nap pod) Not enough appreciation for the young guys when they do something big (we're Millennials, haven't they heard we live on praise?).
Overall:
It's a sales job. You're going to be doing sales. If you don't like sales, don't join the company.
