Pros
Some of my co-workers were pretty solid salespeople. The 9 step process to sell services at HD is a solid system. It is an organized way to make customers comfortable, make them excited and then go for a sale. My sales manager was pretty sharp.
Cons
What was promised during the interview versus the reality on the ground were very different. The job is for in home sales of kitchen refacing, counters and backsplashes. The commission rate of xx% was supposed to offset the fact that they do not reimburse anything. You do not receive mileage reimbursement, nor a cell phone allowance. They refer to a sales call as a "sit." I was told that I would receive 3 leads per day with sit times of 11, 3 and 7. Weekend sits are 9:30, 11:30, 3:30. Each sit would take about 2 hours. They expect some sits to cancel so I could expect to complete about10 sits in a week. Of those 10 a good salesperson should close 2 or 3. At their average sales rates a 6 figure income was doable after you could bring your close rate up. They fulfilled none of those promises, except for the lack of reimbursement. o The commission rate is promised at xx% but is usually lower. If you make any mistakes they take half of the mistake from your commission. With probably 12 pages of price sheet and time pressure on site to complete a measure and price quickly, you are bound to make mistakes. o The prices are about 100% above market rates. It is more expensive to remove and replace cabinets than it is to reface through HDI. Everything sold through HDI can be purchased cheaper through the store, and projects purchased through the store can be purchased cheaper through local contractors. It makes it very difficult to sell that to ordinary buyers. o You are trying to close the call in one sit. The only way to do that is through high pressure tactics. Once the pressure is off and the customer realizes that they can get a kitchen elsewhere for a lot less money, they tend to cancel at high rates. The bigger the sale, the greater the chance of a cancellation. o HD is aware of the high prices. You are allowed to go back to try to make a sale at a discount. However, if you make the sale at the discounted rate, the commission rate is halved. I was heavily encouraged to accept half the commission rate to make a sale. I was told, "something is better than nothing." o This is a road job with no mileage reimbursement. I put 1200 miles on my car in 3 weeks, and those were slow weeks. If you assume the IRS standard mileage rate of .57/mile and 20k miles per year, that is $11,400 in unreimbursed expenses. You are basically paying HD to work. o Sits take more than 2 hours. I was on one which took 3:45 only to get to a "no, too expensive." o You do not get 3 sits per day. Our office was getting about 20 per day for 11 reps, and then it slowed down. I had 2 sits in 4 days before I left. The sales manager was looking to hire additional people even with the lack of lead supply. o The quality of the leads was very low. They have nothing invested in you, so they will send you anywhere. No screening is done to insure the quality of a lead. o There is lots of buyers remorse; the cancellation rate is very high. Once the buyer wakes the next day and does a google search on kitchen remodeling costs, they cancel the high priced HD contract. o The closure rate, at least when you are beginning, is nowhere near 20-30%. From what I could see, it was about 4%. o When there are not enough leads you will be required to do joint calls. If you sell something there, the commission rate is split 50/50 among the reps. o You are expected to be free labor at a HD store if you do not have leads to run. It is uncompensated time. You are supposed to engage the HD associates to encourage them to generate leads and also cruise the aisles to generate leads for yourself. The reality is that you wind up helping customers find stuff like any other associate. The difference is that the other associates are paid for their time and you are not. If you consider that a kitchen designer will generate a lead every week or two, what are the chances that you will generate one from wandering the aisles? o There is a long time before you dial in the sales pitch and are able to generate business. You will, however, be paying for gas, car maintenance and road food during this time. You have no income to offset the expenses. o The technology at HD is an embarrassment. The proprietary programs in the ipads don't work. They don't even provide before and after pictures in any organized way. o Completing a sale requires a huge amount of paperwork. It can spook customers.
