Clayton Homes Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes full-time for more than a year

Pros – Customers are directed by internet advertising to Home Sale Centers so there are numerous prospects/leads.

Cons – They expect a lot for a little bit of pay you will sell the home, help obtain financing, prepare paperwork for several different closings on one sale, apply for permits, coordinate the contractors to build homes, visit job sites, etc. not a very organized process. The corporate office makes you jump through so many hoops to close one deal. You are also expected to go out in the field each week and put up signs on roads to help direct traffic and generate leads. Three jobs in one I would say for very little money. Recently lowered pay to 24,000 a year with no draw to pay back but lowered commission to on each sale. Very dissapointed in the process.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay your employees for the work they have to do. Bigger commissions along with the base pay to make it worth it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Clayton Homes

Pros – Very laid back pressure from above compared to most in the industry. They really just let you do your thing but I'll tell you why in the cons. They own the bank which does allow you to finance some clients that couldn't normally get financing anywhere else, but also gives you a lot of misery. See below as well.

Cons – Clayton Homes is a Berkshire Hathoway company. Backed by billions and they know it. The majority of the company's revenue comes from their lender, Vanderbilt Mortgage, which has much looser requirements to get their customers financing in this tough market. But if they do get financed, expect the highest rates in the industry from 10% - 15% making their payments higher than site built homes. Good luck taking that to the finish line. Plus, their company makes money off the factories, insurance, and operating expenses of their sales centers. Example, their sales center can lose up to $20,000 a month in net profit but Clayton Homes will still profit from that store. Another example, a customer can go default on one of their homes, and Clayton Homes will still profit from that customer. Why this is important?....
The main reason why I couldn't stand this company is because they have a system set up to where the COMPANY can't lose. The real losers are the sales people and most GM's. Sales people get $0 salary. Yes you saw correctly, $0 salary. They fool you in a $600 a week loan that you have to pay back when you sell a house. Sales people do you own marketing. (use own car and gas money to drive out and put out knock down signs all over the country that are illegal). They don't do TV ads, they don't do radio, and every once in a while will do newspaper ads that don't work. Once you get in front of customer and sell them, you have to do your own financing for them. Then once it's delivered, you have to drive out to their house a few times on you own gas money to check on them. So let me summarize this for you. Sales people, (although with $0 salary) are in charge of doing their own marketing, their own financing, their own selling, their own merchandising of the houses, and their own followup with sold customers. Why? Because sales people are free labor! Their corporation is impossible to deal with and are slow as can get out, making it only that much longer before you get a commission. But here is this formula. It takes on average about 3 months to get paid on a deal from the time you sell that customer. But if you rack up $7,800 in loans in that 3 month period, and you usually only make from $1,500 - $3,000 commission per house then things don't quite add up do they? Most sales people send back their HARD earned commission checks right back to corporate.
Because of this, the company doesn't hire great talent. They don't need it or want it. They want someone who isn't that experienced or good/smart so they won't see that the company uses them. Most great sales people come and go leaving only the weak and desperate. So, because of that, the GM's are promoted from that pool of the weak. 90% of the GM's in that company are morons who couldn't spell leadership and aren't even managers. So with no support from lower management, and absolutely 0 support from upper management who is non-existent, you are left by yourself to somehow deliver 3 homes a month just to stay ahead of the money you owe the company. Good luck sticking to that number when you're dealing with all of those duties at once.
Advice those seeking a job here.... if you are very talented and looking to make close to six figures, go elsewhere. Only the top 2% of the company's sales people make that at Clayton. BUT, if you are just ok with a company that stays off your back and lets you do it your way and you're ok with $30,000 - $40,000 a year then this is your company. Heck, after 6 years of doing that, you'll prob get your own store and might make $60,000 a year since will actually get a salary.

Advice to Senior Management – Kudos on brain washing thousands of employees to work for you at no salary, and wearing more hats than any other sales company in the U.S. Don't know how you do it but kudos.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes

Pros – set schedule good co workers

Cons – pay to low heath care to high no chance in advancement unless your management pets

Advice to Senior Management – more pay cheaper ins.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes full-time for less than a year

Pros – The only pros are the smoke they blow up your butt when they hire you

Cons – General Manager changes way too often. Regional Manager says he is stepping in, just to lock himself up in an office "preparing for something else". They lied about salary. Saying 32,000 a year. Reality 23,000. Forced to learn things on your own. Strongly repremanded when you do things wrong, even if you were not trained properly. Not allowed to go to company trainings if management thinks store is short handed. Soooo, you dont get opportunity to learn. Advice...Run the other direction.

Advice to Senior Management – Make your regional managers accountable to what they "say" they are going to do.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes full-time for more than a year

Pros – It's a. Job. You will miss many oppurinties to make real money . Sitting there watching the pavement grow!!!

Cons – Everything, chase the carrott theory. Never catch it

Advice to Senior Management – Look in the Mirror...

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes

Pros – Fun people, they do throw a lot of good contests out there and keep the competition up to succeed. Problem is they provide no tools to succeed. You will find yourself involved in a lot of non - revenue generating tasks that pay you nothing and keep you sliding into a hole of draw. Such as finding land, building houses, battling with county offices on code and getting building permits. Not worth it. If you just sold homes, that would be fine, but 70% of the time you are coddling corporate for paperwork they already received or paperwork to get loans approved which is not a home salesperson's responsibility

Cons – Long hours, no support, management changes constantly. No ramp up period to learn product, you start digging a "draw" hole from day one and it's hard to recover.

Advice to Senior Management – No field support? You will just burn your people out and they will not stay....

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Clayton Homes

Pros – Seemed like a great company, Berkshire Hathaway song & dance, but employer beware, it's a mess inside

Cons – Long, I mean 60 hour long work weeks, was not disclosed in the beginning. I showed up and found out the whole team had quit only to then be brow beaten into working LONG hours and continue to go into the "draw" hole. Don't do it, no training, no support, no money... I have moved on and am so much better off!

Advice to Senior Management – Stop spunging off salesforce, help them, don't cripple them

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes

Pros – We had the best staff, a great system, but when sales were down..we got axed!!

Cons – if you have no life & enjoy working 10-12 hrs a day, plus no weekends off....this is for you. The senior leaders, zone managers, don't care about the individual, they only care about numbers & what have you done for them today. The problem today is lending. If there's no money to lend then no sales, then the sales associate gets fired.

Advice to Senior Management – As a former dedicated employee, I worked hard, treated customers with respect, but when sales were down...i was let go. I have a family that I need to provide for & there was no severance package to help, but you get your pay checks & live comfortably. Have fun flying around the country using the corporate jet!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Clayton Homes

Pros – It's a job for now.

Cons – 1st day on the job. I walked in an learned that one of the other sales people had just left the company, and that I would now be required to work 6 days a week (except Sundays) until further notice. Absolutely no training, I can sell, but with no knowledege of the product prices, proceedures, etc... I was told to work the lot from hour 1. How am I supposed to assist customers with absolutely no knowledge of these things. Also learned from customers who have visited the center before (and yes, this is still day 1) that I was the 5th sales person they have dealt with in the past couple of months. All the other had left the company. HMMM, can we say "recruiting mill"? Within 5 minutes, I was given the keys to the entire lot, and expected to close deals without any traing at all. Later in the week, when I was able to "shadow" the manager, I observed him lying to customers and telling people things totally contradictory to what I was being told?????

Advice to Senior Management – The company keeps promoting themselves as ALWAYS ethical and ALWAYS doing the right thing. Well then you need to live up to those claims and stop lying to people who are looking to work for you. If you do not, then you are no better than any other company out there that has very high turn-over. This place is worse than a fly-by-night car dealership!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend