Bradco Supply Reviews

Pros

At the branch level, a family type of atmosphere.

Cons

To many chiefs, not enough indians.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your "soldiers" on the ground. Sales reps. are on the road face to face with the decision makers, make sure you hear your reps. loud and clear.

Pros

Bradco supply used to be a great company to work for but once the Segal's sold to an equity company it all changed. All they are concerned about is the bottom line not their employees.

Cons

They treat their people like cattle. If they can't get want they want out of you they terminate you. The upper management also lies to get what they want.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop lying to your employees

Pros

Informal environment, well financed, resources needed are available, good location and view and major government landmark and salaries/benefits are good.

Cons

Long tenure employees run the company whether qualifed or now to do so. Shorter term professionals who could make a change just do a back stoke.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider modeling the company after non-industry professionally run organizations in the Construction and Building materials industry instead of small privately held companies.

Pros

If you are an operations person then Bradco is your place to be. Accountants and bean counters have a bright future at this company. If you are sales driven and committed to top level service, look elsewhere.

Cons

They have a culture that promotes an "everyone for themself" attitude. There is absolutely zero teamwork anywhere at any branch in the company. That is to say that branches will help each other only to avoid getting thrown under the bus, but the culture to work together for mututal success doesn't exist. Pricing is determined by the managers. Salespeople have little flexibility in quoting prices and they do not have access to costs. Quite often you will quote a customer a price in order to get the order and the manager will raise the price when the order gets entered. They will only issue a credit if the customer catches the difference. The inside people don't work with the outside people at all - in fact, they work against them in order to screw the outside salesperson out of commissions or commissionable sales. Management is all too happy to open and service accounts as house accounts instead of passing the lead off to the outside salesman so that the maximum benefit can be enjoyed by the company. The company has a single transaction-based view on sales. If a customer gives you an order that is very large and delievered today to a jobsite that is 30-40 miles away and they find that they run short in order to finish, Bradco will virtually refuse to take out the remaining material if it is a small quantity. They screw with the sales people's quotas in order to cheat them out of commissions. Mine was adjusted three times within the same sales year. They will take accounts away from you without notice. None of the managers in my entire region came from the sales side of the business. They all came from operations. That means that they were the best in the industry at squeezing a nickle until it bled, but they would not do all that it took in order to resolve customer complaints and earn/maintain business. Two people in my branch were promoted to branch manager that came into the job with only three years of experience each! Both came to the company with zero previous industry exprience. They refuse to stock any products whatsoever that are anything but huge sellers. Because of that, customers often had to go to competitors in order to complete an order. They do one thing and one thing only - sell roofing. Don't even think about trying to buy any other product from them because they have no expertise with anything else, and they have no desire to sell anything else. Don't expect to have any kind of personal life if you work sales for Bradco. The managers and middle managers will begin calling at 5am and your phone will ring until 8-9pm when your email will then blow up with more messages. And you better take the call or return it promptly! They bog sales people down with an endless litany of requirements of sales call reports, weekly accomplishments, monthly activity reports (which are a joke. they tell you to list any problems or grievances on them, but when you do - you incur the wrath because you made someone up the chain look bad.), target lists, bi-yearly budget reviews, mandatory vendor ride-alongs at least two per month, required new accounts to be opened each month, target lists with follow up emails on how you made out with each target (10 per month), and there's a lot more but I'll stop at this. Salesmen don't have designated territories. They use the shotgun method so because of this, you can spent a lot of time persuing a prospect only to find that one of your wonderful counterparts is already calling on them. Or, you can go in the system and find that an account who you may know who isn't buying from Bradco - and hasn't for several years, but you're not allowed to call on him - if their salesman is a part of the "inner circle". Don't bother setting up cash accounts for your customers who prefer to not open a credit account. The inside sales people will not take the time to enter the sale under the cash account so it can be properly credited to your sales plan. Do not get sick or have a death in the family and expect the courtesy of a card or flowers. Those things cost money and Bradco can't afford to spend money on anything as frivolous as that. Don't expect any loyalty from the company at all. At a moments notice you can be gone, and you'll be dismissed without notice or severance. It is easily the most heartless, blood thirsty company I've ever worked for.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the everyone for themselves mentality. Teamwork does not exist. Stop trying to be an accounting firm and develop a customer service-driven sales organization. Stop viewing your salespeople as expenses and treat them like the producers of profit and revenue that they are. Stop being a one-trick pony. Make a serious commitment to expanding your product line and get your people to learn it and sell it.