Kimball Midwest Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Kimball Midwest

Pros – Commission sales and flexible work environment

Cons – You work alone and have to show discipline

Advice to Senior Management – Higher commissions

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kimball Midwest

Pros – They sell some american made product and are a nation wide company so if you wanted to transfer to another state for to work for them it would not be a problem.

Cons – Bad management from top to bottom. Prices are not competitive so the sales rep can be successful. To many sales rep in the same territory.

Advice to Senior Management – Start paying attention to your employees they are your companys biggest assets not the bolts,nut ,washers,cb torq spray. Treat your employees the way you would like to be treated !

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Kimball Midwest

Pros – Management was very flexible with time off. If you have something last min, they will work with you. This is a good company to work for as a stepping stone, not somewhere you would go to make a career.

Cons – There is no room for advancement and or compensation boost. They tend to load work on your desk and not give you and resources to get it done.

Advice to Senior Management – Take care of your employees. The economy is not as bad as it used to be and your Recruiters are the ones responsible for making hires and helping the company grow. More appreciation is crucial if you want to keep the department moral and stability alive.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Kimball Midwest full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Marginally better than unemployment. Handful of new products or door openers to peddle every couple of months are actually easy to sell but unfortunately you could not make a living just selling them. Product fulfillment is OK

Cons – Family means the owner's family. Employee spouses not invited or welcome at any corporate meetings. 1950's blue collar management style. Unrealistic goals commonplace. Heavy emphasis on finding new recruites to fill their pipeline. Uncompetitive pricing. Misled about number/type of relationship with the national accounts they had (most were not under contract or mandated to buy...just had some sales to one or more of the locations). Target market seemed to be independent shops and the less sophisticated buyer. Too many reps in many territories fighting for the same accounts. Didn't see sales territories protected at all. New reps and managers calling on existing reps business. Huge push to recruit reps from competitors who already had existing customer bases/ relationships. High turnover employees/customers. Outdated Information Systems. Very political. Mandatory non compete. Watch out for bad debt liablity in excess of actual commissions paid. Pay your own expenses, gasoline, phone & office expense more like an independent contractor. Uncompensated reporting is onerous (I didn't get into sales to fill out reports on my customers). Micro management. Managers under incredible pressure. After reps "fail" and depart I saw manager take over their accounts basically an incentive for them to let the reps go. 4 or 5 layers of managers. Sales training included memorizing a script, going door to door peddling a featured item incessantly. Was not a relationship based sales team.

Advice to Senior Management – Institute 401K match. Reduce the cost to employees of your "benefits". Lower deductibles and provide better health coverage. Provide a minimum vacation. Honor and stand behind published corporate policies. Protect a reps sales territories from other reps/managers. Make spouses welcome at corporate meetings. Foster communication between salesreps. Lower cost to reps for promotional items. Reduce the cost to reps for bad debt situations. Update technology. Make pricing visible on the website for clients. Make reporting automatic (from existing data). Make pricing more competitive. Customers and employees are smarter and more sophisticated today what worked in the 80's doesn't today. New technologies have brought transparency to companies business practices (Glass Door for example). Place value on your human capital...customers can buy nuts and bolts and penetrating oil from hundreds of competitive sources today and most are now more than willing to provide vendor managed inventory.

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

Former Employee – worked at Kimball Midwest

Pros – Family business atmosphere,performance evaluation was on a consistant basis, good work/life balance, decent company benefits, performance verbally recognized

Cons – honestly some might enjoy employment at Kimball. It wasnt a good fit for me. out of date technology netwrk, had an "old boys" network with the sales reps, big disconnect between reps and corp -policy enforcement inconsistent, rules applied differently to different groups, grossly underpay employees, some employees werent degree'd -which is fine - but they typically were very reluctant to change or process's that would bring company into the 21st century. manager was extremly condescending (my way or the highway), may be different for other departments. Not ideal culture or workplace for a young proffesional

Advice to Senior Management – as a sales driven company you need to connect corp with the sales force. Many policies are backwards and need updating. If you look at the internal process compared to other companies in the same revenue braket they would laugh (outdated tech, low pay scale, backwards culture). ALot of turnover internally (corp) and (sales) externally.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Kimball Midwest

Pros – Flexible schedule- a glorified independent contractor position although they get around this by doing your taxes

Cons – This company wants you to build a territory on your dime, can take away your accounts for no reason, if the customer doesn't pay their bill, you are responsible for the lion share of the bill, they
give you an unqulified person to act as your boss , no flexibility in pricing ( try to sell at one tiered pricing, if you quit, no big deal, you just built a territory for the established reps ..............very shady..........run away from this company

Advice to Senior Management – Your taking advantage of a bad job market to pad your pockets .........shameful

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kimball Midwest

Pros – great products, flexibility, training opportunities, management support

Cons – Evasiveness during the interview as to turnover rate. Unrealistic goals. Starting a territory from nothing with no experience. No assigned territory, so I was competing for customers with a regional manager in the same area, wasting time and my gas. Expenses not covered. Training is good, but limited. You memorize and recite a script, perform demonstrations and are expected to close two sales/day.

Advice to Senior Management – A real personality test, like Meyers-Briggs or Caliper would cut down on the turnover rate. You can do a great presentation and a great demo, but if you don't have an aggressive personality, you won't make it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kimball Midwest

Pros – Good quality USA products generally.

Cons – No competent management leadership in my area. Lack of willingness to be competitive in certain areas.

Advice to Senior Management – Get back to the two customer focus!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kimball Midwest

Pros – Setting my own schedule as a sales rep. I like commission based sales to help increase my income. Although I am new my manager has really helped me.

Cons – Insurance is expensive. Takes awhile to build up customer base.

Advice to Senior Management – Help me to get larger customers.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kimball Midwest

Pros – There is never-ending opportunities to receive training and product knowledge with outstanding products. With the amount of growth and success Kimball is experiencing, there are definite opportunities to advance your career--it's what you make of it! I have the ability to be flexible to have a work-life balance, which I didn't have with previous employers. I truly feel the appreciation of not only my immediate managers, but also the owners of the company as well. They truly recognize the hard work, dedication, and successes their Sales Reps put forth. I am very happy with my employment, and am very excited about what lies ahead for me!

Cons – Insurance is a little high, but the owners help offset those costs.

Advice to Senior Management – Thank you!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend