Pros

Absolutely fantastic atmosphere if you are single or want to be single. Cool perks like T-shirts and extracurricular activities sponsored by the company. Pretty much no limit to spending on corporate cards. Very cool for the young, straight-out of colleague graduate with no real responsibilities or corporate experience.

Cons

Traditional selling techniques where the buyers runs the process, therefore no real opportunity for a sales person to differentiate themselves based on experience/intelligence. True sales professionals quickly realize that they are surrounded by transactional/fax receipt sales people that couldn't survive in another organization where hunting/qualifying/closing are actually required.

The entire sales force is really an Inside Sales Position, not Account Executive, jumping when the prospect says "jump". The AEX's doing "well" are so because of the vertical they are in - their success is indirectly related to their professional sales abilities. All of the good sales professionals have left the organization. Commission plans and sales trips are commensurate with the vertical you are lucky enough to be responsible for, not your sales abilities.

Stating that Sales Management is awful is an understatement. They are not leaders, do not complement your sales efforts, and for the most part, have never sold anything complex. If an outside Big 5 accounting firm were to perform a value-added process audit, the entire layer of sales management fat would be cut.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a moment and think about what sales numbers would look like if you actually had sales professionals that were hunters/qualifiers/trusted advisers/closers in your AEX roles, as opposed to order takers.