Pros

1. Good salary and benefits
2. Reasonable hours (no 10-12 hour days week after week, unlike some other sales jobs)
3. Professionalism and respect for others is expected from everyone, and it happens.
4. A fantastic team in HR that really looks after you. Real open door policy.
5. A positive working environment for the most part.
6. You can telecommute once you've proven yourself.
7. They spend a reasonable amount of time and money training you and giving you the necessary technology tools for success.
9. You're given all the necessary support on the side of the sales organization, from upper management down.
10. The coworkers in my team were a wonderful group of grown-ups, where we looked after each other.

Cons

The major and perhaps only reason why I left --besides the fact that PBMS was on the chopping block -- is internal political struggles at management levels between sales and operations, which affected negatively all new business outcomes, and therefore the success of the sales team. All business decisions at PBMS are ultimately made by the operations people, and the sales team has little say, if any. There is no sincere team effort between sales and operations.

It was no secret that the operations group, especially at the management levels, has little respect for the sales group. It was an "us versus them" attitude. They openly discussed in meetings the fact that they really didn't need sales reps because after all, once inside an account, they do the up-selling themselves. Sure! Anyone can do that once you have the relationship and trust built. But who is going to go out there to find new opportunities? It's a self-defeating situation for this important arm of such a great company.

Perhaps if there were better communication between operations and sales, PBMS would be a much more competitive organization and certainly win more bids than it does, because PBMS is a superior brand.

This unnecessary internal struggle between sales and ops is, in my opinion, at the heart of the problems at PBMS, and why they were put on the chopping block. I didn't see much of a future there should I have remained. Therefore I accepted a position elsewhere, where my selling efforts paid off from the start.

My understanding today is that the 5-person regional team in the north east has been dissolved, and they only kept one Sales Executive, who in a two-year period has been successful at bringing in two or three new accounts. He's a truly gifted and talented individual. But it shouldn't take so much talent and effort to sell PBMS. It shouldn't be about jumping through internal hoops and navigating around egos to present a truly winning proposal. There is enough competition out there. Sales is usually a straight-forward situation. It should have been about team effort, true communication and respect for each other.

Advice to Senior Management

As important as Operations is to the heart of the organization, there should be more communication and true openness between sales and ops. This internal struggle seems so deeply rooted in the culture of the organization that it seems that only by changing personnel entirely the attitude will change. And I doubt that will happen. But to save this fine organization something needs to be done. And based on the dissolution of the sales team, I see who has prevailed. PB is a great company and I was sad to leave it, but like many of us who have left, we felt hopeless about making a difference there.