Russell Cellular had its ups and downs
Pros
I was fortunate to have a good manager that really cared about his business and stood up for what he believed and was always honest with me. I seemed to have a good work/life balance, but this was due to my manager being very flexible with my schedule at times and I did the same for him as we both have small children
Cons
Benefits: If you have a family with children, you can expect to pay about 900.00 per month, and at the starting rate of 7.50 per hour that will basically take your whole paycheck for a month and leave you with only you commission to live on, and if youre a good sales person at a decent location, you can expect about 600.00 per month in commission. The hourly pay is way below that industry standard and is great for a single person with no children or a family to support, but not a realistic job to raise a family on salary wise. My District Manager was spread this because of the vast territory that she had, would sometimes only see her once every two weeks even though she only manages a 5 store district. Store Manager had no authority to hire, fire...he did his best to coach me but was really just a very good sales person and not a great leader. You lose commission if your customer cancels service or does not pay their bill for 6 months after the sale. I felt my job as a sales person was to sell the phone or the product. I was not hired to make sure people paid their bill, however, this is an industry standard. Cold Calling everyday to prospect new customers or get old customers back in the door. You are expected to cold call 20-25 people per day to recruit business, you are also expected to use your own vehicle to drive to the bank off the clock to make your nightly deposit as well as drop off flyers for sales at grocery stores, parking lots ect and you are still held accountable to meeting monthly metrics, which depending on your store location (I was in a store in a town of 2,200) it can be challenging. I felt like at times I was begging the person to be my customer. If you are in a 2 rep store, you can expect o have a (working lunch) once a week....somehow I think this is against labor law but who really knows. Lack of support in marketing the business from Corporate, their theory is that YOU are the walking billboard and YOU are the radio and TV commercials...by this I mean that you are expected to pull out a phone book and make calls to advertise your business....There is not much of a marketng or event budget, we had to buy our own helium to put up balloons because corporate wouldnt allow us to take money out of the cash drawer.
