Job Title: Territory Representative
Location: Philadelphia, PA metro area
Submitted on: 03-Jun-03
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I worked in field sales for Hallmark Cards so I can't really comment on
the corporate culture in Kansas City except to say that my two weeks of
training back in 1997 felt like a month in Stepford Wivesville.
Headquarters
is very Midwestern-conservative and there are too many chiefs of the
same title: Manger of Paper Clips, Director of Paper Clips, VP of Paper
Clips, Sr VP of Paper Clips... And they are all men.
There are very few women in major decision making roles at a company
who's customer is women. Out in the field it is much freer. You work
from a home office and have a company car and expense accounts that are
all company paid for. This is great. Salary could have been better,
but people said they didn't work for Hallmark to get rich. Profit
sharing certainly added to the salary. I worked for three different
district managers and had a lot of freedeom to run my own sales
territory - which was up to 92 accounts when I was downsized at the end
of 2002. Hallmark pays over 11,000 merchandisers to service cards
depts in many accounts such as grocery stores, discount stores, dept
stores, drug stores, etc and to manke up for budget cuts in this area
in previous years, Hallmark downsized field mgt by apx 20% to allocate
money back into the parttime service budgets. There was a hiring
freeze for over 18 months, and even today, there are no field sales
positions available. Rep territories average over 150 accounts now and
pretty soon more and more rep positions will go to parttime. The only
way to advance in the field is to go into a corporate position in
Kansas City. You give up a lot of freedom to do this. Working in the
field I had my own hours, a very business casual dress code - kahkis
and knit shirts if I went into grocery stores. In Kansas City all the
women wear Libby Dole suits with scarfs or they're pregnant. Like I
said very Stepford Wivesville. Ideas generated in the field don't get
they recognition as ones generated in Kansas City. I got a generous
serverance package. Health benefits are corporate standard. Hallmark
is a self insured company and BCBS of KC administers their plan. I
made generous bonus for several years until they were eliminated and
rolled into base pay. Frequent sales contests and profit sharing added
to the yearly salary. I can't say the 6+ years I spent there were the
best of my life because I haven't yet experienced those yet, but they
were interesting. I learned I was capable of a lot more than I gave
myself credit for. I got to buy my company car when I left and
Hallmark paid for my COBRA benefits for the length of my severance.
They also paid for 3 months of career transition support. They take
care of their employees.
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