Luck of the Draw - Industrial Inside Sales Representative Graybar Employee Review

2.0
Oct 16, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Employee ownership is a great idea, but really only benefits those that are there for several years. You are given the keys to your own success.

Cons

You success is not really based on how good you are at sales, but on the health of your accounts you are given. If they have a large budget for MRO and Electrical upgrades then you'll make bank, but if you have a bunch of small accounts you'll never make budget - which is how you're measured. So now you have to prospect and find new opportunities. In industrial settings this is very hard because industrial customers do not want you to come out and visit them all the time - they'll contact you when they need you. What you really need is for upper management to deliver warm leads - and sometimes you'll get a corporate account but that's luck of the draw whether or not they'll even work with you. I had a corporate account that was supposed to get all Panduit from me. Looking over the contract they are not obligated to even use Panduit. So corporate was pressuring me to make Panduit sales when the customer actively did not want to use Panduit - so I ended up just pestering them. Not how you want to spend your week. Pay is low considering the amount of work you have to do - and the commissions are not great. Considering that you'll be doing technical sales the national average for this type of job is around $55k-$85k+.

Explore other reviews about Graybar

5.0
Jun 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Strong department leadership in current role

Cons

Many senior team members with decades of stored brain knowledge that is hard to share

3.0
Apr 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Many opportunities to learn about distribution and management. Pto is three weeks per year plus holidays and over a s Week of sick time. If you work here longer, you can buy enough company shares to receive a sizeable dividend each year. You are allowed to buy about 5% of your salary in company shares per year and then receive usually 20% of that back per year. The profit sharing plan contributes 10% of your salary to your 401k account but you need to be vested to keep it all.

Cons

You will need a second job to live. Sales reps make way more and do half the work but they report to their managers much more. If you are a CSR, sales people feel entitled to treat you however they want and their manager will back them up. You are watched by coworkers and management like a high surveillance prison especially when you're new but they will leave you alone if you're good at your job after a year or so. Graybar brags about how much revenue and profit they make but middle and upper management suck it all up leaving scraps for the workers who made it for them.

1
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All