Easy money...if you don't mind ripping people off.
First and foremost, you will learn a lot about yourself at Empire, such as: Can you handle a purely sales job? The answer for me was a resounding "yes". The second thing you will learn about yourself: Can you get over the fact that you are pitching an over priced product whose prices are totally dictated by the sales rep? Can you stomach gouging customers just because you can? The answer for me was, "No".
The initial training was easy and worth $1,200 for 2 weeks of training. That was enough to get you started up with your initial business expenses that you will need for the job. Once the two week training is up, they throw you to the wolves and let you sink or swim, pretty much. I didn't have a hard time selling the product, for the product sold itself, for the most part...so long as you aren't over priced. I would say that the best customers that Empire has are the people who: 1.) Don't shop around, 2.) Are completely impulsive or 3.) Absolutely NEED the product next day. If you aren't one of those three customer types, your sale is going to be difficult, if not impossible.
Empire is a total "What have you done for me lately" kind of place to work. If you're having a big month, like I was having for a few months, leads are plentiful and you're constantly busy. If, for whatever reason, you can't make any sales (see the customer types that are ideal, above) then you can forget about leads after a while. It doesn't matter that you had two or three months
Prosquick, easy money.
ConsWear/tear on vehicle, no sale, no pay, dishonesty to customers, "What have you done for me lately" culture
2.0
Outside Sales Representative | Remote | Oct 16, 2021
Working at Empire Today, LLC - Had both good and bad.
I loved the actual job of selling flooring. I saw beautiful landscapes, outdoor scenery, homes with ponds, homes situated near lakes and forests, beautiful neighborhoods. I saw the inside of fabulous homes I would never see working an average job. Additionally, I met all types of people. It was the career I always wanted.
For me, the issue was that I was brand new to sales and could not get the additional sales coaching and product training that I needed to help me succeed after the official four-week training program. Management only had a short time to talk you about sales. I guess I am rare and learn only by writing things down and/or repetition. I had to learn a lot of information the hard way in customer's homes.
Because I was not a high-volume seller, I never had a proper "ride-along" (in person, on appointment coaching session) the whole time I worked there. Meanwhile, they are riding along with reps that are the top 10 in the country. Most notably, the number one rep in the company had a ride-along. What for???
Also, we were ridiculously over-booked for appointments. I had my Covid-19 shot scheduled and was booked an appointment at the same time. Also, there were double-bookings, long drives between appointments and angry customers because you just could not make it.
Additionally, you, as the sales person were responsible the majority of the time with resolving installation issues from angry customers. There should have been an office or call ce
ProsBeing autonomous, could take days off at will, plenty of appointments-always had some income, set-up financial systems-direct deposit and Wisely Card, established corporate set-up, not being inside an office all day, seeing beautiful landscapes and homes, meeting all types of people; being in a motivating, challenging career, having the opportunity to earn an uncapped income.
ConsOver booking appointments, long hours, more info needed for specific product knowledge, only verbal sales coaching, unknown office interaction with customers, multiple 7:30am meetings after working long hours, difficulty resolving installation and product issues, .
I spent years working in home improvement, both as a salesperson and manager. I have NEVER seen a company that is so inefficient in communicating nor a worse pay plan or treatment of it's sales staff. To be competitive in the marketplace with the big box stores and other local flooring contractors you are forced to sell at what equivocates to a 5% commission.
You are given a grade based on your closing abilities, A-F. Despite the fact that you may indeed be an 'A' closer, you are still sent on 200+ mile a day voyages around the metro area, even in some VERY undesirable neighborhoods. Meanwhile, other sales contractors who have been there longer, are brought into the parts of town where the $ is, even though you live closer.
Mandatory meeting and training, even though you are a contractor. The only benefit to this job is being able to set your own work schedule.
Empire has a nasty reputation by people who have been in the business. Privately held, with 2B in revenue a year, but pay the sales staff peanuts and extremely high expectations. They should revisit their processes and join the rest of the world in the 21st century and maybe trim their overhead to pay a decent commission. It's actually mind boggling as the VP of Sales was once an on the road salesperson.
Even worse is the right hand left hand mentality. Communication between the Operations team and Sales team is awful. Infighting and office politics rule the day. Notification of changes or c
ProsFlexible work schedule
ConsCommission is awful
1.0
Customer Service Representative | El Paso, TX | Nov 2, 2020
The most honest job review from a former call center agent.
Empire Today is the most problematic place you can work at. I was a call center agent here for more than 3 years and everyday there was always a problem. Much of the job is a pyramid scheme really and NO ONE IS ON THE SAME PAGE. Just to give you an example of this, the site director of the call center informed us agents that we would never return to the call center again. The excuse was that working remotely from home benefitted everyone. The CEO 1 month later sent out a survey explaining if us agents wanted to go back to a call center that was going to be vacant by the end of the year. The lack of communication is crazy. Executives will only give you any form of update when the system they provided gets hacked or they need something from you, like promoting a wellness program after a mass shooting. (Yes, this actually happened). The call center supervisors are overall good but their bosses are just completely out of touch. When at the call center, back when things were normal pre-covid, management would tell you to get off your cell phone as they walked down the hall texting away. They would also never give you the benefit of the doubt. Instead of asking agents how they were doing, they would simple try to frame people for any little thing such as call avoidance, not adhering to the schedule, etc. The only good thing is that you will be working from home and you will not have to deal with a call center full of childish behavior. Also, ever since June 1st, 2020, every inbound
ProsFlexible schedule
ConsLack of Communication, Management, Work Culture, Mandatory Overtime, Not enough pay.
Not a great job if you are looking for consistency or good pay
Empire today does not really care about their employees. They only care about their customers until they sign up and after that they don’t care if the customer is satisfied. Customers will buy products and then Empire will sell those products away if another customer wants to install faster. They will send sales reps back out to customers to reselect products and not pay reps for that. Commissions are often messed up with miscellaneous installer charges and other chargebacks that affect your pay. They make you leave a customer with a low price that only pays 4% commission. Installs do not not always happen when they are scheduled and the company will not always call customers to let them know of the delay. Usually reps find out about problems after it is too late when the customer calls them to say the installers no call no showed. The best part of the company is the sales reps. The worst part is the Managers, who don’t really care about the reps because they will just hire new ones and promise them the world but not back it up. They will hire anyone who says they can sell, but do not provide enough training. If you don’t have flooring experience, this job will be tough and you will lose money from your mistakes. They will say you will get plenty of leads, but half of them are not quality and customers won’t buy because Empire is one of the most expensive places to buy flooring. They say to call the 800 number, but you can only get through if you want to make an appointment.
ProsNot working in an office.
ConsStressful, unrealistic expectations, insufficient training, Inconsistent pay, miscellaneous deductions from your money, Poor pay, no benefits, no mileage reimbursement or fuel reimbursement, no office support
Do not work for Empire Sales Associate- El Paso/you won't be paid commissions due
I have worked doing inside sales for the Empire Sales Team and am paid a very small hourly wage and am pressured daily to set appointments. I work very hard to close sales and what is frustrating and down right wrong is the way that Empire Today finds ways to cheat their employees out of their due commission. It started of by them leaving off items because they were "not installed." I would receive a list of paid items only after it was too late to dispute them for the next pay period a week away and the items that were actually included for payment were not paid correctly. If the sale was for $2,000 and the commission percentage was 3% then it would show that $40 was due to me instead of $60 and these "mathematical miscalculations" just so happened to occur on every commission statement. Is Empire Today's accounting department really that incompetent that they can not do a simple multiplication problem correctly? Or why not create a spreadsheet on Excel that would perform the calculations to ensure their accuracy? Then to make matters worse, they only pay you for the items once the sales order is completed and installed, which is fine, but they do not give the sales associate the privileges to view the install date on their computer system, so the only way to confirm if a sales order was completed is to compile a list of "challenges" during your very small breaks in between calls and ask your manager to go thru the lists to find out when they were installed. Each sales assoc
Proswarm leads/
Consold office furniture, poor sales management team, commissions not paid
Sales Dept. can only be characterized as dishonest.
I worked in their sales department and went bankrupt. It wasn't due to lack of effort, I worked hard (e.g. went to top floors of buildings on Lake Shore Drive with 50 lbs of samples). I worked 12 hours a day and made $250 per week the last 6 months of work. The problem was the hours I worked (mandatory) and the discrepancy between a good sales appointments and bad ones. Empire's long time sales people tend to get the best appointments (e.g. house of carpet in middle class area, versus a mobile home or other poor areas). You can not tell management where you will go and will not go. You will make $250 or $500 a week on average and will have $200 in gas, tickets, and car repairs bills that week (not worth it right?). You probably will not start out that way. You may make $800 for your first few weeks (this is to fool you). Once your comfortable, usually after 2-3 months, you are sent to the undesirable areas. If you are lucky you'll get the welfare people who try to finance their carpet. The finance applications takes about 45 minutes to fill out, on-top of the 45 minutes you spent showing samples. Those people are always a waste of time and you will see 10-15 of them per week. Near the end of your career with Empire you will be in debt from all the GAS, car repairs, lack of health insurance, accounting fees, supplies, auto insurance, parking tickets, and etc (You are responsible for all these expenses). There is a secret they will never tell you, you will never consistently ge
Prostraining is $300 per week.
Consyou will end up working for below minimum wages.
Very easy call center to work for.. Non fast paced except when business picks up on good advertising.
Don't get me wrong. . I was able to make some good money on a split shift and bonuses.. Bonuses were a very sensitive nature.. If you did great all month, just a few mess-ups on conversion or qa or attendance can reduce your bonus significantly or take it away completely.. Monthly bonus based off monthly scorecard.. The way the system works is beneficial to company more than the employee.. If for example you have an emergency to tend to and leave for the day, your scorecard and bonus will be impacted and not changed no matter what.. Your arm could literally fall off and management will not care and scorecard will remain with a bad score.. Unless your a fav.. Management is all female and there is A LOT of favoritism in the call center.. Especially towards favorite female agents.. Policies and regulations are a straight up joke and contradicting and are enforced with favoritism to the max.. In a lot kf cases its hard to get vacation or PTO.. Favorite people come first.. You can be one of the best agents there but your job security is caca.. You can and will be fired from one day to the next and they will not care about reasoning despite tenure, performance or dedication to the company.. In some cases even if you are a favorite agent amongst managment i.e. friends with them or chillin with them at a bar outside wrk.. Yes.. Mangement parties with agents.. If an investigation is involved when your job is on the line, dont count on the company to do it right or with your best inter
Pros22 mins of free time away from phone throughout day and everyday
ConsFavoritism, Management does not like to be detailed with one on one's, No real recognition for dedication or hard wrk, They give you candy and popcorn as recognition..
* Early morning preparing for Installer In-Take where you check in the paper work from the day before as well as any C.O.D. Balances that need to be posted. Load out is next. The Install Coordinator would pass out the jobs to the installers and then ETA calls would be placed to the customers. Once all Installers are loaded and on the road I would then return to my desk and pull the Daily Open Order Report. I would transfer the information to a spread sheet and make comments on each job and send this report out to the departments that had jobs that needed that departments attention. After the Department managers would review the reports I would receive emails back from the managers directing me how to handle each of the jobs in question.
Once the account department is finished paying the installers the In-Take paperwork would then come back to me to file with the corresponding contracts.
As Sales people come into the office I would review their contracts and file them as well.
* I've learned to expand my skills into the Installation Department to help not only my work flow but the Installation Admins as well.
* Management at this location is very laid back.
* The co-workers at this location are not quick to step in and help other co-workers if they have spare time. Its an every man for himself feeling from them.
* The hardest part of the job is being content doing just your job with no opportunity for advancement. the company does not seem to wan
Prosvery casual dress code- i.e. jeans and sneakers
I have worked as a sales rep with Empire Today for almost 2 years now and it is easily my favorite job I have ever had. I am top 5 in the state of Colorado.
Pros:
It is extremely flexible. As long as you give a 48 hours notice, you can take any time off you want and create your own schedule. Which allows me to take 1 trip to myself each month. Which I absolutely love.
Once you get in a rhythm and have installations lined up, the income is very good.
In the Colorado market, this team has the best management I have ever had. They have made my job significantly easier.
They are the largest residential flooring company and offer so much more than other flooring competitors, which makes closing so much easier.
Cons:
You have to get your own LLC and you are purely commission on 1099. Which means no benefits, and less income in slower seasons or when you miss time.
I don't really see an opportunity to move up in this company, even though I have been a top 5 rep for a long time.
You put an insane amount of miles on your vehicle. Which can be a good thing in the sense that it makes your taxable income very low after you write off mileage. But its a trade off, because you are constantly paying for gas and for vehicle maintenance.
Even if you are on vacation, you will constantly have customers reaching out needing help with issues or to make changes. Which can be extremely stressful.
All in all, it is a lucrative career in sales, and allows you to work and make as much as you want
ProsFlexibility, independence, good income, supportive management
ConsNo insurance benefits, never being able to fully remove yourself for a break, putting a lot of miles on your vehicle, not much opportunity to move into management
Questions And Answers about Empire Today LLC
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Empire Today LLC a better place to work?
Asked Apr 3, 2018
Give more authority to agents and pay them a little bit higher for this. There is no need for a middle man. Everyone should have the authority to help a customer as soon as they call. Also the sales reps need to have more knowledge on the orders they are placing.
Answered Nov 10, 2020
Assure women are paid equally and also treated fairly. It is a very macho environment. You get ahead if you're young, a man, and caucasian. Be kinder to employees upper management. The many egos are too big to fit in the tiny building that everyone is squeezed into. Very dreary for a corporate office especially once that specializes in flooring.
Answered Nov 5, 2020
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Empire Today LLC?
Asked Jan 10, 2018
If your older male over 50 don't. Job discrimination with age affecting their insurance cost.
Answered Dec 21, 2019
Run as fast as you can out of the building don’t work there, you will be a used and abused and then fired
Answered Nov 24, 2019
What is the interview process like at Empire Today LLC?
Asked Apr 19, 2016
For corporate positions, the process includes a phone interview as well as an in person interview. On average the process takes 2 weeks.
For Sales Representatives and Installer opportunities, the process includes a phone screen and a meet-and-greet with the local market.
Answered Aug 8, 2019
For corporate positions, the process includes a phone interview as well as an in person interview. On average the process takes 2 weeks.
Answered Aug 5, 2019
How do they administer their drug test?
Asked Mar 21, 2017
Upon offer acceptance a third party administers the background and drug screening process. This process takes on average 3.5 days.
For Sales Representatives and Installers, a third party administers a background and MVR check. This process takes on average 3.5 days.
Answered Aug 5, 2019
Upon offer acceptance a third party administers the background and drug screening process. This process takes on average 3.5 days.
Answered Aug 5, 2019
What benefits does Empire Today LLC offer?
Asked Jul 12, 2016
Here are a few of the many benefits our company has to offer corporate employees:
- Quick enrollment into our benefits plans. Eligibility is first of the month following just two weeks of employment.
- A premium 401K Investment Plan, with the company matching your amount invested dollar for dollar up to 4% with no vesting.
- Medical Insurance with several plan options and a Health Savings Account to meet you and your family’s health needs.
- Prescription Drug Coverage
- Dental Insurance – Twice a year visits at no cost.
- Vision Insurance with materials coverage
- Paid Holidays including Floating Holidays
- Paid Time Off (PTO) that grows with years of service
- And many more…
Answered Aug 5, 2019
Here are a few of the many benefits our company has to offer corporate employees:
- Quick enrollment into our benefits plans. Eligibility is first of the month following just two weeks of employment.
- A premium 401K Investment Plan, with the company matching your amount invested dollar for dollar up to 4% with no vesting.
- Medical Insurance with several plan options and a Health Savings Account to meet you and your family’s health needs.
- Prescription Drug Coverage
- Dental Insurance – Twice a year visits at no cost.
- Vision Insurance with materials coverage
- Paid Holidays including Floating Holidays
- Paid Time Off (PTO) that grows with years of service
- And many more…
