sales representative

retail customer service representative

Storm Group Australia

Worked here for a few months. My first impression of the management was that they were very "slick". In our group interview he blew past questions about pay and payroll procedures, only ever giving noncommittal answers like he didn't want to be pinned down later. This also applies to questions about kpi policies. Once hired I was immediately successful in the field (which required incredibly hard physical work) only to find that my pay check was consistently incorrect. Hours I worked went unpaid, training I had been told would be paid was not. When I brought these issues up with management I was given a runaround with each boss pointing the finger somewhere else and with payroll constantly being defensive rather than addressing the problem. Often one manager would promise bonuses, then go abroad or be out of the office when it came time to pay said bonus, thus payroll would of course fail to pay you and claim that no one told them about any bonus. A week later the manager would come back and avoid you or claim you had already been paid correctly. The Kpis set are unreasonable, I was meeting them but I was the only one. Few people lasted past the first week, few stayed long given the payment issues. This business runs on a model that requires everything out of its employees while it puts little or nothing in itself. The training is an absolute joke, it's just employees practicing their sales pitches to each other, or wasting an hour listening to one of 3 senior sales managers ramble incoherently about past experiences and vague technical advice, none of which is actually linked to the manual they make you memorize in order to be promoted. Then if you fail to hit a daily kpi they act like they've broken their backs to train you and that the failure is yours alone and they put you on probation, offering 0 further training often changing the rules about how to get off probation without any warning or even retroactively. This applies to rules concerning bonuses and most notably to promoting us as well. A bonus or promotion would be dangled in front of you, only to be yanked away on some suddenly invented technicality. I.e. the offer had a previously unmentioned expiration date or you didn't take a picture with the client therefore a sale didn't count for your final tally even though that was never explicitly part of the deal. If you questioned or complained about the culture you were immediately met with a level of anger clearly meant to scare you and cow you into just accepting whatever they wanted you to. Now, to be fair this is all standard practice for most companies like Storm, but these guys have it down to a science. Prepare to have to dispute every paycheck for weeks on end, even after you quit, and have 0 useful support/training. You'll work crazy hard and make a lot of money for them but you'll leave feeling like you must've been a bad employee and that you didn't deserve compensation. Managers are moved from office to office, or in and out of the same office so that you somehow have 3-5 different bosses all of whom are giving conflicting instructions, but none of whom are ever available when you need them to verify their instructions to each other or to payroll so you always take the fall, even when you do everything right.

The workplace culture was very toxic if i am completely honest. The owner of STORMGROUP australia, only cares about profits over his actual employees. He uses a lot of manipulative language to bolster the idea you are working to help out a good cause, when in reality you are trying all type of sales techniques to coerce people to donating $1 a day, $31 a month continuously year in and year out. This was especially true, when he would force KPI's on everyone and continuously hound you day and night about not being able to achieve them. While being an brand ambassador on behalf of red cross, when they were found out to be withholding donations during the bush fire crisis, he didn't care and kept telling everyone to continuously get sales with all means possible. Whether it be using fake stories to make empathy, very slimy sales techniques and you were only allowed to sign up people who were 25+. This meant that, you were deliberately trying to hit hard working Australians. The turn over rate of employees and management staff was insane, people would leave week in and week out constantly. Especially when new campaigns such as cancer council came out, where the company had to street pitch and had zero experience. The owner M, made street pitching sound super easy and pressured everyone to get results. In this specific team, only 1 person had results and no one else attained anything for weeks on end. The owner would hound us about how easy it is to get results by street pitching, while he himself attempted to do the same and dramatically failed. The best scenario that occurred, was when he gave people the ultimatum of signing up our friends and families for $31 a month, as no one was getting results. This showed what he stood for, which was money over employees. On certain days when you come to the office and you didn't execute your sales pitch to a certain extent, you would even be sent home without pay, although you made the trip to work. The environment was that toxic, that even the administration staff and managers have left. I was lucky that i was paid a base salary, while others in other campaigns such as Marley spoon, were only paid off commissions. Overall, the owner/manager of all the australian branches treated the employees like dirt, if they weren't performing by bringing in income. Workplace culture was toxic, where most of the employees who stuck around were very superficial such as a sales environment. Wouldn't recommend working here if you had to.

My time with Storm Group, 4.5 years to be exact, have been the most educational, fun and positively challenging years in my life so far. I started in the company when I was 18 years old, shortly after arriving in Sydney, Australia. At the start, I only intended to stay for a couple of months to save some money for travelling, but I ended up travelling with the company pretty much the whole East Coast from Cairns to Sydney as well as places like Melbourne, Adelaide and Darwin. I also went to Thailand with work. It was amazing. The travelling and the money. Eventually, I decided to move through the business development structure in Storm Group and got advanced to Trainee and Team Manager. In the next couple of years I ran offices in Melbourne, Newcastle and Brisbane. All of that, doing sales, coaching people how to do sales as well as running a business unit, I have learned so many skills I could never learn at university or at any other job. That includes interpersonal skills, communication abilities, English (went from barely understanding anyone to fluent in about 3 months), emotional intelligence, negotiation skills and many more. I have also become a much more confident and calm person. I can't imagine any other job teaching me the things in such a short time frame I have learned at Storm Group. I would recommend it to anyone to work in direct sales for at least 1 year of their life, because that time will pay off for the rest of their lives. 

I've worked at Storm for two months while travelling in Australia, specifically the Bondi Junction office. 

First of all - sales can be hard work, and will make many people uncomfortable. Judging the company for this is irrelevant. It's like judging the military for making you sleep in the forest on a training exercise. 

Having said that, Storm has a great culture aimed at helping you to improve. Help is there and you just have to ask for it. The people at all the levels in the company are fantastic - this is simply not the kind of environment where you can succeed and advance by being a d*** to people. 

The hours can be long, but no one actually forces you to keep long hours

If you enjoy talking to others, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and learning new skills, Storm Group is a great place to work. 

I'd happily recommend the place to my friends (and have).

I have worked for numerous sales companies and this is by far the best yet, there commission structure is double my previous companies and the training they provide is amazing i even got certified recognized certificate which i can keep for my future and it was free. If you don't have drive and motivation you will not be successful at this job but for hardworking individuals who are money hungry you can earn some real good money i was clearing roughly $1300 and i wasn't one of the top sales people.  We also got to travel around Australia which was so much fun, the team are a right laugh and welcoming, i learnt ALOT at storm and thoroughly enjoyed my time there i was sad to leave.

Hired as a sales assistant, paid like a sales assistant, worked like an assistant-manager and treated like dirt.
If you want bare minimum working rights, low self-esteem, and poor mental health, you've got it.
I was walking 7 hours a day, 5 days a week (with pressure to work Saturday underpaid) with only a 30-minute break in pouring rain or 30ºC+ heat) We were given impossible KPIs/goals to meet (despite how easy the director said it should be to meet them. In my time working there, I was the only one, out of 20+ employees, to meet the goal and that happened only very rarely).

Two years into working with Storm Group and every day is as rewarding as day one. There is an excellent training program that aids you greatly in your career. Along the way you learn a lot of communication skills, make great friends with your colleagues, step up into training others and train to work in different campaigns, ensuring every day is different. I could not recommend Storm Group enough 

The atmosphere and management were nice and helpful, and the training they provide is definitely beneficial. If you are performing well, moving up is a possibility, however it takes a particular type of person with a particular drive and set of skills to advance and make a livable income here. Was with the company for awhile, but being someone who still wanted to have a life outside of work, advancement was not encouraged and the atmosphere and focus began to shift to more of a sense of indifference, which was a bit disappointing.

Management: 3/5 
1. Good knowledge of some things
2. Manipulative at times 
3. Very good at “small talk” 

Benefits 2/5 
1. What benefits ? 
2. No parental leave 
3.  Good social life 
4. Bad family life 

Money 5/5
1. For me money was great.... but at the end of the day happiness is more important 

The manger at storm group is a good bloke when He doesn’t have his own agenda. It a shame people can’t see the better way. 

Overall the best company I worked for for “Direct” sales. But comes at a cost. Great if you are single with no life.

They lie constantly to you through the interview process it's 100% commission based, door to door sales, their sales "tactics" is to prey on tired people who got home from work, and can spend money on atleast one sale, you're told its 9-5 office work, it isn't. You'll work during the day to three and come back after 6 to catch people coming home from work There isn't that much of value to gain from working in this company, you learn how to sell things to vulnerable people.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales representative 1 salary reported	$32.21 per hour
Retail customer service representative 1 salary reported	$65,000 per year

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