sales representative

merchandiser

truck driver

warehouse associate

account specialist

Breakthru Beverage Group

The corporate positions (HR, Customer Care, Warehouse, IT, and Upper Management) are more concerned with themselves to have any care about what happens on the street with the sales force that is overworked, unsupported, and mismisinformed. It takes over 2 months to get hired through HR
for a position that was unfilled for over 8 months. Once you get through that, the training is non existence except the corporate onboarding with has nothing to do with sales. The iPad and Mobility platform used by the sales team does not come with any instructions and district manager were too busy to adequately train new employees. A handbook of procedures and guidelines for the sales team was never created, and when asking about how to do things I often received different and contradictory answers. Also when reaching out to IT or corporate managers for help, they were clueless because they worked off of desktops versions of the platforms or different software entirely. The Customer Care team is centralized and does not understand entering deals per state and 90% of the time, orders need to be adjusted, which is impossible to actually do. It was exhausting and after working long hours selling and fixing issues, they expected you to merchandise your stores. Although when I was hired I was told that there were merchandiser for that. Yet another lie or illusion corporate had about what happens at street level. There were some days I would start at 6am and finish stocking shelves after 8pm, driving over 100+ miles roundtrip. 

I've worked for other distributors and Breakthru is by far the most disjointed, misfocused, and self-centered company I've ever worked for. For a company that is focused on selling products to customers, their attention to their sales team is laughable, and the customer service skills are nonexistent. 

After the cuts and restructuring, the company is running leaner while continuing to take on more business. The problem is the burden of that shift has been pushed almost entirely onto already overloaded employees. I’m sure it pained management to make these decisions, so I hate to make it only about the people who were negatively affected. I’m sure it was good practice working through the “8 steps” of cutting jobs without much of a visible preplan.

Pressure/workload is up, support is down, and it feels like this is just the beginning.

Experienced, high-performing roles have been converted into lower-paying positions. Some employees have taken major pay cuts and role reduction with no realistic path to recover their previous earnings or roles. Compensation is now capped for some sales reps, leaving little to no incentive to go above and beyond anymore when extra effort doesn’t translate into extra pay.

From the field, this doesn’t feel like a well-planned strategy, it feels like a blanket reaction. Leadership talks about vision, proaction, and performance, but there’s a clear disconnect between those messages and what’s actually happening day to day. Communication around these decisions has been minimal, with little effort to explain how any of this benefits the people still here.

Morale has taken a hit, account relationships (where they still exist) are strained, and trust in leadership has been shaken. At this point, it feels less like a turnaround and more like a slow bleed and the people left are the ones expected to absorb it. But hey, at least we’re staying true to one tradition we love: throwing darts!

Hopefully this all blows over and everyone can still add the new “Best Managed Company” badge to our 40-line email signatures.

It’s all what you make of it, the job itself is awesome. The challenge is fun, you are basically working for yourself and building yourself day by day. You have to be self driven to make it out in this field.  The management is overall pretty good. The hardest part or the job is a large territory which can be over an hour away from one stop to the next and makes seeing everyone you need to see nearly impossible sometimes.  The best part of the job is personal/ professional growth, overcoming objections and making the SALE. Like I said it’s all what you make it.  

But there is a pretty huge downside to this job, which if was fixed would make this company impossible to beat. 

The downside of this job is with logistics department. Trucking is understaffed and drivers drop like flies.  If the truck doesn’t make it, that’s your money that’s going back. Drivers that stay are not held accountable and care less about working the product properly if at all.  Communication is a non existent driver to rep.  

The other major downside is 0 compensation for mileage.  Last year was the first year that you could not claim it on taxes and as a rep you have to eat that cost.  Seeing is you have to drive your own vehicle 25-35 thousand miles per year it wears out a car fairly quick. Think before you accept the job knowing that every 5-6 years you need to purchase a dependable form of transportation. Between not being compensated for Gas, Oil changes, Brakes, Tires, and the wear and tear on the car alone. It’s a huge expense that most companies take care of by offering their reps a car for the route.  Hopefully the downsides change because truly the job is a very awesome one.

Time management is key when working the streets.  You have to tailor your day and appointment times to meet the schedule of your buyers.  There are challenges with buyer availability and getting them to value your role in their business.  Some buyers prefer not to see you and only order what they want to order.  It’s our job to change that way of thinking and show them that when they utilize all we have to offer their business can thrive even more because of our relationship.  The best part of the job is connecting with real people and business owners (when they are involved) and seeing first hand what they are passionate about and how we can help them develop.
I enjoy having the freedom to conduct my sales day in a way that works best for me and my buyers.  As long as I see All my customers and they stay happy, there are no problems.   There are a multitude of suppliers to keep happy so Sales priorities change frequently.  You must present new items and bulk deals on existing items in order to find success.  This is no surprise or complaint as this is a sales driven role.
  At least 3 days a week (sometimes more) I take work home with me and will work on the computer after hours until later evening so that I can keep up with preplanning, customer print requests, reading through emails from the previous day/week, following up with asks from management.   Compensation is fair, benefits are great.  There is some pressure from management to over deliver sales goals.   Success & Satisfaction looks like this:  give a solid effort every day and you leave each business a little better-off than when you showed up.

Totally different culture from interview to starting day 1  it is a completely different tone, and they speak to drivers in a threatening tone (they aren’t above actual threats) as they continuously ask for more outrageous goals with No regard for family time and/or safety , they assign routes that take 2-4 hrs over what say they do and a lot of the times the route goes out late, so for a position that is paid by the daily rate it doesn’t add up appropriately salary wise v.s. A hourly employee the only bright side to this company is it’s advertised as a 4-day workweek with the exception of a 3 month peak season where they transition to a 5 day workweek but honestly even that is a thing of the past it’s more like 6 months out the year it’s a 5 day workweek and the other half is 4 days , but even on a 4 day workweek you are putting in more hours than most people put in on a 5 day workweek (up to 60hrs) so being paid on a daily rate  with this company doesn’t add up a lot of times , they will not let you max out bonus-wise often  so good luck making those long hour make sense , also they expect you to return  to some stops or wait up to a hr until they are available to accept the delivery regardless to who is at fault schedule-wise , routing, and/or if it’s because they released the trucks late adding to a already long stressful day , imagine working 12-16 shifts regularly and making base pay 

Management in this particular division is likely the weakest compared to others in the company. The issues start at the top and roll downhill. A recent example was a payroll error that delayed commission payments by a week, yet no one in leadership directly addressed it. Instead of acknowledging or owning the issue, the only concern communicated was whether reps were following their preplans and threats of write-ups for missed goals. This lack of accountability and support significantly affects morale and trust.

I can only speak to the culture within the Jacksonville Genesis division, but it is undeniably poor. The environment is shaped by micromanagement, constant write-ups, unrealistic sales goals, and frequent goal-setting errors. What's even more frustrating is the reluctance of management to correct those errors when they’re pointed out. Rather than fostering support and collaboration, the focus tends to be on blame and pressure, which creates a toxic and demotivating atmosphere.

If you're considering a role at this company, I highly recommend aiming for one of the other divisions. The Genesis division,  particularly in Jacksonville, offers the lowest compensation paired with the highest workload. Unless significant changes are made to management and structure, it’s a tough environment for reps who expect fair pay, clear communication, and support.

The corporate culture at Breakthru Beverage quickly revealed itself to be less than ideal. Transparency and honesty were major issues, with deception seeming to permeate through various levels of the organization—from upper management down to sales reps.

Communication regarding tasks was often unclear and inconsistent, leaving responsibilities ambiguous and typically dumped on the merchandisers without proper guidance or support.

The role of a merchandiser felt undervalued, often being burdened with tasks beyond the job description, including duties that should be performed by sales reps such as setting up displays, selling, and interacting directly with buyers—tasks that did not reflect in compensation.

Schedules were unpredictable and could change without notice, adding to job instability and stress. Merchandisers often report to different sales reps, many of whom they might never meet in person.

There was a noticeable lack of support for career progression unless you were particularly favored by management, leading to a demotivating work environment where hard work rarely seemed to pay off.

The treatment of employees could also be concerning, particularly relating to job security and support if injured on the job. The environment felt retaliatory rather than supportive.

Working as a delivery driver for beer was something new for me it started off pretty smooth ,I was an “open” driver so I had no assigned route so every day I went to a new place within the state of CO. Also every day I had a different truck, So you never knew what minor problems you were going to face that day. You had to do your pre-trip and check the back of the truck because the overnight loaders may have not did a good job. And then hit the road ! If the load was not correctly stacked it would fall and a few times I took pictures and mentioned it to the management and they wanted me to fix that and still hit the route but I didn’t I brought it back to the warehouse so a couple guys could help me fix . Long hours and a lot of stops also kegs for a lot of restaurants and bars So be prepared to carry them downstairs for downtown Denver and a lot of corporate chain restaurants, eventually the management team started to not care even Diego the head guy so ultimately I started to care less . They should have got a dollar raise with the union contract but they need a little bit more to compensate for all the stops and long hours and overtime was mandatory and they would tell you wanna Friday morning for the work this Saturday And you basically couldn’t say no

Covers all the bases on compensation package when hired.  How much you have the potential to make?  Depends on the territory.  There are reps that scrape by and reps that have 2/3 of the accounts and make more with less hours in the middle.  One rep could struggle to make 45k while another made 90 K.  The culture initially was better and it was more "one team and one dream", but then the big managers started doing whatever suited them and living the life on the company tab... it became a tale of two cities.  People who had been there for years, who deserved a promotion were getting looked over and passed by for younger, better looking people with zero experience.  This led to the younger crowd getting a high sense of entitlement and an oh well attitude...because they knew they wouldn't be fired.  How well the job was done?  Who cares!  So if you worked at a bar and had a lot of friends, you could easily never be a sales rep first.  Just need to be a "mixologist" or a young female with minimal experience because they are friends with someone in management.  That's when morale changed and it all went downhill, which is why they are merging/sold to Republic National.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The underwhelming pay I guess.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
We are always understaffed but the work volume keeps going up with increased expectations for efficiency. Nearly every day is mandatory overtime due to leadership's inability to keep things running well, as long as the above reasons (understaffing being the biggest). Everyone is exhausted and mentally drained every night and corporate continues to strangle any privileges we had away to make it worse.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Most of the people are nice. It has a very standard warehouse guys kinda vibe. But the biggest point of conversation is everyone complaining about how bad the conditions are and how awful the supervisors/managers are. Morale is at rock bottom. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Get in at 7pm for the meeting where we are usually told we will have a ton of work while still being understaffed and then have supervisors rush through group stretches to send us to our stations where we wait for another 30 minutes to an hour for our work to be delivered to us. Then it's 10-12 hours of the most mind numbing but exhausting work until you go home with just enough time to sleep and come back.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales representative 828 salaries reported	$51,195 per year
Merchandiser 428 salaries reported	$19.14 per hour
Truck driver 173 salaries reported	$26.67 per hour
Warehouse associate 72 salaries reported	$22.52 per hour
Account specialist 107 salaries reported	$74,472 per year

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