warehouse lead

forklift operator

warehouse associate

customer service representative

business development representative

Empire Today LLC

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part was independence to a degree. They're changing everything now though.  I swear that unless your current job is to bury dead rats in a sewer, working with Empire will be worse.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Ping-ponging across your city/market without knowing where you're going next until you close out your current lead. Then oh, surprise the customer didn't buy because the price is ridiculously high so you close out your lead to find out that you have 10 minutes to get to your next appointment 40 miles away. Then you wash/rinse/repeat this process all day while paying for your own gas!

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
In a word: CHEAP! Corporate doesn't pay anyone what they deserve. So the best crews don't want to work with them, giving them sub-standard installers who are always trying to make more money by side-hustling the customers, or cutting corners to save on their own expenses to be able to squeak out a profit. The work is rarely high quality, so IF you sell one of these over-priced projects (by some miracle) you can guarantee that your phone will blow up by at least 60% of your customers with issues, and the local office will not correct it or answer their phone.  They also moved the goalposts on the bonus plan so that you have to make an additional $25k in sales in a month to get any bonus. It used to be that 2-4 out of 19 reps would hit some bonus, now sometimes 1 person will get it. So basically your take home on any project will be somewhere a little shy of 4% most of the time. I know one guy who only made a little over a dollar on a full sale because his manager made him sell it that low, and they penalize you financially for doing what your manager forces you to do.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
It's worse than selling used cars. So some mornings they have these unpaid mandatory meetings called "Infoshares" where they lie to you about how much customers love Empire. Sometimes you'll drive 30 minutes or more to sit through these useless meetings for free. Then you'll start running your leads, one-at-a-time, not knowing where your next will be, but you have to accept all of them anyway first thing in the morning.

You go the appointment find out what they customer wants, measure the rooms, select material, then get them to pricing. At this point it's just like a shady car sale. Keep in mind that ALL prices are higher than any other local store like, HD, Lowes, Floor & Decor, etc. But you'll start at a ridiculously high price, where if they had any other quotes, they'll straight up laugh in your face...like $45k for a laminate job when you know in your head, the boss will sell it for $15k...problem is that most anyone else will do the same job for $9-10k. To make things worse, some products are negotiable, and some aren't. God help you if you ever show a non-negotiable product. The customer falls in love with that and even the "Absolute Low Price" will be 5x the competition and you'll have no hope of a sale.

So then you have to lie or make up some reason why the price could be lower without sounding like a jack. So you'll cut the price in half (along with all your credibility) to have them still say they have to think about it, because the price is too high.  Now you have to call your manager to see if there are any special discounts...yawn. Now IF they buy, you're selling below the Absolute Low and Empire penalizes you for the sale when they're calculating bonuses.

As an example, say you sold $79k for the month, barely making bonus but you're thrilled because you crossed the finish line just in time.  Unfortunately, now those low-margin jobs your boss forced you to sell come back to haunt you through an unseen mechanism they call "Allowances". Say you sold $6k below the absolute low..now they only count your revenue as actually being $73k and bye-bye bonus with no way to track this. Management would send a report during the month showing your margins and allowances deductions but they stopped showing those anymore in February. You'd better clear WAY over bonus level to have any hope of collecting it, because if they have a reason to keep it, even by only $1, they will.

Also, to get any bonus you have to find two people to buy something every month who are called Self-Gen leads. If you fail to find these TWO separate customers during the course of the month, it doesn't matter if you sell $250k in a month...there is ZERO bonus for you!

Are you starting to see how insidious it is to work for this company as a sales rep? You pay all of your expenses to run all over the place, trying to get people to buy something that's ridiculously overpriced until you finally sell it below their absolute price, penalizing you're ability to earn the bonus, then when the installers show up to work, there's a 60%+ chance that your phone will blow up from an angry customer and nobody in install management will accept responsibility...then you have to find two essentially friends or family members that want to be subjected to this treatment every single month just for you to have a tiny shot at hitting a bonus (which only maxes out at 2.5% IF most of your angry customers give you great survey scores!)

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 of consecutive good sales months.  You get cut off.  Your sales manager will starve you to "make a point".  Also about the Sales Management there...if you needed help and had to make a phone call (see below regarding it), unless you had the phone call organized in a way that apparently only the Sales Manager knew and preferred, he would be curt and cut you off right in front of the customer.  I had this happen quite a few times.  I stopped calling after that and the Sales Manager couldn't figure out why I stopped calling him.

Salaries are paid based off of a percentage of commission off of a sale, based solely off of the price you set forth in a sales presentation.  In addition to making a commission based off the pricing you lay forth during the Sales Presentation and in closing the deal, you can make monthly bonuses.  2% over $100,000 in sales, 1% over $75,000 and 0% below that.  Those bonuses, though, are contingent on the fact that you need to have a specific pricing over a certain percentage that can not go below a low mark.  So, if you are the type of salesmen like I am/was, you'll never get this bonus (I don't believe in charging more than the product is really worth).

The wear and tear on your vehicle can be excessive.  I actually wrecked one of my cars during my time there.  They won't help you pay for it either, it's totally on you and your insurance.  Gas adds up and can seriously eat into your profits, depending on what type of car you get.  Oh, lets not forget the mountain of samples you need to lug around in your vehicle as well.  That can take a toll on the interior of the vehicle.

Lastly, in order to continue employment with Empire, you need to incorporate.  You must incorporate or they end up firing you after 9 to 10 months.  I opted not to incorporate because I saw what Empire really is:  a place to make some quick and easy money but in no way a permanent stop.  

Oh, and a tip for everyone who reads this:  When the Sales Rep needs to make a "call to see what he can do with the Sales Manager", it's a gimmick.  I HATED making the call.  This is probably the biggest thing that I couldn't stand about this job.  Basically, tricking people into thinking that "got the deal of a century".  Unless you needed real help for something as a Sales Rep, the phone call is BS.

Bottom line:  if you can stomach sales and need something quick easy, and temporary, by all means...Give Empire a try.  Beyond that, it's not worth it.  You'll get quick cash and maybe a bonus or two if you can stomach gouging customers, but once it's time to incorporate, it's time to leave.  It's not worth that kind of investment and tax burden that you'll be facing each and every year that you have your corporation.

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 center to handle those problems.  I would be on an appointment and I would have a customer calling that is upset about their product or installation.

Management may not inform you of all their actions regarding your sales.  One time I had shown a customer some carpet to be installed after her carpet was defective.  I was sent back out and she was angry because the installers were sent out and were going to install the same type of carpet.  

Lastly, the schedule may be set for the day but is subject to change at a moments notice.  Let me say, this is the right of management.  It only added to your stress level.  One time I thought my first appointment was at 11am.  I started making breakfast around 8:55am.  I looked up at 9:50am and had been given at 9:21am a 9:00am appointment.  Also, if I had a set schedule and was running my appointments, many times management would push in another customer.  





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 cancellations to the sales contractor is non existent.  Maybe a cross functional team to help these issues guys?  Wholesale carpet is cheap, and it appears Empire doesn't want anyone in sales to figure out what kind of margins are actually taking place.  THE INSTALLERS MAKE MORE PER JOB THAN THE SALESPERSON??!!  

As an independent contractor the company's managers should be working for you, you are virtually another customer, but instead a very strange mentality exists, one the founder would surely frown upon. And in the office I worked in there were no less than 5 managers that came and went in 12 months. 

All the hustle in the world can't compete with the free market and the company's desire to not pay for their own benefit.  75 cities nationwide and 60 years in business, but alas they will never make the Fortune Top 100 companies to work for, and that's a shame because under a different management style and processes this truly could be an amazing place to work.

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 agent has been doing on average 5 hours of mandatory overtime every single week. It’s sad that new hires don’t stay because they realize how bad it is, and the company doesn’t compensate the people who actually want to be there. The mandatory overtime is also on your day off, and is never at a consistent time. Final thing, the calls are pretty bad if you are in customer service. You can’t help the customer in any way and your pretty much scripted to sound like a robot. You will hear new things about a customer experience and think to yourself “how is this place still in business?”. It’s quantity over quality. If you are looking to get on your feet, by all means this is the place. Please don’t make this your permanent job. Just to show you how bad communication is, the company response for this review will be a generic one because at the end of the day THEY DON’T CARE!

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. If you have a problem, you will sit on hold for 45min-1hour or the call will drop. If you get through they will tell you that you will get a call back in 24 hours, but that does not happen. Customers need to talk to install, but they will just forward the number to the sales rep days after, and customers get mad because the reps are calling them back days after and can’t answer their install questions. If you call the install department, they wont answer and the mailbox will be full so you can’t leave a message. This could be a good company to work for but not the way they are running it. Just look on the BBB or any review website. They have terrible customer reviews. 

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 associate has a significant number of challenges every pay period and this activity has been going on for years. It is quite clear that they do not want to pay their employees what is due and do everything in their power to put obstacles in the way of their employees finding out what sales were not paid. It is sad and frustrating because you are doing your part daily to make them money, but yet they do not want to pay what is owed and make it extremely difficult for the employee to get the commission owed and even once the challenge is approved it is two and a half weeks later to a month and by then you are waiting on new challenges and what is so ironic is that all of my coworkers are in the same situation.

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 get good appointments and if you complain they will stop your appointments altogether. You will be manipulated. Managers and the old timers will take most good appointments for themselves. Oh, you have to work 60 hours per week too. If the welfare people don't buy, that goes against your sales numbers, further ensuring you will not get good appointments. They also have mandatory meeting. If you miss the meeting, you will not get appointments for the day. One last thing, many times I did not get a commission on sales. Installers went to the house and said some aspect of the job cost more than expected, charged it to Empire and Empire charged it to my commission. This has happen to just about everyone I know at Empire.

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 interest in mind no matter what they tell you.. Remember: favoritism and companies best interests. Your best bet to securing your job with Empire Today LLC and get absences excused and PTO easily is to be a female and get in buddy buddy with management.. Even that is not fool proof.. Feelings can go astray very quickly..Other than that you can do an honest job and work hard and stay there for a while but when the caca hits the fan, be ready to be looking for another job and fast..

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working at Empire is the pay. Make sure you always meet the requirements to bonus monthly! The potential for a very nice monthly income is amazing!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part of working at Empire is getting to each customer on time as well as closing the appointments as you go! Sometimes they have you double booked and sometimes they have you traveling to far between the appointments so you cannot possibly get to all of your appointments on time. Make sure you stay in touch with all of the customers so they know upfront that you are going to be there but not at the time you are suppose to be. Stress that you don’t mind going out to work with them if they are okay with the schedule. Most of the time the customers are fine with it. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Tge culture at the company is great. Everyone works as a great team. It starts with management and they are fabulous to work for. Then as you go down the list with the various departments you will find them to be awesome as well. Just show them respect and you will get along with everyone. Do not forget, treat people the way you want to be treated! Mistakes will happen, but the issue customer’s and your co-workers will have is how you handle the mistake. Respect goes a long way!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day starts at 8:00am going to the first appointment. Then, depending on the day, I could get off early or I work very late. It all depends on how many appointments you have that day. You must get referral business! Make sure your customers give you at least 2 or 3! You earned them if you did as you said you would and if you answer your phone when a costumer calls you! Very important to always answer and respond to your customers. You need to follow up on installation day.Your customer greastly appreciates a call from you whenever you make one.

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