automotive technician

car sales executive

merchandise flow team member

parts specialist

automotive service advisor

Flow Automotive Companies

I’ve never done anything like this in my life. The job consists of contacting leads that come in from various sources and getting the potential customers to go in to one of over 50 dealerships for a test drive. A lot of the leads are trash, but many are good. It’s a numbers game. The more people you contact, the more appointments you’re likely to book. You only win the appointment if the customer actually shows up, so you do need to develop rapport with the customers so they feel a connection and more obligation to show up. Management will set a monthly goal, based on where you are in your ability and training, and they understand that it takes a few months to get the hang of the job for some people. Unless you’re experienced or just born for this, don’t expect to meet or surpass your goal the first month or two. But don’t let that discourage you either. Your team leaders are there to help you close the “sale” and the other agents are all kind and willing to assist you however they can. It’s both a team environment and a cut throat one at the same time. Phone ups are first come first serve, but also the easiest appointments to book. There are set KPI, you’re expected to make 60+ outbound calls a day. You do this through contacting leads as they come in, working your pipeline, and “campaigns” given to you by your team leaders. You don’t need to have a knowledge of cars, but you do need good computer skills. Everything is very transparent, not only can you view your progress, but that of your teammates as well. Everything you do is tracked. Calls are recorded, and can be monitored real time by management. Emails and texts are tracked. This helps for learning purposes, but also to help CYA. 

Dress code is business/smart casual. No jeans/leggings/sneakers. 

One closing shift a week (til 8pm) and every other Saturday (with a weekday off that week). Schedules are set on a 2 week rotation. I like having a week day off every other week for appointments or whatever else needs to get done during normal business hours. 

The physical office is nice, the building has a gym, plenty of bathrooms and elevators, on-site security at both doors and key card access to the office spaces. There are different food trucks every day and plenty of places to walk to for your 60 minute lunch break. Parking is in a gated parking deck across the street with lots of cameras and an on site security guard. Each agent has their own cubicle, computer with extra monitor, and phone. While there is KPI to meet, you’re not micromanaged. If you need to step out for a personal call or use the restroom, you can do so. 

Overall I think this is a great place to work. It’s a lot of work, and can be difficult, but the co-workers are great and the company ethics are good. Leadership is there to help you be successful. The benefits package is nice, health/dental and vision are optional but can start as soon as the 1st of the month after you start. Short term disability is included. You start with 5 days PTO and 5 Floating holidays your first year. They have a dedicated nurse and therapist available free of charge (by appointment, and on site). There is a scholarship for employee’s children. Discounts on vehicles and service. 401k after a year. Many other benefits as well. 

Overall, the job itself isn't bad, but unless you have a good source of business to pull from (Friends, Family, other communities), you'll struggle to really succeed as a Consultant. New salespeople aren't expected to have a reliable repeat clientele until they've been here for at least 2 years.

Training is wishy-washy. You do learn a lot about your products and how to interact with customers, but the finer details you tend to learn from either senior sales consultants, your manager themselves, or by simply experiencing the situation and learning from it.

Co-workers are great, and while the job is independent and competitive (I personally don't enjoy the competitive nature of the job), to some extent, there's ample teamwork around the complex. Managers from other brands will allow you to sell vehicles with their help if you're not certified in that specific brand. (All but Porsche, which is understandable considering the luxury brand and all)

Interaction with customers is the best part, I'd say. You meet various people, and Flow's Easy, Fun, and Transparent experience makes it so you're not strong-arming customers into purchasing vehicles, but you may run into being "the nicest person people won't buy cars from" should you not have a bit of bite to you. Also, some customers are tied to the past and will try to haggle, but other than that, that section is great.

The problem I have with the company at this point in time is communication and trust issues with upper management. With so many working parts and different sections, communication consistently gets lost, causing problems with the customers and the staff as well. There are times that I've told departments various times and given them the proper documents and emails, and a problem still arises, causing strife between the consultant and the customer in question. I've also lost trust with my GM due to broken promises and rather lacking answers when asked certain questions. I find myself having to speak with my managers and other people to get the full story, most of the time, whenever he's involved.

Also, Hours can be long. You do receive an early out, a late in, and a day off as well as PTO, but you will be here for 10 hours on normal days.

All in all, the job is great. Sales may not be for me, but I wouldn't say this is a terrible job. There are various positions one can do in this company, and promotions are highly possible. However, I would recommend potentially seeking employment at other locations or just limiting contact with the GM if possible.

This was an alluring position at first, being a standard cubicle job in a high-rise downtown. The interview process was standard phone than in-person screening.
After being offered the position, I did not have much contact with the managers conducting the interview. I was put under the instruction of an employee with over a decade of experience, which again seemed beneficial at first. I believe lack of motivation and available advancement opportunities led employees to outgrow their current positions and a stale work ethic.

Coming in to an entry-level position at a new company, one could expect to work at the "bottom of the totem pole," yet during my employment, there was no encouragement or incentives from management to put in that extra work effort. I believe a lack of diversity and competition led to a dull and outdated work morale that was only meekly acknowledged as a once-a-month provided company lunch.

While there were no active measurements for success within the company, I would be apprehensive showing your true competency or skill level. Cross-training can be the result which is an indirect way of supporting departments that cannot support themselves while being a direct way of obtaining more labor from an employee for no additional pay.

Now this review comes from the corporate level so I can't speak much about the dealerships. Although from what I hear the quality of employment does vary based on location and position. Advice to management: diversify potential candidates and meet regularly with employees for review, to discuss goals, and perhaps offer ANY type of salary increase (cost of living, yearly, performative, etc.) after years of nothing.

I worked at Flow's corporate office in the marketing department for about 2 years. During that time, I learned a great deal, ranging from tactical marketing to communicating with key stakeholders and a sundry of other skills. Working and learning from such a diverse group was beneficial to someone who was new to the business and the private sector in general.
I received a great deal of autonomy in many aspects of my job which was immensely enjoyable as marketing requires a degree of flexibility, and I personally value some independence. While I believe more collaboration was needed at the store level, and marketing at times became subservient to sales, the overall trajection was moving in a direction of greater collaboration and marketing oversight during my tenure there.
Upper management in my department was always empathetic to my concerns or ideas as well - one does not always find such elsewhere in the private sector.  While I left after two years, it was not an easy decision I had received a promotion to which I was very excited about - being able to devote my energies to reporting and marketing analytics; however, personal finances dictated my leave to another company.  While no company is perfect, and you can see other reviews that speak to areas of opportunity at Flow, I would never rule out rejoining my team there. That in itself is a testament to this department and company.

depending on which location you work at you could be super busy or standing around most of the day  but a lot of the people you work with cherry pick the work they want and leave others to shoulder the majority of the trash work and management/organization is a joke...pay seems good till you learn only some of the work is paid at the promised rate and the other stuff such as oil changes are paid and less of a rate....and god forbid you need managements help on anything  average response time could vary from immediatley to 6 weeks after the fact..... the schedule is attrocious for the pay working 60 hours a week nearly and only being paid for 20 during the slow season ( the curse of flat rate jobs) not to mention managers and service writers sometimes want to lie to the customers to avoid accountability all to preserve their precious customer survey rating (which their bonus is based off of ) once hired on with false promise it becomes apparent it was a gimmick to put bodies in places to try to meet the ridiculous scheduling 

Years in the car business have taught me that pretty much every dealer was a lying sack of burnt mashed potatoes and greasy gravy who would sell dirty water to his thirsty mom if it meant a thousand extra frequent flyer miles. Imagine my surprise when I came to Flow and found a company that tried to actually be better and do right by their employees, customers, and community. Is it perfect? Nope. Are there some surprisingly evil and/or incompetent people scattered about the company? Of course. I get the sense, though, that only people who haven't worked for other dealer groups would complain that much about Flow. I don't know about how it is for folks working at the corporate office, so I can't speak to that experience. I will say that at the dealership level you will be as successful as you make yourself. If you want to work hard, make good money, and advance in your career you can do it. If you want to not do much all day and make your minimum check and not have responsibilities, well you can do that too. The choice is yours, young Padawan.

It was good at the start for a couple months. Went from zero to professional in couple months. I use the skills now for my own thing.

 Management and communication is abysmal… You’d have to keep up with your own hours, even having them logged, written out and totaled and they’d still find a way to screw up your hours. I lost count how many times I heard “it’ll be on the next check.” *Disclaimer* it repeated into the next week.

 Consistently lie about getting a raise. Some of management and salesmen don’t respect the time it took to clean the cars for their customers, you do a rush job and they’d have the audacity why some spots were missed.
They rarely took accountability and passed the blame off to either detailers or technicians. 

Being a detailer we were subjected to the elements, summer being the worst. We could barely get water bottles from them. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Guaranteed a paycheck if nothing was sold.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Management doesn't care you have a life outside of work. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The other sales people are very friendly and cool to get along with. The Flow company it self was very upfront with all customers and did not lie to them. But other than that it is the usual sales job. At Flow you feel more like a cashier than a sales person. The pay plan is rigged and isn't attractive to most. All of the deals were minis ($175) and if your Finance Manager did not sell any products like GAP, Service Contracts ETC, You did not make money. Yes you did NOT make money on someone else's responsibility if they did not sell any products. If they changed the pay plan it would be a very great place to work but if you like money do not be in sales at Flow.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Cold Calls
Walk Ins
Delivering Vehicles 
Closing Deals
Helping customers with tech in vehicles

This company prides itself in being ethical, and in my opinion, it follows through. I like how it strives to balance work and personal life. While it is a corporation, it allows each General Manager to run their own dealership, (within the company guidelines and core values). Challenging goals are set with clear and concise steps to achieve them. This is a growing company, which is appealing to the hardworking overachiever. Don Flow is a teacher, if he weren't leading a large company of dealerships, I believe he would be a professor at a prestigious university. I am glad he chose to do his teaching in the market instead.

I would highly recommend this company to the ambitious and patient talent, who are willing to learn.

Flow is not the Christian family-oriented company they claim to be. They are very sneaky/cut throat and will never pay your worth. You'll do the jobs of 3 different employees and make less than those employees. They CANNOT keep good employees and those employees all have similar stories. 

I've seen people with families fired without notice. Employees with cancer lose their disability while fighting. Pregnant women deemed non-essential and sent home without an income during a pandemic. What sort of Christian family-oriented company allows that to happen? And don't get me started on the harassment. Don't get me wrong, there are amazing employees trapped there but management will drive you to drink and then some.

Please beware when applying...and if you decide to apply...good luck.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Automotive technician 172 salaries reported	$72,485 per year
Car sales executive 118 salaries reported	$41,398 per year
Merchandise flow team member 5 salaries reported	$17.40 per hour
Parts specialist 19 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour
Automotive service advisor 1 salary reported	$20.00 per hour

Working at Flow Automotive Companies: Company Overview and Reviews

Flow Automotive Companies

Flow Automotive Companies Ratings

Popular jobs at Flow Automotive Companies

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected