account executive

senior account executive

field service engineer

sales representative

technical support specialist

Konica Minolta

Konica Minolta Business Solutions, Chicago was a turning point in my life. Graduating from a state University with an Art degree, entering the world of business, marketing, and sales was a whole new adventure for me. Working many years as a free lance artist, and within the restaurant industry selling food, wine, and spirits, I had practiced delivering superior customer service, in addition to producing sales of a product, but never had i learned the fundamental practices of knowing how to really "SELL!" Just not learning how to sell, but the the proper sales cycle leading up to the final sales stage and EXECUTING the sale! Konica Minolta taught me how to educate myself on a showcase of specific products, develop leads through intense cold calling practices, face-to-face interaction with business owners (aka potential buyers), discover a company's current weakness, propose a solution, sell yourself, and SELL THAT SOLUTION! In the process, the company offered me months of internal office educational meetings, and external 2 week "Fast Start" classes that I successfully completed, as well as daily micro management from my superior sales manager keeping me on the right track. These skills I obtained working for Konica Minolta, were not only beneficial toward my career, but made me a more well rounded, and professional business man in life itself.
I faced several extreme challenges working for this company. First, by accepting the job offer, I chose to relocate from the small city of St. Louis, MO to the new larger world of downtown Chicago, Illinois. That move in itself was a cultural challenge, however, I was eager and excited to take on that challenge. Second, was adapting to a nationally recognized company and the job requirements needed to execute my day-to day sales tasks. Third, Cold calling. Extreme cold calling. Fourth, learning that rejection is just part of the sales cycle and is not personal, just business. Last but not least, learning how to execute a SALE in a professional manner while tackling every concern why a potential client would not want to earn my business. I couldn't do this without strong support from my superiors, and team mates behind me. It was because of their patience and positive attitudes towards my personal success that kept me on track. For that, I am highly grateful.
A typical day consisted of morning over-the-phone cold calling, and follow ups with companies at a certain stage of the sales cylce, as well as setting up daily appointments. Afternoons consisted of being in your assigned region either face-face- cold calling and/or actual appointments.
The most enjoyable part of the job was the independency of being a professional at work, in the beautiful city of Chicago, IL. The sky was the limit when it came to my success, and there was few restrictions that would stand in the way of my success. Unfortunately, due to corporate budget cutbacks, i was let go. As much as it came by surprise, and the pain that came with it, I believe that everything in life happens for a specific reason. The professional traits and experiences i obtained from working for Konica Minolta, I will always be thankful for, and will always be able to incorporate into any new professional endeavor.

Starts out to seem like a pretty good job, but after the first week you realize Management has no clue on how to on-board new employees. For the first few months in most cases they do not have your assignment ready (again poor Management), so they have you take online classes they are short and you do not learn much, but it keeps you out of their hair which is their goal, (to do as little as possible and still keep their jobs). By this time your co-workers start to feel bad for you and they end up doing the on-boarding. My office was a miserable place to work. The Branch Manager was Miserable, he passed his misery on to the Manager who was equally miserable because he wanted and didn't get the Branch manager position.We had a few tenured reps (10 plus years) probably nice people outside of work but miserable given the circumstances. Every Monday we had our Mandatory, Monday in-house meeting. To say it was a waste of time is giving it too much credit.It was presented by the Branch MGR, "so what did everybody do this weekend, the Yanks won, I did so and so with my kids, that's all I got, meeting adjourned", people would drive in a hundred miles an hour to make this meeting just for that.There is nothing easy about Copier Sales, and they can try and hide what we do anyway they want (Document Management Sales, Workflow Sales, Enterprise Content Management Sales), its all the same thing COPIER SALES!!!! (you just Can't ever, never say the word Copiers). Everything I learned was self taught or I had learned before at previous companies, the hardest part of the job was dealing with the layers and layers of management and overlays, everyone wants a piece of you and there is only so far you can be spread. This is a good job for no one, if your just starting out this will deter you from ever doing sales again, if you are experienced this job Will make you miserable and you will never want to go into sales again. Sorry I take that back, if you become an overlay or Manager it is a Great job, you can stay there a good 10 years and coast on bye have some awards on your wall make a good Power point presentation here and there and do everything you can to stay under the radar.

I love Konica Minolta as a manufacturer and as a sales and distribution provider. My experience is that senior regional leadership changes very fast, and where you once may have been a best fit, now you do not fit. 

The emphasis is now on micro management, and excel spreadsheets, which becomes highly redundant as they can not get the information from the own CRM which is a module of the ERP (go figure) So you spend way too much time explaining what you are going to do, instead of actually doing it. 

Company does not truly value their overlay support and regard them as expensive overhead. This is quite obvious in their pay structure and how you are treated. There is no work/life balance, even though they preach it from the top. They also have not created a career path or value coaching/mentoring and promoting from within, which is also very obvious. 

Overall vision of the company is quite clear and well articulated, but from regional leadership down it is all about the 30 day cycle and what have you sold today. 

They are quick to turn on you for any reason, and you can end up on the chopping block quickly if you are not well versed in being very political, and even those that are can be cast off. 

Products and Services are good, yet they lack the true resources to implement and support. They have switched over to cost control, and do not invest in their people, leaving many stagnant. Proceed with caution and at your own risk as the career you destroy may be your own!

Expect to hit the ground running, never slow down and work very long hours for average pay. Realize that you are completely expendable and keep your resume and job search fresh!

You have been warned!

Usual day was, start at office, plan with coworkers. This usually was planning which calls would go to whom to decide the best way to service them. Then we would head out, perform the required services, then head home. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

To be honest i learned a lot working for Konica Minolta, to much to really isolate one thing.

It felt like management was centered around making sure you got the job done. It was kind of loose, and i don't think i had to call my manager more than once a month on average. No unnecessary meetings. The just wanted you to get the job done and kind of left you alone otherwise.

The workplace culture was centered around focusing on the best service we could give to our customers. We worked closely with sales, and each other to make sure the job was done as efficiently as we could.

The hardest part of the job, well there were two things.
1) Calling the advanced support phone number. Whenever, I had to do this it was a nightmare.  Typically you would get someone who you could tell never touched a machine in their life. They would have you try a bunch of stuff, most of it unrelated. Usually requiring long unnecessary procedures, which rarely fixed anything. I think there were maybe 1-2 people at that call center who were actually helpful, and whenever I called in I hoped id get one of them.
2) Inventory, typically this wasn't too bad, but occasionally you would be sent parts you didn't need, or wrong parts. But once covid hit inventory became a nightmare.  Every tech horded parts because you never knew when you would get a re-sock, even after covid, was on recovery this never fully got back to where it once was.

The most enjoyable part of the Job, was the feeling that my priority was that I was there to help people. The job seemed focused on that. Which I enjoyed.

Konica Minolta US has a reputation for being a good company, where people stay for decades, and are happy. While compensation may have been low, they supposedly made up for it with culture and benefits. That is not the case anymore, so they will not pay competitively, and the benefits will be mediocre at best. Furthermore, the company is horribly siloed, with departments generally keeping to their own functional areas with little to no interaction. The lack of coordination between departments, at all levels, makes itself readily apparent by how little people know about operations outside their own functional area. Training in the ERP system (Konica uses SAP) is also bare-bones, with the effect that people don't have the information to do anything other than their job function. Innovation really is not valued by Konica, and the company relies heavily on tribal knowledge, and people who have been doing their job for decades. The effect of the mass lay-offs of the Windsor campus remain to be seen, but the loss of, literally, thousands of years of combined knowledge will make itself felt in the future. Last, the company, and its parent company, seem to have a very poor grasp of operations management (production planning, inventory management, logistics, etc), with the predictable effects on being able to service the end-using customer. The long and the short is that I would turn away any Konica salesperson who tried to sell me machines, as I do not have confidence in their ability to support any machines they would sell me.

You're answering phones to assist clients who are with Konica Minolta. It's extremely metrics driven and the deadlines and expectations upper management asks of you are nerve wracking and almost impossible. The micro management of this place is not okay. I've been asked on countless occasions why I spent this much time on this task or that task, I've watched people get fired for spending too much time notating calls, I've seen multiple people cry in the workplace or at their desk.
What started off to be a decent company is going up in flames. Upper management must be feeling the pressure from someone because they have been getting on us for everything. It's gotten to the point where it is no longer something I want to continue doing or be apart of. I dread going into work now and we have these performance meetings at the beginning of the month on personal development where you're questioned as to where you're going within the company and to be quite frank, not a lot changes in 30 days so it's an inevitable meeting you have to have with your supervisor constantly. I understand personal and professional growth is important in anyone's live and career but the "one on ones" that supervisors are required to give suck. Rules and procedures are CONSTANTLY changing. There is such a terrible route of communication, not only between the departments at the call center, but nationwide. KM is a global company and it lacks some extremely important things - up to date software and procedures and training on new processes.

If your looking to grow with company in a diverse working environment...DO NOT WORK HERE! This is pretty much a "family" oriented work place. The only way you will move anywhere within the company is if you are directly related to someone or have a really good relationship. This is a major micro managed job; to the tune that if you are in the bathroom for more than 2 minutes, someone will come looking for you. If you show a pattern of bathroom breaks during a specific time frame, you will not be allowed to go to the bathroom during those red flagged times.

From the day you start, your main goal there is to keep your job. They do not care if you are hurting financially and will NOT pay for performance. You are to be greatfull that they gave you the job and you should be happy that you have one. If you don't feel well compensated, they will say "we can give it to someone else willing to work for less". The company is more focused on tracking employee wrong doings than actually helping a customer. They have a false image that they are some golden Customer Service department that resolves customer issues when they are really a supply order line and technician dispatch center. Even if you are looking for a job out of desperation, this is not the best place. If you choose to work there, you will see its true light after 6 months maximum.

*A typical work day would start right at 8 a.m. and would include anything from managing current client accounts, prospecting, creating proposals, meetings (w/clients & prospects), internal meetings with management and co-workers, emails, phone calls, etc. 

*I learned how to effectively manage and monitor client accounts, apply previous prospecting and cold-calling skills to convert them into face to face meetings with prospects, great time management, effective ways to speed up the sales cycle ethically and efficiently and how to properly take and apply my personality and peoples skills into a business environment. 

*Overall, management was great especially my supervisor. He was always very encouraging and had my best interest at heart. 

*Co-workers were very easy to get along with and the overall business environment was professional but laid back internally at the same time. 

*The hardest part of the job was prospecting (cold-calling) at times, simply because some of the prospects typically already had a pre-conceived notion of the company. The business model had completely changed so getting their attention and relaying the information was challenging at times. 

*The most enjoyable part of the job was interacting with clients, prospects and my co-workers on a consistent basis. I am a people person so building relationships is a big focus for me.

Konica Minolta is large corporate company with 70,000 employees world wide. Konica Minolta is investing capital into the information technology sector, Production Print sector as well as R&D. 

My typical week consist of cold calling net new customers, tele-prospecting current and net new customers, meeting current customer and performing account reviews, typing up proposals, converting purchase orders, presentations, and customer service related task. 

On a daily basis I am learning about a new product or service that Konica Minolta is coming out with. While working for Konica Minolta I have been introduced into every department within a organization. Anything from HR, IT, Accounting/AR/AP, Production, Manufacturing, Engineering, Customer Service, Administration, Purchasing, Management, and others. Understand processes and how companies operate is key to understanding their problems and challenges.

 I work closely, collaborating with peers and management to meet and reach objectives. 

The hardest part about my job is the up and downs of sales.

The most enjoyable part about my job is selling a net new customer on a solution that will benefit their company and help them achieve their goals.

I was hired to be the GP Administrator. My immediate IT Manager had told me 3 things that weren't true and I lost confidence in him. Didn't find out until I had been there 3 weeks that he had only been a manager for 2-3 months. I need information to my job done so I asked others. Upgrades on an Accellos scanner had not been done since 2008 (5 versions behind). I took the initiative to work with the vendor on this upgrade as he was the primary resource.  No one at Konica Minolta knew this software, including me so I was dependent upon the vendor. There was no support for this upgrade. I was on the phone with the vendor and others for 6 hours in 2 days trying to resolve issues and was told I was not accountable since the warehouse had lost time due to the upgrade. Made improvements to GP options and reporting, etc. while I was there and took on other "administrative" tasks that I had no idea I would be doing.  Before the 60 day evaluation period, I was told it was not going to work out. The job was posted the next day with a range of $15000 to $25000 higher than what I was making.  Just be careful.  The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing at this company.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Account executive 8 salaries reported	$67,224 per year
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Sales representative 10 salaries reported	$43,130 per year
Technical support specialist 1 salary reported	$26.50 per hour

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