Southern Wine & Spirits Employer Reviews

Build up relationship with B2B clients by asking questions to find their needs.

Move from store to store, set up displays, constantly rotate product, deal with managers and store personnel to improve our placing in the store.

The company can not turn away any products. With that, the sales forces is expected to make all brands successful. It get difficult because of the size of our retailers. There is only so much space before quality goes out the window.

There is a lack of respectable compensation for our time spent on the road (fuel) and to maintain our vehicles. Also the only sales reps in the field that are hourly when all of the competition is salary (yes that can have its pros and cons too though). With that said, the management has always been great and the suppliers that the company has contracts – more... with are awesome too. Hardest part of the job would be waking up at 3am every morning, however I enjoy interacting with my coworkers and most of my account retailers.

If I could make one recommendation it would be instead of using small notebook computers we could use tablets such as the new Windows Surface. We could run the same program to post sales data but could also run the full host of Microsoft Office to submit photos of our work as well as our new item recaps as we are actually in the account. – less

Sales. Management is good for the most part. There are a few that will stab you in the back to get ahead,but thats normal. I miss the job not the hours.

I managed the inbound-outbound logs for trailer. I made appointments for over the road drivers with there brokers, making sure they were received in a timely manner. I also put the information into WMS for the receiving personal to receive the product. SWS management are by far some of the best people to work for. The hardest part of the job was entering – more... all the work from the second shift and keeping up with the new day. A challenge I loved to tackle. Mornings were very busy. As for the most enjoyable, keeping busy all day. – less

My typical day at work was i received inventory and stocked as well. what I've learned, how to be a team player and i worked well with others. i learned that there is a process on how to and when to receive inventory.

The hardest part of my job was shipping and receiving because we would always have to keep track of what comes in and what goes out. – more... It as a bit challenging – less

My typical day at work was i received inventory and stocked as well. what I've learned, how to be a team player and i worked well with others. i learned that there is a process on how to and when to receive inventory.

The hardest part of my job was shipping and receiving because we would always have to keep track of what comes in and what goes out. – more... It as a bit challenging – less

strenuous hard labor, overnight handling cases of wine and liquor.
good management and supervisors, very efficient
all the workers worked as a team and there were never and discrepencies

I loved my Job until the Privatization Of Washington Liquor. The job went from something I cared about to something I despised. THe management team was not a true management team they basically just hired people without spirits backgrounds. The pay and allowances went down to the extra 1OO reps they Hired. Just not for me and time to move on to something – more... I can be passionate about. – less

wasnt there long enough.temp job.

Had my own forklift, with lots of stock to be put away, in this warehouse. Worked alone all the time, since i had warehouse experience.

Poorly managed from the upper management and they let it fall down to the rest of the workers actually out in the market making their unrealistic goals and quotas happen. Plan on spending 1/3 of your salary doing your job. Don't be misled because in the sales positions of this company, SWS does not pay for ANYTHING, and I mean nothing! Employees pay – more... their cell phones, gas, auto expenses, business expenses, entertainment expenses. They act like they are doing you a favor giving you a job, and constantly remind you if you don't like it, then leave, they have 50 people lined up for your job! The new hires I've seen in the last 3 years are young and oblivious men and women who are chosen so they can be molded into the people they WANT. If you have any education and self-worth, don't work for a company like this, they don't care about their people. They use their employees and then throw them away if you ask questions or challenge their morals. – less

The day begins at 7:00 AM. I visit my first account and begin to service the store. The servicing includes building wine displays filling wine displays stocking shelves and helping customers find products and educating them about Southern Wine and Spirits' products. Typically I service about five stores in one day. On occasion I will get help from fellow – more... Co-Workers or I will help them if my day permits. The hardest part of my job is the physical labor. Carrying 230+ cases of wine and alcohol a day takes a toll on the body. My personal favorite part of work is helping customers find a product and educating them on the specific product. This part of my work makes me feel helpful and needed. – less

Fun place to work. You manage your self on the road
If your not a decent route driver don't bother. Only strong delivery drivers need apply. Must have a good work ethic.

Worked thru agency. Was brought in to do one position and put in another with promise to move into other position soon and be perm employee. Come to find to find out was just a lie. They turn around and let ya go for reasons that aren't even true. They will lie directly to your face. If you like to work in a environment with alot of foul language and – more... ukept promises, then maybe this job is for you. Not my cup of tea and wouldn't recommend this location for anyone. Not saying that other locations are good. Upper management needs to be revamped. I think they use temp people from agency and turn around and let go so they don't have to pay people benefits. They hire only the people they can click with and that is just to make themselves look good. If you watch their website jobs are always being posted. That just tells ya no one either wants to work there or they just enjoy firing people. – less

A typical day is 23-32 stops a day all over Northern Indiana, the pay was above average for Indiana. In my 28 years as a route driver, the supervisor at the Griffith, Indiana facility is the only one that truly deserves a lot of respect...the guy does his job, loads the trucks, handles and solves customer problems as well as delivers product when a – more... route gets swamped with stops. Co-workers were great, these guys ran their keysters off EVERY day, and helped other guys when they finished early. Hardest part of the job was the loading and routing system implemented from Indianapolis, never made any sense and during the day you wasted alot of time digging the product out as well as RE-ROUTING THE ENTIRE ROUTE EVERY DAY.....EVERY DAY!!!! The most enjoyable part of the job was working with some great guys who did their job well and knew how to get along each other.....we were a team. – less

Working here has challenged me in vareity of skill levels.
I've faced many challenges that has allowed me to grow and further develop my all around skillsets.

As a consumer educator, you have amazing flexibility, only if you're willing to work Friday nights and Saturday's. My manager works out of the Columbus office and is so amazing to work with. A couple of downfalls to this position: 1.) In Ohio, only allowed to do 2 hour demos. This may be great for those that only want short hours or to suppliment their – more... full-time employment. 2.) They would like to see that your sample bottles get dropped off to the offices on a weekly basis. Since there is no travel reimbursement, and I live about 25 minutes away from the office, it tends to be a problem. But $16/hr is great! Not a big deal in the end. I love this job so much that I would love to be full-time. Such nice people at the offices. – less

everyone got along and everyone worked together you had a real sense of a team feeling

I worked for this company for 15 years, starting as a merchandiser and worked my way up to broad market management. The culture of SWS is aggressive, dominant and family like and the job itself is fun has a lot of perks. Along with your pay you can win trips to France, Italy, Hawaii or fun items like free product, snowboards or tickets. It is a great – more... job for those who just want to handle their own business and make serious good money. It is also fun to learn about wine and spirits.

Now the bad part. Recently the new executive management (EM) that has been put into place is horrible within the past 2 years. They are very frat boy culture and lacking in leadership abilities. Talking to the GM is like talking to a person with ADHD on sugar. No listening or reasoning skills whatsoever. It is also insulting that many of the new executive leadership have been brought in from the outside. This gives the message for those working their way up the ranks that their time and value is worth nothing. These outside people are not more qualified or have more experience they were just put into place because the person hiring was angry and competitive that the next person(s) in line would have outshined him (GM of California). They lack leadership and a connection to what is going on Nationally. California used to be the power house in the nation, now it's quite embarrassing. Also their behavior is truly unethical for an organization of this size. The fighting within the divisions (PWS vs. SWS) is crazy and embarrassing giving room for competitors to play us against one another. EM pretends to disapprove, but I have been in meetings where it is actually ignored and or encouraged (to take your brother out). Half of the executive staff moved over to Youngs (competitor) within the past 3 years. There is a reason!

The good - Promotions can be lucrative and great. There have been many people that started off entry level at 38,000/year and now make over 80 - 100,00/per year (some even more). However, the current Executive management is fat and frankly not skilled enough to handle the largest market in the nation. Attrition is the highest it has ever been. There is a reason! Florida, really needs to fix California by changing the SO Cal GM for both SWS and PWS. There has not been a true leader since B.V.

The saddest part about this job and has taken many a long time to figure out is that if you are female you will never get past a certain point in your career. There are currently no female V.P's. in California except for maybe 1, (out of about 70) the National HR V.P. who seems to discourage any other female getting promoted and seems to work very hard at terminating other females so she doesn't lose favor with the "boys". That is the most dangerous type of female. Just sad. Even the Director of HR and the Director of Customer Service for So Cal are not V.P.'s There is also one female DM that has been a mentor to us all, has run a team for over 10 years and consistently gets her employees promoted. Many of her employees have become V.P.'s and then insultingly become her boss. Just crazy. Yet in sales the GM keeps making his male buddies V.P.'s left and right, with less experience or business acumen. There is one V.P. that makes over 170,000 in L.A. and literally does nothing except eat fancy dinners, attend events and power trips while the sales reps, Key Account, and DM's do all the work. Last year (2012) they had a female Director of Events and a female Director of Training that were both amazing and well respected leave the company. When they left it broke the hearts of a lot of people we really looked up to them. I never saw any of the EM come into our classes or acknowledge their events. It told us, that they don't believe it, don't support it and don't really care. They were such a mentors to me/us and never spoke bad about the company even though we all saw the treatment. When they left, some of the EM's joked (in meetings) that they couldn't handle it or tried to smear their name so save face, but we knew better. Asa female I just stayed quiet for survival. This is when I really realized what my future would be with SWS and moved on to the supplier side.There is a reason why all the female managers are leaving (PWS, SWS). I know of many that are preparing to leave as I am writing this. I know we are losing sales left and right because the force is just unmotivated, know there will be no career growth.

In closing, this job has some great attributes and some not so great. Male's - great for a career but you may work your way all the up and have a younger less experienced person get the job. For a female it is a great job for about a 10year investment then you will probably want to move over to a supplier for career advancement. Good thing is that most don't know the internal dynamic and having SWS on your resume is valuable! If they can change the GM, EM of both SWS and PWS divisions and get a better structure this company would be amazing!! – less