Pros
They want Entrepreneurial spirits in their markets.
Cons
This is not an industry or company for sales professionals. The competition and most of the BlueLinx team sells on nothing more than price on their “specialty products”. The majority of transactions have thin margin-single digit commodity sales that management and “specialized sales people” control pricing and flow on. Selling commodities isn’t sales at BlueLinx it’s just transactional and market supply flow. Operations is stretched too thin and the service management team are just managers with no business savvy or horsepower to think outside the box. Suppliers and customers have beat this company and industry down so much distribution doesn’t add a ton of value and not sure it can without transformational changes. Large customers are trying to get larger and either “buy direct” and use distribution for scrap fill in business or will commoditize them with other distributors. Cost of inventory in this industry is a huge burden for distributors and BlueLinx doesn’t have the volume or margins to absorb slower moving inventory. Small customers want things BlueLinx refuses to offer due to the thin industry margins and costs of operating. If you want to work with and compete against a bunch of low skilled, pedaling, Neanderthal, sales peers and colleagues and don’t mind having zero support for new transformational ideas this company may be for you.