Marcus Evans Reviews

Pros

Loved working there and it was a good experience. Working at ME is an asset to my CV

Cons

Could have had a better experience if it wasn't for the work overload.

Pros

Sales bootcamp. Get you ready for other jobs

Cons

People dont really appreciate recieving cold calls for us. Not an easy prodict to sell

Pros

The Pros in taking my job at Marcus Evans were the great location, the other young employees, and a way to get my foot in the door.

Cons

Repetitive work! You sit on the phone all day, every day. Also, you do not have control over how you make money. Someone else closes your deals. That doesn't seem fair when they are trying to close their own deals. Everyone is basically competing against one another. ZERO teamwork. Plus, the pay is horrible. Below minimum wage.

Pros

-Young environment
-Work in NBC Tower, near Michigan Ave. and great views
-Talk with very high level executives which a lot of companies see as a plus when going to apply for another job
-great sales experience for learning for entry level

Cons

Where do I begin....
-Very low base salary for how much hard work and time you put in
-very hard to make a sale when the event you are given is not a good event
-they neglect to tell you in your interview that they take out a service fee from your commissions
-managers play favorites and won't let you do your own call backs so then you are screwed on closing your own deal that you worked hard and found the lead and pitched
-they use scare tactics to try and get you to work harder
-only upper management get their own computer. the rest of the sales team is expected to share one which makes it very difficult
-is extremely boring days. they are so repetitive. you come in and straight cold call for 8 hrs the exact same people everyday and don't get through to most of them
-most people you get through will laugh at you when you tell them the ridiculous price for an event
-they do not think realistically there
-if you are in sales you are in competition with the marketing side, who actually has the advantage because they sell through email and not via phone where most people you call prefer to just send them over an email (they help with monthly sales goals, but they are stealing your potential sales)
-so many people from your company are calling the same people
-the company has left a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of people you call
-their conferences and events don't live up to what the agenda reads
-TERRIBLE employee retention and VERY HIGH TURNOVER. Most people don't last longer than 3 months because of how bad the work environment is there
-very structured work environment. everyone has to take lunch from noon to 1 pm everyday. if you are even a min late back they get mad at you
-they aren't very nice about when you need to take a sick day or vacation day because of a doc appt. or family emergency
-are very hypocritical..upper management is constantly on their cell phones, but if you even look at yours, they get mad at you and threaten you
-basically, if you don't have a phone in your hand and are dialing all 8 hrs you are there, they will get super mad at you and try to scare you
-your director and manager contradict each other and both tell you different ways to do things
-training is TERRIBLE. it's only 2 days and they basically throw you right into selling and as you are selling they tell you to do this or that and get mad when you don't do a certain thing their way..well if you would have mentioned that in training it may have helped. we aren't mind readers!
-there is a lot of office drama with friends and relationships
-if you can get a job within conferences you have the potential to make a lot more $$ than any other division there.

Advice to Senior Management

stop playing favorites and treating your employees like slaves. this is 2011 not the civil war people. there is a reason slavery ended. they are the ones working hard for you to make way more money then we ever will. dial down the cost of your events. they are not worth it and there is a reason so many people laugh at you and also give all your employees computers. for making so much $ that is pretty cheap on your part.

Pros

Nice location in the NBC Tower
Young company that likes to party after work
Some opportunity for travel, if you do well

Cons

Low base salary
Paid once a month, 5th business day of the month
No room for advancement
Will be pressured to cold-call the same people over and over again
Mgmt plays favorites
Listen in on calls and people steal leads.
turnover rate is UNREAL!!!
I bet avg employee has been there 2-3 months

Advice to Senior Management

Stop micromanaging and playing favorites. Also, stop caring only about your numbers and help the team out. Look at your turnover ratio.

Pros

In the producer role you get to travel to wherever your event is taking place and network with decision makers at the event. Though this is useful only if you wish to pursue a career in the sector that your event is on (i.e. finance, life sciences, energy etc).

Your contempories (not management) are genuinely nice people who will go out of their way to help you if you need it.

Cons

There is literally no training on the job - you are pretty much immeadiately given a topic and expected to produce a successful event.

You are expected to be on the phone constantly - pretty much all cold calling.

The production cycle of 26 days is unrealistic, it is very rare for someone to finish an event on time.
 As a result employees are in a constant fear of being fired.

Management does not listen to research feedback about why an event will not work - what has been successful for another company does not always translate well with the Marcus Evans business model.

Speaker aquisition is more focused on quantity rather than quality.

Sponsorship department have a real control over who you are allowed to invited to speak.

Topic generation (usually done by a Senior or Director) is a sham they merely pick topics from existing conferences that have been successful in other geographic areas and try to apply them to a European market.

The company has little to no respect for UK employment laws and counts on the fact that most people are not aware of their rights - if you have a grievance with management there is no channel to report it.

The working hours are 8:30 - 17:30 though most people will stay later or arrive earlier to attemp to finish their event.

The company has a high turnover of staff - between last year and this year 900 people were fired. Numerous people have left sometimes after just one day of the job (something I wish I did!)

It is portrayed as an international company though many of the offices are not functional and just registered for tax purposes.

Finally (I could go on but this was getting way to long!) the company has a really bad name within the world of conferences. This is mainly due to their blanket of cold calling from sales, sponsorship and production but is also coupled with the fact that should a event not go ahead the company will not refund tickets or sponsorship packages. (Clients are issued a voucher for use with any events for the next 6 months) As a result some events go ahead with only 5 delegate ticket sales, which is very awkard for a producer to run on the day.

Advice to Senior Management

The management have no skills when it comes to managing people and take a very agressive management technique which borders on bullying and intimidation. When an event is not going well they do not offer any support, their management style is to motivate people with fear as the renumeration package (commision included) is not sufficent motivation for employees. My advice to them would be to value and support your staff and to be honest about what the role entails during the interview (which suprising is exactly like the type of questioning you undergo if an event is not working out)

Pros

good commission if you sell. means if you see you can earn

Cons

its nasty work place and please find something else

Advice to Senior Management

pay good basic salary please, respect employee

Pros

-Learn excellent senior level communication skills
-Young environment
-Opportunity to make a lot of money if given an event that has previously sold well

Cons

-Poor enviroment if looking for place to be innovative and creative
-Hard work ethic not often rewarded; unless ends in revenue for company
-Divisions of the company are fighting against eachother for business

Advice to Senior Management

Care about all your employees as much as you care about making money for the company and it would be a lot more successful sales floor

Pros

Excellent sales training/experience
Commissions and incentives are incredible

Cons

Poor reputation - clients and employees

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on product quality

Pros

Good training
Working on the main floor is exciting
Talk to Fortune 500 executives
Diversity of programs you can sell
Benefits
Research your own leads

Cons

Anywhere but conferences and you better still be living with mom & dad (which most of the people I worked with do)
Managers share their high-quality leads between them and their friends
The most successful people only make around $40,000 which ended up being a handful of people in an office of over 200 employees
You make 200 calls, pitch 8-10 people get 3-5 "maybes."
In the end, you spend 40 hours a week, 1000 calls for a total of around four deals A MONTH! If you're lucky
The benefits are completely useless because you're making so little money, there's no point in joining the 401K, or health insurance
90%of the rejections we got were because of price and they refused to lower it

Advice to Senior Management

I'm a decent salesman, not great by any means. There were other people (higher up the ladder) in my department who sold the same programs I did, were given lists of prime leads by management, sent out decision paperwork that I wouldn't have been allowed to and made the same of amount of sales I did. When you train new hires, remember that you are responsible for their financial well-being. Make sure your supervisors are capable of being a leader.