Yellow Book USA Reviews

Pros

Great for college students and others who enjoy freedom while being paid salary.
Base Salary + Commission
Health Benefits and other great benefits
Expenses such as gas, mileage, and cell phone are paid for ( supposedly)

Cons

Selling poorly built websites and other hopeless prods/servcs...promising prospects an unrealistic ROI. This company has no clue as to where it is going. The print sector should be obsolete by 2013. Making "BIG" money was back then, I assume 2 decades ago.

Base Salary = LOW

No company cell phone. You have business owners calling your personal cell to harass you when they realize how YB's advertising methods are non-progressive.

They call it YB360 because they are really back to square one. If they knew that their company would make strong and productive innovations by introducing a broad range of new advertising products and services, they should have named it YB180.

Advice to Senior Management

Hang on tight until YB360 wheels fall off!

Pros

You have the ability to set your own hours(other than meetings). Valuable sales training for both print and online advertising. Mentoring program in place.

Cons

Lofty goals that are unrealistic. Mandatory meetings if quotas aren't being met by your co-workers. Promotions are available to you if you go out drinking with "the boys". Management rewarded to slightly above average reps. Top performers discouraged or denied management, because they are too valuable in the field. Double standards are the norm. President's Club is given to favorites over the people whom earned it. One year's record becomes the next year's quota.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure that the people put into management can do the job. Shuffling a bad manager to another region does NOT get rid of the problem. Realize that your quotas are extremely high and should be lowered. The core industry product is dying. Lower the profit margins on the SEM and SEO products.

Pros

In a small town like Brunswick Ga you can make about 15000 to 20000 dollars a year which is good for the area.

Cons

The management cpicks and chooses who they designate to get the top paying accounts normally its one or two people who get the highest paying commissioned accounts

Advice to Senior Management

stop showing favortism

Pros

Senior Management try hard to improve the products and work place. Working your own territory is good. Having lots of different products allows you to enter most business to sell something they might need.

Cons

The biggest issue here is the local manager's. They are so bad at leading and motivating their staff. Their knowledge is so limited to running the business. Messages come from upstairs and they just jump without thinking about how best to communicate it to the troops. Senior management are so out of touch with the first line managers ability to run their operations. Most local manager's were promoted during the good times because of brown nosing and who they knew. Unfortunately they have no real skills of knowing how to respond in today's business enviroment. It is sad that the senior management think things are going well, when in fact the DSM's and Local Office Manager's are struggling to survive in their positions and manage by fear! Accounts and large revenues can be lost but all that local managers care about is selling a new account., so that they hit their bonus and keep their jobs. It is such a shame that the focus is not on the business and employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Review your Manager's abilities to hire, train and lead their sales team. Take sometime to look at their skill set. They are so many good people who work at Yellowbook that could lead the sales force much better than your current team. We need to stop our people leaving to find a new job. With so many people leaving it is time to look and ask ,why. People leave because of their managers, not because Yellowbook is not a good Company to work for.

Pros

great sales training
good for beginner sales people
good product for the price
good sales contests

Cons

To many meetings
pop in management ride alongs
constant pushing from middle management
do not care about the clients, just want the sale

Advice to Senior Management

Don't drive people in the ground. You would keep more customers if you did not penalize them during hard times. Just let them drop down.. you will find you have more business for being understanding. If a rep is doing good... leave them alone.

Pros

It's can be challenging company to work for in some areas.

Cons

Some of the downsides of the company is that for one to move up ladder it's difficult if you're not in the right crowd you have little chance of climbing up the lader to leadership or any kind of management positions.

Advice to Senior Management

I feel that there needs to be more communication within the departments managers and leaders.

Pros

Great salary potential if you are favored by management.

Cons

Incompetent management staff, lack of internal training, almost non existent chance for career growth.

Advice to Senior Management

Open the doors of opportunity.

Pros

Freedom to make your own schedule

Cons

Sales expectations are unrealistic and not regionally configured. For example, whether you are a Media Consultant working in New York City or "Back Woods" Alabama, your sales quota is the same. The company also places more importance on quantity of new sales over quality which is completely ridiculous.

Advice to Senior Management

Realize this isn't 1990 -or even 2005- anymore. Prices for Direct Mail are ridiculous; they need to be lowered significantly. The quality of our websites is embarrassing. If you expect customers to pay good money for the product, you need to deliver a great product in return.

Pros

You gain business to business sales experience and learn how different industries work in the advertising arena in the area you live.

Cons

Management is not always there to help when you need it. Also, there is a lack of customer service on the back end of the company

Advice to Senior Management

A good piece of advice for managers is to stay abreast with new sales strategies in this ever changing economy.

Pros

Medical benfits are good. Schedule flexibility.

Cons

Struggling industry, fear-based sales management, unrealisitic goals & "written up" if you don't hit your numbers - high pressure.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn that "You get what you want by giving other people what the they want" (one of the YB core values) applies to employees as well as Yellowbook customers.