Complaint Review: Competitive Marketing Concepts

Like many others, I was lured into this job basically right out of college with promises of high pay and benefits. At first I avoided them because it just seemed they were everywhere (Monster.com, WorkAustin.com, etc) and I felt that seemed a little shady. But after a drought of finding no work, I decided to give them a shot. I felt their first interview process was a little unorthodox and that their questionaire was a joke but when asked if I'd like to return for a 2nd interview, I felt what harm could it do? Well, needless to say, I got the job and I was going to start work the 1st day of the month. In retrospect, its very obvious that they intentionally lied about certain offers such as benefits (health and otherwise) and also that they adhere to a 5 day work week and that one can earn up to $40 to $50k a year. Actually that last promise wasn't a lie...but it was a d**n near impossible goal to reach.

But I bit at the bait, because frankly, I wanted some work. When I realized the job was a door to door shtick, I was a little miffed but I decided this was better than nothing at the moment and walking outside would be goog exercise. Except...we were expected to do this from 11am to 7pm (with a very short lunch break) and we also had to meet back up at the end to file all our sales and de-brief, which usually meant I was getting home to my loved one at around 10pm. So I was working from 9am to 10pm...and entirely based on 100% comission? When I brought this up, they merely said that the reason they payed 100% comission was so that they could motivate their employees because if one was being paid on a base payment + comission, they might sit on the laurels. Uh huh.

Well, my sales were actually pretty decent. So I decided to let the 100% comission slide for the time being. At least I was learning some pretty interesting sales tactics as far as obtaining a client's interest and selling them on something. We were working with AT&T and we were told that we were not door to door salesman but rather consesus takers on current customers. If we engaged a current AT&T customer, then we were to check if everything was up to date with their service and if something could be tweaked in their favor, then we'd fix it. On the side, if we could interest them in some extras, then so be it. Non AT&T customers, we were supposed to convince them that their current service was ripping them off, which in most cases...they were. So I actually viewed my job as a service to the community and I proudly stated that I was there to help me clients, because I personally believed that. I remember I had one client that was at least 80 years old and her phone bill was unbelievablely high. So I told her that I was would work to fix this problem. I stayed at her house for a good hour until I had everything fixed and greatly reduced her bill. Obviously this didn't really garner me any sales, so I did briefly ask her if she's like to get any extras but being an 80 year old woman, I knew she didn't need super high speed internet or HD TV. So I left her and while I barely made anything as far as sales, I felt good in helping out a client. Because that was what I felt my job was.

But my sales were apparently good because I was quickly promoted (which I reluctantly accepted) followed by more obligations and responsibilities yet no raise in wage...still 100% comission. And then I started working Saturdays...all day. So now I am working 6 days a week from 9am to 10pm for 100% comission and then on top of that, I have to call my section leader on Sundays to talk with them for about an hour plan the next week. That was the final straw. I quit out right then. The silver lining from all of this was that I met my next employer when I rang at his house. He was impressed with my personality and asked me if I wanted to join his business. A week later, I was hired.

So the cons are obviously numerous, but there were a couple positives:

- Built strong sales tactics
- Opened new doors

Like someone said before, if you are just in need of work experience and don't mind ridiculously low pay. Then this isn't so bad...but you will be working a lot...for very little return.

When a company has to change its name three times in less than two years because people have been writing so many bad reviews about them on the internet, take it as a big fat red flag.

I worked HR with them for about 6 months and all I can say is that everything you've read here is true. In fact, it really is worse than what most people post- I know because I got to see the "behind the scenes" that most people outside of the administration don't see.

Like for example, as part of the HR team we were graded on how many people we could bring into interview- we all set daily goals and were rated on our retention rate. Most of the time when making calls I just had a list of names and numbers and never even looked at the resume; other times it was cold calling. If you send them your resume you will automatically get a call- the only requirement is that you live instate. Their turnover rate is sky high, as you can imagine, but with good reason.

I could go a lot more in depth with the shadiness of the company, but I feel that it has been sufficiently covered by the previous entries, I just wanted to let you know that they ::are:: valid complaints and issues with the company and not just a bunch of whiny a*s people who don't want to work. Promise, this company is not worth your time.

Thank you for the information as I was also an individual interviewed by "casy" who referred to "president and CEO Joe". Their new location is:

Competitive Marketing
2028 E Ben White # 425
Austin, TX 78741
Telephone: (512) 371-7373

Which is now called

Competitive Consulting, Inc.
2028 E Ben White # 425
Austin, TX 78741
Telephone: (512) 371-7373

the corporation is a member of the better business bureau, but as "Competitive Marketing" not "Competitive Consulting, Inc." The phone number is the same, the name is just different. They have posted ads on www.career builder.com and www.monster.com as well as other job sites. The receptionists are "Kim", "Twee", and "Jerry" (who is still there from the old name and website with the better business bureau).

I thought it was very strange that they said they had to screen 20 applicants down to 8-10 for second interview and I only saw one other interviewee the entire time I was there.

They asked for a resume and then had me fill out the same two forms as mentioned, one asking for the same info as what is on the resume and another one with 5 questions that had little to do with the job and looked nothing like a real psychological or screening based questionnaire.

Everyone there was really nice even to the point of charming and flirtacious. There was a professional atmosphere, however one of the receptionists recieved what must have been a personal phone call due to the coarse language and conduct as "twee" referred to "jerry" as a "h*e bag". This is not professional demeanor and the rest of the interview process with "casey ghallagher" still did not explain what the job really was.

The second interview I had assumed would involve salary discussion, benefeits, etc. except that he informed me via phone that the interview would last from 7:30am to 5:30pm. This seems like no interview for an entry level position I have ever heard of which caused me to investigate the matter further.

All of what I have said can be verified via my email, however my email is an aliased address to protect my privacy, I can be genuinely reached through that email if legal recourse is needed.

I am submitting as the previous post saved me an entire day of suffering so I will extend the same courtesy.

The former website for Competitive Marketing aka Competitive Consulting was:

http://www.austincm.com/

and is now

http://www.austin-cc.com/contact.html

If you notice the new website phone number is the same with the better business bureau and the previous mentioned rebuttal/complaint. For some reason they don't want to change phone numbers lol.

I only hope this helps someone else as it has helped me. All names in quotations were the names they personally gave when they introduced themselves to me. They could be real names or ficticious names, but at least someone else can invesigate further.

Have a nice day and best of luck not getting scammed :)

Out of curiosity I wanted to see if Joe Nolan and his shady little company was still up and running and brain washing entry level college students that no one else will hire due to lack of work experience and suck them dry of whatever resources they had to surivive on. Let me start at the beginning:

At one time I was one of those college grads excited to be entering the working world and using my degree to succeed at whatever opportunity came forth. Only did I learn three months of submitting my resume on several sites and filling out application after application and rejection did Joe Nolan and Competitve find me.

My degree was not in marketing but when i went in for my interview - young, friendly, attractive, and well educated employees greeted me (my first mistake -if they are all around early 20's this is not a good company unless they are all freakily gifted in software ingenuity or something).

They then abducted me to San Antonio and exclaimed of an incredible opportunity (mistake two - good sales jobs are picky of who they hire and never need to convince someone of a good opportunity or entrepenuer -run if you hear these words and you have very little experience) To cut to the chase - i dont think i am a naive person but i fell for it and started buying into the "opportunity" and was dropped off in the middle of nowhere in my skirtsuits like some highend prostitute to walk the streets in 100 degree heat all day with shady men constantly honking and yelling obscenities and on 100% commission and then to be rediculed at the end of day if I "rolled a donut."

When you are finally on your own you are expected to drive back and forth to san antonio to austin and then to businesses all day peddling pencils and calculators on your own gas and mileage.

Typical day - arriving at the office at 6 am to memorize soliciting spiels and participate in retarded activites of clapping and ringing bells. Then leave at 9 am to your territory meet w at least 50 office managers and try to close them on using quill products aggressively - drive back to office at 6 pm and then hanging around while "leaders" go over your productivity for two more hours - a 14 hr day in general on 100% commission for products that average 10 bucks a pop. A waitress makes more mula.

It wasnt until i myslef became a leader and was on one of their roadtrips using my car and my gas paying for the accomodations, etc... and attending meetings with other leaders to figure out how to lie to customers and entrylevels - did I figure out how rediculous this job was.

Funny - i kicked everyones a** in sales (including the person who led the trips) and enjoyed myself knowing i was quiting when i got back. It was funny outselling my superior and drinking margaritas with the locals (no drinking policy - hey if you paid me id oblige) and watching the others freak out from not getting accounts and what they can do to impress Joe.

The high rollers averaged 600 bucks a week - come on thats a 29,000 dollar salary and thats if you do well. It did however open up the doors for me. I was offered jobs in sales with 50,000 base + commission plus gas, etc...(real sales jobs!) The next position I took flew me all over on their dollar - wined and dined me and was a respectable product that I could actually help my clientele with - not rip them off.

I am no longer in sales because I was offered a job in my field of study and now manage a high end healthspa - but i wanted to write this and warn those who are smart enough to do their research.

If you have no experience and cash to spare for a few months and look at this as going to school if you want to later on apply for good paying sales jobs - then by all means it will open doors - but believe me - even if you survive and branch off on your own in hopes to be Joe "ceo" he lives in an apartment (mine is 10x's better) which his wife helps pay for you will not have a good retirement and best of luck to you.

This company and others like it are independent offices of a company called Cydcor, which does the Quill pens. This firm is a offshoot from a Canadian MLM firm called WWI. They broke up into different companies called, Cydcor, DS-MAX now called Innovage, Granton Marketing now called Smart Circle, and Quantum.

One "company" does advertising, one does promotions, telephone services, etc.

It is all the same thing a MLM monkey marketing scam. They all misrepresent that the actual job is on careerbuilder and newspaper ads.

Rockland International also has a firm in Troy MI, and several of these companies are also known to share the same office building.

I too had the awful experience of a 2nd interview with Competitive Marketing Concepts. I never met "Joe" but was told he made in excess of $300,000. The man I drove around with (in Marble Falls) told me he was getting his own branch in a couple months, along with the office manager, and that they had only been there for 8 months themselves. Then I see he is selling office supplies from a catalogue. What?

The biggest problem they have is that they try and shame you into doing the job. They try to tell you that if you dont do it then your work ethic isnt up to par, that if you quit your work ethic is not up to par. They have an elborate system of getting you to the "top" and say that you either quit because you cant take it, or move up.

They have successfully brainwashed each other into thinking that they are all going to make it. Before they offer you a job they give you this line about integrity, and make you give your word that no matter what you will be with them for the first month. WELL that is because they are counting on you to make them money, and also counting on you to realize that this is a worthless scam, talk about integrity.

I believe they offer everyone a job who buys into their system. Then tell them about integrity, and then suck as much money out of those people as they can during the first month. I say this because I had about 20 people at the office with me who went out with other sales reps.

I was very seceptical about it and they told me they were at a stalemate, yet talked as if the job was mine. They ask me to call them in a couple days, WHAT? NO you offer me a job and call me, I dont call you after the 3rd interview.

"Joe Nolan"'s business card is from vistaprint. Which is a free B-Card service. If he were a true professional and truely making $300,000 + in a year, dont you think they would invest a little more in the appearance of his business card?

In Pittsburgh, PA, I experienced the SAME thing!
The company is run under the name of "Johnson and Matlin International". It is also known as "Johnson and Matlin Insights", "Johnson Insights", or "Matlin Marketing". They too use the two form process- one with your education history and the absurb "list the five forms of marketing" and "what are your hobbies outside your career" questions. They too are hiring cold call face-to-face salesmen for Quill.

The extensive advertsing for this job opening (Don't believe me? Just google the company name.) made me hesitant to interview. I was initially invited for an interview in May. I did a little bit of research and found NOTHING on the company. I declined. I was again invited to interview in June. I again did some research and found a vague website for the company, claiming that it was currently being updated. Trying to keep an open mind, I went I went in for an interview. What a joke THAT was. I was immediately handed the absurb forms to fill out. Upon completion of the forms, myself and another potential were interviewed at the same time by the same individual. Zero questions asked of either of us pertained to anything job related (do you play golf? where were you born? who does your husband/wife/significant other work for?). Then we were given the little pitch about the company and the job and the management training program... it was word for word off of their website, with nothing additional added. The description seemed sketchy and full of holes. When I asked questions for elaboration, I was told I would have to wait until the next interview to learn more about the job and the company.

The entire process felt like a kindergarden classroom during playtime- a bunch of kids playing dress-up and trying to act like adults in a work setting, but failing miserably.

I interviewed with the company and was never told what they ACTUALLY did until my second interview, where I rode along with one of their "sales reps" (and trust me, that is a term to be used loosely, in this instance at least). I found out they sell office supplies out of a catalogue. They go from business to business bothering whoever has enough time to listen to their ridiculous spiel. I was completely deceived and was made to think in the first interview that the company was meeting with clients to market products/services from legitimate companies. In fact, I was basically told that, when it is actually completely untrue. Competetive Marketing Concepts is nothing but pathetic business-to-business sales, but they will make it sound like a credible marketing position that you are applying for.They especially target college graduates looking for entry-level work. Hands down the shadiest company I have interviewed with. Don't be fooled like I was.

I interviewed with the company and was never told what they ACTUALLY did until my second interview, where I rode along with one of their "sales reps" (and trust me, that is a term to be used loosely, in this instance at least). I found out they sell office supplies out of a catalogue. They go from business to business bothering whoever has enough time to listen to their ridiculous spiel. I was completely deceived and was made to think in the first interview that the company was meeting with clients to market products/services from legitimate companies. In fact, I was basically told that, when it is actually completely untrue. Competetive Marketing Concepts is nothing but pathetic business-to-business sales, but they will make it sound like a credible marketing position that you are applying for.They especially target college graduates looking for entry-level work. Hands down the shadiest company I have interviewed with. Don't be fooled like I was.

I interviewed with the company and was never told what they ACTUALLY did until my second interview, where I rode along with one of their "sales reps" (and trust me, that is a term to be used loosely, in this instance at least). I found out they sell office supplies out of a catalogue. They go from business to business bothering whoever has enough time to listen to their ridiculous spiel. I was completely deceived and was made to think in the first interview that the company was meeting with clients to market products/services from legitimate companies. In fact, I was basically told that, when it is actually completely untrue. Competetive Marketing Concepts is nothing but pathetic business-to-business sales, but they will make it sound like a credible marketing position that you are applying for.They especially target college graduates looking for entry-level work. Hands down the shadiest company I have interviewed with. Don't be fooled like I was.

I interviewed with the company and was never told what they ACTUALLY did until my second interview, where I rode along with one of their "sales reps" (and trust me, that is a term to be used loosely, in this instance at least). I found out they sell office supplies out of a catalogue. They go from business to business bothering whoever has enough time to listen to their ridiculous spiel. I was completely deceived and was made to think in the first interview that the company was meeting with clients to market products/services from legitimate companies. In fact, I was basically told that, when it is actually completely untrue. Competetive Marketing Concepts is nothing but pathetic business-to-business sales, but they will make it sound like a credible marketing position that you are applying for.They especially target college graduates looking for entry-level work. Hands down the shadiest company I have interviewed with. Don't be fooled like I was.

I had a coveted second (can't believe I made it through the first round) interview with CMC of Austin today. They used to be located on Shoal Creek Blvd. They have since moved to the Wells Fargo building on Ben White Blvd. (71 westbound) and Hwy. 35, suite 425.

There are tons of ads for this place on monster.com. FYI there are similar, if not identical places to this one all over the place. Marlin Marketing is one. There is also the illustrious Rockland International, Inc. of Houston, Global Expectations Inc., in Atlanta, and True Concepts Inc., in Nashville, just to name a few.

Get on monster, don't put in a search location, use the keywords entry level, and behold, a plethora of them. Read the ads, I swear the same guy wrote all of them. Anywho, back to CMC. Their ad says they are seeking sports-minded candidates. The job? going door-to-door selling office supplies. Commision only. I have no idea what this has to do with sports.

The quote/unquote hiring manager- Jen, nice girl, but nothing more than a secretary. I will now cut and paste parts of their May 1, 2006 ad on monster.com.


Here's one part:

"Competitive Marketing Concepts is an outsourced customer acquisition firm. That means our clients hire us to provide a personal touch with customers that they can't do themselves and don't trust anyone else to do." This is complete bs. yes, they actually do acquire customers, by going door-to-door to businesses that have no idea that they're coming. The idea that this company is the only one that can be trusted with their clients business, which is Quill office supplies, by the way, is absurd.


Moving on:

"Why we're hiring:
Our clients are asking us to bring them more customers. Therefore, our goal is to find someone to help us run our Austin location and help in our expansion efforts. The person we hire will get management training and have unlimited growth opportunity." They don't have clients. They have a client. I'm not even sure Quill is their client. It's more like those ads in the back of comic books when you were younger, remember?

You sell items, you get two dollars per item sold. Very similar except the people wear suits. The phrase- management training- is a complete joke. The first two phases of this so-called training, are managing yourself (going out and selling unsupervised), and managing yourself while managing others (selling with some less experienced sucker at your side). I wouldn't really call that management training.

To make a long story short, don't fall for it like I did. They will tell you they work with Fortune 500 companies like Verizon and UPS. This is completely untrue. The job is cold sales of Quill office supplies to local businesses that have no idea you are coming.

Competitive Marketing Concepts -- a company that is all over careerbuilder.com and monster.com...proud owners of the "shadiest" operation I've ever interviewed with.

Before the Interview:
First of all, they don't even have their own office. They share a single-office space with Marlin Marketing. Furthermore, *6* people had interviews all scheduled at 2:15 PM! Naturally, business professional dress was required, as was bringing a rsum.

They handed out two sheets of paper with ignorant questions: the first page was contact/education information that would already be listed on any decent rsum; the second contained a series of assanine statements such as listing the "five forms of marketing" as if you were taking an exam at a community college. Unimportant questions like "What do you do in your spare time?" were also response required.

During the Interview:
The interview takes place in a "coat closet" roughly twice the size of my apartment bathroom. I told my interviewer, Joe, that I was a bit uneasy that I couldn't find any information about the company other than the fact they are incorporated and apparently pay franchise tax. He got a little short with me from that moment, insisting that I couldn't possibly have gotten this information from monster.com (of course, idiot...I went to US Government resources).

After he tried to talk Competitive Marketing Concepts up as being the next big thing, I asked him to "be honest...is this door-to-door sales or what?". Again, he became short with me and changed the subject to the glory which is CMC. I asked him what a typical day would be like in this job, and he told me about schmoozing customers...actually using the phrase "bullshitting".

He never quite got around to how "bullshi**ing" pays a salary, but from the abbreviated knowledge I was able to squeeze out of him, it sounds like telemarketing but face-to-face. Sales are made to consumers, not businesses. You WILL NOT be dealing with Verizon or SBC as the interviewer claims -- you will be begging their customers to upgrade so that you can put food on your table. Straight commission sales where noone seeks you out...yum.

He told me of the hundreds of people who are salivating for this job and that he is trying to weed the group down for second interviews. When asked if I would like to be considered for a second interview, I declined. To this, he said "you wouldn't have been a good fit for our company anyway."

Save your time, money, and gas...keep looking. This is a fly-by-night operation at its finest.

PS: Research these companies such as SBC and Verizon that they are so proud to work with. Competitive Marketing Concepts doesn't write marketing plans, present campaigns, or even advertise for any of them. They simply make their employees into walking direct mail pieces.