Complaint Review: High Level Marketing

For both a place to work and place to buy products/services, "Scam" and "Run" are words I can use but honestly aren't even enough. I've read these other reviews and their painfully true. Anything positive is straight from the incentivized employees to counter the bad.

This will soon be replied to with another carefully written, robotic statement from the management team who will surely discuss the burden of this and any other reviews in their weekly meeting that aren't conducive to portraying their image - rather than addressing the issues and fixing them per usual.

It's a little embarrassingly clear that after one of the most recent valid review, they wrote up fake one and simply said the opposite. Any claim that this place listens to the employees in the day-to-day for input and properly "rolls things out" is actually hilarious. There's an inner-office joke about new products/processes/services breaking everything at the expense of the customer because they have no roll out.

The "big boys" sit together, ignore employee feedback, make a decision, Implement it, and explain nothing. You "get on board or get out" and concerns/complaints are not well-received. If they put half the energy into being a good company or good people as they do cleaning up their messes, they might have a chance.

Any positive Glassdoor review is fake. Same with Google reviews. They drove their employees on a review-obtaining spree to get those up with the promise of a bonus. Then after getting the reviews, they were put against one another for that promised money. Pretty sick but hey, they want their 5 stars.

Where to even start...well if you enjoy the racial slurs, mocked accents, and other HR nightmares in your workplace, this is the place for you! If you're an ethical human being to wants to do genuine good for hardworking small business owners and make a decent living while doing it, please don't help HLM continue to hurt people.

This is the type of company to see these reviews and threaten people to remove them because they want their sales met, rather than address that there is real pain behind the words and treat people better to improve outlook for future. This company fights very hard to portray a dedication to "Transparency" and begs those with years of reasons to believe that won't happen to "give them a chance to start fresh" under the revolving door of new leadership that changes more than the actual SEO and web services they offer) they use to "shake things up" when things get so bad they panic.

It's like an insanity cycle, keep doing the same things and wondering why there haven't been improvements. They lie to get you in, paint a magical picture - promises of all the money and benefits you can dream of, then take you through the ringer to fight for the things they promised you. When you fight back, you're punished.

They start to make you truly feel that you're crazy or expecting too much and it's so good to see these other reviewers validating that we're not the crazy ones. They basically treat you like a robot. If you can follow instruction, work quickly (quality is not the concern), not ask questions, "stay in your lane" (they love saying that one), and smile on command, you'll be tolerated.

The websites can be nice but mostly look the same. They say "architecture" instead of "template" so you feel like you're getting something more than a copied site with a different logo. People end up with so many identical sites, we can tell who is who without looking at the logo. The dishonest sales team will get much more from you than what you're buying is worth.

Their sales pitch should be the first sign to run. "We get you to the front page of Google."...what does that even mean? "We're Americans here. You won't get foreigners here the phone or be sent to India for support"...It's pretty disgusting, but that's a good chunk of the customers we attract, reasonably so.

They boast internally about the sales team not even knowing what they are selling and still selling it well. They have to be corrected constantly for blatant lies they're overheard telling people, and seek on-the-spot info to make a sale from employees who actually know the business, but they're all so proud.

The antiquated SEO services are nonexistent or minimal. Their model would literally be the "what not to do per Google Blackhat SEO" guide if there was one. They wait for horrible downpours of failures on clients' behalves to take any action and spin it as "Google made some sudden changes so we're very quickly changing some things here to keep up don't worry!"

Meanwhile everyone's been waiting for it to crumble for years. We have made no changes in over 5 years. And this is an "ever-changing" business as we preach so...good luck. Hearing the customer service people on the phone reviewing client SEO performance over the years has been is painful. They have no SEO knowledge or training (not that the SEO department does).

They're given some buzz words and forced to defend and retain all day. Defend and retain, but DON'T EXPOSE. They have to count on the ignorance of the clients in hopes they aren't called-out on what they're saying. Questions send them frantically scrambling because there's only so much you can lie and bs about before you need real info.

"We are working on your Mega Tagging" is something I head frequently. Again, what is that? And these words came from someone who trained others and quickly moved up with no experience so...Good luck. They hire people who are highly under-qualified. One new hire began holding interviews immediately to fill a department with more under-qualified call center-type staff members.

It is truly embarrassing as that a previous interviewer stated here on Glassdoor, this person clearly has no knowledge about the company while talking to prospects. They would try selling it like this cool new pyramid scheme people should get in on before it's too late. No actual info about the positions available, company workings, nothing.

More worrisome that the owners give these people that power to shape their new staff. But as many people never stay here once they wise-up, this person also followed the revolving door and is no longer with the company. On a normal day, people are overbooked by impossible numbers of hours of work and when brought to management, it's just a shrug and a "try to get it done."

Then when work backs up to a point where everyone's affected, the overbooked employees are scorned, and in some cases reprimanded or fired. Leaders mess up often and don't like to admit fault so they're pretty good at creating false termination cases around employee on their teams to take the fall for things they'd rather avoid.

But when the other directors have your back, why not! You can be the hardest worker, take on additional work to fill holes others leave, make real connections with their clients and do your best for them, but they care about making money at any expense. You're pacified when you question a process, you're distracted, then subdued somehow.

Random red wings or tigers tickets to shut you up. You're given goals to achieve that are pointless. You do extra work that you're never compensated for. There's no upward movement. They'll wait until you're upset and say your positive attitude is an area of improvement to avoid paying you more or advancing you since in reality there's no money and nowhere to go.

But it's so easy to fall complacent worrying about a job search and get too scared to leave even though staying = misery, which is the only reason there are still employees working here. Some of which are actively seeking therapy to maintain mental health in this workplace. They basically pushed a woman out while on maternity leave at one point.

Another under-qualified hire moved right into her spot while she was gone and basically dissolved her position to offer her something less to come back to. Made it seem like her decision though so don't worry, they're protected. Honestly, between the valuable employees that are pushed out and the many who quit, people should really pay attention to the high turnover here.

The smartest ones are here for 3-6 months, see the scam, and get out quickly before they're in too deep. More of our clients have failed businesses than successful ones, partially due to the fact that we charge them for absolutely no work, then charge them more for "upgrades" that don't happen or don't fix anything, and keep charging until they can't afford to keep their doors open.

They lives are heavily affected and knowing we're the cause is hard to stomach daily. The pay structure will make you want to pull your hair out. It's not based on merit or performance/talent. Some people make 6 figures if they like you and some have 2nd jobs. This is a place where a favored employee can get paid maternity leave while another can't have her job guaranteed while she's on the same leave.

Where a cold caller who doesn't know the product makes 50k but the workers creating and serving the product struggle to get anything above 30k. Some flaunt their bonuses while others didn't know bonuses to exist after years of loyalty. It's sad. They demand their employees' buy-in of this fun/friendly/cool culture that doesn't exist.

It's forced and uncomfortable. They have company pep meetings about the vision and goals and promises of bonuses/cruises (it's been 4 years and I've seen no cruise brought up again)...etc. And it's truly hard to sit through with the new wide-eyed employees knowing it's all a show simply to subdue the teams who are overworked and probably close to quitting.

As long as the company looks good to the board and investors, who cares that people are crying in the bathroom or taking up therapy sessions to cope with the work environment? Some days there will be yellow water, other days water pouring from the walls, and maybe mold or industrial aggressive fumes, but don't worry you'll be forced to work through it.

They've received numerous OSHA complaints. And if you want to take any of these concerns higher to HR, don't. Also a scam. They'll hire HR teams that are also clients of the company. We'll perform their online marketing and website service and they protect our owners from their employees' accusations, complaints, etc. Conflict of interests doesn't begin to describe it. But it's truly fitting for HLM.

Show emotion, try to innovate, bring concerns or solve problems, or suggest ways to actually benefit your clients for the money they're paying...you won't do so well here. Be a women and/or a person of any other color but white and your chances of getting any respect are slimmer. The lazier employees are most successful. Ones with terrible attitudes get praised and promoted.

They proudly support and employ racists, sexists, and addicts who go on public social media rants that hurt the company reputation, but they'll protect their good robots. They have people in positions of power that know nothing but look good doing it. What gets to be the hardest is that you're asked to smile and be a positive happy team player despite all of it.

If not, you're painted as a problem, combative. We actually had a brilliant Finance-area employee once, of Indian decent. Her bosses and most coworkers never bothered to learn her name and were never expected to. She was called the wrong name her entire employment in every company meeting because it was "convenient" for the white staff not to try too hard saying her ridiculously simple name.

She has luckily moved on for the better. If your a client of HLM, please ask questions, demand answers, and most importantly, RUN! Take any marketing money you have left and invest it wisely. It's not hard to find a company who is honest and actually can help you. Easier said than done to leave, being a client or an employee.

But the most important thing is for small business owners to take their business elsewhere. We as employees can find other jobs and maybe the push of a declining HLM will do that. But buying into this is just helping them hurt you and your business. Believe those of us reviewing here who are IN IT!

We get nothing out of this but a soon-to-come witch hunt which usually arises from another bad review (FIND THE RAT!) and to clear our conscience for aiding in this company's tearing down of small businesses.