Marcus Evans Deceptive and Devious Hiring Practices London United Kingdom
Marcus Evans is a conference company arranging conferences, summits and now owns linguarama. The company rips off its clients, which intensive training teaches in their high pressure, "don't fear the loss" sales methods.
They are ruthless and encourage profit at any cost. I rose quicly in the ranks with remarkable sales then I started having a crisis of conscience and subsequently left. Sponsors of events are made false promises, the sales people are a mess, literally mostly due to the quality of people they look for-they look for people who are hungry for money, many offices allow employees to be on drugs or alcohol DURING work hours with minimal recourse if they are "producing results" which is all they care about. You are taught to force clients into a buy via high pressure techniques and when you do not produce they move you sideways and down to force you to leave as they will not fire you lest they have to pay you out. Most people see it coming, close out their accounts, and leave. They will knock people off even the highest positions due to the fact the owner of the company is a megalomaniac.
They refuse to pay outstanding debts to their employees and a few years ago they "un-registered" themselves all over Europe to avoid multiple lawsuits then re-registered themselves under slightly different names in each country thereby avoiding a string of lawsuits eminating from their refusal to pay former employees the fair commissions, holiday pay, and other monies owed.
This is a sleazy company DO NOT do business with them or you are contributing to the widespread abuse of employees. I would literally compare them to a "sweat shop" though when in there and making money the money is good, it is when you want out or are forced out they refuse to live up to their obligations as an employer. The high commissions come mainly from the fact they bring in more money via their sponsors of summits and conferences through high pressure sales techniques from people turned into voracious wolves of sales people, often unable to ever become normal sales people or enter the workforce due to so many companies knowing "of the sales techniques" used by former employees.
Again, whether a perspective employee, a current employee or a potential sponsor, attendee etc. DO NOT DO IT. Your conference you sponsor may turn out to have a few delegates rather than the 80-100 or more they promise, the names you were told will be at your summit are made up as the attendees are only decided after all the people who buy are there and often it turns out they arrange b2b meetings with other companies there--and you have little recourse and at best will be talked into doing another summit at a lower price, or given a sponsorship at a future event.
As an employee you risk much more, your dignity, your humanity, compassion, and often you risk earned money and DO NOT bother hiring legal help as they will get around anything! Marcus Evans as an individual is ruthless and he runs a ruthless and heartless company as he is money motivated to the end!
Lex
Rome
Italy
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Js
Chicago,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Marcus Evans- If you have sales ability take it, if you dont, or fear you dont leave it!
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, June 16, 2008
Chicago IL
Having read the reports below I have to contribute what I believe to be a balanced account of employment at Marcus Evans. As an ex-employee I have had positive and negative accounts. The first thing to note is that all the business units; conferences, summits, training, linguarama and THG are all different divisions run by different management and to a large extent run very independently from what I could work out....certainly this is the feeling I had from speaking to colleagues in different departments. My advice here is common sense and good advise for anyone going for an interview anywhere; if you like the person interviewing you, can see yourself working with/for them, its a good start. In my experience at Marcus Evans you are hired by your direct supervisor, so this is important. Secondly as this is a sales focussed position make sure you understand the product, if you find it interesting you have won half the battle of what sales is about.
Ironically the previous accounts referenced the constant overselling of events, to delegates and sponsors; making them sound bigger and better than they are!However all the communication that I saw from interview to hitting the "boiler room" and the key thing I leverage in differentiating the events I worked on related to Marcus Evans events being more focussed events (smaller), for a more focussed audience (smaller and higher level). Maybe the lack of consistency on this idea across the different departments and failure to understand this has resulted in a lot of sales people not selling and therefore leading to turnover. However the biggest reason is probably people not simply picking up the phone enough (if you are not able to put in 2hours call time a day dont do it, there are easier ways to make money)......make no mistake it is a competitive market out there and you need to be good to survive. In line with this, you dont have control over the product which can be frustating at times, however on the flip side you are never stuck selling one thing for too long....we all know how hard that can be in sales.
In terms of compensation, this is sales and unless my interview was unique (or the interview has changed) it was all laid out in front of me and I knew what I was getting into, make sure you do as well. Your income is reliant on closing business and as long as you do, you can earn well and progress, if not you leave....in my experience normally through your own choice; which contributes to the turnover. One of the negatives of this is that it can be a distraction and a demotivation, but then again if you are closing business you probably wont care too much. My advice is if you cant manage your first month without making commission think twice!
I worked for the conference division for over 12 months and made some good money in that time. I moved because I wanted to get into a more account management role with less outbound cold callling. I cant say "I miss" working there but I did learn sales techniques that I use in my job today. I still have some good friends at the company and one of them was moved to work in Europe for the company, so opportunities are there but its not for everyone! Maybe that is the problem!
On the upside, if you want to try sales (and be trained to really sell) and want the opportunity to make good money and progress quickly you could do a lot worse. If you need the fringe benefits; comfortable base, company car, blackberry, laptop etc......forget it and move on.
Hope this helps to provide some perspective to some of you. Good luck in your search!
JS