Js
Chicago,#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