Complaint Review: WDM Group - Toronto Ontario

I stumbled upon this website when I type in WDM Group's name as I am a former employees who worked as a Research Director out of the Toronto office several years ago.  I came across a friend there who also recentely quit a few months back and I wanted to express my experience working for this company, even though I only worked there for approx 3-4 months.

First and foremost, I needed a job right away, I had just finished school and needed to work.  I sent my resume to several place but never had any luck with the ones I would have liked.  WDM Group was hiring at the time and asked me to come in for an interview.  When I went in, it wasn't a one-on-one interview, but a group interview.  At first I was alittle taken back, but it would all make sense to me later.  There was 7 or 8 in my group where we had to role play and come up with different roles I guess to show how we can think on our feet and be creative.

I can tell you right now that I wasn't at my best that day by any means, maybe because I was expecting a intimate interview rather than a glorified stage show where we pretended we were a celebrity.  The day ended and I went home thinking I wasn't going to be called back.  By the time I got home there was a message saying they were interested in hiring me.  I started a week later and I saw every person that was in that first day interview was also hired, and most of them did even poorly than I did at the role playing interview.  Thats when I knew even before the training began what kind of company this was.  They needed bodies.  Thats pretty much it, anyone who can pick up the phone and call, thats it.  

See what they do is put each employee in a sector, call them Research Directors and have them call Associations and companies that can be featured in the sector magazine they are assigned to.  What they don't tell you is that these Associations have been called numerous times from previous Research Directors, the companies who give their suppliers to WDM Group have also already been called hundreds of times....So right off the bat you are annoying the hell out of people who have been called over and over again.  When I went to one of the Managers there 9I guess that was what they were called, even though they were my age) they just said to keep researching.  Find new leads any way I can.  The magazines themselves are poorly designed, and right away you get the feel that this company is only doing this to squeeze as much money as they can from these poor suppliers, meanwhile the featured company recieves a crappy digital brochure that reads like it was written by a university grad and designed by an amateur, and you know what, it is.

I realized less than a week thats what WDM Group does, they simply recycle.  They hire new staff, quickly run them through a 3 day training process and throw us out on the phones to dial away.  Any real business person knows that it take time to build a process with people and companies but not at WDM Group, there its a process where they want money in right away,get a list in so it can be sold on, and get out.  Its a very "Get in, get out" mentality.  Down and Dirty.

As far as the training we were told to read off these scripts that were very long.  Way to long to even get through, noone has time to listen to them.  The staff at WDM Group are all young, 20-27 year olds who I guess think its something special working there, mostly because they don't have any expereince doing anything else.  The procedure of the business is what is the most shady aspect of this company.  The sales team use pretty high pressure sales to persuade the suppliers to buy ad space, over priced ad space I might add into a digital magazine that no one reads.  The numbers and stats are not real, the so called benefits of being featured means nothing.

It didnt take me long to realize what this company is all about.  See its like a pyramid scheme.  At the top of the ladder is Glen White who from what I heard suffers from a Napoleon complex.  He makes the most money, then after him is the 6-8 "Generals" who are also being paid quite well....then comes the wasted talent like the editors, contributing writers, designers, coordinators....and all the money thats generated is done by a handful of Research Directors.  So all my hard work was paying for 3-5 dfferent people who didnt bring money in.  Now the commission structure was probably the biggest joke of all.  Research Directors had to reach 16,000 per month before they recieved a flat commision rate of 800.00.  So $15,000 + goes to pay for the other staff members while the Research Director gets 800.00 for bringing in $16,000.  Thats not a comission, thats a jacking.  

Micro Managed to a tee.  We would get what they refer to as "Call Stats"......4 times a day.  Tracking how many calls you made and the time you were on the phone, there is no time to do any research yet what WDM Group doesnt realize, (or maybe they do) is that these industries no matter what sector or what country isnt big enough to make that many calls a day, a week, a month.  Thats why its hard to bring any new companies on board to be featured, because they sectors have been hit so hard from WDM Group that its shrunken around them.  Every one in that Toronto office faked call stats, I spent more time dialing fax machine numbers and talking to my buddies on the phone than making actual calls.  

 Just an awful place to work.  This is a company that had success when digital magazines first became popular, but 5 years later the industry has changed yet WDM Group still plug away if its still so new, and thats what they don't realize.  They keep the same business model as they are not capable of changing with the times.  Its Ignornace combined with Arrogance.  They must know that its in trouble as I hear that the Canadian location is pretty much shut down now, and I hear Glen White has started a new venture called Business Friend.  Which from what I saw from the website is a business platform combining Facebook, LinkedIN, etc.....its awful, its been done, and it will fail.  He is no innovator, just a guy who was at the right place at the right time....but time is up.