Pros
If you can sell (their way) they will pay you well, the new comp plan they rolled out mid 2011 was solid and finally included retention bonuses and recurring profit. The benefits were pretty good once they actually kicked in 90 days later. They do hire some pretty good people. The sales training was pretty good too, very thorough. Really good if you have never been in sales before. They teach you how and expect you to work hard and be very aggressive. From the beginning it starts off looking pretty good... But...
Cons
Management tends to yell at employees (a lot) and no matter what you do, it is never good enough. There are a few good managers but they usually leave once they get the title they want and take their skills elsewhere. Most of the managers are there because they were foolish enough to stay there and/or don't have the social/people skills to get a better job. They don't understand people and think that hard selling is the only way to sell, and if you don't follow the "model" they will embarrass you in front of your peers and scream at you while you are on the phone with customers. Just imaging the hazing in a bad college movie stereotype. I watched them ridicule and publicly humiliate people which only stifles their future performances and retards their growth. It is humiliating and the customers actually don't like it either. They try to lead through intimidation and if you offer your opinion they will squash it immediately as balderdash... and try to make you feel stupid for trying to improve on the current topic. This company creates robots and want you to follow a "model" that is overly aggressive and makes sure you only hard sell the customers and pressure them to sign right there on the spot. God forbid you go back to see the potential customer more than once, otherwise they tell you to move on to a new prospect. This is not a relationship building position, you get in, get out and move on to the next customer. Now when you are in the field, the aggressive tactics can get you the "seat" with the potential customer, but that is only if the Cbeyond employee who had your territory before you didn't annoy, irritate, insult or offend them by coming in week after week belittling the "gatekeeper" and forcing his/her way into the office. They commend the employees for getting kicked out of the office just as much as they do for getting "the seat"... This not only gives the company a bad name in the public eye, but also makes the job much more difficult for future sales people. Oh and that is if you are the only one in your "territory." It isn't uncommon to hear a potential customer say, "you guys were in here yesterday" or "last week". I was once told by a receptionist that "if anyone from Cbeyond comes in I am told to immediately ask them to leave"... Seriously. Now as far as HR issues... They verbally harass employees and constantly threaten people with termination as they think is "motivating" when in actuality it only makes the person work hard enough to not get fired, thus making them a short term employee. This has a direct correlation with the next topic… Micromanagement. Since all the managers are so busy watching their own backs and the threat of termination is always looming around the office, they micromanage people too much. They make you start your day in the office, which is fine I prefer to be in the office early, but they also insist you check in at the end of the day and they will literally count the cards you collected and judge you on the spot. Again, when they call for “high activity days” people will go out and just get cards and not focus on quality leads just so they can make the predetermined number set in the morning meeting. They do not believe in quality over quantity. Nor do they believe in trust or loyalty. They also mark your cards with different color markers or punch holes in them so you don't/can't use them again. I was in a training class of 10 people and after 8 months there was only one of us left... and the remaining employee has been looking for a new job. High turnover is par for the course and as I mentioned they also force people to quit. There are not too many people that are there for more than a year for a reason. A few of us had a discussion with the HR people outside of work, and one of them was in tears when we discussed what was going on during the day in the office and in the field. This company turns and burns people faster than they can get them hired, for all the aforementioned topics and more... These are just the ones I think need to be discussed. Lastly the managers are all the people that were able to sell and follow the model exactly and don't care about customer (or employee) satisfaction or ethics. They just want to hard sell the customer and move on. They all try to be just like the VP who is actually a pretty good guy, but he is convinced the authoritarian way is always right... because it is how he was taught... (more cloning). They all act obsequiously to get the position they have and sadly they don't have minds of their own. The worst part is they all use the same jargon and if you do anything differently after you get yelled at in public they will then deem you as "un-coachable" which is ironic is that one needs a coach in order to be "coachable", and these people are definitely not coaches. If they were coaches, people would stay longer and would actually respect them. trainin
