Groundworks reviews

I joined this company because it sounded like a real career opportunity — somewhere you could grow, earn serious money, and be proud of the work you put in. The job ad promised $170,000 to $280,000 a year. They made it sound like top reps in Toronto were crushing those numbers with ease. I can tell you with 100% certainty: that income range is completely impossible. Even the very best sales reps in our office – the ones who get the “golden” leads and the best territories – aren’t even close to $170k. Most of us will be lucky to hit $60–80k, and that meant grinding 60-hour weeks. Leads are NOT qualified – despite what they promise In the interview they swear the leads are “highly qualified.” The reality? A lead is “qualified” if the person answers yes to exactly three questions: Are you the homeowner? Do you think you have a problem? Are you in our service area? That’s it. No budget discussion, no timeline, no confirmation they actually want the service. These are basically cold leads with a tiny filter. And here’s the worst part: if you knock on that door and don’t close the sale or they don't even open the door, it counts against your conversion rate. A low conversion rate means you get moved to even worse leads next week. You’re not allowed to pre-qualify or screen leads yourself on the phone – management insists they’re already “qualified to the best of our ability,” so you have to take whatever they give you. Training was a complete joke! Three weeks of in class "training”: 2.5 weeks on construction basics and only 2 days on sales. Zero real sales training – no objection handling, no closing techniques, just repeating the same script over and over. After training is complete we are still forced to drive to the Stouffville office twice a week, every week for this extra “training.” For most people that’s over an hour each way. The entire thing could (and should) be done on Zoom. Same goes for the once-a-month “phone call party” – everyone dragged into the office just to call customers. Could easily be done from home. Management is the real problem. The manager, Jonas, has zero compassion. He doesn’t care if you waste 3 hours driving or spend $80 on gas just to repeat a script. His attitude is “my way or leave”. He refuses to listen to any suggestion. He acts like a stubborn child who must always be right. That’s exactly why people quit every single month. There is no leader to follow, no one you want to work hard for. The office is a mess! Office manager forgets to file documents. Assistant manager answers questions confidently even when he has no idea – then customers get promised things we can’t deliver. Pay mistakes happen constantly. They underpay you, mix up commissions, and sometimes you wait 2 months for money you already earned. Right now half the sales team is owed thousands of dollars in commission that’s 2–4 months late. You have to chase your own pay every single week or you won’t get it. Bottom line. If you’re considering this job because of the big income claims and “qualified leads” – don’t do it. It feels like a chaotic startup that never grew up. The leads are barely filtered, the training is useless, the forced commutes are pointless, pay is unreliable, and the manager treats employees like they’re disposable. Save your time, gas, and sanity. Look somewhere else.

I was with Groundworks Canada for almost a full calendar year. So take my review with whatever seriousness you deem respectful to that level of time spent… Groundworks Canada/America never took post training review seriously. After the initial 7-weeks of training was “complete” anytime I or others from their Canadian team had questions or were seeing struggle out in the field. We were either met with complete disregard for our points made on what we were seeing/encountering in/with customers homes. Or; we were made to run through “role-play” scenarios that did nothing to resolve the concerns on “what/when or why do I do when customer says/does this?”, Biggest gripe I have with the sales team was that Groundworks makes it very clear that their sales managers are “very good” and had records of selling 150k-200k per month (15k-20k commission on that btw) but whenever I or anyone else asked to shadow that person on a lead to see how they run it and hopefully see the team leader lead by example on ways to have success. We were instead met with a single lead where they follow us and give us verbal advice with zero application from themselves to backup their claim that it works… I’ve also had accounts where when going to work with other branches during busy periods to help with overflow of leads. Where my jobs sold somehow don’t close while I’m there due to some random admin problem or something that someone else from their office NEEDS to go back for that I’m not made aware of until after I’ve left the region and cannot return. Then when they go, they rebuild it on their CRM/account and swipe the full commission out from under me. (Had this happen four times to me losing about 8-10k in commission). Also be prepared for a ridiculous amount of calls that lead to nothing as their call centres don’t do any qualification with the interested customers prior to your arrival. Had many hours wasted driving to calls that were for pest control or mold which Groundworks Canada says they don’t do but still advertises for on keyword advertising… “Oh, why not bring this up to management at the next meeting?”. We did, we all did, but all we were ever met with was “oh if they have mold then that’s something we could fix by encapsulation” or “if there’s rodents that’s something we could fix by doing this/that” and “those aren’t bad leads, those were all opportunities that you failed to sell them on” like okay boss, let me go convince the customer who wants a $50 crawlspace door to replace the old one so rodents stop invading to buy a $15k-$20k encapsulation. And don’t think that these situations will be struck from your record. Groundworks flourishes on a “meritocracy” work-model and will send you less, and less leads as a result for your “failure”. Not that it happened to me but in recounting all of my time spent so hopefully people who see this company can get a true review of them prior to any investment with them. During my time with Groundworks, there was a huge error in pay from corporate that left over 10 CFI/Sales reps not being paid tens of thousands of dollars in commissions for an extended period of time and was not the first/only time that it had happened. Also so it’s understood why I “thumbs down’d” the CEO… Matthew, or Matt? I don’t know. You make everyone in your employment watch your interviews as if it’s supposed to leave some kind of inspiring spoils to riches impression. But when I saw you when visiting the Toronto branch I can’t say I was all too impressed. Mostly because you were only there to try and sell us on one of those “reinvest within the company and see xyz” schemes. Look I get the grind and the hustle, but when multiple people had serious questions that opened some eyes to what was going on and all you could do was degrade their concerns down to a joke? That was pretty scummy, and makes me understand why all of the previously mentioned things happen.