Upon being hired, I was promised wealth beyond my wildest dreams. It wouldn't take me long -- a few months at most. Provided, of course, that I put in the legwork. I was very confident that I could put in that legwork. I had made volume cold calls before, with success. But if you pour refuse in at the top of the funnel, refuse comes out of the bottom of the funnel. You can't turn copper (horrific leads) into gold (closed deals) no matter how experienced you are as an alchemist (salesman). Our leads were atrocious: self-storage units, funeral homes, airports, city offices, staffing agencies, RV parks (RV Parks!), architectural design firms, wineries, private home lines, heaps of disconnected numbers, and in one hilarious case, a kindergartner. Basically, any and every kind of place that would never ship anything! Of the 200 leads I called in a day, on average, 50 picked up, 5 were qualified, and 0 were potentially interested at all. You'd have to zoom out that picture to find one interested person -- think the 1000 dials you make in a week. And then that one person would be denied, on account of rules of engagement with the outside reps -- who, by the way, were free to poach any deals or interest we dredged up, without consequence. Worldwide Express was long on promises -- and short on delivering them. We were continually promised that the leads would soon improve, that managers were working on it. Whatever work they did, never showed up in a our lead funnels. We were left spinning our wheels with the same old bad leads. We were told that the office would soon become more fun, more "game-ified", then lambasted for playing, variously, corn-hole (referred to in a team training meeting as "freaking corn-hole" -- I believe the exact quote was, "do you want to close deals, or play freaking corn-hole?") Legend of Zelda, and Mario Kart. For the record, I never saw a Nintendo system on the floor. Regardless, it's hard to pick up a ping-pong paddle and "let off some steam" as the break room walls encouraged, when you know management is deriding you for it behind closed doors. Speaking of management, the management in this office needs work. They spread incorrect information about COVID-19, claiming it was the flu. I think we can all agree it is not the flu. They were prone to outbursts of anger and frustration. They wasted company time instructing us on "Mamba Mentality" -- not sure how that helps you sell anything. They maintained that taking the training book home each night would be the advantage needed for success. Right. By the end of my tenure, I took everything they said with a cup of salt. We were told that certain metrics (talk time with clients) were supremely important, then told in the next meeting that, to be honest, they weren't an indicator of success at all, only closing deals is, so don't get too happy if you achieve them -- but here's a Visa gift card if you do. Can you say mixed messaging? We were told to focus, to put away the distractions, then forced to make calls while Metallica, Drake, and AC/DC blared from the overhead speakers. Thanks for helping us focus. We were assured that we didn't need to be micromanaged, that management trusted us -- then told that if we clocked in early, and our activity wasn't shown in clear, track-able metrics, that we were going to be grilled on what we were doing. Managers would literally look over our shoulders and excoriate us if we were even glancing at something not work-related -- even a news article. Can you say micromanaging? Just to confirm -- hardcore rap blaring over the speakers, fine. Glancing at news articles while making hundreds of cold calls: forbidden. The "culture" was a joke. Some people left the company because of the amount of unchallenged misogynistic comments flying around the office -- I couldn't blame them. Sexual activity, homosexual sex, masturbation, picking up prostitutes, all were occasional topics of discussion and/or derision. Not to mention misogynistic songs: "really love your peaches/wanna shake your tree" "welcome to the jungle/I wanna watch you bleed" playing over the speakers. Not very appropriate for the workplace. There's a lack of set and proven processes, a lack of vision for the future, a lack of clear messaging from the top down, and a lack of leadership. Ultimately, I left because I couldn't see myself succeeding. There was a massive layoff of salespeople, without warning, soon after I left. Good luck.
