A 3 Ring Circus!!! - Anonymous employee Creative Apparel Concepts Employee Review

Absolute amateurs. ZERO leadership. The 3 brothers that own and run the company each have their own division, or "circus ring". They have no understanding of how to actually run a modern day business and they operate like a Mom and Pop shop emerging from a recession. Their resources, technology and sales presentations are outdated. Most of the staff is severely underpaid based on both industry and local standards. I was at the director level and was promised to have a strategic role and visibility to company growth goals and to be a voice for future planning and new initiatives. In the nearly 10 months I worked for them there was never a director/leadership level meeting nor a single total company meeting to inform the staff of the growth plans and or initiatives. I was thrown into my role and never given any training or on boarding plans. I was told to reach out to my predecessor who had left the company to better understand the position. During my time there I met my boss (one of the owners) once a month. He was constantly out of the office on sales calls and would never inform me of when he would be gone. The entire company was left in the dark, "the blind leading the blind". Due to the owners lack of leadership and passive aggressive behaviors, new projects were never properly kicked off and never communicated in person. Creative Apparel is consistently 8-12 weeks behind in their development calendar. The team is constantly rushed and therefore outputting sub par work for their retail accounts. Because of this there was constant swirl on priorities, expectations and deliverables. They imply a cookie cutter business model; 25m accounts are treated the EXACT same way as 10k accounts... seriously! They are always chasing the next carrot instead of taking to time upfront to plan and develop realistic growth strategies. I question how they are still in business.