Drinking your own cool-aid. - Sales School Improvement Network Employee Review

1.0
21 Jan 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You would be hard pressed to find a better industry to sell into. Educators are some of the kindest and most passionate people in the world. Working with them makes you feel like you are doing something important.

Cons

Starting at the top... This is a family owned business. Individually, the owners are some of the greatest people you will ever meet. In a business setting, they truly believe that they are visionary and inspired. The truth is they digitized educational DVD's, put them on the internet, and sold them as a subscription. How visionary is that, really? It is more obvious that inspired. Every product they have made since then has either been a complete flop or has estranged their relationships with former partners. And yes, family owned businesses keep the wrong under qualified people in the wrong positions. The two most polarizing departments in this company are tech and sales. SINET refers to themselves as a "tech" company, yet it does not want to pay for top tech talent and even tries to outsource to the Philippines. The net/net of their technology is that it is horrible. Never once has a customer logged in without facing some type of bug. The sales team benefitted from hiring talented people who had been effected by the economy. However, sales management consists of incredible micro-management, over 50% travel, incredibly long sales trainings with messages that could have been trimmed down to half an hour, emotional (literally crying) sales leadership, bullying sales leadership, and an overall feeling of a lack of trust felt from sales leadership. Essentially it is a perfect example of how not to manage. Unexplainably, the C level execs still back them up despite being told multiple times of how toxic the sales environment is.

Explore other reviews about School Improvement Network

5.0
28 Sept 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture great benefits location good

Cons

Owner can’t make decisions salary low level management

4.0
6 Jun 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This is a company that in the last couple years has really tried to set the standard in the industry. It has a very cultured environment that when taken to heart has really created a deep rooted desire to succeed. There have been some recent improvements in the hierarchy of the company that has began to push the leadership to a much more valued resource. I've noticed employee feed back its making it above the previous barrier that seemed to be shielding the executive team from truths that were taking place. Watching the growth that its taking place has been encouraging.

Cons

When a small company makes the big company jump there are bound to be growing pains. The communication is the single most impact at this point, there's a feel that departments are working against each other rather than with each other. The internal coaching really needs to be addressed. Internal conversations are often looked at as gossip rather than collaboration, which has led to a stigma that if your caught talking to anyone your labeled as a cancer. This makes it very hard to feel like you can go to upper management with concerns or to ask for help.

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