I'm writing this because I want to expose the truth about companies such as BMK Marketing, and other direct marketing firms that try to trick young college graduates into working for them. You can easily recognize them in job searches. They want engergetic, sports oriented, team workers. They offer an entry level position and claim to promote from within. Please beware before you get hired by one of these companies and regret that you wasted any portion of your life working for them. I used to work at BMK Marketing in White Plains, NY a few years ago. I stayed for 6 months. I'm going to tell all I can and hope that Brandon (The owner/manager - he calls himself the president) won't try to threaten to sue me for slander like he did a former coworker of mine when she quit.
First off, when you call to speak to the contact person that they give, that person does NOT really work there. It is a made up person used to determine which job search you used to find the company. When you call, they will tell you that that person is busy, or in a meeting, and ask if they can help you instead. They will then immediately set you up for an interview. Most likely it will be for the very next day. For your first interview you will go meet with the manager (Brandon) and he will set you up with a second round interview. Most likely for the very next day. The second interview, you have to go business to business with a person who already works for the company and see what they do. They make it seem so wonderful that they will earn at least $100 while they are with you that day. They make you think it's so easy, and you being the brand new college grad who just needs a job, will seem very excited by this. After the day is up, you go back to the office to see if they want to hire you or not. They try to impulse you into taking the job by saying that the manager really isn't looking to hire any new people, but since you did so well walking around with them all day, they put in a really good word for you. You then meet with the manager and discuss some things and he tells you that he will hire you, but only if you can start immediately.
You start working there and soon you find out that you will NOT get paid for at least 6 weeks of your start date. They make it sound all good by telling you no matter what job you have, they will hold your first check for at least 2-4 weeks, and that working at BMK is a better opportunity anyway. They make it seem like by the end of the 6 weeks, you will get a huge check with all your commissions. Not so. I didn't get my first actual pay check for 3 months, and it was only $500!! We went on a "business trip" to another city and none of it was paid for by Brandon. We had to come out of our pocket with money we didn't even have. Since one girl complained that she wasn't going on this trip unless she had money because she was so broke, Brandon decided to give whoever needed it about $250, which would be deducted when we finally do get our first pay checks.
Please do not believe them when they tell you the turnover rate is not high. It is EXTREMELY HIGH! People are gone before you even get to know their names. When I got there, everyone was there for an average of 6 months. How can that be for a company that has been in existence for a few years at that time? I was so brainwashed by these people that I can not believe I stayed as long as I did. Any negative you have, they flip it to make it sound like working for BMK is the best. My family kept telling me to get out of it from when I first started, but I was spitting back at them all the things that BMK told and promised me. Finally everyone was getting fed up. We were barely getting paid. Even my "leader" quit. $250 every two weeks is nothing to live off of. People were dropping like flies. I finally decided to leave as well, and shortly after that, the majority of the White Plains office quit as well. I believe they had to bring people back from TMP Marketing which is Brandon's spin off company in PA, in order to rebuild the White Plains office.
They tell you all these promises that if you work hard, you too can own your own company and build it from the ground up like Brandon did. They tell you that the hard work "in the field" will pay off. What they don't tell you is that you won't get paid, and it might take you years to even get out of the field. It took Terese (who opened TMP in PA) 2 years to get out of the field, and I believe Ann Marie is still there. This should be her 4th year there and she still doesn't have her own office.
"Someone" I won't mention her name, had to even take out a loan to continue working at BMK because we didn't get paid.
When it was time to do our taxes, I had to pay $700 to the IRS because BMK never took out any taxes out of our checks. They tell you you can write off everything, but you can't write off the social security that they never took out of the check. We had to pay for our own gas going out into the field, and yes, we did walk around in some pretty nasty neighborhoods. Calling it a ghetto is making it seem like Paridise. We worked 60 hour work weeks. We would get home at about 8 and have to wake up at 5 just to be in "atmosphere" by 7am. If you divide the worked hours by $250 every two weeks, you can see how much we really made.
If you want to spend more money working, than you are earning, than this is the job for you. If you want to work from 7-7 Mon - Friday, then please call BMK Marketing. If you want to owe the IRS hundreds of dollars, call BMK. If you want to walk around business to business in the rain, snow, and extrememe heat of the summer, please apply. If you want to get cursed at by business owners, barely have any free time to do anything, want to spend all your gas and not have it expensed, then feel free to call BMK. To all those that don't, you are better off working at McDonald's for minimum wage. You would be rich compared to a person who works at BMK Marketing. Please do not join this cult.
Also, they make respond saying that no one by the name of Jane has worked there, but I didn't use my real name. This is because I don't want Brandon Kaiser (BMK) trying to call me and threaten me, or scream over the phone at me like he did days after I quit.
Jane
NY, New York
U.S.A.
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