I am a former employee of GSM, luckily I didn't give them too much of my time before quit. I purposely didn't read the consumer complaintss about them while I was in training for an analyst position because I wanted to give them a fair chance.
After the training, which was a week and a half of long hours being indoctrinated (brainwashed) with their materials, we weren't even allowed to return home before we were put out on an assignment. People were there from all over the country and had to travel with two week's worth of baggage because they said it was important that we got "right out on the job".
In reality, there was no reason to be treated that way other than to at least get us on one job before we quit; and as is their tactic with clients, not give anyone think to evaluate and think!
I stayed with the company for a few weeks and never did get a "go ahead"; however, I refused to "hound" people until they signed up for something that was obviously not in their best interest; and in EVERY case, the sales person had mis-represented what the analysis was going to cover and what it was going to lead to.in hindsite, I am SO glad that the 2 or 3 clients that almost took the service did not take it. I don't think I could have lived with myself.
The first and major problem is that the clients are lied to by the sales people. If the clients were told the truth up front, probably 90% of them would never let the "analyst" in the door. None of them know that the real "solution" will cost them THOUSANDS of dollars, and that they will be required to make the decision to spend this money in ONE DAY!
No one in their right mind makes a decision to spend thousands of dollars without "sleeping on it"—but that is GSM's strategy exactly—don't let them have time to think about it—AND make them think they're doing a dis-service to their business and their family by not taking immediate action.
As an analyst, we are not allowed to have further contact with the clients, so we never know if what we sold for thousands of dollars happened or not, but in most cases, it does not happen. Sure, they have a booklet that advertises 10-12 happy clients, but what happened to the other thousands of clients that they say they serve each year.
Also, they don't tell you that they MAKE a client sign a paper that they were happy with the service before the consultant will leave. So to get them out the door and stop the meter from running, you HAVE to sign the paper.
This company is horrible to work for. You are treated like scum—yelled at, belittled, told to stay on an assignment when you know that it is not going to be a go. You are told to make yourself a pest until they sign up just to get rid of you. They want you to stay when the analysis is obviously over for any number of reasons—they even want you to track people down who are decision makers if they are out of town and the sales person didn't tell them they had to be there!
They tell you in the beginning that it is NOT a sales job; but, believe me, this is the most high pressuring sales job you could ever have—and anyone who has ever been successful at this job has been very good at high pressure sales, with the ability to do the psychological twist of actually making the client "ask" for help, i.E., that's how they call it NOT a sales job, because you have to get the client to ask you for help before you can "recommend" their company for the services.
However, it is even worse for the poor companies that are scammed into taking the service. At least when you work for them, you are only out your time for training and the time you spend trying to sell the service until you realize what it really is, come to your senses, and quit. The poor businesses who buy the service are out thousands of dollars for little more than a few excel spreadsheets and the embarrassment of having been scammed.
Obviously, the main reason people apply for and go to work for GSM is because they promise the ability to make lots of money. Well, if you can get them to tell you their annual sales, (which they won't, but you can make an educated guess when you read their materials and go thru the training), use the number of consultants they say they have, and do the math—people are not making huge sums of money. I suspect the only ones making the money are the few people who are actually running the company, which really isn't very big when you actually look at the place and consider the people they have training and acting as SENEX's.
I could go on & on, but I won't. Please just BEWARE!
AmyBeaumont, Texas
U.S.A.
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