Working at ReachLocal — Reviews by Employees

After reading some of the reviews about ReachLocal posted by former employees and unhappy clients, I feel compelled to share my thoughts. It seems review sites are always dominated by negativity, so I thought it would be useful to hear about the good stuff.

I’ve been an Internet Marketing Consultant (IMC) with ReachLocal for over 2 years and take great pride in the positive impact we have upon the businesses we support. As someone who grew up in a family owned and operated small business, one of the most rewarding parts of the job is helping local and regional businesses survive (and thrive!) in this economy by understanding the shift from print to digital advertising and making smart decisions.

Online marketing/advertising can be complicated and businesses can easily waste a lot of money if not done properly. My clients see me as a hard-working, trusted member of their team, and by educating them and getting to know their unique needs, we partner to build targeted, strategic online campaigns. I help them allocate their online ad budgets wisely and provide tons of free advice on topics like Google Map Listings, SEO and effective Facebook strategies. One of the best parts is that our technology & reporting allows clients to actually see results by listening to phone calls, viewing “Contact Us” forms submitted, and measuring return on investment at all times- pretty cool.

We are constantly striving to improve the ways we support our advertisers, manage campaigns and hire the best of the best. If I were a business trying to bring in new customers or a talented sales/marketing professional looking for a true career, I would for sure invest the time to check out ReachLocal.

Run, not walk, away. You'll regret it otherwise. The positive reviews are from management.

I have worked for ReachLocal for over 2 ½ years, and have just recently accepted a position for a major social networking site. My time at ReachLocal has been nothing short of fantastic, I have forged lasting professional relationships, and referred many friends and family to both utilize our services and work for ReachLocal. My decision to leave had nothing to do with any displeasure with the organization, management, or direction headed – to the contrary, there is likely no better time to be getting into the company. I happened to have an extraordinary opportunity arise with a different organization, one which would not have been afforded to me without ReachLocal.

If you are reading this, and are considering coming onboard (particularly in sales) here is the bottom line: It’s not easy, particularly the first few months/year, if someone told you otherwise – they lied. I think this goes for any new sales job, but the first few months you’re going to have to work your butt off. Even after you get up to speed, you’re going to have to work your butt off. This job is challenging, and exciting, and fun, and rewarding – if the only thing you got out of the above is that this job can be hard, this likely isn’t the place for you. If you enjoy being challenged, want to work for pioneering organization, have goals, are a team player, and enjoy making a great living – then this is the place for you. Does everyone make it in sales? No – but that’s okay, we all knew that when we got into this profession. The bitterness I’ve read on some of these websites blows my mind. The ReachLocal standards are clear from day one and are far from unreasonable. If you are motivated, unselfish, intelligent, ethical, and personable – you have nothing to worry about, you’re going to fit in and you’ll make it! If you demonstrate the above qualities you will be at ReachLocal for a long time, as an IMC or in another facet – from my own observations ReachLocal will do everything possible to keep an employee who demonstrates value even if the initial job they were brought in for isn’t the right fit.

I’ve seen some comments relating to poor campaign performance. There are three main reasons a campaign does not perform: 1. It was set up wrong 2. It was oversold and the expectations are too high 3. The wrong type of advertiser is sold (Yes, there are some businesses that don’t “perform” as well) – all of the above stem from Sales Person error. Again, if you’re ethical and willing to listen to your manager/peers your campaigns will perform exactly how they should.

The standards at ReachLocal are high, and they should be. We expect the best out of our campaigns, our products, our business practices, and our people. My advice to management, if any, would be to maintain that high expectation of our people. Working for ReachLocal is a privilege and while I feel I’ve been surrounded by the best and the brightest professionals, it’s clear from the surrounding reviews that we’ve made a few mistakes on that front. Coming to ReachLocal was by far the best professional decision I’ve made, and I would encourage anyone to make the move. If you’re entitled, shady, looking for an “easy” sales job to collect a check, unethical, stubborn, unintelligent, or selfish - don’t bother, you’re not wanted and will likely end up on this website four months from now complaining that ReachLocal embodies the above negative characteristics.

Just read the bad reviews and believe them. I worked there over a year, and everything they say is true.

***Unless you are unemployed, don't quit an existing job to work for RL, you will be sorry you did.

If you don't believe these reviews, go see what customers have to say.

Working at ReachLocal has definitely been a great work experience compared to other companies I have worked for in the past. ReachLocal invests a lot of time into finding the right people and train them to be successful. The interview process was a bit lengthy but I understand, they are looking for strong caliber people to be a part of the team to get the job done. Part of the interview process allowed me to be interviewed by many of my future team members who really knew what their roles were and how to pull together as a team. This really did sell me on the idea that I would be able to contribute and ask for help when needed.

Since joining the ReachLocal Marketing team I have worked on launching some exciting new products/services as well as developing marketing tools that promote our brand and support the sales team. I really enjoy the consultative approach that we bring to our customers. We work hard to make sure that the tips and guidance we give will only help our customers take control of their online presence. I like that its not always sales driven but creating great content that our IMCs can share with their customers. I really notice the great work ethic, overall company moral and vision that employees and the leaders of ReachLocal have throughout the organization. The leadership truly has a plan of where we are going and what ReachLocal can do to change the online world.

If I had one thing that I wish ReachLocal could do better is offer a 401K match program but overall a great company, great benefits and great vision.

If you don’t want to work hard and just collect a paycheck ReachLocal is not the place for you but if you do work hard, push yourself and have a team to back you up with a leadership that recognizes your efforts then ReachLocal is the place for you.

My personal experience of what I've seen proves a 40%+ churn rate of sales consultants after 1 year (that stat given to me by an insider when I was there). When you can barely keep 1 out of 2 employees around, that's got to say something about the company. The customer churn rate is also terrible (as most analysts know), which says something about what they're asking you to sell to your customers.

I admit that ReachLocal is an easy glass of Kool-Aid to drink. It all sounds good at first, but in the end they're training you to sell a service that doesn't work to unsuspecting small businesses. I did pretty well there, but it's hard to get up everyday and work for a company that doesn't respect its customers and constantly keeps you looking for new customers as old ones drop off.

The two reviews below me are pretty funny to me because apparently they are one of three things:

1. People who never got hired
2. People who didn't make the cut and were let go
3. You work at a pathetic "competitor" (which you may consider yourself a competitor but there really is no competition) company, trying to make ReachLocal look bad...

Whomever you are you aren't rating this accurately which just shows me your reviews should be null and void anyway because you put -5 for all the ratings ...umm, how can you say that it's a -5 for benefits when they pay for 100% of the medical benefits. Seriously, whatever your issue is build a bridge and get over it...MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE.

This is a great company which offers you a good competitve base salary, excellent benefits, and great potential - but it's not easy and it's not handed to you - if you work hard and are good at what you do, you'll love working here...if you think that you can sit on your butt and get paid 6 figures you are sadly wrong. It's sales...and you have a great product to sell, it all comes down to whether or not you should be in sales or not and if you can't why would ReachLocal keep paying you a nice base salary and full medical benefits when you aren't doing your job!!!

This is a strong integrity based company...from the first day of hire we are told not to just take anyones money, we need to be able to teach business owners about what we offer and IF we can help them then do so...if we can't then walk away. Another thing is that there isn't another internet company out there that offers what we can, the technology we have it flawless. We are encouraged to tell our clients that the way we make money is mark up...its a no brainer, we are handling your marketing account so the business owner doesn't have to; optimizing a few times daily, remarketing, tracking, putting keywords on trail constantly, ect. Again, obviously we need to make money for our time and technology to allow this to work so well. So if you're going to do internet marketing advertising do it with reachlocal....hands down.

Also for those fool saying the money's not there - HA yea, obviously its not there if YOUR NOT PRODUCING!!! My colleagues are the cream of the crop when it comes to sales. Infact when I was in training - I looked around and I couldn't believe how many people were in sales for 15+ years, leaving 100k books of business.

So, sorry to burst your "trashing RL" bubble but you are sadly mistaken...oh and one more thing, I'm an IMC and I have to say that management or recruiting could care less about writing positive reviews on here to make RL look good, they have tons of resumes for jobs at RL....after all we did just get recognized as the fastest growing technology company in american and the only other internet company besides RL to say that is google...do you want to start trashing google too?

Some facts for potential Reach Local hires to think about. First thing is the positive reviews you are reading on this site are from Reach Local managers, period. Second thing is you are dealing with a recruiting department that is very good at what they do. You need to pin them down on some key questions, questions I wish I asked before leaving 90k per year job to go work at Reach Local.

Out of 500 some IMCs ( this number can fluctuate because of their 85 % year to year turn over) what percent actually have books large enough to get 10% commission, which will lead to 80-100K per year ? (about 10%) and only 3% will make 150k per year which is a number recruiting will throw around like it is the norm.

What is Reach Local’s customer retention year to year? ( about 25 %) They will talk about “building a book of business” and “residual income “ but believe the other posts you have read about the ability to renew your customers, if they pay at all. There is a real leaky bucket syndrome at RL.

How much does RL mark up "clicks" ( 100% on average, local offices can see 100-300%) Please read RL's SEC filing...

Did Google change RL’s ability to mark up clicks off of Google? Word on the street is yes. Google has a dominant 70% of all search engine traffic. Reach Local will be in a world of hurt if Google forces them to take "agency" mark ups of 15-25%.

Do your home work potential RL hires, just Google “Reach Local” and start reading. Where there is smoke there is fire, and you will see a lot of smoke…

Reach Local is the worst company to work for.
6 % of the monthly spend is a joke. $ 5,000 quota !
these manager never worked in a sales environment that they had to sell 5k per month!
i turned them down when i figured out the comp plan. Stay away from this dump
NYC Office has the highest turn-over. The director * Moron. interviews you via phone
they want you to "role play. ha.. sad losers here...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that every bad review on here is from someone who couldn't cut it in sales at RL...and fair enough, because its definitely not for everyone. Its certainly a hard job and you have to work a lot of hours (especially the first year) in order to succeed. But if you get your book of business over 50K then you are making a six figure income, and theres probably 100-150 iMCs here who have a book greater than 50K. Prepare to work your butt off, but understand you are selling ridiculous technology and top of the line products from one of the fastest growing companies in America, in an industry where people are spending insane amounts of money.