Pros
IQPC is an excellent learning tool when furthering (or just starting out) your career in sales/ Business Development. It’s a job that if you pushed hard enough, could turn into a career if you went the distance, and being on site at the Exchanges is fantastic. Really nice resorts where you can see how high-level the executives we bring out are. You can tell how much better quality IQPC’s Exchange format is than other business development events. The people you work with on the sales side are awesome, and even though there’s competition amongst co-workers, everyone’s always willing to lend a helping hand. The training just starting out was superb, and it’s a very good launch pad to begin one’s career in Business Development. When you’re selling on an event (either sponsor or DA side) you have to immerse yourself in an industry for about 4 months, so by the time you’re done with that event you know a ton about that particular industry. It’s an excellent way to broaden your horizons to see what the ins and outs of other industries are.
Cons
As many positives as there are about this job, there are more cons about the job. It’s such a high turnover rate that it completely brings down the culture. No one wants to hangout outside of work because they figure “well, I don’t know how long this person is going to be here so I should just be friends with them here” The internet and technology sales executives use are laughable, the internet crashes constantly (as do the phones simultaneously). Some people have fast PC’s, some have slow ones, some have square monitors, some have decent long ones. There is very little communication across departments and it creates tension. THE CRM SYSTEM SUCKKSSS. Everything that IQPC has in place seems to be the cheapest version of whatever sales tool there is out there. I know sales is sales, but this job takes unnecessary steps to cut cost which makes reps’ lives harder, which makes people unhappy, which creates the turnover, which costs more money to IQPC than if they were to just invest in their technology/ keeping people happy. For sales reps, marketing is virtually non-existent. So good luck getting relief with inbound leads to offset your outbound work. Also, the events we put on, as high quality as they are, they’re unknown. So Solution providers and delegates are more keen to go to the better known bustling trade show than our higher level exchanges. This job takes a toll on your mental health, honestly. There are so many common sense things this company fails to execute it’s unreal. There are no cool perks on-site at your event , you get a per diem that’s laughable. You end up spending way more then you’re allotted. The market is SATURATED. Sponsors and delegates have a ton of events to pick and choose from, which make our jobs so much harder when we don’t enough marketing money behind gaining momentum for our Exchange events.