Mismanaged Mess - Anonymous employee Elephant Journal Employee Review

I’m going to go ahead and be the 'odd-review-out' and say that I loved my 3 years of working for Elephant Journal. Amazing Partnership Development team: I’ve been in media sales for over 10 years. I’ve never worked for a sales team so supportive of one another. Transfer of leads/accounts is as easy as asking for it. When one salesperson makes a sale, the entire team celebrates with them. For a remote job, I have created strong friendships that I feel will not fade after moving on. Shanon is an amazing leader. She’s a bad-ass sales person, and has taught me a lot about sales, prospecting, and adding personality to the sales process. I came from an organization where I was taught the 5-step sales process, which I’ve since learned to be very automated and rigid. Shanon taught me to add a personal spin to sales, which will be valuable to me as I move on in my career. Shanon is also wonderful at detecting burn-out/fatigue and always insisted I take a day off to regroup when needed. To have a sales manager act proactively to insure you’re getting the time off you need is rare and appreciated. Flexibility/Understanding: I worked for Elephant Journal during the pandemic when my 11 y.o. son was at home remote schooling. EJ was fair, understood my situation, and worked with me to create balance between being a full time employee and a full time mama. I have many mom-friends who were not this lucky, and I will always appreciate Elephant’s willingness to work with and support me during this time. Before the pandemic, this job allowed me time to drop off/pick up my son from school and volunteer a couple times a week while he was in elementary school. I am so grateful for the invaluable time they granted me to spend with my son. Commission: The commission structure is great. More than I was receiving at my prior employer (a highly ranked, national media company). Partners/Clients: Cold calling for Elephant Journal is a dream because those who have heard of Elephant Journal, love Elephant Journal. A direct quote from a prospecting email: “Wonderful to hear from you! I love Elephant Journal and agree that we would be a great fit.” This is a response I was used to receiving during my time at EJ. I’ve had so many wonderful calls with mission-driven companies around the world. It feels great working with partners who are doing good, not just those in it to make money. They are also kind. Working for large corporations and agencies in the past, I was used to pushback, refunds, and angry clients. I did not experience this at EJ, which was very refreshing. I’ve been on many calls where someone tells me that Elephant Journal helped them through a rough patch in life. Selling for a company that does good, feels good.

Finding the right, long-term client is tricky. As a sales person, you have to be willing to dig deep for a client who is a good fit for Elephant, but has the budget to spend long-term. You have to build your own book of business, and starting at zero can be hard. That said, once you find the right fit, you’re in a really great spot. It’s a hard job, but rewarding. As with any remote job, I had a hard time turning it off. I always was "this close" to closing a deal, which made me push myself more than I probably should have. Also, because of my connection to the staff/company, I always felt like I could and should be doing more. That said, as I noted above, management noticed when this was happening and addressed it. Ultimately, I left Elephant Journal for a local opportunity where I will work with local clients close to home. I missed feeling connected to my community, and having face-to-face interaction with my advertising partners. It was not an easy decision.

The other employees truly kept me sane enough to make it through each day.

1. You never know what person you're going to get when Waylon walks in the door, he's erratic, rude, ignorant, arrogant, and honestly doesn't care about anyone else's opinion. He'll yell at you to be quiet or you have to leave and then he'll spend 20 minutes bouncing a tennis ball against the wall talking to whoever will listen to him about some self-fulfilling topic. 2. He is VERY partial to hiring young, beautiful women who he works with at the Boulder office. It gives off the most disgusting vibe and none of us ever wanted to be alone with him when he would often cross the professional boundaries of wanting to hang out after work or even during work at his house or a coffee shop. 3. For a company that aims to promote mindfulness and help people understand the roots of their pain and suffering, the material published often was almost like a psychological crutch to allow people to be victims of their own issues – and by that I mean the pieces that glorified being an empath trapped by a narcissist. Could this really happen? Yes. Does Elephant have the clout or licensing to give real advice on an actually very dangerous and toxic topic? Hell no. 4. No matter how hard we worked, it was never enough. All the employees were rated and pitted against each other every week. We were never trusted or given any sense of pride in our job. I don't think there was a single day I didn't cry or have a panic attack for fear of having to deal with a wild Waylon. 5. The salary, or lack thereof, was not even enough to live on in someone's basement. And we had no insurance or additional benefits. No PTO or sick days, either. 6. Waylon will also happily write libel to destroy anyone who calls him out for valid reasons, while additionally creating clickbait on his Facebook pages (posting old articles, giving them new titles and images) just to increase website traffic and revenue. And let's also not be remiss in mentioning that he loves to take Buzzfeed articles, write one sentence above them, make a clickbait title, and then profit off of someone else's journalism and work. I would not wish this job on my worst enemy. Waylon is a fraud and a creep. He is a walking hypocritical mess who spews perverted teachings of Buddhism and kindness. If you want to support independent writers, by all means, please do. And last but not least, you should know Elephant only pays the top small percentage of theirs, and even then, it's hardly enough to be worth the expectations. I cannot express enough how horrible of an experience and a company Elephant is, and I would strongly encourage anyone thinking of an editorial or social media-focused career to look elsewhere.