Not Always Sunny in San Diego - Sales Salem Media Group Employee Review

1.0
6 Jul 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Recognize that digital is the future Really nice office

Cons

This office is a cross between Office Space and Andy Griffith. There is a version of Lundberg who says their management style is known as managing by walking around. That means they come by your cubicle multiple times during the day to ask "what's happening?" Micro....micromanagement I accepted the sales job even though the salary offered was just $8 more than minimum wage in hopes of earning decent commissions sooner than expectations as I had in the past. All of my onboarding was done on Zoom because the Business Manager lived in a different state and I never heard from them again during my tenure. My sales training consisted of watching countless training videos and then meeting with one of my three managers to recap if/when they had time. Unfortunately, I was provided with a refurbished laptop and it had problems from day one. Our in-house I.T./engineer would only come in a couple days each week so any fix would take much longer than expected because ultimately he would just have me call the corporate I.T. number for help. As a seller, I was asked to make phone calls to get appointments any time I wasn't watching videos--or when my laptop was down, but barely knew the products. They just told me to call local companies and tell them we can get them more customers and then I would bring one of my managers with me to close them. The goal I was given in my third week was to conduct 10 CNAs per week and those were tracked with a CRM that management was constantly looking at throughout the day. I could barely get to one CNA per day which was not considered successful. To help everyone see my shortcomings, they would publish every seller's billing on a weekly basis so you would know how you stacked up...or didn't stack up. I quickly realized that we were just reselling digital tactics from third party vendors--at higher costs which seemed to bring a lot of churn because the campaigns would not deliver as promised due to all of the "management fees." When a client said they wanted to cancel, the solution was always to offer them a bunch of free radio commercials to pacify them. However, when one client in particular told their salesperson they were not happy with their campaign results, they were told to bring them a cherry pie and Coca-Cola! When I tried to voice a concern, it was often met with the office catchphrase "it doesn't matter what you think." I had hoped for a long and prosperous sales career with Salem, but ultimately I think they were looking for an appointment setter willing to cold call for 8-9 hours a day. Could be a good fit for the right person who thrives on high pressure, but I never felt like a member of the team.

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Salem Media Group Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. We are sorry to hear that your outlook on Salem Media Group is other than positive. We value what you have to say as it allows us to see how we can improve for the future. We take pride in our company and have always strived to be a great place to work. We would like to hear more from you, please contact us at hr@salemmedia.com or 805-233-3129.

Explore other reviews about Salem Media Group

5.0
28 Dec 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Solid leadership Forward thinking Faith driven

Cons

Stations are run with lean staffing in some locations

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Salem Media Group Response
5mo
Thank you for sharing your experience and kind words about our leadership and mission. We appreciate your honest feedback about staffing and are always working to balance resources to best serve our teams and audiences. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors!
2.0
31 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great supportive local environment, people called to work there to support the mission.

Cons

Corporate digital leadership is disjointed and systems are chaotic. Actual delivered campaigns are inevitably flawed and mis managed. Retaliatory, narcisstic, abusive corporate digital leadership. Constant systems changes and zero assistance in navigating. More and more digital agency and other jobs outsourced to Asia. Salespeople are exhausted and burned out by programs failing. Zero accountability taken by Ad Ops team for mistakes or extrene lag time in responses from internal automated systems. Salary cuts to 'help the company' plays on the mission minded employees, taking advantage of employees good intentions by underpaying them compared to industry. No 401K match.

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