I have worked with Becky Biske in the past.  Our company article in early 2014 turned out great as promised and we received several copies of the magazine to show to business partners and family.  This is not a scam.

I received a call from Profile Magazine regarding an advertisement opportunity.  This is a legit company and produce a very high quality publication.  

I would advertise with Profile Magazine again.  

American Builders - Becky Biske - (312) 878-9411

Asking to write an article for company. Same thing as all the other replies, and just a single digit off of another scam number posted.

Rep from Strategize called wanting to write an article.  She was very vauge in all her responses to me about why they "selected" us to write about.  She conducted an interview but I found it curious that her main focus was on what projects we had going on and how we maintained good relations with our vendors.  Strange that for a Magazine that is named Strategize that she placed such little emphasis on any real business issues. She then told me she had to report back to her editorial staff and would get back to me with follow up questions.

After the initial interview and a couple of days later I received a call with the good news that her "editorial staff" had determined that they indeed would like to write a story about us!  At first I felt somewhat honored...but then I received an email indicating that I was to provide up to 40 referrals of our business partners for their possible "support" of our article.   Though it was stressed in the email that the magazine's  "reaching out" to our vendors would only be on a "strict invitational" basis, this was big red flag that Strategize has business "strategy" that I want no part of.    So this morning I sent an email declining participation and posted this.

Strategize is apparently owned by Avenir that also publishes DDC and Affordable Housing News.

It may very well be that Strategize provides quality publications and that their approach to writing articles and working the subject matter organziation for referrals is a standard business practice.  It just isn't something I care to particpate in.

Profile Magazine is still at it. 312-447-2374 and the name of the profiler-Grace.
They called repeatedly, hounding our front office with requests to speak with/feature our CEO. One Google search for reviews on this company confirmed my suspicion that this was a scam.

I used to work for a company like WDM, too. It is a scam.
No one reads it. It's not journalism.
It's a disgrace.

It is a total and complete scam.  I too worked for WDM, Those unique views and the traffic you so eloquently boast comes from the employees that work there driving those numbers.  The articles are poorly written in English, Spanish and Portuguese.  No one in the industry is reading those digital magazines and those digital prints do not have any recognition like Forbes, Time or even Newsweek which is on the down slide these days. You should take that higher education of yours and find more suitable and rewarding work.

I'd like to add, to anyone who thinks Business Week is a trade journal, you're in outer space. That is a news magazine with a corporate business focus, but it also contains features on economic issues and fiscal policy. And, yes they charge for subscriptions and for advertising. how much do you think a 1/4 page costs in BW?

Received a call from this number from Preston Lange at Advantage Magazine. I went through the interview phase and was called back several days later wanting to move forward with the story. I then provided a list of my subs and moved forward. Afterwards, I went through the actual interview with one of their writers, several of my subs placed ads in the same section of my article. This company is legitimate and has several different trade magazines all over the united states. They also have websites and digital versions of the publications online. There are several different companies who do the same exact thing for other publications/trades. I believe this business model is reffered to as "advertorial".

Erv called from 312.447.2363 and said he was with Profile magazine. He said we didn't need to buy any ads, but when he said that he would ask 6 to 7 questions and then turn the info over to a writer, the word "hack" flashed in my mind. Reading this stream confirmed my thinking.

This is the same sort of thing as TWO publishing companies who used to sell City books and feature the prominent businesses - well the ones they could get to pay -$3500 - $8000 for a nice write up with good photos. A third of the book was about the city and two thirds PAID FOR features. These coffee table books cost about $8 to produce. Distribution was via the chamber, 25 copies to the featured businesses to give out as corporate gifts, ONE to a handful of hotels, etc. the rest were SOLD via the company website at around $40. The gist here is the promised distribution of 25,000 copies was a scam. In actuality 25,000 books were never printed. Both of these companies went under.

You guys all know that these are TRADE publications and are only sent to those people who SUBSCRIBE...you cannot just pick them up at a drug store. I have freelanced for this company for years until recently and the check always came in the mail and cleared the bank for my work and a magazine was sent to me, which is VERY high-quality paper, photography, design. It is not a scam and 5-6 thousand for a full page ad is a STEAL. At the magazine I work for full-time that rate would be more like 8-10.  I have also met the editorial team at the magazines and it's a legit business. The digital versions you see online are also printed and sent to 75k subscribers.

Let us know how much money they put into the production of the magazines. I'd love to know how many are actually printed and shipped out - I know from working there that the numbers are drastically exaggerated. And no, you will probably not get paid.

We keep getting a call from the same number, same guy aasking for the same person. He hangs up as soon as I tell him the person he is asking for is not it.  How rude.  Next time he calls he will be told not to call again.

Tammi,

You seem to be trying to help, but I'm concerned that you call yourself a PR/Marketing person, yet you don't mention that the actual PR value of an article read by no one is in fact, nothing. Who are your clients, because I would like to inform them that their "marketing/PR" consultant is worthless. You seriously list out pros to this? You are obviously someone who has never actually done media relations. Get a clue.

This may not be a scam in the 'Nigerian Prince' sense, but it's a journalistic scam. They write a puff piece about you, ask for contacts to solicit, publish an article that NO ONE READS BECAUSE NO ONE SUBSCRIBES, and continue scamming. Let me reiterate; PR value is born out of readership. The "media kit" on their site provides none of the information required to actually gauge PR value e.g. circulation, readership segmentation, geographic information, industry details, NOTHING. Before you ever do something like this, go consult and ACTUAL public relations professional for their advice. If they're worth anything, they'll spot this as a scam in 5 minutes and tell you to stay away.

My clients and co-workers are hounded by Profile Magazine weekly. Profile is good at their job too; they've done profiles of some big company's and that shows that anyone can be scammed if they're not thinking straight. But this is a worthless endeavor, pure and simple. There's no PR value here. There's no value at all unless you're looking for someone to create an article for you to share with potential customers. And if that's the case, there are MANY reputable, content creation and design firms that will do this for you and not bother your vendors.

Seriously people. Get a clue.

To what extent is this all true? I have received an offer for an accounting analyst internship position this summer working for Guerrero Howe. I would be working with other financial analysts and accounting team doing various accounting and bookkeeping tasks. How likely is this going to be a waste of my time and as an intern will I be paid? Any information will be helpful from past knowledge of interns working at Guerrero Howe.

Allow me to weigh in on this situation as I am a former employee of the company, and I must say embarrassed that I wasted my time there.

In regards to Robert G's comments about WDM "growing by leaps and bounds", that's a bit much.  They are a company profile magazine, always have been, thats how they make their money.  And they hire young employees cause who else is going to do this s*** for 27,000 a year.  The fact that you mentioned that shows you're probably living in your parents basement.  WDM only pays their top 5 or 6 Guys good money, the rest, the editors, designers, assistants are making s****y money.  

If you mean its "growing leaps and bounds" as far as Business Friend, everyone knows that will never work which is why its still in its beta testing phase....Business Friend was a dog from the start and no one had the balls to say to President Glen White that they idea is 10 years old.  Over 100K to develop this dud and its nothing we haven't already seen from LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook....Glen isn't a visionary by any means, his digial magazine business was a success because he got into it at the right time, its pretty simple when you look at it.  And he thought he could do the same with BusinessFriend and it tanked from the beginning.  

Mr. Sandbergs post is 100% accurate!...they don't have any real numbers as far as who looks at their website.  All WDM does is have a bunch of young 20 year old "Research Directors", who call companies and sell this "Digital Footprint", which is a simple 8-10 page digital brochure...thats all it is....they try to make it bigger than it is by using buzz words that they read off a 5 year old script.  They record email address, they send them to headquarters, and they collect data.  Then they email each of the s****y magazines to all the email addresses when the new issue comes out...it doesn't mean that they are reading it however....there isn't any audited traffic stats...period.  I hear they hire young employees to create fake facebook profiles and they have them sit around a table and email eachother so it looks like theres actual people commenting on the posts.

As far as the people that work there, they really don't want to be there, its just a job to them....noone will every say with any honesty that they like working at WDM, they do because they have responsibilities, not because its a great place to work.   I had to work there at the time as I need to work somewhere while I was expecting another job to come in but the place is a joke. From what I remember, they have a large turn-over because 1) they hire 20 year old kids 2) they don't train you, they just give you a 3 day little session and throw you on the phones 3) they slave drive you to make 100 calls a day.  

WDM is a joke...they try to be a credible company, but the truth is they are modern day slave drivers who bring in young, naive employees and try to get them to bring in lists so they sales team can sell on them.  They hire naive people to try to take advantage of naive executives, and then sell over priced advertising to naive suppliers.  

F*** em!

I used to work with wdm... as a "list generator".
Basically they taught me how to lie and con my way into getting a feature companys suppliers list by offering a free feature in return.

The suppliers list is then passed to thr sales team whho contact the individual suppliers and tell them how the feature company has invited them; thus making them feel obliged to take advertisement.

It would not be so bad if the magz actually had readers but they dont.

Just ask them if their reading figures are audited.
Then ask why not.
The truth is that they have no readers..its a cleaver business model but one that wont last forever.

The publication has no circulation, so how is that an "opportunity"? Plus, your business partners on the project may not appreciate being pressured to place an ad in a no-name publication. That shows a lack of respect for their time.

Will you be paying back the $8000 to the unhappy customer then ?

Jimbo just about nailed it on the head.  As an ex-employee of GH, I also have experiences that are very minimal in helping advance myself through a career field in business.  I know very little about Chris Howe, but Antonio/"Pedro" is not the type of human being I would EVER aspire to be.  He WILL at somepoint blow his lid on everyone because sales numbers are low in (what I believe is) a dieing business model.  This model may work okay for other companies, but I would assume they have a technique that works, real stats, and proof to back those stats up on readership etc..  I did learn that while the readership (when I was working there) was at "40,000" this number being portrayed as the readership for EACH individual publication.  In reality the number was closer to 10,000, and was skewed by the ASSUMPTION that 4 people read each publication for every 1 subscriber.  Some advice for anyone looking to gain any sort of experience with business, take it as the most basic cold-calling sale experience. Get in. Get out. DO NOT GIVE A 2 WEEKS NOTICE either. You will be fired on the spot.  Having my best month in sales, I took another position and wanted to give a formal notice, work hard because I have integrity, and leave on a good note.  Instead I'm writing this response because Antonio "Pedro" Guerrero has absolutely zero integrity.  I do hope these posts are informative and helpful to all those considering ANYTHING to do with Guerrero Howe, editorial, sales, or being featured.  I'd look into a more reputable publication, though I have no idea on where to start.

*** As a side note, I'm not trying to bash the look of the publication or the business model.  Many people think this is a scam.  If done correctly, the companies should and WILL know what they're getting themselves into, as is done by Jeff Powell.  The publications are put together very well Aesthetically, which is achieved by a great design staff.***

Advantage Magazine is basically a scam. They just want to pump you and your vendor list for advertisements. They will promise you a spot in their issue no matter what, but when push comes to shove they will only write the article if you buy an advertisement.

I wouldn't waste my time with them if I were you.

I wish there was a way for me to get this out there more, but the scam is definitely there and with:
Architecture Leaders Today
Energy Leaders Today
Construction Leaders Today

all through this Washington, DC based "company" called Oz World Media.

ex-employee

Sorry Barbara, while the media kit can be downloaded from the Advantage website, it does not give their readership breakdown, how many publications are printed and sent out, etc. As another poster said, "it doesn't do any good to pay for advertising, if nobody reads the magazine".

I got a call from this same number but her name was Justine.

advantage magazine is most def. a scam, one of their snake-like "researchers" named Ty Attiek tattiek@guerrerohowe.com  called and harassed us every day until we would relent and agree to an interview. Once that was confirmed, they aggressively demanded a list of all of our business contacts, with phone numbers & leads and threatened to pull our feature if we didn't supply them with our list, which is absolutely not a standard practice in the field of journalism. They are very obviously using the "feature" as an appeal to your vanity in an attempt to profit from your business' contacts, and then they will try and sell  expensive ads to your business contacts while sullying your name/reputation. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS!

Jacob just called from 312-447-2384 asked for Andy who heads up our marketing department.  Andy wasn't in and I asked what's it regarding and Jacob said about doing an article on our Company.  Kind of fishy if you ask me.

They called our Engineering Department and left message for the Marketing Director about doing an article on our firm.  Jacob sounded like he knew the Director like a close friend.  (First Mistake)

Magazine was American Builders (Second Mistake) known for scams under other names also.

Left number of 312-447-2384 to call back for information.  (Third Mistake)

Steer clear of these folks, they want your client information list (BIG MISTAKE) and then try to charge you money for a very poorly written article.

I was contacted by Stuart Evans from "Profile Magazine", he stated that his company became aware of our company and wanted to talk about doing an interview for their magazine.  I spent the time to explain what we did etc. and he stated that they wanted to go ahead with the article.  The kicker starts with a request for the vendors/companies that you work with so they can contact them and ask if those companies would want to advertise in the publication around your article.  Next I get an email from another person who wants to sell me advertising as a part of the article deal.

When I stated no I was not interested in paying for advertising, I never heard back from them again about the "article."

You should have put "bimbos" instead of "bimbo's", bimbo.