3124995900

the majority of these people that work there are idiots.  Thank god I got out I didn't bust my [***] for a college degree to be a telemarketer.  I now have a great job and truly help people, but I will continue to stand up against this company because they trick and scam business owners.  They dont care about the business owners they just want a quick buck.  Believe me they are just a lawsuit waiting to happen.  This company should be investigated.  They call you up ask for the business owner and tell you they got a refferal which is not true.  A lot of times they lie about their name.  Then they try to set up an appointment and they will send someone out there are try to charge you for their expenses and just to look to see if you truly fit in their standards which is bs.  Then if you choose to have them sell your business or raise capital they charge you even more money.  There I gave you their process away.  Business owners beware and to you employees use your brain get out of there and GET A REAL JOB.

There are 2 Houlihan Smith entities...Houlihan Smith & Co. is  a legitimate, regulated mid-market investment banking firm. "Houlihan Smith Advisors LLC" is the nightmare being described and the boiler room on the 3rd floor is kept intentionally separate and away from the ivory tower real headquarters upstairs in the leased corporate headquarters in Chicago. Concerning background checks...indeed...a former senior associate who collected checks in the field for HS Advisors LLC was an ex-con who ran a commodity pool scam and bilked 25 investors out of $5 million and spent 51 months in a federal "condo".

Everything else reported from the others here is true...very true...I know I worked for them.

As the late Paul Harvey said..."now you know the rest of the story".

Guy called in the general sales line and asked for our CEO by name. It's amazing how these guys have the CEO's names and cell numbers but then call into the general number and ask for them? It is a sales call and they are trying the old, victory through intimidation approach. I would imagine where they work is very much a boiler-room approach.

I say we all start calling them and rudely demanding to talk to their CEO's!

called my office for probably the 500th time,looking for the owner, I said I would check to see if he was in, may I tell him who's calling? The loser couldn't get any more creative than "Curtis Schilling" almost drew blood biting my lip trying not to laugh at this poor guy. Of course, you all know that I was not checking to see if he was in, I was just wasting his time like he does to me. I just have fun with these poor guys, can't be rude to the real customers now can we?

I want to see what some of the current employees like Moe Azfar, Steve Richards, or Hitesh Patel aka John Hamilton have to say about all of this?

Received call today again at work and found this info on the campany and sent an email to Andrew to be removed:

Chicago Headquarters
105 W. Madison, Suite 1200, Chicago, Illinois 60602

Contact: Andrew Smith, President
Email: asmith@houlihansmith.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phone: (312) 499-5900 Fax: (312) 499-5901

Got a call today:  "Hey, is Carol in?"

"May I ask who is calling?"

"Yah, Mike Taylor."

"Do you know Carol, Mike?"

"No, I don't know her," he replied, exasperated.

"What's you're call in regard to?"

"A business referral."

"And who referred you to us?"

"Houlihan Smith"

In the meantime, I'm searching Carol's Outlook contacts for Mike Taylor - there's nothing.  A name like Houlihan Smith is unique enough that I would recall it.  I didn't.  

"Carol's not in the office at all today, but I see your number here.  I can have her call you back, if you'd like . . .  Hello?  Mike, are you out there . . ."

They disrespect and underestimate the power of a gatekeeper, and forget that we're just as smart if not smarter than them.  I once carried on a 4 month long battle of wills with a copier sales rep trying to reach my boss, the president of a medical college.  Amazing.

I won that battle, by the way.

First and foremost, I work for Houlihan Smith.

Is this a forum for secretaries to complain on?  If thats the case, have fun ladies.

On to the real deal:

We call business owners based on referrals.  We also do our fair share of industry profiling.  The analysts at the firm (the ones calling), have NOTHING to do with referrals or sourcing our materials, thats left to the research department.  Our job is simply to find out what a business owner is trying to accomplish.  Most people so far have complained that we are "rude and pushy"....let me ask you a question, when there is someone you want to talk to, and someone is in between you and them, why would you waste time acting like a salesman and being all nice and cutesy, when we ARENT SALESMEN?  We talk to business owners on a first name basis, as we are not salesmen, but rather businessmen.  Think thats offensive?  Maybe you should reevaluate what offends you if this is the case.  We are direct and to the point.  Economy of words.  Leave a message?  Why?  There are no shortage of business owners who are raising money or selling their companies...why leave a message and wait for someone to get back to you when you could just try another time?  When, and yes I mean when, we talk to a business owner, if we cannot help them out then there is no reason to talk to them again.  Do you handle the finances, or do you handle the phones?

Most business owners are in a bad situation as of late.  Question to you secretaries: do you own the business?  Do your decisions decide the fate of 50 some odd families?  perhaps more?  No, you answer phones.  We deal with situations where companies cannot get funding, need help identifying acquisition targets, or would like to sell their business, and have no idea how to do this.  We do.  Thats what we do for a living.

And to address these "scam" allegations, thats just hilarious and misguided.  Fees may be assessed depending.  Who out there works for free?  Do you secretaries know how to raise money through alternative lending markets that collateralize loans off of future earnings potential rather than free and clear hard assets, or do you know how to answer phones?  I thought so.  You cannot take a business to market without compiling information and doing all the due diligence, it just doesnt make sense.  This whole thing is a joke.  

The bottom line, all [***] and arguing aside, is that we love the client enough to evoke change, and thats why we are so direct and brutally honest.  Interpret it how you would like, but it wont change how we do business and get results for the clients we take on, and until you are all business owners, keep complaining....or check out our reviews and see how we are one of the fastest growing Investment Banking firms out there...

Well I used to work there and there is no RESEARCH DEPARTMENT they buy the leads from hoover's, sba, and ref usa.  All they do is call the names on the sheet to see if they are raising capital or selling their company.  And yes you are salesmen because you call people up and eventually ask for money to do a service that they never requested from you to begin with.  Maybe if you just would be honest and upfront with the secrateries they would let more of your calls through.

1) Another little boy...excuse me 20 something...who works in the boiler room...excuse me again...Houlihan Smith Advisors, LLC...smiling and dialing...based on referrals...please pardon me...lead sheets.
2) Fastest growing...means 50-70% attrition rate in the boiler room.
3) No reason to contact?...after hounding the same business owners...several and I mean several times until declared "dead" and there is the only "no reason" to contact ...what's several?...5-10 times a month...
4) Your Mommy is calling...time for your feeding...She so pwoud of her little boy...He works for one of the fastest growing inwestment banking firms in...gosh ..maybe the woorld...He makes no real money but he gets all the free grape kool-aid to drink on the 3rd floor!!!!
5) Thats is correctly spelled "that's"...now let's try something even more challenging...how about saying your ABCs...you "powerful investment banker".... you.

I have no affiliation with Houlihan Smith, and am not familiar with any of their calling methods; however, anyone working in the financial sector will tell you that this is indeed a reputable investment banking firm, despite all of these complaints of being rude to secretaries.

These are the two firms founded by Richard Houlihan:

houlihansmith.com
http://www.hl.com/

As far as I'm concerned, I don't care if my investment banking firm is full of the biggest a**holes in the world, as long as they're damn good at what they do

My goodness, now I see why you folks at Houlihan Smith are so short over the phone, you think "secretaries" are idiots, low-level employees, uneducated and a bunch of fools who think they have more power than they do. To top it off, you think all companies have secretaries and that we are all women.

First, let me state that we are not all women and that I personally, am not a secretary, I am an office manager with more than 15 years experience in my field. Most administrators are the back bone of any organization, we tend to have our hands in almost everything related to the company and we tend to know more about most things going on within the company than even the high-level executives do.

So, before you go off putting down administrators because you waisted away four plus years in college that has resulted in you working for a firm like Houlihan Smith, consider the fact that we most likely, at least those of us who have been doing this line of work for ten or more years, make more than you, know more than you know and tend to be the key behind most decisions made within an organization. We have the executives ear, we know their family, their spouses, their friends, their business associates, etc. We can make things very difficult for you or very easy.

Think of that before you start running off at the mouth about things you know nothing about. Understand that most times, the way to an executive is through the administrative staff, treat them with respect and you will be treated in kind. Treat them as if they are scum and have fun playing phone tag with the executive that you supposedly know more intimately than the person who has supported them for many years.

I find it very curious that on every single website similar to this one your message seems to have been copied and pasted to the message board.  Seems that someone is trying to deter people like myself.

I realize I'm not the first former employee to vent here, so I'll save how much of a waste this job is to recent grads.

I'd rather try to reason with some of you. I'm familiar with some of the names referenced in previous posts, and while I'm not friends with any of them, I do think they are good people - based on my time at Houlihan.

I consider myself a pretty easy-going guy, I enjoy conversation, but not argument. Which brings me to my main point. They (management) make their employees be condescending and diminutive on the phone, not just to the secretaries but owners too. It's this mentality of not sounding submissive or subordinate to the owners, because apparently only [***] are successful and deserve respect.

Since leaving the taint that is Houlihan, I've worked at a similar Business Development job. A similar outcome desired but a complete 180 turn in approach. I was cordial and respectful and I was denied by a secretary at most once a week (while dialing as much as at Houlihan) where I would get denied maybe 95% over at Houlihan. If the owner didn't need my services, fine, but at least I didn't feel dirty doing it and I didn't give my company a black eye in the process. Houlihan's "bully" mentality is a terrible idea, and the sooner they realize it, the better their company will look to diligent businesses that need their services.

I can't defend their valuation process or fees because I had NO part in that, just the initial contact. But I just want you all to know that the people behind these calls aren't necessarily jerks, they're just doing what they're told in a crappy climate for jobs. I apologize on behalf of all current and former houlihan employees that were embarrassed about their actions while working there.

You are what is wrong with Houlihan Smith Advisors, LLC.

You obviously are intelligent and professional which posed a vicarious threat to the insanity of the "Ponzi" business model on the 3rd floor.

Well said.

At the end of the day...all we really only have...is our reputation.

It appears your values are intact and the fleas from the 3rd floor have left your spirit as well.

Answering phones is just ONE of the many responsibilities "secretaries" handle.  Knowing what calls our bosses will take and which ones they won't is part of that.  Your arrogant and dismissive attitude is representative of exactly the type of person my boss would NEVER do business with.  Keep wasting your time jacka*&^.

An investment company

Someone called me from Houlihan Smith and said his name was Tom Russell. He gave another number to call him back - 312-275-5515. I do not plan on calling him back. The phone number that showed up on my phone was 312-499-5900. Tom

You must work for Houlihan Smith.  Most "Secretaries" are now Administrative Assistants with more knowledge than most owners of the companies they work for.  The owners prefer it that way.  When your company makes these cold calls and someone with a brain actually tries to get information, you tend to fumble over your words and pause to come up with answers.  I've found that the people who call from this company are primarily uneducated in the financial business world and aren't able to provide the simple answers that the owners need in order to do business with reputable companies.  

By the way, our company isn't selling the business.  We are actually expanding.  If you people did your research you would know that before making "cold" calls.  You are the idiot here!

This company is the biggest scam on the face of the earth and it is defnitely a lawsuit waiting to happen. In fact, I know they are being looked at. It's sad that a man, Andy Smith, who seems like such a family guy is a scam artist. He has no clue what he is talking about as far as valuations. They hire kids to do the reports and if you are given a quote, don't believe it. They will find a way to squeeze more money out of you. They charge $2500/cusip and they've valued those cusip's a million times. They cut/paste and receive $20,000 for something that took a half hour. If a company asks Houlihan if they provide a certain service and they have never done it, they will tell you they have, try to figure it out, deliver the report late and in horrible quality. Auditors have not accepted these reports and the company is forced to spend more money.
Charles Botchway is an ex-con for a scam involving commodities. Check out their website. That's why he is not listed under the professionals tab. They paid Rip Off report a lot of money to remove all the complaints. And everything I read about the "boiler room" is true. They pass around folders of companies and don't put the phone down. They are trained to be rude to administative assistants and they will get the wrath of charles if not. They are verbally abusive to their employees. Both the 3rd floor and 15th floors are scams. DO NOT TRUST THEM WITH YOUR MONEY!!! I can't wait for the day they finally get busted.   It won't be too much longer I can assure you.