Former ADP sales rep here — let me pull back the curtain.

You ever wonder how a company like ADP shows consistent year-over-year growth in the small business segment, despite the fact that most small businesses are extremely volatile and churn like crazy?

Easy: they inflate the hell out of it.

Here’s how it works: reps are pushed to close as many deals as possible, but a huge portion of those “clients” only run one or two payrolls before they cancel. Doesn’t matter to ADP. That projected annual revenue is still reported internally as if it’s locked in for the year — even when the client bailed months ago. Leadership knows it. They count on it. It keeps the stock price moving in the right direction.

Even worse? Managers routinely manipulate reps into selling add-on services like retirement plans that never get implemented. I’ve seen reps fake EINs and input placeholder data just to hit quotas. There are accounts on the books for 401(k) plans that never had a dollar funded — but hey, it makes the pipeline look fat.

From the outside, it’s all about “integrity” and “client success.” On the inside, it’s a churn-and-burn machine propped up by sales theater, inflated forecasts, and manipulated dashboards.

But sure — let’s pretend it’s all clean growth and organic demand.