I was contacted by Joe Langer representing himself as being with SE Health Solutions sometime around the end of September. He said he had seen my resume on one of the job boards and had an opportunity that he thought I would great for. After speaking for a few minutes he referred me to their website to go through and scheduled a follow up call. I was impressed with the business model and the concept and was anxious to hear more. I had been looking at other franchise opportunities all of which were over 100K to get started. He told me the franchise fee was $12,000 which sounded like a small investment to make the money he was talking about. On the scheduled follow up call Joe explained in a little more detail about the urinalysis and support products. He told me their staff clinical nutritionist was Dr Maile Pouls and she had authored books and had been over 15 years developing their program. Everything he said made sense to me. He tried to close me on the franchise purchase then. I told him I needed to do some due diligence and wanted to speak with other distributors / franchise owners before I committed.
He gave me two people to call. Bill McBride in Pennsylvania and Paul Raymond in Oklahoma. Both gave me tremendous stories on how well they were doing and how much money they were making and that they had recovered their initial investments in 8-10 weeks. I looked for any bad information on SE Health Solutions and found nothing on the internet. I called Joe back and said I was impressed with both individuals but he had obviously given me the names of the heavy hitters and that I wanted to tlak to someone who was a short timer in the business and had struggled. He then referred me to Mike Jones in Miami. None of these references answered the first time I called them, I had to leave a message and they returned my call. Mike said he had struggled in the beginning but was trying to market his own way, and once he started going "by the book" things had quickly turned around and he had made his initial investment back and was earning 6-7K per month. Bill and Paul told me they were earning 27K and 32K respectively per month. All of these references told me if I bought the franchise they would be glad to help in any way they could and I could call them at any time. Paul actually used the word mentor when describing how he could assist me.
OK, everything sounded great. I committed, outlined a territory, and got a contract which I fedexed back to Joe with a $500.00 deposit. Of course I still had to be approved by the executive committee. Joe even went as far as having me send a letter as to why I should be approved and send reference letters. He called the next afternoon with the "dispositition of the committee" and to congratulate me on my approval. We scheduled traing in Florida for October 14th. (Great 8 weeks to profitability by Christmas)
Training consisted of my giving Joe a check... First thing. Walking through database mining to find potential clients, which is a list of 10 websites, and going through the actual software with the IT guy. After lunch I met with Joe for sales strategies meeting. He told me to follow the plan exactly and do exactly what he said and he guaranteed I would be successful. Everything was scripted, there are marketing letters, follow up scripts, and appointment scripts. I was to mail my first letters the following Monday start following up on Thursday and conference with Joe on Friday to see how things were going. He told me I would feel like he was living with me because he would be communicating with me so much. Told me I would have excellent support from he and his team and to call anytime if I needed help. Called everyone I had sent the Monday letters to on Thursday got no appointments. Called Joe on Friday told him what was going on and he said, "That's unusual, You need to keep sending letters."
I have been trying to get in touch with him via email or on the phone for weeks now. He does not respond to emails or my requests to speak with him. Paul Raymond, Bill McBride, and Mike Jones have never returned any calls. Support is nothing from them. Joe Langer is nothing in my opinion but a low life scam artist. NOTHING HE HAS TOLD ME TO THIS POINT HAS BEEN TRUE EXCEPT FOR WHAT TO MAKE THE CHECK OUT FOR!
Here is a copy of an email from good old Joe: Hi Kevin
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