Another so-called business opportunity that I tried out in the early 2000's. I answered an ad in the paper for either a management or a receptionist position, I now can't remember which, and was told to report to their office, which was ten minutes from where I lived. I arrived to a rather run-down Quonset hut in which the office was located. That should have been a tip-off, but being the trooper I am, I followed through.
I was escorted to a room full of hopefuls like myself. The manager got up and told us about Scentura, that the products were identical to the name-brand perfumes because it was illegal to copyright a cologne's recipe, only its name. So we would be selling excellent products, just under different names and for far less than their name-brand counterparts. I understood that this was direct, commission-based selling, but I was okay with that. I knew what great things I was capable of and that I could go far with this.
We were each given a box containing twenty bottles of cologne and the challenge to sell as much of it as possible by the time we returned to the office the next day. I had three birthdays coming up, so I simply bought three bottles, and the office staff was duly impressed. All of us newbies were then split into teams and assigned to shadow an experienced Scentura salesperson. Three others and I were assigned to a girl who took us merching into her neighborhood — the ghetto. Yeah, that's right, the ghetto. I spent that whole afternoon trolling through the worst zip code in my state as this girl peddled her cologne. Needless to say, I felt unsafe, and my fears were justified as my mentor almost got into a fist fight with some random person on the street.
We finally climbed into her car and headed back to the office. I was starving because they refused to allow us to buy our lunch, and anyway, ideally you should sweet talk merchants into giving you food for free, my mentor said. She had even demonstrated this by getting a free water ice from a store in the ghetto. When I got home that day I took a self-assessment and determined that Scentura wasn't for me. Direct sales weren't my thing after all, and anyway, any company that makes you peddle your products in a dangerous neighborhood is not one you want to align yourself with.
The next day I headed back to the office and surrendered my unsold bottles of cologne. They were dismayed that I was throwing in the towel and tried to persuade me to stay, but I said thanks but no thanks and walked out of there for good. As with other opportunities of this sort, it works if you're willing to smooth talk people and do whatever it takes, including risking your personal safety, to sell the product. If you have a problem with any of that, just walk. When I think of what could have happened to me in that neighborhood, I still get a chill.
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