In order to keep others from falling for the same garbage that I did, I gotta report One Element Inc.in Atlanta GA. They are an affiliate of Smart Circle which births companies (such as OEI) left and right in order to benefit from their "success" (sound like a pyramid scheme?). Many of these companies have short names, some including "circle" in the title and will advertise their positions using words/phrases like "management training available" "sports/marketing minded wanted" "Growth Potential" and such.
Sounds good. But what they want are young, energetic people who they can chew up and spit out in 1-3 months time before they get wise and leave. They pull you in with promises of management potential and in only 6 months, you could own you own business! What they mean is, if you can survive on little to NO PAY, barely legal gas compensation for traveling all over God's green earth to the events you are stationed at, being bossed by your 'leader' on your breaks/lunches to "network" instead of taking an actual break or lunch, 12 hour days in which you are not really paid for morning meetings, and having your schedule handed to you on a hand-written piece of torn notebook paper 1 week or less in advance, then Yeah, you might move up in this company. But why would you want to?
If you're looking to be a small business owner, start ANYWHERE but here. Allow me to elaborate on the points above: Gas compensation? They pay a flat $11.50 if you travel from a morning meeting to a location (even if it's 50 miles away, no I'm not exaggerating - they'll send you to Sharpsburg) and if you have an afternoon shift, you are not paid at all unless you log your miles and count them as a deduction in your taxes. You may actually spend more on gas than you make. Which brings me to the matter of pay.
I was lead to believe that I'd be receiving hourly pay plus 18% commission on all sales made in stores. As it turns out, that's not the case at all.instead, at the end of each pay period, total commission is divided by total hours worked (office AND in store). If this number is greater than minimum wage, then that's your pay. If it's less than minimum wage, you receive a "commission advance" to raise your hourly rate to $7.25 p/hour. It's possible that One Element could then claw back this advance from future paychecks, though I did not experience that at my 6 weeks at this company.
Despite what you are lead to believe, you are paid on 100% commission. Combine this with the fact that, as I mentioned before, you are not really paid what you're spending on gas, a good sales person is lucky to make more than a couple hundred dollars every two weeks. Please don't fall for One Element, The New Element (the two are different companies, but share an office building) or any other Smart Circle (or Cydcor for that matter, look them up, they're similar to SC) affiliate, take the time, do the research, save yourself the misery!
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