I wanted to change carrers. I wanted to be rewarded for my hard work and be paid accordinly. This company preyed on my desires. First of all I am a complete idiot for falling for this. Friends and family tried to deter me, while being supportive, but I had enough ego that I thought that I could make something out of this.
The company, who seems to go under a "Something-Something Marketing" no matter what city they are in, will start out with the "group interview". One of them gives you the pitch while the other rates your reactions. Then they pretty much hire everyone in the room that didn't roll their eyes or try to expose them right there. Most of those types of people leave right after the "interview" anyway.
Numbers are thrown around about how much money you should make. "A good manager will sell this and that to make $35,000, I would be worried about anyone not selling that much.in fact you wouldn't be here if I thought that you couldn't". Baiscally line after line just to get you pumped up. Your first task is to sell the most that you can to all of your friends and family and the winner gets $500. Not only the money but part of this task was to complete the minimum number of sales in order to end your training. This was the primary motivator for me because I was convinced the real money was being out of training and running your own office. Well I suckered in a few people and made some money but there was this one guy who simply dominated. He sold three times what anybody else did. And of course he did not get the "bonus". Why? Well because there was an unattainable group goal that we did not know about.
So that was no enought to make me quit because, quite frankly, I was good at it. I was promoted to manager (every one does after 1-2 weeks). You go out and hit up people working at their jobs and give them the pitch, "What is your favorite type of perfume? Really? Because I am a product rep that just got done with a promotion and I have a bunch of samlple bottles left over and my boss told me not to come back with them. So I can let them go for about $30.00." $20.00 gets paid to your boss so you can keep all that is left over. What happens is that you end up selling these things for no money because in order to move up you have to reach a goal that increases every week. Another technique is to sell in front of business, lovinly refered to as "parking lot pimping". You just hit people up in mall parking lots, or Wal-mart, Target, Win-co and the such. This technique almost got me arrested (the day I finally quit). Now since I had a car I was the one who always drove. I was told that everyone had to pitch in for gas. Yeah, right. I never saw a dime from anyone.including my bosses.
Here are the specific reasons that I quit and signs to look for to determine if you may be involved with this company.
1) My "bosses" names:
Nate (tall, young looking, blonde, supposedly ex-Army Ranger, very nice guy in a bad business)
Eli (medium height, hispanic, extremely nice)
2) They don't have as much money as they claim. I could care less about how much money someone has, except when how you hear constantly about the Porsche he is about to buy. Nate didn't even have a car at this time and Eli drove a beat down early 90's Chrysler LeBaron.
3) They send out experienced "managers" to the parking lot on interview day (every Wednesday) just to make sure they don't talk to each other about how F'ed up this job seems to be.
4) Nate always wore the same suit. Mr. "I'm gonna buy my dad a sailboat" could only afford one suit.
5) They had a secretary that was somehow in on this scam. They fired her when she started talking smak about them.
6) You are an "Independent Contractor". No matter what you think you will do to these guys, think again. They have all their paperwork in order to run this type of business. My boss didn't know who I was (during my "parking lot pimping" fiasco) when the cops called to verify that there was a business licence on file.
My advise to anyone who is smart enough to do research on a company before they start is to avoid this company, and any like it at all costs. Other similar companies are Scentura (they make you pay for your perfume up front, that's how they make money) DS Max (you know the guys that come into your work and try to sell coloring books, mops and watches) or any employer that is some shady "marketing" company. The more they try to get you pumped up, the faster you should run away.
Mike
Portland, Oregon
U.S.A.
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