I started as a student of Focus back in September. I made the monetary commitment and paid the "tuition". I made the time commitment & put in the hours to learn the "business' program. However, what was verbally told to me by the sales people - and what I actually received as training/support are 2 different things. The contract that they sent me was so basic as to be ridiculous.
I wish I could list all of the details here - but I would spend hours typing. I tried going up the 'chain' to try and rectify issues. Many times the 'coaches' would give conflicting information - or use outdated training materials - so I would have to redo the 'assignments'. What a waste of time that was for me. I was also told that I could easily fit this course into my schedule if I was willing to make a bit of time sacrifice. I was told that 1 person there only spent 2-3 hours per month on his site. That if I could make the commitment to do the training for a few hours a week - and followed their training - I would be making money in just a few weeks.
I was working 35-40 hrs per week, researching niches, suppliers - and I'm not a creative person when it comes to that - couldn't think of a 'niche' that was profitable. This part was the hardest part for me - was the thinking outside of the box to find a 'niche'. I did many of their segments - and made notes. They decided to upgrade their 'look' - and lost all of my notes that was kept on the site. I had to start from square one again.
Then I started creating the website - I was given a template to follow - easy to do I was told. I have a bit of programming knowledge - but I did find I had issues with this - because of the products that I chose to carry in my store - my 'webstore' was not option friendly - so that created a huge host of headaches for me.
Then, after I input hundreds of products - there was a glitch and I had to reenter them. I was given 'extra one on one training' in compensation.
Then, after my website went live - turns out that they needed some coding for my shopping cart (my site is hosted by Lightwave Builder). They didn't put in the correct coding and my website sat there stagnant while customers were trying to place orders. They couldn't fix the problem - they kept sending me back to my merchant account provider - who kept sending me back to Lightwave Builder. I couldn't get up the chain to the proper department to fix the issue - I kept getting stone walled at the 'customer support' center.
Finally - my merchant account provider told me the contact name of her contact person at Thrive. Turns out - Focus uses Thrive's tools, etc - ie; is a sister company of Thrive.
That person finally speaks to the developers (which should have been done in the first place). After almost a week - my shopping cart finally worked.
Fast forward 2 months. Thrive/Focus/Lightwave - somebody decided to upgrade the system? I don't know what happened - but I noticed that I wasn't seeing any sales from my website. So, I thought "maybe I'm not doing enough - writing articles, submitting to search engines, submitting to directories, blogging. So, stepped up the work.By this time (and believe me - this is very short what I've gone through with these companies - I've got hundreds of emails of documented issues with these companies/this program/the builder, etc) - I'm more than discouraged - I'm depressed. I'm working my butt off - and seeing no results.
Then I get a call from a customer who'd ordered previously - she'd been trying to place an order for over 2 weeks but there was a problem with my shopping cart. I go into my 'builder' and find out that there were numerous people who'd attempted to place orders that didn't go through - and this person's wasn't even on that list! So that told me that not only was there a glitch, but for some reason now the system isn't even keeping a lot of 'rejected' sales.
I go and try and place an order myself - and wouldn't you know it - again - the same issue that happened in February (read above) was happening again - the code in the shopping cart had not be put back in when the update to the system was done - and my shopping cart was down for a month. How much business did that cost me? How many potential customers? How many lost sales? How many repeat customers???
All I got from the company was "read our disclaimer - we're not responsible - but as a token of good customer relations - we'll give you 2 months free of hosting".
Considering all of the issues I've had with these companies - and constantly getting the brush off or treated like a thorn in their side - I'm done with them. I'm putting it out on the web to be wary of signing up with them.
As a student, as a customer - they don't deserve to be in business. Read about other complaints/reviews on them on the internet - stay away.
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