What to expect with jp consulting/ds-max/cydcor / and all other crooked marketing companies evolving from the cult!
Here is what i witnessed and what youll definitely witness!!!
What do mean they have you going DOOR TO DOOR! Months of just scraping by on the edge of poverty. Not being paid. Losing My Security! Going on a road trip for a company where I have to pay for the hotel room? Why is this person being paid cash daily? Why is my sister giving half of her money away to new employees shouldnt that be the responsibility of the company? Why does my friend live in squalor with 10 people that he works with? Why did Bob turn away from his family when they tried to talk some sense into him? You are going to move across the country with a company and they wont foot ANY of the relocation costs?
What kind of out fit is this? How can it be so big? Ive never heard of it before!
Sound familiar?
Many people come on this site and do not know what ds-max is. Maybe they went for a day of observation, got spooked out and left. They have a friend or family member in the business and are now concerned. Or they just spent a little bit of time with the company and quit and now want to know more. I will attempt to answer all the above questions and more below.
This is going to be an attempt to fill in all the gaps. I will explain everything in as detailed a manner I can. For those of you who want to contribute to this go right on ahead. I will do it all in Sections. The sections are as follows: 1 Overview, 2 marketing system, 3 atmosphere and psychology, 4 phrases and terminology, 5 meeting, 6 opportunity, 7 New locations, 8 how an office works, 9 Employment and first interviews, 10 how to take out a day of observation and build a crew, 11 history, 12 Head office - Hubs and VPs, 13 belief system, 14 Regional leaders meetings and 15 the life of a career leader. Through my sections I will attempt to demonstrate 3 things. First how a situation should go in a perfect world, second how it goes in reality and thirdly to give my personal anecdotes. I was not sure what order to put these topics in. If you know a lot about this feel free to skip around. I am trying to explain the business so that some one who has no idea what it is can see why it has such an effect on their loved one. And this is also for people coming out of the business who may not have the words to express how they feel to reflect on what this system has done to them. (You know you have been wronged but you dont quite know how.)
You may ask how I know all this. I was with a few different affiliated companies of Ds-max for over 4 years. I have built many crews, done many divisions, helped start many offices, and seen offices close, seen divisions start and fail. I have merched around the US and even one day in Mexico. I was even semi promoted once. I will not disclose my identity or the identities of the managers I worked for. I will say that I have been out of the business about two years now. The main managers I was with I was pretty close too. This is one act of loyalty I will still show them. If I name someone in this report by name, they are widely known through out the organization. And now, on to my attempt to shed some light on Ds-max!
1 Overview
Ds-max is a supplier. It gets clients and goods to sell for its member offices. Thousands of offices around the world compose the member offices. A member office is an independent corporation that is set up to sell Ds-max products. Ds-max is a global operation that has offices in most countries throughout the world.in the US alone there are hundreds of such offices. Such independently run corporations remove ds-max from liability. The vast majority of people effected by ds-max never really actually worked for it; the majority that claim to have worked with Ds-max actually worked for an independent corporation licensed to sell DS-max products.
There are two other companies talked about a lot. Granton Marketing and Cydcor. They are Listers. A lister is an advertising company that finds clients for another. Granton deals primarily with the advertising division and Cydcor with the communications. Although these companies work closely with ds-max and in some cases have the same people in each one they are separate entities.
There are four main divisions of Ds-max. Clearance, Advertising, Roses and Communications. Each division is separate.in a given office you might find a few different divisions run by different people or by the same person. Now I will explain them.
The clearance division sells products like toys, books, organizers, bags, key chains, pens, small TVs, and lots more. This is the oldest and largest division of the company. Ds-max has entire factories in the Far East that make cheap products. Since they deal with a lot of volume, they get good prices. These products are shipped to different offices and sold door to door.
The Advertising division sells coupons. They contract with restaurants, golf courses, autobody shops, hotels and many other types of business. You pay say 25 dollars for a certificate and you get 30 buy one get one free pizzas at pizza hut, or 4 free oil changes and discounts on auto parts or buy one get one free golf. All divisions sell door to door but the advertising division is the one where it is primarily almost all residential door to door, where as the others is all mostly business to business. The primary company that finds the clients for this division is Granton Marketing. A percentage of each sale goes to them.
The roses division sells you guessed it roses! They order large quantities of Roses from growers at whole sale prices and sell them business to business. A guy will sell a dozen roses for $13 dollars. He commission is $3 and he will ask for a tip because he works on commission. They can usually at least get an extra 5 to 10 dollars. Even after the tip it is still a great deal.
Communications is the other main one. Ive heard of the westco division and the credit card division and there may be others now. They are spin offs of communications and are pretty much run the same way. Cydcor is the lister. This division has products like ATT, Sprint, Visa, MasterCard, CSI, DTV, Optus and many others. This is the only division where you do not collect money on the spot. You get people to sign up for services, i.E. Long distance or a credit card, the application is turned in and then you get paid a few weeks later.
To summarize, the chain of ds-max I will give an example. An independently run corporation is set up in a given market. This corporation gets all its products from Ds-max and or cydcor and or granton Marketing. The owner of this corporation will be part of one of the divisions. The owner will pay Ds-max for the merchandise it sells and for some legal and administrative fees and pay his own rent and advertising bills. The owner will run his office according to ds-max principles and guidelines use ds-max propaganda and are in contact with Ds-max quite often. This person will put out ads for people to sell his merchandise.in all the divisions save communications, the recruits will be independent contractors. Communication reps will be commissioned employees. So if Joey, a new rep is selling AT&T and he signs up a customer, he will, as an independent contractor for AT&T, gained AT&T a client, by using the product of his office, which is supplied by Ds-max (but not part of it) and Ds-Max got the client by using Cydcor as the lister.
2 The Marketing System
There are five components of the dsmax marketing system. They are the five steps, the eight working habits, the impulse factors and the law of averages. It is all door to door.
The five steps:
Introduction
Short Story
Presentation
Close
Rehash
Basically, When you introduce yourself to someone you should smile, make eye contact and be excited to meet him or her.in the short story you explain why you are there.in the presentation you do your pitch, in the close you get the person to consent to buy and in the rehash phase you suggest buying many things to the person. Realize that I could go on a lot more about this I used to do many meetings on each step but I just want people to get the general idea. This formula can be used to sell anything. Of course it does not always go smoothly. There are often questions and interruptions. But these five steps work.
The eight working habits
Have a great attitude Work your territory correctly
Be on time Maintain your attitude
Be prepared Know why there and what doing
Work full eight hours Take control
Consider a day in the field like a work out. Through out the 8-hour day you should always be happy, always focus on your goals, always take control, and always hit every business or residence in your area. You can not leave any of these steps out! If you are working a full 8 hours, but are not maintaining a positive attitude you will not make money and vice versa. If you skip doors behind some of those doors are the yess that could have been part of your law of averages. If you are on time and are prepared, but you do not take control, the customers will walk all over you.
The law of averages is based on the number of people you see, some will say yes. Ds-max is not the type of organization that teaches people to make hard sales. If some says no they leave they dont stay and twist arms. So, the rep should always be seeing as many people as possible in a given day. Especially if they dont sell in the morning. Because if they are really applying the law of averages it will catch up with them in the afternoon. It is plain math. If you usually need to see 100 doors to make a sale statistically those doors may not come until the end of the day. You need a full 8 hours for the law of averages to kick in. If a rep only works until one and has not made a sale yet and decides to quit he has no one to blame but him self. But it is easy for a rep to get distracted if they meet a nasty customer, the cops get called or they might run out of territory, or they might just wind up shopping!
The impulse factors should be used in conjunction with the five steps. They are Fear of loss where you pretend that you only have a few items left.indifference where you act like you dont care if they buy or not, Greed where you explain where other people have already purchased and Sense of Urgency where you act like time is almost up. An easy way to remember them is F.I.G.S.
Now people, I have said a lot about Ds-max and Cydcor. But I know that this marketing system does work. I did it for four years. I am attempting to educate here. What I mean by that is that if you get an area, and you hustle and work the whole time and you have something that is cheap, not too hard to explain - someone might by you should make some money. This system works all over the world in all languages. But not everyone can do it. It is not for the shy or those who are not fit.
Lets go through a typical business to business day. You pick out an area. You hit every business in that area being sure to hit every side street and all the business that are in building. You do not do callbacks. You do not leave cards. This is a buy it now or not at all type thing. Strictly on impulse. Plus, reps do not make that much commission per sale to justify keep going back for the on the fence buyer.in a few weeks another rep will come by the same area (as long as a mapping system is in place. If there is no mapping system there could be a rep with the same product in another hour!)
It is important to note here that all transportation in the field is up to the rep. The office will not cover any transportation costs. They tell reps to write all the expenses down and deduct them at the end of the year. So if a guy has a car, he would be wise to get gas money if he is giving someone a ride. Or that person can just pay for bus fare. You might make $80 in profit, but you have to subtract transportation costs.
If you hustle and work the whole day, you can make money. You dont pay attention to any negatives like rude people, security officers throwing you out of buildings or people almost about to buy, perhaps even filling out a certificate, and then changing their mind. That is all part of maintaining your attitude and knowing why you are here and what you are doing and working a full 8 hours and working your territory correctly. How to explain the magic of the field to people that have never done it? Just suffice it to say that people go through a lot of interesting situations. You will meet the sweetest people that will feed you and offer you a coke. Or you can meet the receptionist with a power trip that calls security on you along with every other office in the building. You could walk in to a small business that smells like weed and later on pitch a church that just got done with a funeral. They meet the best and the worst of people. They get in weird conversations and situations. Sometimes they strike it rich. Sometimes it is days with out making a dime.
Ds-max and the owners try and make it so that it is possible for a rep to earn at least $100 a day. If they are earning more than that the stroke should be adjusted so that they earn $100. If they earn less it should be similarly adjusted. They dont want the guys too rich or too poor. However there are some serious flaws. Not a lot of commission is paid per sale to a rep. This means they must be in a constant state of work to make a buck. Reps can have days when they make good money and days when they make little money. Or they can have days go by when they are on a slump and make practically nothing. The high earning days are often not enough to cover this.
3 Atmosphere and Psychology
This is a very important part to the business. Never under estimate it. This is where a person learns about the business, gets rejuvenated about the business and where the manager controls the business. It is the media. The blood of the madness. An owner would say that Atmosphere should be nothing but teaching and learning about the business. Generally, a big room is set aside for people to gather in the morning to practice pitch and learn about atmosphere. There is almost always a dry erase board handy so that a person can draw something to help teach others.
Atmosphere happens twice a day. Once in the morning before the meeting, and secondly, in the evening as people get back from the field. Atmosphere is when the owner is on stage. He has to make sure that his office delivers a superior performance to the new people and the leaders or the attitude will slip and then sales will slip. Here are a few rules (in no order of importance): 1) Always get with the guy who made money that day or the day before and learn what he did. 2) Always get with the owner, assistant manager or especially a visiting VP and find out what they did to get ahead. 3) If you are a leader always try and be showing a new person something positive about the business or how to make more money using the marketing system. 4) Tell a merchandising story that has a positive aspect. 5) Isolate or Quarantine from the general populace anyone who does not have a great attitude in atmosphere. 6) Promote your goals that have to do with success through the business. 7) Give recognition to anyone who makes noise or rings the bell (some one who sells a certain amount that day and is privileged to be able to hit a gong or ring a bell or sound off a horn in atmosphere One gives recognition by saying juice or juice by YOU and high fiving the jubilant sales rep. 8) Practice Pitching when everyone gets in little groups and practices going through a pitch. 9) Have games which have to do with pitching or learning about the marketing system. 10) Have loud music. 11) Make new people want to become a part of the family by constantly promoting ds-max in front of them. 12) Promote what an owner wants said about a situation (in leaders meeting a situation may arise about a campaign or a person in the office and the owner can dictate to the leaders how this situation is to be promoted in atmosphere to new people you would be surprised how this works) 13) Have hip loud music playing. This makes people have to speak up in pitch circles and also if a new person says something negative the music will drown it out.
The effects of these rules on the mind of the rep are as subtle as silk but get a hard as a vice. The non-leader starts out by seeing everyone having a good time before and after work. But then you become a leader and now you are a thought cop always making sure everyone is acting like they should. You go from genuinely being curious and asking a question as a non-leader to manipulating your guys to ask how to get a head - to constantly regurgitating the same stories to your guys. You believe it and you hope that if you repeat it enough that your guys will too. You go from wanting to get a head in life to coming down hard on any dissension from what should be said in atmosphere. You see, when you start the business, you want a job and you try and fit in. Atmosphere may seem a bit weird but, hey, you need to pay rent. If you last and you become sold on the business you have to act in certain ways.
Understand to go door to door for eight plus hours and to make money for you and maybe some else is as much of a mental exercise as a physical one. Attitude is everything. You have to have your thoughts in control. If you are in a bad mood or doubt your self the people will see it and not buy. Being in the field selling door to door is not like being a cashier at 7-11. Going door to door for eight hours means having doors slammed on you, angry people, having someone insinuate you are a crook to your face, you might run out of territory, you might run in to some one else, some might have been there the day before and not marked it, your day of o might have high heels on and want to go home early you name it! So you use atmosphere and all the tools of the office to get yourself and your crew into that selling state. And to be in that rhino state you adopt the whole psychology. If you have been in the business for months you learn that following that psychology will help you make money in the field and get you recognition in the office. Because to run a door to door sales crew Attitude is everything! As leader, you enforce atmosphere. Enforcing Atmosphere as long as I have has made me recognize how important media is to a society. I.E. What gets said, what gets left out, how something is promoted. When you start out learning the business, you have to learn how to sell to eat. To learn to sell, you act like the guys that are doing the job. And who are making the most sales in the office? The guys that take control, that have the best attitudes, that dont let negatives bother them, that follow the 5& 8 to a T and dont vary it are the high producers. You adopt that psychology and pay your bills, or you make no money and be out of a job.
By the way one big lie that is often insinuated in many offices in the business that with out Atmosphere, no one would be able to sell anything. That if you leave the business and do your own thing that you will languish in poverty because you will not have atmosphere to rejuvenate you! I guess that is why so many important inventions sell in the world today then because of atmosphere! I wonder what atmosphere was like for Bill Gates or Henry Ford? LOL!
Morning atmosphere. You are supposed to arrive and get your merchandise and then attend a meeting. Before the meeting is when atmosphere happens. If you are a leader and are training someone that day and the campaign is a little complicated, atmosphere can be a life saver for you if you make sure to get your trainee pitching and learning so that they are more ready for the field.
Evening atmosphere. People should return back from the field after a certain hour. They settle up for what they sold and go home but not so fast. Hang around in the office for a while for atmosphere. If you are new they will not make you hang around too long. The owners and leaders will pull you aside, make sure you didnt have a bad day and are about to quit, get you excited about the next day and then put you on your way. If you are a leader with a crew you should be there for as much of night atmosphere as possible. You have to make sure that if any of your crew had a low paying day that you get with them and get them in the door for the next day. And if they are making ok money then you should be fear of lossing them into wanting to be a leader. After all the new people have gone home, Atmosphere can end and the leaders can go home too.
4 Phrases/Terminology
All offices have chants and phrases. Some are specific to the office. This is encouraged as it leads to more unity and fun. Each crew is often encouraged to come up with their own slogan or song. Even a poster. There are also many terms that are organizational. I will touch on what some of them mean later.
It is also important to note how these chants, sayings and words will play their part in the organization of the office. When you say a certain word, everyone is trained to say a certain word back. This immediately stops though of other things and gets attention focused on the speaker. For example juice. You say juice and some one should say juice back. So if someone is running a meeting and people are talking in the background the speaker can say juice? And everyone in unison should say juice back. Or you can start a chant, and then everyone will roboticly repeat it and change their thoughts. Because saying juice helps a person to stay in the ds-max mode of thought. It is all kind of like the Pavlovs dog example. A sound is uttered and then people associate a feeling or response to the stimulus. Pavlovs dog salivated at the sound of the bell, when some one says juice you get into a ds-max rhino mode.
Here are some sayings:
Juice = Join us in creating excitement. This word is a be all end all for DS-max lingo. It demonstrates how reps are supposed to be in an excited, opportunity minded state. To follow this program, you have to be positive. To get people you never met to buy from you on the spot you have to be in a positive state of mind. If someone says juice? To you, you should say juice! Back.
Juice by you = congratulations
Juice by that = well done
9 to 5 schmuck = some one that has a 9 to 5 job. This person is lazy, has his life controlled by a boss, will be laid off, has no sense of goals or directions and is too secure in their poor existence to try and get a head in life.
Rhino = A ds-max poster child. Someone that has a great attitude, can build a crew, overcome any negative, is looking for long term success in the business and can do the marketing system to the T.
Impact = A small mini meeting that happens before the main meeting in the morning. A respected leader or someone that is consistent in production, or that did well the day before selects one aspect of the marketing system and talks about that for a few minutes.
Meeting = A 10 to 30 minute gathering that happens every morning. The resident owner goes over who did well the day before, promotes people to leadership and talks about something to get the reps excited to go out in the field to sell. It should be motivational. But sometimes they are fear of loss meetings.
Day of O = For day of observation. A job applicant. This person has been told that he is going to be teamed up with someone to spend an unpaid day in the field so that they can be evaluated and that they in turn can evaluate the company. It is up to the leader to decide if he wants the person and to be able to convince the person to take the job.
Hey Guys?! = If some one shouts this
Hey What?! = Then everyone responds with that. It is a way to get everyones attention for a meeting. If someone is trying to say something or make a point they can yell out the hey guys and get everyone to respond back hey what. There is a lot of noise going on in the office. Plus, sales men all like to get attention. So this is one way to get everyone on the same page. A good owner will train the leaders to respond with the hey what statement.
High roller speech = If you do well in production the day before, it will be announced in the following morning meeting. You might be privileged to speak a bit about how you made good money. If you are a good leader, you should think before hand about what you are going to say. You want the owner to think well of you so that you will get a good day of O for your team. Usually this means picking a step from the marketing system that worked well for you, telling a story about how having a great attitude saved you and then finish by saying how you want to accomplish a ds-max related goal like get promoted in 3 months or something like that. Having nothing to say would only be excusable for a new leader other than that you would just look sloppy. If you have a new person on your crew that is going to be speaking be sure to get with that person before hand and tell them what and what not to say! If the person says something anti-dsmax while doing a highroller speech in front of everyone expect to hear about it from the owner! If a new person starts talking out of turn up there, the leaders will start clapping their hands and saying, juice. The negative person will be drowned out by the noise and come to realize that we all think he was done with his speech and to get back in the semi-circle
5 The meeting
To recap, our people have arrived on time and received their consignment of goods (be it boxes of tweety birds or an AT&T book). People have been in atmosphere a bit now practice pitching, learning the five steps. May be a leader is at the dry erase board with a marker explaining how to solicit in a high rise building with out getting easily caught (something yours truly was pretty good at!) The music has been blaring all morning and hopefully the owner has good taste. If he is a smart owner he will not let the young kids start playing offense rap music that will alienate the women and scare off his more professional recruits. But that is not always the case!
It is time to get the people going but first they must be even more hyped up.
Hey guys some yells out.
Hey what the people yell back
Do you want a meeting? And on it goes.
First is a 5-minute impact where a leader or someone near leadership will share some knowledge on an aspect of the marketing system. (A little foot note here.in an office that is thriving with many high earning leaders competition for the right to do an impact is fierce! On the other hand, you might be in an office that is brand new, or is in a slump and then you might be doing ALL the impacts. Then you feel like an impact whore and just wish that some one would give you a rest. Because what if you had a bad day now you are going to go up in front of everyone and tell them how to do it? I have been in both situations. If I have a new person starting that day I always tried to be the one doing the impact.)
He will finish with a hey guys and then get everyone to call out for a meeting.
The owner or assistant manager will now do a 10 to 30 minute schpeal. The production from the day before will be gone over. He will announce the people that did well. The high roller speeches will be given. Now the owner will pick something to talk about to motivate the guys. It could be about a personal story, a new campaign, success in the business, an inspirational story. Then there is the close. And then it is out in the field.
6 The Opportunity
Ok. Joey the new guy is doing pretty well. He was taken out by his faithful leader and a few others to learn a campaign. He got it. He got put out on his own and what do you know! He is making ok money. Now his leader wants to try and make Joey get into leadership. But he can not make him. Joey has to WANT to become a leader. So that is when Joeys faithful leader and all the other sold individuals will really start to promote the opportunity of the business. They will talk about things like how much money an owner makes, being financially independent, how they want to work hard while they are young so that they can retire rich, where they want to open an office, how much money other owners are making, success storys in the business. This is all normal talk for atmosphere. But for our friend Joey, the pressure is on. Joey must be made to really want leadership. To be always asking other leaders and the owner whatever it is he must do to be a leader. May be he will be told to memorize G.A.R.L.I.C. To have a Great Attitude, be Responsible, have Income and to do all this on a Consistent basis.
An important first step is for Joey to attend an opportunity meeting. It will take place either before or after work. It will be made to seem like Joey has to be invited to attend it. The reality is that the poor owner is praying that enough people will actually show up. But Joey must be in a state where he is dying to hear how to get a head. And then, the resident manager will make his pitch.
Now people, I have never given an opportunity meeting. But I sure have seen enough of them. I will not make this a complete one. A lot of what is covered in an opportunity meeting I am covering in other areas of this report. I am writing it like this to try and explain to the lay person what kind of state people get put in to hear this meeting. How the choreography goes. You dont simply present something like this right up front to a job applicant. Ds-max wants people to hear this that have been in the business for a little bit. That knows that there is a possibility of making money in the field. It is for people that have a little bit of faith in the business not necessarily sold so that they can be hooked in more.
So I will just give a meeting. Here is the setting. There is a room that the company uses for morning meetings. There is no table to sit at. All the meetings are held around a dry erase board while people are standing. But on this occasion, there are chairs for the new people and the leaders. The new people of the office are there. They are made to feel like it is a privilege to be invited. The leaders are most often there too. The leaders are there to get re-indoctrinated and to provide vocal support for the owner. They will do this by saying juice at the right moment are asking a question about ds-max that the owner can answer in a favorable manor to help impress this new crop of recruits.
The meeting is really a show. A presentation. A commercial. The owner is selling the opportunity to new hires. So he will do his best to set the stage to his advantage. For once, the music will be turned off and chairs will be set up in front of a dry erase board. Leaders will be invited to attend. A good owner will get the leader to ask a question that will allow him to promote the business i.E. Q How many offices are there? A 15000 spread around the world and there is room for 1000s more! The new people have been made to feel special for being selected to hear this meeting. May be there is some food and drinks. The stage is now set.
The owner will now explain what ds-max, cydcor, granton marketing and his company are. (I covered all this in Overview see that section if you need it gone over again.) He will then go into the advantages of marketing door to door to try and get the new hires to see a broader picture on what they do. He can talk about how his business is not paying huge bills to get people to visit something via television or radio. How word of mouth is so much better a system than mail. The manager will promote why it is better all around to be paid strictly on performance by his clients. (Whether or not a rep makes a sale determines the amount of money received by a client.) He will mention how even if a person does not buy a certificate or sign up for a service, at least they have heard about the product and may sign up for the company on his own, or later on buy from another rep. It is promoted how everyone in the office has such better attitudes than regular 9 to 5 people and how much the public is impressed by the professionalism of ds-max. An owner can explain that if someone pays for a commercial, the viewer can change the channel or not even be home to see it. How people throw junk mail out with out reading it. But then he go into detail about how effective his advertising is by hitting every single door in a given area and how his reps cant be turned off or thrown out like an add. He may talk about how reps brighten everyones day.
Now the owner will start to mention growth and expansion. It will be mentioned that more locations are desperately needed to handle their clients, that more managers are needed to run them! He will usually make the following comments in his word: That he would rather have a consistent person dedicated person than an inconsistent person, that he wants manager that can run offices not sales people. He will mention that sales people just help him pay his bills. That an office he can promote out will make him a lot more money.
So now the reps are intrigued. Dont they want to be a manager and run offices? They arent just measly sales people are they? Because if they are or the manager thinks they are they will be viewed as chumps in the office.
The owner will now explain how to get to management. You get promoted to leadership. To do that you have consistent production, you have a great attitude in and out of the office, you display leadership qualities and you do all this on a consistent basis. You have to be able to prove that you can retrain some one. (Ill get into that later) Plus you must always be asking the manager and the other leaders in the office how to get to leadership. (After all this is your financial independence we are talking about here right? Shouldnt you always be asking someone who is doing the job how to do it?) Now when you are a leader you win the right to build a crew. To do this, you take out a day of observation, close them, retrain them and get them to leadership. 5 times. You need to get 5 leaders on your team. Plus, these leaders must be able to build crew too. If one of your guys puts someone on his crew, that would be your second generation. Ideally you want to shoot for at least 10-15 people on your crew. At least 5 must be first generation leaders and the rest will be some 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation guys and of course your first generation that are not yet leaders. You need a big crew to be able to hit a production level that is usually set by the manager. So the requirements are 1) the five-generation leaders 2)-crew size 3) having your crew hit the production requirement.
When you do those things, you will be an assistant manager. You will stay in the office, do interviews, learn the paperwork and save money. Save about 10 grand. You are paid an override off your big crew now. When you have the money saved, you get a territory, an office, furniture, and your first and last months rent paid, take any on your crew willing to go and open up your deal. What will happen is that you will have an independent corporation formed for you. You will be president of this corporation. Then, you and your corporation are entitled to sell products that Ds-max and or Cydcor or Granton Marketing gives you. No loans. No mba. You pay for ads and rent. You will now do interviews all day to get days of observations for your leaders in your office. It is promoted that you will make a 6-figure income. You do a meeting, your guys go out an make you money, have some atmosphere and then you laugh all the way to the bank. If you have 20 guys going out in the field and they all make money, you just made yourself a nice bit of change that day!
Let us take note here. There is never a direct tie here from the independently formed corporation and its suppliers. If the fledgling corporation does well great Ds-max and the powers that be will get their money. If the office misrepresents products, if the people in the office commit any crimes, then Ds-max and the products escape all liability. I.E. A representative in a cydcor office signs up a business for AT&T long distance. He wants some extra money so he gets the owner of the business to agree to having an 800 number with out explaining the charges adequately. Months later the customer complains. The responsibility can only fall on the rep that has probably already quit. Cydcor is contracted by AT&T, which is contracted by DS-max, which has contracted the office that the rep worked out of. I recently heard about an advertising office in Texas that sold too many buy one get one free certificates to a restaurant. The restaurant chose to no longer honor the certificates. A restaurant wants such certificates sold a bit a way from their location. This office has reps selling the certificates within the same vicinity. If the office does not do well, another can be put in and the Manager will have to go out in the field again and build another crew.
Offices fail! What happens if all the guys quit? How is the owner going to pay for advertising bills, phones and rent? What can make the guys quit? A tough new campaign, an unchecked leaders and or owners that always try and sleep with all the women, favoritism of an owner to a leader so that he gets all of the days of observations, an owner that underpays his reps (remember it is HIS independently owned corporation), another nearby office with your campaign going into your territory, the inability of an owner to motivate his guys to go through the program because of personality, burn out or disillusionment and I can go on and on. Or the owner could lose a campaign. If the campaign that the owner had is fairly easy, his reps may not be able to handle a tougher one. Or they may not be given another campaign just told to up and move in an area where they can work. Many offices fail the first year. And then it is back to your promoting manager or a into a VPs office and then you start building a crew again. It is widely promoted that those who get shut down the first time and do it again are the strongest. But that is if they can ever do it again. These guys still often owe money on leases, phone bills and pay to former distributors.
Ok now, back to our opportunity meeting. Hold on! Our new reps think. What is the catch? May be a leader will pipe up in the back and say something like why dont you just take the city for yourself or what is the catch The owner is only too happy to reply. An owner makes a portion of the sales of each office that he promotes out. (Not 2nd or 3rd generation offices just 1st) The owner gets this override from ds-max. When the promoting office pays ds-max for the product it sells, a portion of that money is paid to the promoting owner. For example, lets say a certificate sells for 10 dollars in the field. The rep will get 5 dollars, the owner 3 and head office 2. Lets say that the promoting managers cut is 1 dollar. Head office will pay the promoting manager 1 dollar out of the 2 it got.
So, an owner can make 10 grand a year off a good outside deal. If an office has about 20 reps a piece and they are all selling and he gets a piece of each sale it is not hard to imagine how you can get 10 grand to the promoting owner. If you put out say 2 outside deals that is 20 extra grand a year you get on top of what you make while running your office? Sounds good huh? Juice!!! Exclaim all the leaders present. Maybe even some of the new people are starting to say juice along with them.
But wait - it gets better!
Guess what happens when you promote out 5 first generation deals and are doing a certain volume in your organization? You become a regional manager with more clout AND your overrides off your first generation deals double! Furthermore if you put out at least 7 first generation deals, and have 2 seconds and have a certain amount of production you will be a vice president! This means a $250,000 base salary, plus overrides on all your deals, plus the income from the office you run. The leaders should all be hooting and hollering saying juice and claiming that that is where they will be in five years. The new people are flushed with joy at thinking about how they too could be able to get those goals and cant believe there luck at being part of this wonderful origination.
Let us not leave out how the big shots will be promoted. Murray Reinhardt, various vice presidents, all will be given as examples of how you can go from rags to riches through this wonderful program.
Now it is up to the manager to get this dream instilled in his guys. To have them get them to devote all they have to getting to VP, for their own financial independence and his. See why Atmosphere and meetings are so important now? In Atmosphere, as well as going over the pitch, you constantly go over this opportunity for financial independence. Reps are encouraged to visualize their new office to preselect what they want to call their corporation even put it on a crew poster. So if you have a leader on a slump that just lost his crew again that leader will hang on. Why? Because for countless times they have heard about how VPs and regional manager went through multiple crews and ate ramen noodles and stuck it through and now make the big money. It is promoted how you may have to build crews a few times, how only a few that are tough will make it. It is promoted that to succeed; the rep must close the door on any thought of quitting and just give there all to the business.
7 New locations
Let us suppose our Rhino friend builds a crew and finishes being an assistant manager. Now it is off to a new location. Ideally, an owner would like to have his own place. But, especially in a city like LA or New York, rent is expensive, and more often than not it makes sense to rent space from an existing owner. The new business will get his new corporation, some merchandise and move in. The 10 grand he has been saving goes to his first and last months rent. The ads get put out. An administrator that makes about 7 dollars an hour is hired. Her job is to answer the phone all day for the many ads that will be place and reps will call from the field from time to time. The new manager will now run his office exactly like his promoting manager.
IF the new owner is with an existing one, it can go very well or very bad. Right off the bat, recruiting gets affected. Some of the new days of observation that come in have to go to the new owner and that has to be worked out. Several disputes have erupted where one owner feels that he has been given all the poor quality recruits while another owner gets the smart ones. Rent is an issue. Some existing owners are fair about it; some gouge the new guy. The reality is a lot of new businesss fail. So, if a roses owner lets a communications owner rent part of his office space and he fails, he still might owe phone bills or paychecks to his guys. It is the Roses owner whose name is on the lease and he will be held accountable for all unpaid ads and utility bills. He will not be responsible for paying the communications guys, but it will be frustrating for him because especially if they are new, they may not believe he is in fact a separate business from the communications guy. The unpaid guys might try to cause problems for his office. On the other hand, there are several stories of great friendships that exist between people that partner up in locations. Partnering up is good if the owners have different types of campaigns.
Starting an office will depend a lot on the personality of the owner. If the owner has a magnetic personality, then many people will want to go with him - even people that are not on his crew. If the owner has become a prick while being an assistant manager, or just has never had a great rapport with others, no one will want to follow him into his deal. Another thing is if the new owner has several people that have kids and/or strong family ties in the area. They will not uproot all that on a whim and a prayer. On the other hand you can have a greedy promoting manager that does not want to give a new owner too many people to start out with. I have seen cases where only one or two guys are allowed to go with a new owner in his new location. How is a new owner supposed to pay for ads and rent with just two distributors? This will translate into the new owner going out in the field to help pay bills and hire people. Some promoting managers let a new owner start with many people and will also cover housing costs for the guys for one month. When it comes down to it, the new owner will take some of the reps from the office to his new office. Some will be from his crew and some will not be. That is one benefit to retraining people off of your crew. You can bond with them and they might want to follow you to your place.
8 How an office works
Consignment and strokes. Offices sell products door to door. Different campaigns pay varying amounts. For example, this is how a certificate in advertising worked in 2000. (I know the amounts are different now.) It sold for $20. The rep keeps $9. The owner keeps 5. The rest goes to ds-max. Some of that will go to Granton and some will go to the promoting manager.in this is how an AT&T application worked. A rep signs up a customer for long distance. Then he takes the application in to his office and the office FedExs the application to corporate. AT&T pays Cydcor a certain amount for the long distance. Cydcor takes a cut for itself and pays ds-max. Ds-max takes a cut for itself and pays the owner. The owner pays the rep and keeps a cut for himself. A document bag might sell for $10 dollars. The rep will keep 4, the owner will keep 3 and dsmax will get 3.
With a Cydcor office, the reps are all employees and the owners can tell them when and where to show up. All other divisions are independent contractors. This means they can not be required to attend any meeting. The only thing that an owner can control is when they can pick up and drop off his merchandise. Also, it promoted that if you just want to be a lousy salesman and help the owner pay his bills, you can just take your merchandise and go. But if you want to get in the management program and thereby be well on your way to financial independence, you will attend all the meetings and atmosphere so that you can learn. See the catch 22 here?
Here is a day in the office. An office usually has a reception area, an office for the manager, another for an assistant manager or another owner, a meeting room and then a room where the merchandise is stored under lock and key. (Especially in the clearance division - corporate wants to make sure you have a security system. All owners are encouraged to have a safe because a lot of cash is collected daily in most offices.) The top leaders and owner arrive first. On goes the stereo. It is important that the owner keep the music somewhat tasteful if he wants to retain professional people! (Some young men given a chance will play nothing but harsh rap with terrible language!) Consignments and merch are prepared. People arrive in the morning, get their order of goods to sell that day and then join atmosphere. If you arrive late it is very much frowned upon. An owner has to be sure about rides and territory and who is getting a day of observation. Late people delay all this; Which means the meeting starts later, which means that the guys get less time in the field which means everyone makes less money. All because a clueless retrain didnt want to get out of bed! After atmosphere comes the meeting. Then it is leaders in the office. If you are a new person on your own, head out in the field. After the leaders meeting the leaders head out in the field with their retrains and their days of observations. During the day the manager will do his production reports, cover any bills and conduct interviews. The administrator will be by the phone taking calls.in the evening the guys will come back from the field. Settle ups will happen. (An accounting for what was and was not sold in the field. If you are in a division like clearance or advertising your merchandise had better not be in bad condition or be missing or you will have to pay for it.) Night atmosphere happens. People that make good money that day will ring a bell and get recognition from everybody. (God forbid you are the leader that did not high five a new person that rang the bell that night!) When all the reps are in and the new people have gone home the office closes.
9 Employment ads and first interviews
The all-important lifes blood of an office is recruiting. This is a door to door sweatshop sales job. Turn over rate is high. You need a constant supply to survive. The owner will put ads in a few different forms of media. It is usually the main local paper, monster.com, and then one or two side publications. The ads will be vague. They will mention something like management opportunity, new locations, customer service, call here if you are not making at least $10 an hour. The ad will instruct them to call the office to set up an appointment and to ask for a specific individual.
When the applicants call and ask for a person, the administrator will know what ads they are responding too.By doing this the owner can decide if he wants to continue to finance a certain medium or if one type of add is working better in his market than others.
The administrator will now book them in for an interview. She will pretend to not know much at all about the position and claim that specific questions can only be answered by the manager. Can they come in today or tomorrow? She will write the time down.
When an applicant comes in for an interview she will have them sit and fill out some personal information and then give the info to the manager. To start off, the manager has the attitude that You are looking for the job, and I have one, so what can you offer me? The manager will now see them for a very quick interview. The manager will now explain a bit about what the company does. Only when pressed might they admit that what they do is door to door sales. He will mention word of mouth advertising and mention some of the great clients that ds-max has like Disney, AT&T and the Yankees. He will ask the candidate some general questions. He needs to determine if this is the type of person that will ruin his leaders attitude if set up on a day of observation or if this person might meld well with a certain leader in his office. (All in 5 to 10 minutes.) If the manager thinks the person might be open minded and stick it out he will invite them for a full day interview called a day of observation. He will let the candidates know that it is a full day and that it is unpaid. He will usually tell them to wear comfortable shoes. If the candidate starts to ask a barrage of tough questions and the manager feels like he is in too much of a defense mode he will not invite them back. It is better that a candidate go off on the manager in private than to have a leader have his day ruined by an irate job candidate. The candidates that get invited back for a second interview are told to show up about when the morning meeting will finish in the morning, to look professional, keep an open mind, be prepared for a full work day and to wear comfortable shoes.
10 How to take out a day of Observation and build a crew
I have had to explain this a lot in my time. I have had many people on my crew. Also, I always made sure to let orphans know what to do (a new leader whose leader toasted) Often enough a guy would get to leadership and his leader would not even tell him how to go about this! This shocked me. So I always felt it my duty to bring people up to speed. I have not gone over this with someone in two years. So here is one last time. I hope I am not too rusty!
You should have a territory picked out to work the night before. If you have a car, you are set. Make sure your car is clean so as not to disgust your day of O. If you dont have a car, then you should make sure there is room and have a ride in advance before the morning meeting. You should not keep a new applicant waiting for any time at all in the morning. As a leader you should always be bugging the manager to train. If you have been making ok money, and being a good guy to make atmosphere and impacts happen, then you should be given a day of observation by your manager. Especially if you made good money the day before.
After the morning meeting, the leaders all go in the office to meet with the manager. This is when the manager will get mean if something needs to get corrected. He will usually never lose his cool in front of the new people. So if the office looks sloppy, or not enough people are in pitch circles, or a new guy ran out of territory and then went into someone elses and ruined another new persons day this is where it gets brought up. Leaders that are doing well get complimented and maybe some important news about campaigns are gone over. Then people are picked to get the Day of O.
There is a lot of controversy over what is and what is not said to a day of observation. Any manager I have worked with has always made it clear to a person that the day is unpaid and that it is a full day. But I worked mainly with Cydcor and more professionalism was needed.in clearance, where there are no fortune 500 companies that could be upset, I have heard horror stores where an ad for a ware house worker is posted, and then wham bam the poor guy finds himself on a day of observation! Anyway, the candidate gets a chance to evaluate the company and the leader is to evaluate them FOR the company. They are usually told to wear comfortable shoes. It is just hell for a leader to get a day of observation that is a woman wearing high heals! They always get blisters and usually cant walk after half the day. Such women usually say that they had no idea to where comfortable shoes or that they did hear to where comfortable shoes but did not take it seriously and wanted to look professional with the heals. (But that does not help you because now they are sitting on a bench massaging there blister while your law of averages to a sale is being taken away!)
When you meet a day of o you should be very pleasant, smile and automatically take control. You take the attitude that YOU are evaluating them and that they have to impress you! (Because if you dont they will walk all over you!) Make sure they are parked in a good area; make sure they understand that it IS for a full day. Off you go. So you are in the car now and it is time to prepare them for the negatives of going door to door. You let them know that there you have been given an area to cover. That it is too hard to set up appointments with everyone. People are not there, or are busy and you could not possible meet everyone at the appointed time. So all you will do is walk in, see if anyone is interested in what you have and if not go. This is not a time to press for people to buy. You can explain the law of averages. IE Explain that you are going to see maybe one hundred doors today and that maybe only 5 people will sign up for what you have. My point is you want to get this guy prepared to go door to door and to take the pressure off of yourself. This guy is now not expecting to see a sale so the pressure is off you.
If the day of O asks about compensation you defer it to later. I usually said that that was a question for the manager in the final interview. You dont want to talk about money until you have made some sales.
You should ask a whole bunch of questions to the day of o. Find out what he likes and dislikes. What he is motivated for or running away from? If it is an older guy talk about management. If it is a kid talk about learning and growth. If the guy hates being in a cubicle then promote the fresh air. If she likes international business talk about how many countrys ds-max is in.
Now you go through the day. The person does not have to speak just to watch. You go through the day. Hopefully you will make a few sales by lunch. You buy the day of o lunch out of your own pocket. It is then that you can let the day of o know how much money you have made (I liked to make sure I had at least 60 dollars). If you feel a rapport going tell them to write down the 5 and 8 and let them know about the quiz before the interview. (I used to have fun with this! I loved watching them freak out and scramble to remember everything I said) Finish the day. Hopefully you will make at least one hundred dollars. At the end of the day you go back to office and have a chat. If you mutually like each other you can promise to try and get the person hired tonight. Before the person goes to meet the manager you need to know two things 1) will they start the next day and 2) will they give this one hundred percent. You take their number, seat them in the lobby to take the quiz and then go talk with the manager, You tell the manager that you want them and then usher them in. They get hired and then you see them off! THAT NIGHT it is critical that you call the person at home to congratulate them. They will go home and face the negatives of their family. May be the boyfriend will flip, or maybe his Mom will get upset. This is your time to turn around all that. (If it happens) All you do is call and say hey X I just wanted to let you know that I had a great time working with you today and that I am looking forward to working with you tomorrow. If some one is pressuring them to quit they will usually bring it up there. If not they will thank you and you will hang up and that is that.
Now I will mention some reality here! It can be a mental and physical struggle to keep a day of observation with you the whole day! Many leave leaders standing in the parking lot! Some will leave right when you get into the field. Then you have to come back and drop them off! Remember how I mentioned before how important it is to let them know that it will be a full day before you leave? Some will suddenly remember a doctors visit; some will flat out say they wont do door to door. Some will call a family member to pick them up; others will catch a bus. Some will high tail it away from you to another job interview. Some guys will not take a person back. They say hey I said it was a whole day and you knew that up front. Ill get you at the McDonalds at the end of the day. Some leaders will give a guy bus fare back to the office. It can be a particularly trying experience on a person to try and close someone if you did make a sale that day. I have done it! But more often than not that is the end of the story. And the reality is many day of observations that get hired will just never show up again the next day.
Now on to retraining. I always like to say there are 3 types. There is a full day, a half-day and a check up day. Retraining makes a person a stronger merchandiser. You teach a stranger how to follow the 5 and 8. You come to realize that it must be followed exactly and that you cant cheat it. That if you teach a person the 5 and 8 they will make money.
The full day is for a new person or someone who is on a serious slump. Atmosphere saves you here. Make sure your guy learns as much of the pitch as possible. Especially for a first day person take the pressure off. Say I dont care if we dont make any sales today this is a learning day for you. You saw me do well yesterday right? Well now we need to take some time today to get you up to my level or better ok? Ideally it should be you who trains your guy on his first day. Who can you trust more? This is the most critical day for a new guy and you want to make sure that he learns right. You pitch most of the morning. Then slowly start to get them to do some of the five steps. Have them do the introduction then you jump in with the short story. Then have them get farther and farther. You must teach them the pitch, and also to interact. They should be smiling, they should know how to answer questions, to learn to engage the people in conversations. You should teach the people to relax and just have fun. A rep that is in a bad mood or under pressure will not be received well by people in the field. Some reps will be ready to go after just a bit. Others will need a full day retrain again the next day. Having a person being able to go alone also depends on what type of campaign it is. Something complicated like AT&T where you are looking at phone bills you need the guy by you more. Something easy like clearance come on! But also, the new person needs to learn how to have a great attitude from the leader. New people learn not get offended by rude people and just walk away, to turn rebuttals around. And work ethic! You have to hustle and see a lot of doors with a retrain because they may not work as hard with out you to motivate them. At the end of the day, if they have not already, try and have them do a few doors alone. A lot of bonding can come on retrains. You give of yourself to a stranger to help them succeed. Plus you are both going door to door and in that kind of environment you just never know what is going to happen next. You hire a guy teach them watch them grow and go on their own. You feel like a parent. So when they toast it hurts. You should not show that it hurts. Officially you should promote that that is just helped your law of averages to help you getting people that will stick. But that is not how you really feel. You always wonder how they are or what they are doing. (Not with all of them of course just the ones that believed in you, that stayed with you the longest, that you bonded with.) Often enough a person will not show up after a first day retrain after you have paid them! This hurts. Usually you are the one that makes the money on a first day retrain and you are paying them for learning. And then to not have them come again! You feel cheated. You wind up wishing that you had never hired them! At least you could understand it if it was a day when no money was made. But after a profitable day! Now you start to learn that you have to try and be careful about whom you hire, and that guys may tell you one thing but may be doing another. You chalk it up as a learning experience and as law of averages and you move on.
The second type of retrain now. This is for a second or third day person some one who can do the pitch but still needs to get in the flow. This will mainly be an observation retrain for you. You will spend half the day doing doors together, and then continually meet up in the afternoon. The person will pitch the first 5 or so doors and all you will do is watch and not say anything. You evaluate. It is amazing how much you can learn about a person by just shutting up and giving them your full attention. If the person is doing fine great. If not then let them know what they need to do. Is the short story before the introduction? Are they letting a person ask something or roboticly continuing on with the presentation? Is there eye contact or lack of a smile? Are they fidgeting? They can now watch you pitch a little. It is best to sepa
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