I had recently lost my job and didn't qualify for unemployment and saw this ad in the paper. And so began a trip through the Twilight Zone.
The first indication that something was wrong was that the ad say the job paid $300-$350 a week but when you got there the job was commission. The second warning sign was that the ad also said that 25 postions were badly need. The territories we were assigned where wasn't enough to keep 10 people busy. As if this wasn't enough these territories were all over the place: Silver City (2 hrs away one way), Ruidoso, Deming, and El Paso (Where there was another office).
But the worse was yet to come. The day started at 7:00 AM where we would "Juice up" for the day and practice pitch for 2 hrs. Then we pitch going from business to business trying to get anybody there to buy our goods until 5:00 PM when we would go back ot the office. So depending on where you went you had a 10 to 12 hour day Monday through Friday; Saturday we only worked 8 to 10 hrs.
And the quality of what we sold varied. The worst sales method we were taught was if a item was damaged we'd claim its normal price was double what it actually was say 'but since it is damaged I give you half off'. Of course to rise through the company you need to meet a profit quota and recrute and keep a certain number of people under you. But no one stayed long enough for that to happen.
I gave up the ghost after trying for months to make this thing work. I met one of the other agents and it turns out he and another agent (the last of the group I had meet) quit on the same day. Riverside was so desperate to keep they that they offered to take them to San Antonio, TX. But the whole claim was that you would make this method work *anywhere*. Looks like that was false too just like the claim that the right attitude would bring in the money.
Perhaps the best example of the mentality is in the story they told us regarding the founder who supposedly bought $20 items form a story and sold them for $40.
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