Ds Max
Aka WW Industries Cobra Import Export & Granton Marketing IF IT LOOKS LIKE A SCAM, TALKS LIKE A SCAM, SOUNDS LIKE A SCAM AND ACTS LIKE A SCAM, YOU HAVE EVRY RIGHT TO CALL IT A SCAM From an old employee Worldwide

Maybe calling it a scam is too harsh a word. It's not really a scam; it's just a no, I suppose it is a scam.

I worked for DS MAX in Australia for about 6 years. I was promoted to Assistant Manager four months after starting and shortly therafter opened my own office in a new city where I knew no-one and where there were also no other DS MAX offices.

I was as pumped as the 20 yr old owner from Canada. But that office failed and I had to leave and go to another city where my original owner had moved to open another office.

I worked my ass off out in the field again and made it to ownership once more. I saved about $40,000 in a year or so and promoted out three owners. The problem was that I couldn't send my promotions where I - and they - wanted to go. There was always some VP telling you where to send them. Not very "independent".

It was about this time that I started to question the ethics of the company, and what I was doing. There had been many things over the years that made me stop and think; but my doubts were always assuaged by the incredible bank of motivational crap that had been downloaded into my brain.

Yet now I felt myself returning to the good, honest, sincere individual that I was before I was turned into this greedy, win at all costs, money and success obsessesed idiot. The final straw was when we had a government agency enquiring into the companies' activities. That was when the attitude of "head office" changed. They cut the cord and let us swim for ourselves. Not that there was any serious trouble; we just had to modify our advertising. Yet, the attitude change of the VP's always remained with me.

A year or so later I closed my office and have had no contact with the company for about four years.

Just a few facts to set the record straight.

ADVERTISING - I have been to many, many owners meetings where other owners and VP's tell you how to advertise and interview. Never have I ever heard one of them say that an owner should tell a potential recruit that their O Day would involve door to door sales. Now, anyone can come back at me with a thousand responses, but that is just outright deception. Of course, they hope that most people will get caught up in the excitement of it all and forget that they were lied to. Yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that this 'first'lie stays with people for a long time. I never forgot it, and I'm sure most people to whom I lied didn't forget it either.

COMPANY SUPPORT - The company supports you as long as you:
A / Toe the line and regurgitate the manifesto or
B / Make them tonnes of money

BRAINWASHING - There is no question in my mind that the techniques used by DS MAX constitute brainwashing, yet there are many other examples of other companies that use other tactics to control their staff. Uniforms, jargon, meetings, incentives, harrasment etc are all forms of brainwashing. Yet the insidious part of DS MAX is the manner in which they take over the lives of their people. The amount of time, the laborious meetings, going out with your crew to the movies or for dinner, calling them on Sundays. Gimme a break! Why? Why do they promote these things? Why do they want you to "get with" only positive people? Answer: To keep you cocooned in a shell of their own making. Just think, If you were a steadfast capitalist and you were kept in a communist village of China, without news from the west for ten years, constantly bombarded with Chairman Mao's propaganda, you would probably end up being a fully fledged communist too. Now, they may argue that this is true; they are making people better, turning them into millionaires. Yeh yeh yeh... How many of these "millionaires" are retired? Apart from Murray (who started it). All the others, as far as I know, still go to work day in day out - Even Larry and Avie, last I heard.

INDEPENDENCE - There really is none of this. You are the owner of your own business, and yet VP'S and others would chastise you for not doing something, or they would 'decree' that the next owners meeting would be at a certain time and place and you would be compelled to attend; not legally, psychologically. And I never once in six years ever took a break, or had a day off, other than the times that 'head office' was closed over XMAS.independence YA!

YOUR OWN CREW - Probably the thing that I ended up hating the most was opening up the office everyday to see the same old faces; guys that had been around for years and never even come close, thinking that they were going to make it. And me telling them that if they keep going they will make it. That old chestnut "There are only 2 options; winning and losing. If you never ever give up, the only option left is to win." Yeh yeh...

And this brings me to the point of my argument. The thing about DS MAX - and all other MLM companies for that matter - is this:

These companies (The real owners) are in it to make money for themselves, not you. They will run their companies to best profit themselves, even if it means you (the distributor &/ or owner) will be disadvantaged. They care nothing for you. The more distributors who will work for free - because that is what you do, they outlay nothing - the more money they make.

The other important thing is twofold;
1/ Not everyone who works for DS MAX will be an owner.By this I do not just mean 'the law of averages', (ie. 60 distributors = 1 new owner.) I mean that there are people out there who will NEVER EVER be owners because they do not have the ability, make-up, charisma, intelligence, savvy etc etc. I DO NOT CARE what any DS MAX owner says about this. Owners are not "made". They might be improved or have their skills honed, but never once in six years (and that means thousands of applicants) have I seen a person walk into an office and I've thought "oh that guy/girl will never make it" and they did. Never. And I would estimate that I have personally known about sixty or seventy owners - you do the math.

2/ There is no special "opportunity". You have the same opportunity working at many other businesses. There are plenty of stories out there about 'truck drivers' who ended up running billion dollar transport companies or 'window cleaners' who ran billion dollar corporations. Here in Australia, the McDonalds CEO began by making hamburgers. You do not need the bullshit from DS MAX to become rich if that's what you want - there are other opportunities out there. And that's why I'm here, to talk about Herbalife... Only kidding! There's another story... How much time have we got?

To finish off, I must say I have mixed feelings about writing this; I did learn alot about people and about myself working at DS MAX. Yet the experience turned me into someone I didn't like. It became a habit to lie to people (simple little lies - short stories they were called), it became a habit to play with people's emotions, to toy with them and try to get them to do what you want them to do, because they want to do it, even if you know it is not in their best interests.

And to set the record straight, after six years of making money, losing money, making money, losing money, I left because I hated it... And it had nothing to do with 'failing'. I was a success. But now I'm more of a success; because I love what I do, I happy... And I am ME, not some manufactured drone with a carbon-copied personality.

PS When the next owner replies to this message, could he/she first please answer this question.
Who do YOU know, out of the millions of people that have worked for WWI / DS MAX / Granton that started out in the field - that is now retired?

Mark, Sydney

Mark
Sydney
Australia

Company: Ds Max
Country: Australia
City: Melbourne
Address: Too Long

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