This report is an attempt to help others not make the mistakes I made when working for a mother company called Smart Circle. As I sit here and wish that I had went to complaint myself before investing nearly a year of my life to the company, I hope all who read this will do better for their families and themselves.
A brief history: Smart Circle is a mother company that hires independant company distributers (ICDs) to do its labor. To become an ICD for Smart Circle many sugar coated steps must be taken. They implement a four phase management training program that is designed to remove 98% of people from being successful. The first phase they will claim is a training phase and prove yourself phase. Phase two will set up the employee to teach and train new employees (no extra money, just doing the work the owner does not want to do).
This is then followed by the mythical third phase.in the third phase you will be promised an office training scenario where you will be taught to run an office and manage others. I call this phase mythical because in the time I spent in this system I never once heard of an employee being in the third phase (this is because they set the requirements to reach it at a ridiculous level. This is because they promise more money which they do not want to pay). The fourth phase is becomming an ICD or branch manager yourself.
Now that we have the system explained in its simplist format, let me explain where my concerns come into play. This business is extremely ugly when you see the things that happen behind the scenes. I spent my time making their high-roller lists and getting to the ICD level inside of six months. I, like all others, managed to skip the third phase and go straight to the owner level. I was not trained on how to run an office (which I was fine with). I was, however, left to run an office for another owner for months before I was allowed to put it in my own company name. Thus, you will now be working 70 hours and making less than you did as a rep in the field.in fact, I was told that I could only pay myself $200-$300/week regardless of working 70 hours.
The fact of the matter is that even if your company makes a decent profit every week, you will pay out a lot of it to others that actually have their hand in the program. You will pay money out to nearly a dozen others that want your money. Thus, you need to continue making eight sales a week which now pays you $1,600 before expenses. Now let's take $600 of that for business expenses. Let's now remove another $800 to pay the reps that need to be brought up to minimum wage. This will leave you$200 to provide for your family. I am sure someone will write a rebutal saying hire better reps. When in fact this is not the best idea. You will hire more reps and put them in training which you must also pay for. This can take three weeks before a rep will catch on and start making you money.in the meantime you will loose another thousand.
A promise was made to me that I could request minimum wage support and that I would not have to pay anything back. I thought this was an awesome way to help get my business going in the green. So, I jumped on board and hired a bunch of people to train. Knowing that I would not have to pay anything back I was willing to give a few people a shot. Once I was an owner for two months the lies I was told started to unfold. Minimum wage support sent me a bill for $5k. I had money saved into my business and they wanted it. After spending 70 hours/week I was ready to explode when I was told the solution is to work more hours to pay off the debt.
When I explained that I could not raise a family for $300/week I was shut down by Mark Kasik. This is after I was talked out of my education (college), my house (bankcruptcy), my car, my retirement money from my engineering job previously worked, and even a portion of my pride. The truth is, they had now taken me for all I was worth and I had nothing left to give. The dream was over and the sugar coated opportunity had finally shown that it was nothing but a dog doughnut with powdered sugar, sprinkles, and a cherry on top.
I could rant on this business all day long, but in the end it is simple. Do Not eat the dognut.
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