The door-to-door / commission-only jobs thread (super dooper mega merge)

Agent J

lala88 wrote: »

Things i highlighed were the parts i was making points about, all true you say things like ''working for free'' ''being a slave'' etc all not true. I have no interest in any of them but did work for one of them something i assume you havent?

I was engaging in the same sort of "whataboutery" as you were. What If X,Y & Z. None of it is relevant.

Your assumption is incorrect. I went to an interview with one of these companies & a follow up. I smelled something wrong immediatly but hung around for the follow up day to gather as much information as possible.

Do you understand how a pyrimad scheme works? Problem is leglisation is always behind the curve on scams. It'll take them a while to catch up but they will eventually.

ladder

Just to clear something up here, a pyramid scheme is where you have to invest money for a return on your investment and have no real trading platform, which is why you always need investors, people are told, you invest X and then for you to get a big return you must get 3 others to invest, and these are illegal, commission only jobs do not ask people to invest money, it just means you dont get a basic wage.
On your other points, I do agree some of the companies that are in this industry take to much from the payout, and leave the people (Reps) on the field with a very small payout, something that I personally do not like.
But sales is not for everyone, no matter if its commission only or basic wage.

allibastor

ladder wrote: »

Just to clear something up here, a pyramid scheme is where you have to invest money for a return on your investment and have no real trading platform, which is why you always need investors, people are told, you invest X and then for you to get a big return you must get 3 others to invest, and these are illegal, commission only jobs do not ask people to invest money, it just means you dont get a basic wage.
On your other points, I do agree some of the companies that are in this industry take to much from the payout, and leave the people (Reps) on the field with a very small payout, something that I personally do not like.
But sales is not for everyone, no matter if its commission only or basic wage.

Good point that you do not like it.

though i do remember working for you and having a few sales returned as the client did not want the service after all and being shafted on the commission. the payouts were very small for how many you got and there was a clear market saturation of the same product in one area. i remember calling to an estate which had only been called to a week prior by our own sales team. i am also aware that strides have been taken to ensure that calls are not made to the same house, but how often is that enforced.

there is also very little help and support for people on the dole when they work for companies like yours. the details of if and when to come off the dole are left very open and as you do not directly employ anyone you are able to walk away from the potential problem. have you altered this in anyway?

thanks.

ladder

allibastor wrote: »

Good point that you do not like it.

though i do remember working for you and having a few sales returned as the client did not want the service after all and being shafted on the commission. the payouts were very small for how many you got and there was a clear market saturation of the same product in one area. i remember calling to an estate which had only been called to a week prior by our own sales team. i am also aware that strides have been taken to ensure that calls are not made to the same house, but how often is that enforced.

there is also very little help and support for people on the dole when they work for companies like yours. the details of if and when to come off the dole are left very open and as you do not directly employ anyone you are able to walk away from the potential problem. have you altered this in anyway?

thanks.

You have to remember that at that time I was part of an organisation, so I didnt have a choice ! at that time you had to make 30 approved sales to make €420, I do not work with that organisation or client anymore by the way your reference to my company from that time is true but thats why I left, and thats why in other posts I have on here said I was trying to make changes, and now i have.
Now I can say that my company does things differently, yes I do still promote to leadership (Team Leader) and to Manager, but it is more realistic, no promises of 100k in 6-10 months, and for example if a person (Rep) makes 12 approved sales they get €512 compared to €360 like before for that client, and as far as I'm concerned €512 is not a bad weeks takings for someone.

Again for the record if a sale is not approved then as a company I do not get paid, so in turn the person that made the sale will not be paid, its not that anyone is shafting anyone else thats just business its how the world works.

Support for social welfare is always availible and I have written several letters on behalf of people that were in my office, which helped, I guess when people leave and feel that they have been mistreated in some way, they dont want to ask if they can have one which leads to the social welfare really making people jump through the hoops, again I think this is wrong but the government is broke.

Hope that helps.

allibastor

good post, as i have said before i will give you the benefit and hope you are paving the way for changes in this industry. good man.

e2012

i have got a job with a marketing company based in cork selling airtricity . i start in the next few weeks. i was just wondering of anyone could tell me how long training takes?

Agent J

ladder wrote: »

Just to clear something up here, a pyramid scheme is where you have to invest money for a return on your investment and have no real trading platform, which is why you always need investors, people are told, you invest X and then for you to get a big return you must get 3 others to invest, and these are illegal, commission only jobs do not ask people to invest money, it just means you dont get a basic wage.
.

These multi level marketing schemes/scams are an evolution on the pyrimad model. Pyrimad schemes were eventually made illegal & clamped down on (Though some still have existed recently - Anyone remember that whole women empowering women crap?) . It'll take the lawmakers a while to catch up to it but eventually they will and then some new form will come out.

They use a product which is almost irrelevant because the model is based on a % of income of your Sales reps & % of whomever they hire. Only small amount of people ever actually make any real money in these "companies". It is very much in the interest of the people higher up the model to get & keep people in at the lower levels as a lot of little % adds up for them. This is where the social progamming comes in.

e2012

yeah the threads here seem to be all negative about it but i said id give it a shot
did you ever work for one of these and know the length of training ?

statomosh

usually you ll be with a training leader for 3 or 4 days at 1st before you go solo but you are being trained every day in the office.

e2012

great thanks. did you work with one of these marketing companies? if yes how did you find it?

yellowcrayon

e2012 wrote: »

i have got a job with a marketing company based in cork selling airtricity . i start in the next few weeks. i was just wondering of anyone could tell me how long training takes?

I used to work quite closely with the company you are talking about. I was employed by a company in cork that was sales and marketing and done the same, except for a different product.

We would go down to the office (the one you are going to be working in) every now and then to see what way they were training and just to see the general set up they had.. and we had a lot of people swapping between our office and the one in question.

If you have already had the interview and the observation day (where they pair you up with a team leader for the day), you will be training in the mornings for about an hour, with loud music blaring. You will train every morning, then when you get 'promoted' to team leader you might get to teach new recruits. Being 'promoted' to team leader doesnt mean you get any extra benefits or money.. you just take on more responsibility i.e. doing jobs that the boss doesnt like doing.

To be honest, I would steer well clear of this company. 8/10 people that I know that have gone through there (and the company I worked in) have come out with enormous debt, because the money you make cant cover the cost of living i.e. rent and food, along with the money they will make you pay for petrol and any road trips that are taken.
These jobs are alright if your looking for something to do to kill time and live with your parents and have no responsibilities,, but if you're trying to pay rent and feed children or support a partner, then these jobs will cause you an awful lot of hassle.

Id recommend applying for ANY other job... call centres, retail.. anything where you will be assured a set wage.

Ive seen people from the airtricity office in cork go home will less than €100, less than €50... I wont go on....

e2012

i am defiantly going to give it a shot as i have no real responsibilities and nothing to lose! any advice before i start ?other than not to do it in the 1st place haha !

yellowcrayon

All id say is not to get sucked into the 'cult' theme that runs in these company's.. it is extremely common and the employee starts to make sacrifices, personal ones and financial ones.

And if you start to see that you are not making enough profit, or worse, are making a loss, please leave! As you will actually end up in hundreds, if not thousands of debt. I remember the boss asking the employees for loans of money, so we were out money and he was swimming in it.

But... All the very best of luck, and I hope you get on well. You make some greaat friends in these jobs, so i hope you end up with some good friendships.

lala88

Agent J wrote: »

I was engaging in the same sort of "whataboutery" as you were. What If X,Y & Z. None of it is relevant.

Your assumption is incorrect. I went to an interview with one of these companies & a follow up. I smelled something wrong immediatly but hung around for the follow up day to gather as much information as possible.

Do you understand how a pyrimad scheme works? Problem is leglisation is always behind the curve on scams. It'll take them a while to catch up but they will eventually.

I do but you clearly dont seem to

Delancey

The fact that new offices spring up and add to the constant requirement for a steady supply of staff ( Cannon Fodder more like ) is worryingly reminiscent of a Pyramid scheme.
Certain direct sales operations give staff a bonus for every new body they introduce to the company and again this smacks of pyramid ( just check out Gumtree for these ' jobs ' ).

Delancey

e2012 wrote: »

i am defiantly going to give it a shot as i have no real responsibilities and nothing to lose! any advice before i start ?other than not to do it in the 1st place haha !

Hate to piss on your chips but you most certainly do have something to lose - money !! You will get nil expenses so if you are sent off on a road trip somewhere you will have to contribute to the cost of fuel as well as expenses like lunch.
Read this thread fully and you will see many complaints from folks who were out of pocket as a result of doing this sort of work.

Agent J

lala88 wrote: »

I do but you clearly dont seem to

Maybe you should go back read my last post?

Multi level marketing = New version of Pyrimad scheme with social programming.

Agent J

yellowcrayon wrote: »

All id say is not to get sucked into the 'cult' theme that runs in these company's.. it is extremely common and the employee starts to make sacrifices, personal ones and financial ones.

And if you start to see that you are not making enough profit, or worse, are making a loss, please leave! As you will actually end up in hundreds, if not thousands of debt. I remember the boss asking the employees for loans of money, so we were out money and he was swimming in it.

But... All the very best of luck, and I hope you get on well. You make some greaat friends in these jobs, so i hope you end up with some good friendships.

This would be the social programming part of it. It's very manipulative & downright dangerous.

I'm not being funny but when your boss was asking for loans was this not a major red flag?

Also out of interest do you have any friends still in the company? How many friendships survived while one was still working for the company?

yellowcrayon

Well we all got so sucked into it all that we thought by giving the boss our money that we would be making the company better and in the long term it would be better for us. We really did think that this business was the be all and end all. We done nothing but talk about work. And we gave the loans, even though we couldnt afford food; I noticed this trending a lot unfortunately.. employees living off of only a slice pan and tub of butter.

I dont have any friends still working for the company, and I only maintained one friendship from there. Whilst I was there, I loved these guys as I saw them as people who understood the situation and also wanted to do the best for the business. Once things started to turn sour; boss taking our commission; loads of us left, and realised what a 'cult' it all really is, and few of us stayed in contact as we'd secured proper jobs and didnt rely on each other's support.

Agent J

Glad to hear you are safely away from it Yellow Crayon. Thanks for your insights on it.

Anyone thinking about it or defending MLM would do well to read your posts on it.

irishjig69b

my best mate works doing vodafone door to door, 50e a sale makes 2/3 a day works 4/5 hrs max, goes were he wants makes his own hrs takes in mostly 550/600e a weekfor bout 20 odd hrs a week, if i had the balls i'd do it meself, on the other hand airtricty has a bad name, hope it works out for u

ladder

e2012 wrote: »

i am defiantly going to give it a shot as i have no real responsibilities and nothing to lose! any advice before i start ?other than not to do it in the 1st place haha !

Only Advice I can give is if you are going to do it, work smart, find out who the best person is and copy what they do, find out who makes the most money and do what they do.

First thing you have to learn, is how to make money yourself, you said you dont have any real responsibilities so your not worried about the money, you should be !! but I'm sure you would like to earn money, so set yourself a minimum of lets say €400 per week, which is not a huge amount by any standard, considering you will be working for 10hrs a day, then tell them thats how much you need to earn, they will tell you its 20 sales so theres your target, if your not getting to that within 2 weeks then maybe sales is not for you !

yellowcrayon

Agent J wrote: »

Glad to hear you are safely away from it Yellow Crayon. Thanks for your insights on it.

Anyone thinking about it or defending MLM would do well to read your posts on it.

The company wasnt MLM.. They started off as a branch off of PerDM... called B&B Direct (if im not allowed mention names I apologise and can someone remove it). Its gone bust in the last month so it just goes to show you cant be making that much money if the boss cant afford to keep the business.

ladder

yellowcrayon wrote: »

The company wasnt MLM.. They started off as a branch off of PerDM... called B&B Direct (if im not allowed mention names I apologise and can someone remove it). Its gone bust in the last month so it just goes to show you cant be making that much money if the boss cant afford to keep the business.

Wow I know the guy running that company we both started with PerDm at the same time, went through the field together.

yellowcrayon

ladder wrote: »

Wow I know the guy running that company we both started with PerDm at the same time, went through the field together.

Wow.. Small world, huh?

He was a nice man and we had good times there... but just the constant brain-washing and money problems has now made me have a bad opinion of him. The pressure he put on the employees to put their 'all' into the business was unreal... i know its common in these places,but we were really made feel that if we didnt come in on a saturday the business would fail.. if we didnt give up relationships and family the business would fail.

Did you open up a business as well? If so, has it succeeded?

Agent J

yellowcrayon wrote: »

The company wasnt MLM.. They started off as a branch off of <removed just in case> (if im not allowed mention names I apologise and can someone remove it). Its gone bust in the last month so it just goes to show you cant be making that much money if the boss cant afford to keep the business.

If they started off as a branch off another company then i'm inclined to think it was MLM(Or at least it was supposed to be).

I.E was it set up as an office of another company then tried to go alone?
Was there a manager - Team leader - Team member structure & talk of someday setting up your own office/team?

Thats normally a hook for people to work towards. If they manage to set up their own team/office great because the manager gets a %. If not then its something to keep talking about to movtiate.

Was there any kind of commission being kicked up the line?

Thats usually how they work but maybe this one just kept the social programming part of it and skipped the promising running your own office part.

yellowcrayon

Agent J wrote: »

If they started off as a branch off another company then i'm inclined to think it was MLM(Or at least it was supposed to be).

It was PerDM.

And we were all promised we would be team leaders within 4 weeks and that we be assisstant manager by 6 months and would be making €50,000 a year approx.. and that by 12 months max. we would own our own offices and be earning in excess of €100,000 a year

ladder

yellowcrayon wrote: »

Wow.. Small world, huh?

He was a nice man and we had good times there... but just the constant brain-washing and money problems has now made me have a bad opinion of him. The pressure he put on the employees to put their 'all' into the business was unreal... i know its common in these places,but we were really made feel that if we didnt come in on a saturday the business would fail.. if we didnt give up relationships and family the business would fail.

Did you open up a business as well? If so, has it succeeded?

Yes I did and Yes it is very successful, But Im not part of PerDm anymore, and we dont work saturdays unless a Rep wants to or has an appointment, no promises of making it to team leader or manager but the opportunity is there for the right people if they want it, no promises of making crazy amounts of money in 6-10 months either, but I will say it is possible to make good money no MLM if a person gets to manager then they get paid differently but still with my company, and no assistant manager stuff, Im not promoting my company Im just stating that its run differently. But I do feel sorry for B he was a really good guy and put alot of hard work in he deserves better, but like all of us we were told run it that way and if you dont you will fail ! being honest I did learn alot and would never look at my time as a waste after all it has gotten me to where I am today, but I didnt like the way it was run so I left and now do it differently.

ladder

Agent J wrote: »

If they started off as a branch off another company then i'm inclined to think it was MLM(Or at least it was supposed to be).

I.E was it set up as an office of another company then tried to go alone?
Was there a manager - Team leader - Team member structure & talk of someday setting up your own office/team?

Thats normally a hook for people to work towards. If they manage to set up their own team/office great because the manager gets a %. If not then its something to keep talking about to movtiate.

Was there any kind of commission being kicked up the line?

Thats usually how they work but maybe this one just kept the social programming part of it and skipped the promising running your own office part.

I guess you could call it a form MLM but again its not quite like that, with all MLM you have to buy a product and then get others to join, and then they buy the product from you and so on.
With all companies there is a CEO, manager, supervisor, team leader and new person, where a company provide a service and the lots of different people get paid differently, in these cases it just happens to be commission for everyone, and a lot of the time the commission going to the person doing all the work is not enough !

Setting up offices in different locations is not uncommon for any company, how this works is when an office is set up it becomes a new company and the group become the supplier of clients so your really just like a sub contractor. but still part of a network where others give advice, or diretion or even sometime just plain out tell you what you can or cant do, its not all good but in general it works.

Still I believe if you run a company you should be able to run it as you see fit not run it as others tell you.

Agent J

ladder wrote: »

I guess you could call it a form MLM but again its not quite like that, with all MLM you have to buy a product and then get others to join, and then they buy the product from you and so on.
With all companies there is a CEO, manager, supervisor, team leader and new person, where a company provide a service and the lots of different people get paid differently, in these cases it just happens to be commission for everyone, and a lot of the time the commission going to the person doing all the work is not enough !

Setting up offices in different locations is not uncommon for any company, how this works is when an office is set up it becomes a new company and the group become the supplier of clients so your really just like a sub contractor. but still part of a network where others give advice, or diretion or even sometime just plain out tell you what you can or cant do, its not all good but in general it works.

Still I believe if you run a company you should be able to run it as you see fit not run it as others tell you.

I assume you mean within the law of course?



They are all variants on a similar pyrimad-esque theme though.

Standard Pyrimad involves no product and has been made illegal.

MLM involves a product which normally irrelevant. However there might be some legit product (say a well known new electicity company) which gives the impression that this is a real company.

It's still the same model however you cut it. Either the person higher up or the office gets a %, there is no staff protection, same marketing fluff, no real innovation/substance, social programming and... most "staff" don't make min wage.


Any "Business" not offering a basic salary or even the protection of employee status has no long term interest in their "staff". The idea is to replace the normal relationship of money/security with longer term hopes of higher reward & the social programming to build loyality. This is why it is important to have a constant supply of new staff because most people won't stick around long enough. They also do this to get around employement law & the responsabilities involved.

If you are the top of this company you get a cut of the people you hire. Or their sales office or whatever. The point is some % of the money goes up the line from an office to the person. The movitiation is to build more offices & more offices so that litte % from a lot of staff adds up for those at the top.
The idea is to get big quick(hence all the promises 6 months you'll earn X, 12 months you'll earn 2x). And of course after 6 months or so you won't have to do the door to door. And no one mentions of course that there is only so many housing estates you can go knocking on doors with the same product..

It's very easy to hide behind legitimate business tactics such as marketing,training,expansion,networking. This is what covers the social programming/brainwashing part. They won't offer what their salary plans are upfront or what the actual job involves. There is usually a claim of having some "big" name customers as well but its normally because they are a in "network" affiliate program so someone in other office(another country) might have once talked with someone at Disney(No implication meant on Disney whatsoever) this is what the claim is based on. Take a look at their website and you'll see some wishy-washy aspirational fluff written by someone who probably flunked 1st year marketing. There is very little susbstance to it.

Scratch the surface you'll find very little people make money from this. At a guess based on normal MLM i'd say you'd be lucky if 10% make any real money (Anything above min wage). A lot of these companies you really have to dig to get the information out of them.