I have a new job!!! (Yes, Attention Whoring)

[Brittain33]

Jeff, have you done sales before of this kind? It's very different from marketing or any other job where you put in your work and you get a salary. You can work very hard but if it isn't something you are good at, you will find yourself out of a job and with less money than when you started. That $600/week will be withdrawn. Perhaps you'll turn to friends and family and sell to them first before reaching that point, and it will destroy your relationships with them. Do you believe in the product AmeriPlan sells? What about the reports all over the web about how hard it is to use and how much it costs for what you get? You need to be able to address that before you can sell it to others in good faith.

I have to wish you good luck in this, but I am not optimistic that this will turn out to be a real job.

[Brittain33]

Bushie says guaranteed no MLM and no chargebacks.......that's not what the last link says.  I mean what kind of sh**tty research is he doing?  I remember hearing how he researched and left no stone unturned for the ON company......ha.   When you're blind, you don't see what's right there.  He owes Meeker, big time.  Each of the links tells the real tale - scam.

I just hope that he stops himself before approaching his family and his fiancee's family to buy AmeriPlan memberships because his supervisor is using these "supportive" phone calls to abuse him for not providing the sales he needs, and the wedding is coming up. I don't know if he'll listen, though.

[Brittain33]

At least i've got something.  It may not be everybody's version of a "good" job, but it could at least pay the bills for me.

Jeff: we are concerned that it isn't what you would consider a good job, either. It won't provide the stability you need nor use your skills, and you will find yourself worse off for having taken it rather than waiting for something more reputable. It won't pay the bills after the first week or so, is the concern. The reason you have been picked up for positions like this so very, very quickly is that they rely on people who are in great need of finding work right away and will take any offer they get that looks reasonable to them. They know that most people they hire won't pan out in this role and can be replaced quickly with the next guy who thinks he is getting a steady job that will pay the bills, too.

I'm glad you have another interview with a more traditional job as an administrative assistant. Please do take a very close look at that apple before you compare--both the positive spots they are promising you right now, and blemishes people are pointing out to you about the skills this job needs and how difficult it is to succeed. You need stability above all else and a job in sales for a questionable product will not provide it.

[Brittain33]

Let me put it this way.

I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the devil.

But I believe there are bad people out there who will pretend to be your friends and tempt you with offers that are too good to be true, playing off of your good faith and goodness as a person, only to take from you what you have and leave you and your loved ones worse off than before. They thrive in our world, abusing other people's trust and turning it into their own livelihood. You may think of this as the devil at work, or sinners, but it is a truth of our world that we can all agree on.

I don't know how you cope with the presence of evil like this in the world. It is hard. You can't close your eyes and hope that God will lead you in the right direction. You know, and I see that you know, that you have to gather up as much information as you can and hope you make the right decision. Part of this can be through doing web searches, but it is not enough. You need to build on your own knowledge from your previous jobs. The pay has to match what you know your labor is worth; the tasks have to be what you know you can do well. Ask yourself why they would hire you and not someone else. And if you want to trust a job, it has to look something like what you know from work you've already done. It has to look familiar and draw on the wisdom you have gained as an adult. If it is very different and looks too good to be true, if it isn't familiar to you, it's probably a false gift that will leave you worse off than before. This is how our world works.

Again, I do not know if you believe in the devil. But if you do, you will see his handiwork in ON-company and in AmeriPlan. I have complete faith in that and hope you can believe that we are sincere and deeply concerned in expressing this to you.

[Brittain33]

This thread is getting depressing.

...

Yeah.

I wish someone could have offered better advice to the parents about what this opportunity really is or isn't, but they'll learn.

[Brittain33]

Yeah, the makeup companies are probably the only legitimate version of this.  Mainly because they actually have a product to sell.  I imagine these schemes would work with Apple and Dell brand electronics, farm fresh wholesale produce, and other products that people... you know... actually buy.

There's an anti-Mary Kay Cosmetics website out there full of complaints about that company's recent policies.

[Brittain33]

It would be very hard to plan a wedding being gone 3 nights a week

No, it's not. It's not that hard to plan a wedding on weekends only and some phone calls in the evening. My partner and I did it without any parental involvement or support (guess why) in less time than you and Susan have, and it was a fabulous ****ing event that cost us a nice amount of money. Excuse my profanity.

I'm telling you this because in a few weeks you may be faced with choices of jobs that require hours or travel that conflict with what you perceive as your needs, and if you let "I need to plan every night" become an obstacle to taking one of those jobs, there won't be a wedding and there won't be money to pay for it.

[Brittain33]

There are certainly legitimate ones though, like Oriflame. Doesn't Tupperware work more or less this way too?

I think these organizations have been conceived with the original sin that they will eventually max out their market, and from that point on individuals within the hierarchy are going to abuse their positions and their underlings to keep making the good money and keep ahead of their competitors. There's a Malthusian aspect that comes from expanding geometrically. It's equivalent to how polygamous communities eventually lead to child abuse, with boys expelled and girls married off too young, because men need to compete for wives.

[Brittain33]

Pyramid schemes have that inherent quality I suppose. I was thinking more of personal selling where you buy the product.

I'm thinking about when I read on the MK site about them changing the brand lines often so that salespeople are stuck with inventory they can't sell, but their managers make out well because they get a commission from all that restocking. I think with proper management and ethics from the top it can be a sustainable business model, but that means resisting the urge to keep adding more and more salesfolk to pad the bonuses of upper managers.