MLM Survivors Club: [MLM Survivors Club] Good Sales Job vs. Bad Sales Job

Sunday, December 16, 2007

[MLM Survivors Club] Good Sales Job vs. Bad Sales Job

Mattress Giant was, generally speaking, a pretty good sales job
because they paid during training, and even during the low weeks,
you'd receive at least minimum wage (just as part of natural
variance, a week can be way up or way down). Plus, the sales
managers were generally good coaches. (And plus, we actually sold a
product which was ballpark to comparable products. And sometimes,
genuinely good deals.)

Gulf Development was a bad sales job because they didn't pay during
training, they didn't tell us until later that you could expect 6
weeks before you started making money. I worked for them way back in
1983 as a 20 yr old. They sell outdoor signs to businesses. They
showed us a film of Zig Ziglar (nothing automatically wrong with
that, but it is a sign; positive thinking is a good thing, but I've
since learned that many shakey outfits greatly over-emphasize it; and
the sales manager was sometimes, often a blamer). Immediately after
training, they took us on this unannounced field trip to get away
from "the negative influences of friends and family." And that is a
huge HUGE red flag. Yeah, the whole thing was a lot like a MLM
outfit. And no, there was no guarantee of minimum wage, it was
commission all the way.

I would be interested in other people's experiences, the good, the
bad, and the in-between.

-Doug