I've never cited my story, but I do have a long one in this business.
There are many different 'offices' to the grand grab bag known as DS-Max.
DS-Max was created by a Canadian guy, it flourished in Toronto and has spread to all the known corners of the globe... like a festering disease.
This business is based on getting it done as cheap as possible, for as much as possible.
The founders created the concept because they were broke. They bought pots and pans from Canadian Tire, and sold them in the parking lot for twice the price.
Selling isn't hard, you just have to be hungry enough.
Fast forward a few years and the Pots and Pans division, thusly named Clearance, is several thousand people strong and new divisions have developed, notably my old haunt, Communications (or Miscommunications).
I met the owner of CydCor at one point. Nice guy... used to work in a Pickle Factory.
The owner of MINT, a short, frail looking hindu fellow named Raja Choudhury claimed a history as a gangster, while, Aaron Reichart, the owner of 1 Reality was his Nietsche Reading Ex-Acid Head Hippie Assistant Manager who came in and rocked the world with his perfect whiteness. He had amazing skill for sales.
Thus it was that these two developed their companies, out from under a massively overweight Italian man known as Marco. We called him Marco.
So what's all this worth? Well, Aaron and Roger (Raja) used to be in Vancouver. This was a LONG time ago. The clients were Rogers@Home and the Vancouver Telephone Company, and then a charitable organization, Caring Together.
Firstly, I'll state that no charity campaign in my history was ever doing as much for the charity as it was for our pockets. I'm sure in the grand scheme of it all, the client was seeing a couple hundred grand, but CydCor was seeing a lot more.
Secondly, an individual working a charity campaign had better be very soft spoken and extremely skilled... or else they're going to starve.
Rogers@Home was a ridiculous campagin and was the reason I got sucked in.
I worked in a Benix & Co. in Richmond Center, and wanted to work for Rogers@Home. Little did I know at that point, how marketing and such worked.
The ridiculousness was the amount it paid for what we collected.
A name, a phone number, address and a signature. Ten bucks.
It used to be twenty, but then someone started copying names out of a phone book and signing the entries falsley.
Rogers@Home got pissed, and reduced the pay rate.
As far as the door to door training went... ofcourse there was the whole misinformation part, people spinning stories of success and blah de blah. On the way we had lunch, which I didn't pay for (one of the guys was a narcotics trafficker, and thusly was loaded with cash).
We went into the field, started knocking on doors and in six hours, my leader guy had signed up three contracts, at fifteen bucks a pop.
This was amazing to me because I considered the possibilities of commission piece work.
Dollars signs flew around... and then I started training. I sucked terribly for a month, then I sucked less, and then I sucked even less. However, I wasn't making zilch. Sucking in this business literally means you make no money. You only make money when you sign people up and I couldn't sign people up.
Cest la vie. I wasn't the only one. It turns out, my leader was god awful at it as well.
It became such a joke eventually, that Roger and Aaron, and Marco, all packed their shit and decided that Vancouver wasn't the golden land of opportunity.
Apparantly, another individual had tried to succeed in Communications in Vancouver prior to Roger's arrival, and had failed even more miserably.
So off the entire office went, to Hamilton, Ontario.
Yay what an adventure.
Fortunatly, our manager had a soul... he paid for our motel for the two weeks while he searched for a Merch House.
Oh, in case you haven't heard about these: Merch House used to be what the founders would call their home as they would keep their stock at home to be sold each day on the streets.
Understandably, as time went, they invested in warehouses. However, due to the nature of the business, a residence was needed to hold the staff members who couldn't make the money, but were hanging onto the opportunity. Herego, the merch house remained as a company halfway house to all those who weren't making the grade, or like me, just enjoyed cheap ass rent and living with those you worked with.
So, back on the streets, we were working each day... at least I was, and my best friend was as well. We worked hard too, learning a new campaign which had existed for years prior. Direct Energy!
This is rich: Would you like to lock in your heating and electrical billing rate for five years? It could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing, but each and every day we would contractually lock a LOT of people's rates.
How you did this was sort of up to you.
I was extremely legit (yea yea) in my approach but when times were lean, everybody was bending (or outright smash and grabbing) the rules.
I was a conundrum for my organization because it soon became evident to them that I was skilled.
It was extremely problematic for me to hold relations with my peers because they didn't wish to be my peers. I suppose they felt I wasn't cut of the same cloth or some such, but regardless, the conundrum existed because my leader was completely incompetant with the sales end.
I was an enigma to the office. A fellow who genuinely knew what it was all about and was making it happen.
My philosophy didn't mesh with Roger's. It didn't really mesh with Aarons...
Roger's leader Marco actually stated once that he appreciated my approach to the business. He was a hard hitter like myself. A real go getter.
It's not to say Roger and Aaron weren't 'tough'... as long as one of their more physically endowed 'crewmembers' were around while they explained to you, what was what.
I digress. Why am I anti-DS? Simple. I was ousted from the biz. The reasons were the dippage of pen in company ink.
Whoops.
'Do as your told, not as I do' was Roger's creed, while he banged a girl from the day she arrived in his company, to beyond the day I left.
Aaron was a little more ethical... he didn't bang the ones in his biz.
From a team of three leaders and three distributors, those three leaders each having crews and leaders of their own, who in turn had their own crews (yes, three tiers deep), to Distributor.
Wow, eh? Well, cest la vie.
Who got my entire team?
Well, there was a week long transitionary period, wherein several of the leader from my crew begged me to fight the powers that be, but I was too proud for that.
I wasn't about to give anybody any satisfaction, such that they would sanction me or some such.
After a few members dropped out of the company due to my removal, the remaining fifteen odd people were placed under my leader... to be amalgamated with his crew... of... one... I think. I don't think he actually had one at that point, I think he was advertising that a fellow was going to return... but that fellow never did.
Such is life, I suppose. My leader lost the entire team over the course of a few months (I had built it in a few months, so he did pretty good). I remained aboard the company for a few more weeks, built a bit of a paycheck, fought for it, claimed my pay (miraculously) and left.
Given that I got paid, which is a Herculean feat given the nature of the biz (you leave? usually you're not seeing that last bit), I consider my time there a lesson learned.
I never starved per se, but I had to suffer some extreme indignities.
When we initially arrived in Hamilton, as I stated we stayed in a motel.
Roger found a merch house.
It was condemned after we all left, but when we moved in, the entire building was leaning in one direction.
Possibly from the destroyed and rotting foundation that was hewn into a makeshift basement.
In the house went thirty two people. I shared a room with three other guys (the room was meant for a small child, I'm sure) and we all slept on the floor.
The food situation was hilarity initself. Allegedly Roger and Marco had purchased a large quantity of bread and sandwhich meats and condiments for all the folks in the house to make their lunches with.
When we returned to the merch house that very night, somebody had already consumed every last piece of food... save for some of the condiments.
Brutal stuff, eh?
I've got stories... and then some... but anyhow, thought I should plow one out just cause I could.
A shout out to all the DS-Maxers, if you've got skills in anything else, weigh your options.
Yeah, you can make a lot of money down the line. Spend five years in most any industry and you'll make enough money to be happy.
Without spending 12 hours a day knocking on doors, slogging through whichever sort of weather. Tie on your neck, badge on the chest and apps in the hand.
I assume Roger at this point to be twenty nine years of age (and allegedly in Montreal now?), and Aaron... probably around twenty eight.
I'm guessing here.
Aaron had a success story some time ago, when one of his best friends (Eli) crew members (Phil) became an owner!
Juice by that.
I wonder how Eli's doing?
BTW, CydCor is spelt incorrectly in the list.
Dooley
Kelowna, British Columbia
Canada
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