Complaint Review: Prospect Solutions - Moraine Ohio

     This is not a company that I worked for but it is a company that I had two rounds of interviews with.  First of all understand that these direct in store marketing and sales companies have sprung up like weeds.  The gist of all of them is they bring you in at the ground level, plant you in a store where you're stopping people who are shopping and trying to sell them on whatever it is they have been hired or contracted to market.  The basic theory is this works better than radio ads, television commericals, and mail ads or magazine advertising.  It likely does, but understand the results are still going to be pretty dismal.  It is cold selling and in this day in particular people as a whole are going to give you, well, a cold shoulder on that.  I'm very much of the belief that in today's age it's still an antiquated way to do things as people generally research on their own what they want to buy and buy it, or research something and then come back with questions for the sales person.

     Anyway, the process seems to go, start out selling and marketing, establish that you know how to do that, and then they quickly move you to three more levels and by the end of things you're running your own office.  Sounds great and all in theory and I'm sure it works for some people.  But again, understand that you're going to be one of those people almost everyone goes out of their way to avoid at the beginning level- aka the people hawking DirecTV at Walmart.  This company actually doesn't seem to market DirecTV and the products are interesting and that's why I was interested for a while.

     They seem to be willing to interview anyone who replies to an ad, and the first interview is incredibly brief and other than they're probably looking to see if someone is interested and excited based on the little bit of information they give you, I don't know how they effectively weed people out.

     For me though the whole thing was a mess.  I went to interview at the one in Moraine, Ohio.  The manager at the time, and probably still is, was a guy named Mike.  Taylor was the hr/receptionist person.  She set up the interview.  My first interview, I get there and there is literally no one in the front lobby area.  I sit down and wait for roughly 15 minutes before Taylor walks in.  Now, she seemed to be super nice and apologized and said she had some errands to run.  Okay, that can happen.  Although, if the shoe was on the other foot and I showed up 15 minutes late for my first interview with a really good excuse and without calling them first I probably would have been eliminated from consideration right then and there.

     But I have the brief first interview and walk out.  I gave it some thought over the weekend and sent Taylor an email saying I was guarded and probably didn't put my best foot forward in that interview because I thought from past experience I would be trying to sell DirecTV and actually really liked these products and saw an opportunity there.  She said she talked it over with Mike and they wanted to invite me back for a second interview.  Which, wound up being a waste on my part.

      Taylor sets up a meeting at a local Sam's Club and tells me to say I'm there for a massager road show and they will let me in.  She actually wound up getting the company/brand name of the product they were hired to market wrong.  More on that in a bit.  

     But I'm thinking, "Okay, well I'll just show up at Sam's and do the second interview."  About 6 something in the morning the day of the interview she's calling, texting, and emailing me asking if I can move it back about an hour and a half for Mike's benefit.  I say sure, as later in the day was going to work better for me too anyway.  She had said as well that someone would call me to let me know where to go in the store so I wasn't wasting a lot of time searching for them.

      So I drive down to Sam's and of course no one calls me to let me know where they are in the store.  I get in and I see people set up with products that look like what I was told but it's a different brand and I don't see Mike anywhere.  I walk a little further and don't see where it looks like there was anyone else set up so I go and kind of stand there like a lost idiot for a few seconds until finally a guy asks if I'm there to see Mike and I say yes.  He says Mike is running a little late but he can interview me.   By the way, unless he was observing things incognito or something, Mike never even showed up. He proceeds to talk to me a little bit, has me watch the guy promoting the product that day for 10-15 minutes, and finishes up the interview with me.  He tells me about the 4 levels and how it takes about 8-9 months to complete everything and that they will be weeding out 15-20 people to get to 5 for a 3rd and final interview and that they would let me know regardless of the decision by noon the next day either by phone call or email.  Needless to say, they didn't.

So to recap, no one was around for my very first interview at the time scheduled.  They couldn't get the name of the product they were marketing right.  They didn't call me like they said they would to let me know where they were in the store.  The manager that needed to reschedule the second interview never showed up.  And they ended with the "We'll let you know either way" and didn't.

The sad part is that Taylor as I said was very nice and Mike seemed to be too.  But it seemed like a disorganized mess to me, with again people not keeping their word.

Which, I would expect a disorganized mess is kind of the way these companies operate.  They, ALL OF THEM that do this, are constantly hiring.  So, either they are extremely successful and promoting people like crazy.  Or, they burn through bodies from people quiting or getting fired and there's high turnover.  My guess would be on the latter.

Maybe it will work for you.  Personally I think for most people there are better opportunities out there though, or at least better companies and fits.