Complaint Review: Smart Circle International - Nationwide

I contemplated writing a review about Smart Circle for a long time and it's because i'm scared of the leadership involved here. I worked with Smart Circle for over 3 years, a recent grad so i was a "juicy sharp" candidate. I had a low "breakeven" since I was still living at my parents, had no bills or kids, and luckily my parents still paid for my phone and car. I was the prime candidate to get sucked into this pyramid scheme just wanting to be successful and work hard right out of the gates.

What's crazy is i had no idea i was working for smart circle when i started because it was under another name. Not until i was selected for a leadership conference was there smart circle signs everywhere and i thought i was in the wrong place. There were so many red flags from the beginning but i chose to ignore them because i personally talked to the higher ups in the company who started from my position when they were outside of old navys instead of indoors at a sams club or costco. My mindset was, like most, if they can do it so can i. I was lured in my "fear of loss" and "impulse." 

"only very few are fortunate to succeed, you decide with having great attitude, work ethic, and student mentality." the higher ups would say. But in reality it was more of a sell your soul to our company, be miserable, live out of your car if you have to, sacrifice friends, family, people who care about you if you really want to do big things with this company. 

First time i should have quit: when i went to R&R for Smart Circle and found out it was the parent company 

Second time i should have quit: when my "owner" told me i didnt have to move to another city. I got promoted and was forced to move to continue the position. (I asked other owners when i was in and they told me this happened to them too, it was normal)

Third time i should have quit: When i opened as an owner and made a ton of money and my entire team quit on me (which they told me that was normal) and i had to send in trainers from other offices to help me rebuild with brand new guys that didn't stick and i lost a ton of money and never recovered 

Fourth time i should have quit: I was afraid to make friend with other "owners" in the business in fear if i said something negative they would tell a higher up 

Fifth time i should have quit: When i ran "opportunity meetings" and tried to be as honest as possible with expenses and find out other top owners are not telling the truth of what our real expenses are.

Sixth time i should have quit: My loved ones were telling me to watch out and it was a scam and i ignored them, stopped talking to them because they were "negative" and put the biz first. 

Smart Circle, you are a scam! If I could write this all in caps I would, but I don't want this to be taken down for any reason. My time, effort, and energy to recruit all day and watch 300+ people walk in and out of my door as an owner in a year was a serious waste. At an owners meeting we were told by the top executive in the company that 49 owners closed their doors and only 41 opened in the past year. They were negative in people, which ultimateley hurts the owners in the room, but because they gained in show count with the 41 offices open Smart Circle makes more money. They applauded us for being stronger because as 41 owners we can run more shows than 49. They tried "painting the picture" that as owners we make more money, but all i saw is that those poor owners closed down more deals and were treading water while smart circle made money off these owners having tons of shows to try and make their earnings back. 

The way the scam works: 

You start at bottom like every one else, inside of a big box retailer if you are in the roadshow division. 

Once you get to the a certain sales goal, you get promoted to build a team. 

You train constantly to teach people how to be as good as you or better. (these skills are not bad, but you are constantly at dinners, phone call conferences, team nights, working from 7am-10pm with no life, while hardly getting paid) 

Once you train people to that level you move into an asst management role where you get paid even less because you are now saving your money for when you open and not seeing a dime. 

Then you move into your own office and this is where you really learn what the Smart Circle scam is all about because you are directly talking to the higher ups constantly about your team. 

Once you get someone to your ownership level you have to promote them and their team out to another city that is available and the ones that are "hot" are where an owner recently quit and they are trying to fill your space in their as quickly as possible. 

The owner pays to open them up, pay for first last security and then from smart circle you are promised to make money 3% off their sales so you can get your investment for opening their business up back. The problem with this is they have a rule when you open someone up you dont get that money for 3 months! So you just spent 10K opening someone up and are told you can make that money back and that person is an investment, but what if they don't last 3 months? You just lost your strongest rep + the people that she/he left with and you're in the hole 10K while for the past 3 months Smart Circle was profitting 40% off each show without putting 1$ out in investing off your guy or overhead. THey make more money because they have more events going without putting any money into it while the owner is stuck fronting the bills and the losses, motiving that other owner not to quit so they can finally see some profit. It's truly sick what they do and how they invest 0 in you but take all the money and your time, effort and energy. 

I overheard an owner talking to another owner about them laughing about an instance that happened. One owner was on the phone with her promoting owner saying she was at the gym. That night the promoting owner ran a conference call saying the difference between great owners and unstoppable owners. Great owners have their own time, go to the gym, hang out with family, they care about their office, probably have a couple owners under them, but they still care about their time. But unstoppable owners, they are thinking about what dinner is next for their team, how they are going to promote the next person, they dont have time for the gym. This was another red flag of brainwash. 

The "clients"- these are all smart circle. So when your owner is taking about giving the clients 40% during an opportunity meeting it is really Smart Circle. If we bring on another client, Smart Circle will see how to make it, will manufacterer and change it themselves and now the owner is stuck paying for new banners and table clothes too so Smart Circle can make more money in upcharging those as well. 

They say shipping is FREE- lies. Owners pay 10$ a pallet to get anything shipped to and from and it's taken out as a different change on your account at the end of the month. 

Investing in people- This is something they will say to brainwash you when you're an owner, or even a rep. "If an owner has 100k and another owner has 20k in the bank account who is the more successful one?"

Smart circle brainwash answer: the one with 20k because that person is flying their guys out and investing in them, no one with 100k is doing that they are thinking about themselves.

This is the biggest part of the scam because newsflash, less than 1% people that walk in your door will actually make it to the owner position. And less than 1% of people you first promote as an owner will stay longer than a year. 

If you as an owner promoted 5 people out to Smart Circle territories and want to leave the business, you dont make any residuals off of them if you are not involved even though you coached, trained and invested your own money into where they are today. You leave with nothing! 

If you guys have read other reviews they talk about the falsity of ads so i wont even get into that or the recruiting aspect, just know it's a numbers game and a scam.

Networking- ever notice why they tell you to only call certain people who have been in the business for a while? It's because many owners quit. Since I have been gone I can already count on my fingers and toes how many people jumped ship. Your owner doesn't want you to know that there is a higher turnover with owners than reps in your own office because it would scare you away. 

Beware!