Are some people addicted to MLM?

martay

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katykicker said:
I would have liked to quote only one part but I can't seem to do that so well here (yet).

I'm glad we have clarified things and can move on :)

I didn't want to offend anyone either, at least not anyone on TMS :D

haha, I had to spend a good minute deleting the other quoted posts in the editor :)
 

Scott@KarmaContent

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On the subject of MLM, has anyone had any dealings with the Cobra Group? If you've ever seen the charity 'chuggers' that apprehend you on the street or the people knocking at your door asking you to sign up, they are probably something to do with the Cobra Group (or one of their many, many aliases).

Several years ago I was unemployed, skint and answered an ad in the paper asking for sales and marketing professionals on a £500 pw basic + commission. I travelled to Preston from Fleetwood where I lived at the time and walked into the weirdest company I'd ever known. You were immediately took into a room with a load of other people and talked at like you were part of some cult, selling you the idea of how we were all going to be millionaires if we stuck with them and didn't listen to the 'neg heads'. I walked out when they started doing all this American chanting and yeehah! kind of stuff and dancing around to pumping dance music ready to go out trying to sign people up for Talk Talk, Sky and various charities on the streets of Preston. Not my cup of tea.

I did quite a lot of research into them after this as the whole thing fascinated me, mainly because the people involved in the Cobra Group looked dead behind the eyes and talked in a really odd way like they'd been brainwashed.

It is MLM at its worst, with most people earning less than the minimum wage (because they are self employed) even though they are doing 15 hour days. They all stick at it because they are sold on the idea of becoming a team leader and then building their own team and eventually their own business within the Cobra Group. As annoying as those young students are who do the chugging, they're total victims themselves only they just don't realise it yet.

More info here:
https://zainabusman.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/how-i-fell-victim-to-a-recruitment-scam-in-the-uk/
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2010/08/cobra-group-makes-a-mint-while.html
http://appcogroup-cobragroup.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/appco-group-also-known-as-cobra-group.html

Anyone else had any experience of them? They go by a multitude of names.
 

Jon

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jesus that's an eye opener that is!


:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
 

martay

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Scott@KarmaContent said:
On the subject of MLM, has anyone had any dealings with the Cobra Group? If you've ever seen the charity 'chuggers' that apprehend you on the street or the people knocking at your door asking you to sign up, they are probably something to do with the Cobra Group (or one of their many, many aliases).

Several years ago I was unemployed, skint and answered an ad in the paper asking for sales and marketing professionals on a £500 pw basic + commission. I travelled to Preston from Fleetwood where I lived at the time and walked into the weirdest company I'd ever known. You were immediately took into a room with a load of other people and talked at like you were part of some cult, selling you the idea of how we were all going to be millionaires if we stuck with them and didn't listen to the 'neg heads'. I walked out when they started doing all this American chanting and yeehah! kind of stuff and dancing around to pumping dance music ready to go out trying to sign people up for Talk Talk, Sky and various charities on the streets of Preston. Not my cup of tea.

I did quite a lot of research into them after this as the whole thing fascinated me, mainly because the people involved in the Cobra Group looked dead behind the eyes and talked in a really odd way like they'd been brainwashed.

It is MLM at its worst, with most people earning less than the minimum wage (because they are self employed) even though they are doing 15 hour days. They all stick at it because they are sold on the idea of becoming a team leader and then building their own team and eventually their own business within the Cobra Group. As annoying as those young students are who do the chugging, they're total victims themselves only they just don't realise it yet.

More info here:
https://zainabusman.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/how-i-fell-victim-to-a-recruitment-scam-in-the-uk/
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2010/08/cobra-group-makes-a-mint-while.html
http://appcogroup-cobragroup.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/appco-group-also-known-as-cobra-group.html

Anyone else had any experience of them? They go by a multitude of names.


Hahaha yes, many years ago I had been involved with Cobra.

In fact, I still stay somewhat in touch with one of the local "owners" (not the actual cobra owners but if you did cobra you know what an owner is ;) ). My friend had a very successful office and several people over the period of a few years progressed and had their own office under him too. He is an excellent salesman and team builder.

Political issues arose, and he soon realised he would be better off on his own. Now he has a "boiler room" type setup selling phone contracts, doing very well, to the tune of 7 digits.


I personally did pretty well with cobra, converting people from one G+E provider to another. I progressed up to assistant owner in my office, and then politics got in the way and I left them to pursue other ventures.

It was a great learning experience.


PS - when I say politics, I mean sneaky behind the back type BS and scheming, underhanded nepitism and general shadiness. I hate politics!
 

martay

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BTW a lot of the chuggers these days are not cobra people, at least round the midlands anyway as one year they got into a lot of trouble.

I'm not sure that they *arent* cobra anymore, but some company has wangled a way to get the chuggers on minimum wage round here, though they do work them to the ground for it! I know this because I know people who have done both, the cobra self employed chugging and the recent "via an agency with minimum wage" chugging.


EDIT - "When you join you get 4 weeks probation period where you are paid minimum wage irrelevant of targets. After 4 weeks, if you do not hit targets you do not make minimum wage. Travelling hours and time spent at office are not usually counted towards your basic wage hours"

Its what my ex-chugger friend just told me on facebook, so yeah it looks like it is probably still cobra and they've manipulated the whole system even more :eek:
 

caledonia1972

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Scott@KarmaContent said:
On the subject of MLM, has anyone had any dealings with the Cobra Group? If you've ever seen the charity 'chuggers' that apprehend you on the street or the people knocking at your door asking you to sign up, they are probably something to do with the Cobra Group (or one of their many, many aliases).

No but we regularly get these people round the door trying to sign us up for direct debit for charities. There were also two fairly desperate looking people in the foyer to Asda today trying to sign people up for Talk Talk.
 

sparkleandshine

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Oh yes that rings a bell Scott, my partner had a job interview with them too, which consisted of a whole days work out door knocking trying to get people to sign up for talk talk for which he didn't get paid, and theyn after all that they didn't even offer him the job. I think the deal was, get 3 sign ups a day at least and get paid minimum wage, get less than 3 sign ups a day and don't get paid anything, which didn't sound like a good deal to me. I remember it being all about getting to the next level, getting to be a so called team leader and THEN you would actually earn something approaching a reasonable wage.its getting people to work forthe promise of money in the future rather than what it should be, working for a decent wage in the here and now. Its so exploitative. He's been for a few interviews that have turned out like this and been offered the job but like you refused to take them. Companies seem to be getting away with murder these days this is not much of a step up from slave labour. As you said martay some people will go on to do well with these kinds of companies but not many. The people who take the jobs don't seem to realise they can't ALL become team leaders, that's not how businesses work
 

sparkleandshine

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Also I don't get how these companies can call these types of jobs 'self employed'. Self employed to me is a plumber or an electrician or whatever, or someone running their own business, or hell yes even an mlmer, working when they want, where they want, how they want, with who they want. How can you have to go into an office from 9-5 every day and be self employed? The same with the people who deliver the parcels how is that self employed work? You have to work when the company says surely otherwise the parcels won't get delivered. Even aldi staff are self employed. I just don't get it. The world's gone mad.
 

Jon

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thing like these chugger setups and MLM sure do seem to promote getting a title at an early stage.


In regular work a 'team leader' might require a few years work, decent management experience and various personal skills that deal with issues like personal development and sickness management.


In MLM if you recruit 3 people you can be a team leader
 

sparkleandshine

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to be fair in mlm certainly the 'team leader' is really more of a supervisor role rather then a management role. Its all about leading from the front and leading by example. you do exactly what your team does, in other words, shift product, and recruit more people to shift product, and the idea is you are supposed to do it well and inspire your team to do it as well as you do. But I know some companies give these people ridiculous job titles like senior director, area manager and so on :D And as to knowing about holiday and sickness and disciplinary procedures and pension rights and all that stuff, you don't need to know about any of that, because in the world of mlm none of it exists
 

martay

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Jon@TheMoneyShed said:
thing like these chugger setups and MLM sure do seem to promote getting a title at an early stage.


In regular work a 'team leader' might require a few years work, decent management experience and various personal skills that deal with issues like personal development and sickness management.


In MLM if you recruit 3 people you can be a team leader

In all commission only based sales roles there is usually a high turnover of staff, as you guys are clearly pointing out a lot of people are not cut out for sales and dont make enough to want to stick it out.

The *good* reps and team leaders that make a success in *Sales* (mlm or any sales) have all the required skills you mentioned for management, in abundance, and it does not matter if they have been in a company for 1 week or 1 year, if someone shows those skills and can motivate a team of people to make more sales no sales company will hold them back for a year or 2.

personally that is one of the benefits of this type of job and what makes it appeal to me, if you can do it well, and produce results, there is no "red tape" or "Bureaucracy" or whatever you may call it to hold you back from progression.
 

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