The discussion on my Firstline posts has been very interesting. I’ve had comments from Firstline employees, past and present that bring a well-rounded point of view to the whole discussion.

Mike has also been writing a series of posts about his Firstline experience that illustrate and highlight the issues that I’ve mentioned.

Many of the commenters who are pro-Firstline insist that I’m wrong, that it’s a great, career-building company to work for, that it is a terrific jump-start to a successful future. However, those commenters are also much longer-term employees. Some with as much as five years under their belts. I’ve had protests over characterizing the sales techniques as deceptive, with protests that they are not trained to be deceptive at all, just assertive. I stand by my characterization of the techniques as deceptive, particularly the slamming of customers who already have a security system. That technique is outlined in the official literature and training materials, so I have no option but to believe the company stands behind it and expects their salespeople to employ it.

However, my outrage at Firstline Security and their recruiting/sales techniques doesn’t extend to all direct sales companies, nor does it extend to all self-produced reality shows. As an example, the post I wrote on Rockstartup just below this one applauds the efforts of Ted Murphy et al to self-produce a reality show with an eye to marketing it to the networks. But there’s a clear and stark difference between RockStartUp and the Prodigy. For the sake of this comparison, I will at least assume that if Firstline can, they will try to market something like a reality show to broadcast and/or cable networks, even though I think it was really a ploy to recruit employees who might otherwise not have given them a second look.

Here are some basic differences:

Rockstartup centers around Ted Murphy and his efforts with PayPerPost. While employees are featured in different episodes, as are Posties, their employment is not tied to their participation. Their appearances are intended to put exclamation points on the process of beginning a disruptive and innovative Internet company that’s in the center of a ton of controversy. There are central characters, a conflict, and some creative (as well as occasionally entertaining) moments.

The Prodigy purports to center around the efforts of 2,000 students recruited from across the nation to meet “challenges”. The participation of the students in the first “challenge” is really the summer-long direct sales stint in the location of Firstline managers’ choice. Employment (and continued “show participation”) is contingent upon their willingness to continue closing same-day deals and earning money for the company.

Rockstartup is focused on creating a new company in a new space. The Prodigy focuses on making profits for an existing company in an existing, saturated space.

Speaking as someone who is occasionally entertained but never committed to some reality shows, I can say that any show that focuses on the travails of students struggling to make a living in a nearly-impossible environment interests me less (as in, not at all) than seeing Mike Arrington’s indictment of Ted Murphy roll away from Ted and back into Arrington’s lap. Not to mention Loren Feldman — what’s not to love about Loren? But whether I’m entertained or not is less important than whether there’s a realistic probability of marketing these shows to a broader audience.

I’d say that you’d be more likely to find The Prodigy as a late-night infomercial, frankly. Rockstartup might catch, but the TV channels are so full of reality shows that it’s more likely to end up as a viral Internet phenomenon. Still, comparing the two is a worthwhile venture, if for no other reason than to highlight the weaknesses in the efforts to insist that The Prodigy’s recruiting efforts last spring really were for this exclusive reality show, rather than just a new spin on a tired old saw.

Which brings me to my last point…the whole question of direct sales. Let me be clear here: I do not think all direct sales are evil. I think they’re a fairly insane way to market in this day of the internet, social networks, ubiquitous access to products and information, and our current ad-driven age. But still, direct sales have a place in all of that. The “Will it Blend” site is an example of direct sales crossover. I suspect that there was a whole lot of direct blending going on before iPhones were dropped into one of them. And for a product like that, direct sales make sense — the consumer sees how the product differs from every other product out there.

Liz highlights some other summer direct sales jobs that students take, including Southwestern (book sales) and Cutco Cutlery. However, those two companies, along with other companies Liz mentions, are selling a tangible product that the consumer can see, touch, evaluate and hold. Selling a service is another matter entirely, and Liz’ post does a great job of highlighting the differences between the two.

The Firstline model depends upon the impulse buy, and uses fear as the spark for the impulse. As one commenter notes, after a group of residents was scammed by someone posing as a security salesman and then robbing those same homeowners, sales skyrocketed in that area, because it was easy enough to walk in after such an incident and be the hero. They count on the same-day close, sold by a fresh-faced clean cut “advertising director”, and a climate of fear to sell a service, which is then installed by untrained installers (see Mike’s post), and is nearly impossible to get away from even when the homeowner sells their home.

I’ll take books, knives and blenders over that any day, and I’d suggest that students consider doing the same before signing on for a summer of trudge and drudge.

Technorati Tags: direct sales, reality shows, marketing, direct marketing, summer jobs, college students, RockStartup

Liz has a couple of excellent posts here and here with great links to some other blogs about Firstline Security and their puppet show, “The Prodigy”. I especially recommend her post on Reality TV and Summer Sales.

There’s an important distinction to be made between Reality TV and a concept like “The Prodigy”. I define the latter as a concept because there is really no indication that it has been sold, that they intend to sell it, or that the focus of the summer project has anything to do with the final product they call “The Prodigy”.

In the case of the Eldest, a camera was present twice: Once during a pep rally in June, and once around the third week of the 10-week stint. Both times it was centered around a staged event intended to bolster the masses. I found this snippet in one of the articles Liz quoted (in relation to the interview process in the initial recruiting phase, which took place at university locations throughout the country) to be very interesting:

“Everything is going to be filmed, and the show will be put together and edited by Actuality,” said Jerod Justice, a junior animal science major and district manager with Firstline. “At that point, it will be ’shopped’ out to major networks. There are already agreements being made, so it will definitely be televised, at least on a cable series.”

This is what they told the students involved in the ‘interview’ process — that it was being shopped to major networks. They also played up the relationship with GE, though they were not specific as to what that relationship was until the students went past the second interview process and were in attendance at the first ‘training session’.

Now, the idea presented with most reality shows is a give and take between the contestant and the producers. The contestants are presented with various challenges for which they apply their strategic, intellectual, physical, and sometimes evil talents to overcome. The idea as it’s presented on these shows is that the contestant still standing at the end wins it all, and that there is an IT to win.

Editorial comment here: In this particular case, the prize is purported to be nearly .75 Million dollars in VC money, a Hummer (humph), and some cash. They even trot out the previous “Prodigy”, who is actually the president of the Firstline division that recruits and hires the college students for summer sales. Do the math here. The person who wins (assuming there really is a winner to be had), will not be off on his own venture. He or She will be a fully-owned Firstline employee. Whatever VC dollars are actually paid out don’t have a thing to do with anyone’s own idea for a business unless that idea is something that jives with the Firstline business plan.

Most interesting to me was the actual paperwork they were given to sign. No mention at all of any reality show in the entire “Advertising Director Manual.” However, there were some eyebrow-raising moments in my read through the whole thing. Here are some highlights:

• A minimum production of 10 accounts per month is expected.
• Licensing is the responsibility of the individual, not the company
• A trade secrets and non-compete agreement is required. The non-compete extends for 24 months.
• Exclusive employment during the term of the contract (as if they’d have any time for anything else…sheesh)
• The real icing on the cake is the Promissory Note they are required to sign at the outset, promising to repay any shortage for advanced ‘housing allowance’ and ’signing bonus’ if they don’t complete the term. 18% interest on the unpaid balance. Yeah, buddy. (Smacking the boy upside the head for signing this one…SIGH).

Does this sound like a contract for a reality show or an apprenticeship/indentured servant agreement to you?

Moving on to sales tactics, I found this gem. This is when there is an already-installed system on the premises. They suggest opening the conversation with this: “I see you’re with XYZ company and I’m here to switch you over to Firstline.” Say WHAT? “I’m upgrading customers with that equipment to the newer equipment”.

Familiar with the term “slamming”? Slamming is what the long distance phone companies do when they call to get you to switch to their service. It’s a smooth and incredibly dishonest technique, where the rep calls and starts the conversation by saying they’ve reviewed your current plan and have a better plan for you. By the time you’re hooked up to the recorded part of the call and giving your info, it’s disclosed that you’re really switching your long distance service to another company. This is the same technique.

So look, the bottom line here is that The Prodigy is a scam, just like Liz calls it. It was a vehicle to sell crap wrapped in the phony allure of fame and fortune. It’s easy to believe these shows are reality, but DG’s experience with AGT (remember, she auditioned in “Chicago”…yeah right) proves otherwise. In this case, it isn’t even a real show…it’s the promise of a real show.

To the commenters who have left remarks about how successful they’ve been with Firstline, I have only this to add to what I’ve written above: You were selling systems when the market wasn’t saturated. You now have a saturated market and some negative customer feedback. At least here in California, your “advertising directors” are being dropped into underprivileged neighborhoods or neighborhoods where systems are already installed by ADT, Honeywell and other vendors. So while you enjoyed success with it, it’s not nearly the lucrative proposition that it was before, which is why deceptive recruiting techniques are now being used to get fresh blood for the enterprise.

So in our case, the Eldest will end his summer about $2K in debt to Alltel, no cash in the bank, and having to take a semester off to recover what he lost through this endeavor. I don’t count that as success and neither does he. In fairness to Firstline, he should have shed the ‘pie inthe sky’ aspirations and looked at the whole thing a bit more cynically, but hey - they do have some excellent salesmen shilling their product

My takeaway from this: The wireless industry needs to be opened up and opened up soon. Part of why they can get away with this stuff is because there isn’t any real competition out there or innovative products. Whether it’s Verizon or AT&T or GE or Firstline, it’s all the same crap wrapped in different paper. Firstline’s services were wireless, with add-ons for VOIP and other wireless promises for the future, all overpriced and not very much value for the money. If the service is worth buying, it shouldn’t need ‘advertising directors’ hawking it door-to-door in the first place.

Technorati Tags: firstline, security, the prodigy, scam, direct sales, marketing, college, summer jobs

After I posted about the Eldest’s situation last night, my friend Liz Ditz picked up on it and dug very deep. She’s updating it periodically as she finds more information. 

Read Liz’ post first, then come back to this one.  Her post has many great links to media, news and consumer feedback about this.  Mine is intended to debunk the GoFirstline.com website, which is one of the recruiting tools they use for college students. It is a site I spent much time on back in April when he first chose to spend his summer working toward being “the prodigy”.  (jeeeez, what a lying sack of s**t these people are).

Starting with their “opportunity” page, where they outline the top 10 reasons to work for them in “summer sales” (a euphemism for indentured servitude), debunked, one at a time:

Lie #1: The claim that “working with hundreds of potential customers” will give students “invaluable skills and real world experience“.

Reality: The only experience gained is in the art of deception.  The students are trained to make a scripted sales presentation of a ‘future product’ by telling customers they’re getting all of the hardware free if they’ll just allow the Firstline sign in their front yard.  Sounds pretty good, right?  And the system is soooo much better than what they already have because they can control everything from their cell phone.   They can be thousands of miles away and know who is entering and/or exiting their home with this system.  The only “real world skill” they’re taught by the company is how to deceive potential customers by playing on their fear and waving technology around like a magic wand, for the low, low fee of $45/month, minimum.

Lie #2: The claim that “This job, like no other, will jump start your career.” Make the call on this lie after reading Liz’ post and related links.  They are not licensed in many of the states they’re marketing in, they are sending kids out door to door in neighborhoods that are…well, less than desirable, they are associating those kids’ good and unblemished name with a company and product built on the foundation of lies and deception.  I’d say the only jumpstarting of careers here would be to the biggest liars.  Oh, and the students are expected to use their own resources to sell the product, most notably, their own cell phones.

Lies #3 & #4: When the heavy financial burden is eliminated, you can focus on your studies, social life and in the end you come you get even more out of your college experience. and Most students end up paying their tuition with student loans that can follow them for years.

I combined these because they play on the same theme - this idea that working for Frontline(Freudian slip) FirstLine for one summer could generate enough income for students to pay for their education and free them from student loans.  This is an especially ugly lie, because it preys on the students most in need of real financial assistance to get through school — the ones who are not receiving help from parents, who are working part-time jobs to pay for their living expenses and tuition, and who are barely making ends meet. 

Reality: For 10+ weeks, they are clumped together in a “team” with a “manager” and dropped into neighborhoods where they’re expected to sell at least one unit per day to meet their quotas.  To make the kind of money they promise here, these kids would have to sell upwards of 4-5 per day on a door-to-door basis.  Selling means having a customer buy the service and get past the 3-day free look without terminating the agreement.

LIe #5: You will have the opportunity to expand your horizons by working in cities across the US.

Reality: Ask yourself this question:  If you were a student and wanted to travel to cities across the US, would you choose Fresno, Clovis, and Hayward in July?  What exactly would be the purpose of travel to those cities?  You don’t get a choice — you’re dropped where they drop you and screw you if it’s a crummy territory.   With apologies to residents of Fresno — I wouldn’t choose it as my top travel destination.

Lie #6: Work hard at Firstline and you will enjoy awesome weekly incentives.

Reality:  Not exactly. Noobs are brought in on a $250/week draw, but they have to give back $150/week to cover their housing expenses, so they have $100/week to live on until they start selling the systems.  At the time they start making sales, they get approximately $250 per sale on a contract worth $1500.  Those incentives don’t kick in unless you’re selling lots and lots more than that, and actually CLOSING them, which is something that doesn’t get done by the kids selling.  As soon as they have an interested customer they call them into the central office (presumably in Utah) for the close. 

Lie #7: If you prove yourself this summer you will be invited to attend special training meetings, go on the Firstline Cruise, and maybe even be invited to attend our tropical retreat.

Reality:  There are weekly and daily “pump-you-up” meetings conducted by regional managers intended to keep flagging enthusiasm from waning entirely because they drop these kids onto the streets for 10 hours per day, six days per week with the full expectation that they will walk from door to door knocking and making sales.  The only time there’s been any sort of ’special training’ was when the EVP flew in and shut down their Fresno operation, relocating them mid-week and at night to Northern California.  Sounds more like fleeing the local authorities than it does any kind of ’special training’.

Lie #8: Being part of Firstline’s management team allows you to hone your leadership skills while enjoying a great salary, car allowance, and other perks.

Reality: They are expected to use their own cell phones to close the sales.  This has cost my kid $1800 for one month’s usage.  His ‘regional manager’ was just switched from salaried employee to contract employee, forget about those magical management bonuses.  Despite promises in the beginning of stock incentives and other possibilities, nothing has materialized and nothing has been mentioned.  However, he hasn’t been paid for the past two weeks, either.

Lie #9, and it’s a whopper: We focus on continuous learning, personal development, and provide the tools to help you achieve your goals. (From the “opportunity” page)

Reality:  They are not given business cards, brochures, or anything that might actually associate them with the company other than contracts and shirts with logos.   Why?  My personal belief is that they are unlicensed for direct sales in many of the states in which they’re having the students direct sell.  If they had actual sales material, they’d have to include a license number which they do not have.  By having no written material and putting their logo on the sales reps as a form of identification, they circumvent the direct sales requirements of individual areas.  This is a theory:  I haven’t got enough facts to prove it.  Yet. 

Lie #10: Your earning potential is unlimited.

I saved this one for last because it is the most blatant lie of all. Of COURSE it’s limited. It’s limited by time, placement, and the product itself. These kids are being asked to sell air. The emperor has no clothes here. They’re basically out there to ask people to ‘allow the installation of this great new product’, get them to agree to ‘display the sign in their front yard’, and pay ‘a nominal maintenance fee’. AND (this is the real kicker), they’re expected to actually go into the home to evaluate installation points for the sensors.

Think about the utter improbability of that. Here’s a guy making a sales pitch with a foundation of fear — you could be robbed, you could be raped, you could be terrorized in your own home.  After that, would YOU let them come inside YOUR home to ‘evaluate it for security access points’ and then agree to a 3-year contract at $45.00 per month? Making a statement/promise of unlimited income is somewhat akin to promising lifelong happiness…it’s a pipe dream and one that’s especially ugly in light of what they really expect these kids to do.

Worst of all, they manipulate these students by suggesting that they will only succeed if they have an “I WILL NOT QUIT” attitude. That means that even when their instincts are sending off bells and whistles, they are expected to ignore those good instincts and ethics because to acknowledge them would brand them as ‘quitters’, something that none of us wish to be. 

I just had a two-hour conversation tonight with the Eldest.  The first hour was spent reassuring him that he wasn’t an idiot; that he had been LIED TO, and when one is evaluating lies, it’s impossible to make sound judgments because there are no facts.  When I did the research on this back in April, there were no complaints to find — there wasn’t even a NAMED COMPANY, because it was all marketed through “The Prodigy” promise of a shot at reality TV.

If you want to see the extent of the lies, check out their Partners Page.  I did.  Honeywell, GE, Dish Network, ADT.  All large, successful, well-branded companies.  And they emphasize the GE relationship above all.  Why?  I believe it’s because GE is the parent of NBC, giving legitimacy to the claim that the so-called reality show is legit.  The truth is, Firstline is a reseller of Honeywell, ADT, Dish Network and GE services.  That’s the complete extent of the so-called ‘partnership’.  Instead of eliminating the middleman as they claim, they ARE the middleman.

If you are a student contemplating this as a summer gig: Run, don’t walk to your nearest Starbucks and fill out an application there, where they actually give benefits to part-timers and operate above-board and legitimately.  Anything other than this, which is a scam and a lie.

If you are a student who has been involved in this so-called reality show scam, I’d like to hear from you. I found Michael J’s blog tonight — he and some others left this week.  Interesting that both he and the Eldest used the term “sold my soul” in relation to their work with this company.  Here’s my retort:  You didn’t sell your souls, they were stolen for awhile by liars and thieves.  The day you walked away was the day you got them back.

The Eldest is on his way home.  We’ll sort things out together when he arrives tomorrow.  For now I’m pulling down the photo I have up of him on the “about” page to protect his identity until this is all sorted out down the line.

Update: Holy crap, they are licensed in California and the agent for service of legal process in this state is right here in Camarillo. Good lord.

Tags: firstline, the prodigy, student scams, college students, sales, deceptive marketing

I don’t write about the Eldest often. That’s mostly because he isn’t especially interested in having me spew his life across the airwaves online so that in ten years it can be held against him. But tonight I’m breaking my rule.

The Eldest is 26 and trying hard to discover what his niche is. He’s smart, a hard worker, and rises to hard challenges. But he just doesn’t know what he wants to do, and is a bit adrift. Unlike Sticks, he hasn’t really found what he’s passionate for…he knows what he does well, but hasn’t found the right niche.

Because he spent 4 years in the Army (in Ranger school and then moved off from the Rangers (long story)) to an experimental unit which is now deployed in Iraq, he’s catching up on the education part of his life. He just finished his AA in Arizona, and while there, was recruited by this company to participate in their reality show challenge.

Here’s the description of the summer challenge called The Prodigy:

The stage for The Prodigy is set in a real business, in a real company, with a real boss and a real paycheck. Our film crew will follow you and your team every day as you canvas the market selling advanced technologies from one of America’s fastest-growing bundled services companies. You will be trained, tested, and certified. You will become an expert in the field and then you will take the product to market, day in and day out, for four months.

Here’s what the ‘real business’ is: They drop them into areas like Fresno, Clovis and Pittsburg and have them go door-to-door selling wireless alarm systems. He has been chased by pit bulls, ridiculed by people who have some dark desire to humiliate people trying to earn a living, had a shotgun aimed at him, and more. They’re expected to work 10 hours a day, six days a week and they’re paid if they sell and only if they sell. Further, they’re told they’re contract employees with no benefits, but they’re also without their cars (they park them when they report and don’t use them again until they’ve served the full contract). Basically they have their clothes and a cell phone and that’s about it.

So after about six weeks of this, he’s broke with a nice gash in his leg from falling into barbed wire while trying to get away from the pit bull. His cell phone carrier screwed up his cell contract so that he was charged to roam from the minute he left Arizona (I had this happen to me with AT&T which is why I switched to Cingular who is now once again AT&T..sigh), for which they treated him to an automatic debit of $1800, leaving him overdrawn and deep in the hole.

He’s not the only college student I know who was sucked into this scam. Think about it — they’re making college students into indentured servants using a reality show hook and then using their energy and talent for 10 weeks until they’re basically out of gas, self esteem and money.

To all of you who thought paid blogging and even paid commenting is evil, I’d love to turn you loose on this, because it’s really an incredible scam. Not to mention a ten-week EST session. The only saving grace to the whole thing is that he could probably sell anything anywhere after this.

I’m worried about him, though…this is no way to be starting a life…the military and then this. It seems like he skipped the ‘fun’ part of post-high school life and ended up adrift in hellish places.

Technorati Tags: GE, wireless home security, the prodigy, reality show, scam