I wasn't sure where to start so I'll just share my experience.
Just so you can get a snapshot of what to expect at Thrive LA, you will be a door to door salesman in an MLM, pyramid scheme type company attempting to sell products like office supplies or internet and phone service to gas stations, flower shops, dentists offices, auto shops, and other random and small businesses. Could you imagine trying to sell office supplies to a flower shop? Everyday you head to your territory around Los Angeles pitching door to door in hopes that someone will buy $20 worth of products that you make $5 in commission for. Depending on your territory, you will more than likely be pitching in areas with rundown buildings and getting heckled by homeless people.
It is a 100% commission based position and this job offers quite literally no benefits. No medical, dental, or 401k. Anytime an employee would mention that there were no benefits, the manager would hold a team meeting, attempting to explain why it would be cheaper for everyone to buy their own. They do not care about your experience as an employee, They only want to get their yearly bonus check from the company they operate under. If you have a bad week in terms of selling, your paycheck could be as low as $100-$200 a week for 40 hours of week because you do not earn a salary. Hopefully you don't have to pay rent and you're still living at home.
During your training period, they will advance you a base rate of $500ish (this is only for 2 weeks. After that, you're 100% commission). But once you start selling and earning commission, you have to pay the company back whatever money they advanced to you (Sketchy). The training period only lasts 2 weeks because if you don't succeed and meet your quota, they will fire you so they don't have to pay you. They do a very good job of disguising this tactic to anyone who interviews or accepts the job. This is why most people they try to recruit are young college graduates that don't know any better.
It is a pyramid scheme at the heart. The only way to "grow" at the company is to recruit unsuspecting candidates, train new hires and build a team underneath you so that eventually they will start training people and build their own team. An actual pyramid scheme. They want you to recruit other candidates to build your own team so that you can eventually make money from the people you recruit.
They don't need people to stick around for long. They just want you to learn how to sell for them for a couple of months. After, when you realize how unethical the company is, you will leave and they bring in 5 more people to replace you. Most people at the company last 3-5 days before quitting. Others don't last as long. Many people don't show up on their first day, others quit after day 1 or right after orientation. They will hire just about anyone with a pulse.
You will have to drive 30 minutes to and hour every day to your territory, or possibly down to orange county. In itself, that's not the end of the world but there are no reimbursements for gas. Plus once you get to your territory, there's a good chance you'll have to drive around to go from one business to another.
The daily morning meetings are borderline creepy and unsettling. Every morning when you walk into the office they'll be blasting music in attempt to "hype everyone up". They'll do daily announcements where they'll yell out the top performing sales people and they physically force you to run up and ring a bell or a gong. Every morning meeting ends in a similar "motivational message". They try so hard to brainwash you into thinking that you shouldn't quit or think about quitting because that isn't "leadership mentality". Morning meetings are all about brainwashing you into an entrepreneurial mindset. They want you to recruit others and start your own "Thrive LA" but under a different name. The meetings are meant to make you feel guilty about ever wanting a salary. They want you to feel guilty about wanting a different job or wanting things to be easier. The truth is they're just trying to hide how unethical their practices are.
The turnover rate is unfathomable. In my first month, I probably saw 25-30 people come and go from the company. Keep in mind, the company is usually around 10 people in total at any one time, maybe less.
Eventually, if you stay long enough, you will be forced to start interviewing candidates for the same position you started in. This is part of the "You can build your own team and be your own boss" scam. Interviewers are trained to deflect as much as possible. If someone is starting to get suspicious you are taught to deflect, deflect, deflect. Additionally, after they force you to start interviewing people, they don't give you a raise and they don't pay you for your time you took to interview others. They also expect you to spend 3-4 days every week to train other new hires, You do not get paid to train others and are still on a 100% commission based structure. So, you spend most of your day focused on helping someone else and you'll get only 2 hours to make your sales at the end of the day. You get more responsibility and no extra pay, makes sense right? But hey, that's what it takes to be an "entrepreneur" according to Thrive LA.
Thrive LA doesn't sell their own products. It is outsourced sales. At Thrive you might be selling office supplies or phone and internet plans from Verizon. Many of the other companies that are just like Thrive sell AT&T door to door, or sitting inside Costco. There are 100's of companies just like Thrive LA that operate under a larger broker company. They're all the same company essentially, just hidden under different names. This is why they want people to fall into the pyramid scheme to open their own business.
You will likely go on at least 1 business trip to another city in California while working at Thrive LA. Get ready to pack up your car with 4 coworkers you barely know to drive 5 hours in your own car. As you know by now, the company is extremely cheap. This means you will be sharing a small bed with another coworker for an entire week. I hope you're comfortable.
Naturally, if you were traveling, you would expect that the company would give you some type of reimbursement or per diem for food. Nope. You're on your own there.
Before you start, they tell you the hours are 8-5, but in reality it's usually 7:00am-5:30pm. Some employees are given meetings that start earlier than 7:00am.
Even top performing salespeople don't have the greatest paychecks sometimes. You could have great weeks where you make $1000, but most of the time its usually around $500 or much less before taxes. Not nearly enough to sustain living in Los Angeles.
The company and management always talks and brags about how much money you will make working for Thrive. But if a manager is making so much money, why can't they pay their employees? Why can't you get reimbursed for gas for a job that requires you to drive everywhere? Why can't you get paid for interviewing and training people? Because its a scam. A pyramid selling scam.
It doesn't matter how hard you work on the sales aspect of the job. If you don't recruit enough victims to your team, you will not go anywhere.
Don't work for this company and go get your sales experience somewhere else.
