customer or prospect on his own — not during the sales pitch itself — from his own phone is grounds for termination.
The salesmen must buy their sales tools or put up a substantial deposit that will be forfeited if any of the sales tools are lost.
Most states require that salesmen be licensed. In most states it is a criminal act to sell home improvements without a license. It can take months to get the license from the state. Usually, the company won’t even put in the salesman’s license application until they see how successful the salesman is in the field. Yes, the company might wait more than a month before submitting the application to the state and then it can take a month or two for the license to appear. The license can cost the salesman over $200 out of his own pocket.
Note what this means. The company … by holding back on the license until the salesman proves himself in the field … is forcing the salesman into perpetrating a criminal act with a penalty of ten thousand dollar fine and months in jail. The company is by design creating a criminal.
Most salesmen must go through a company provided sales training course. The course can take two weeks. The trainee can go on sales calls with licensed salesmen. Once the trainee has “graduated” from the training class then he goes in the field on his own. Does he have a license? No. Can he go to jail? Probably.
The companies use this criminality against the salesman. If they “forget” to pay him for one or several of his sales then he can go and complain to the Labor Commissioner if he can prove he qualifies to be protected by that agency or he can file suit but then he can face a $10,000 fine and six months in jail for selling without a license.
Making someone work for you for free can be “Involuntary Servitude” which usually is a felony. Making someone work for you for free — or you will tell the cops … can be “Extortion” which usually is another felony. Making all of this a standard business practice and known through out the company and its branches may come under RICO and RICO can be both a state and federal felony (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). What might be a felony worth four or five years in an honor camp — for being the bad person that you are … gets you even 20 years hard time under RICO.
The “bad” home improvement companies really do operate differently than the honest ones. First, the president or owner of even the smaller companies will never talk to a prospective customer during the grinding sales process. Neither will a sales manager. The only person who will talk to a customer during the sales effort is the salesman. The
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