Complaint Review: Amplify Management Inc. - Orlando Florida

If you have aspirations of working for a legitimate business, steer clear of Amplify Management, Inc. It’s a roadshow division of Smart Circle (please research this company for more honest reviews about what it’s like to work for Smart Circle branch office than the vague 5 star reviews left on Glassdoor), and it's a mix of MLM and a Pyramid scheme that convinces 20-somethings they can get rich doing sales in wholesalers. Smart Circle has unsurprisingly been in a perpetual state of being sued for labor violations. 

There are dozens of positions listed, but in practice they only have one job: direct sales from a kiosk. The only person who does not do this job is the receptionist. There is no HR department. There are no event planners, marketing representatives, communications managers or account executives. The only job they hire for is direct sales. They try to convince you that it’s not sales, but the “events” are to convince people at the store to buy things. Selling is the heart of this business, no matter how they try to gloss over it.

I was suspicious when in the interview they told me I could become a manager within a few months and make $75,000 considering I have 0 management/marketing experience. It has been opened about a year now and somehow 0 people have completed the 6-8 month "training program." In my time there, everyone who didn’t quit was promoted, but none of the promotions were meaningful. There are no pay raises with the promotion to event management, just more responsibilities. You can actually earn less money being promoted, ironically, because your pay is still the same but you have less time to do sales because you have more job duties and therefore are less likely to qualify for commission.

The CEO sometimes bragged about making six figures. She worked for a different Smart Circle office called Bear Claw Events in North Carolina for a few years before being promoted to her own office. Feel free to research them as well because they've been around longer and complaints are therefore more accessible. It should set off red flags that a 26 year old hospitality major "owns" a business, has no business education, and employs nobody with business credentials or a business degree.

Almost all the employees are uneducated or have an irrelevant degree, and none have valuable or relevant experience. It sounds too good to be true because it is. Greyson is an entrepreneur like Mary Kay distributors are entrepreneurs. You sell what the parent company tells you to, recruit people, and those people recruit people, etc. At it’s core, this is Multi-level marketing. The one thing that makes it different is you do not have to buy your own products to sell, but substituting a buy-in with being paid below minimum wage and overworked this is far from a good deal. Like with Mary Kay and other MLM’s, there are a handful of people who work for Smart Circle who make six figures. Overwhelmingly employees at Smart Circle’s branch offices will earn around earn 1k a month with some months slightly higher. Again, this is a scam.

There’s a lot of gossip and unprofessionalism, and outright bullying of other employees for things like how they dress. Turnover is sky high for obvious reasons. Employees can be asked on the spur of the moment to pack up and travel across the state to sell things at different Sam's Clubs. If you cannot make the trip on such short notice, they’ll question whether you value your job. 

You will NOT be paid more based on your education or experience because they don’t care about those. You get $250/week OR commission, whichever is higher, but earning commission is uncommon, and when it does happen, it's usually only by a small margin.) You will drive your car all over Florida and be responsible for maintenance and usually have to pay your own gas. Taking that into account, at Amplify it is possible that your expenses will exceed your income. You cannot live independently on 1k a month and with car maintenance, you may lose money working here. 

Off-the-clock work expected and not factored into your pay and there’s a ridiculous amount of redundant emails, conference calls, and meetings you must participate in. You are also expected to network regularly, but NOT outside of the company, which is hilarious because that completely misses the point of networking. It's also difficult to network within the company due to the ridiculous turnover.

They emphasize you will learn valuable skills, but, no. This job is a blemish on your resume because to an employer savvy in job scams, it shows guillability and lack of critical thinking. Most people know better than to list MLM's on their resume for that reason. This is on par with Cutco knives and that college house painting scam. You can earn some money, they'll inflate your ego, but when push comes to shove you're doing grunt work and convincing other guillible 20-somethings to do the same by blatantly lying about the earning potential, job duties, advancement potential, and every other component of the job. 

There's an article someone sent me entitled “Beware the Scam: how to identify deceptive online job listings” written by Caitlyn Young that put in perspective my time at Amplify. They fit almost every criteria. (Multiple job listings with slightly different descriptions all for the same job, Confusing, lengthy, vague descriptions of the job to intentionally mislead, larger than life starting salary advertised, Questionable interview practices- office packed with applicants, not selective when reviewing resumes, mass-hiring indicative of quantity over quality preference, reminder to wear professional attire, office not on building directory and cheap furniture, interviewer talks as though scripted, ask you to do second round interview at off-site location where you watch dead-eyed girls solicit shoppers. They tell you the starting level is “humbling.” They say you don’t need experience in the job. They are willing to give this job to someone who has never had a job before!) 

Long story short, this is a scam. They will throw buzzwords at you and tell you if you work hard, they will make you rich by allowing you to open your own office. It's true if you dedicate a few years you can get an office, but your chances of making money here are next to non-existant. 

Working almost anywhere else is a better choice unless you’re really curious about how you can support yourself on $8 an hour. Again, this is a scam. I can’t emphasize that enough.