Jaffle
Wellington,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, May 21, 2013
I worked for Cobra Group for just over 2 months.
Obviously it wasn't THAT great because I wasn't there long :) However the owner of my chapter was an awesome human being and not the least bit the monsters described here. I made ok money at first, then pretty good money for about a month or so - pretty close to what they were promising.
But it was exhausting work and the hours were awkward (not that long, usually 2pm-10pm. But the late start and late finish didn't really work in well with me having a kid). After making good for a few weeks I think it was home life stress among other factors that caused my sales to pretty well flatline for nearly 2 weeks, so I quit at that point and the boss was very understanding.
I timed it well too, I got flown over with a small group to their annual conference in Sydney. The boss paid for the trip! It's funny, sales for myself and a lot of others slumped straight after that conference, I think it had the opposite to the indended effect seeing the few who were making millions out of the company.
I would actually recommend this job if you are keen to get out of your comfort zone, break social barriers, become more social, and learn how to sell yourself. Not other stuff, yourself. To sell stuff you gotta sell your own charisma.
BUT you gotta walk in with your eyes open:
- make sure you're making a decent amount per sale. Making sales at $30 a pop is hard work! I was making $60 per sale, the other campaign in the office was making $200 per sale. That meant I could make only 3 sales in a day and come out smiling.
- make sure you're selling a product that people are going to buy at the door. Do some research if you need to before you say yes. Sometimes I think they do a sales job on themselves about how sellable the product is ;) judge for yourself, don't blindly let them assure you it's an easy sell.
- make sure you check out the deal with the bond etc. Mine was only $400 and as I said my boss was really good about it.
- make sure you're ready to give 100%. It's very much a get out what you put in kind of thing.
- make sure the boss is a good sort, not manipulative - and by extension, everyone else, since everything going on in the office is an indication of the way the boss is. Listen - make sure they aren't ringing any alarm bells for you.
- make sure you can choose the days you work. It's a get out what you put in thing, so you should be able to pick and choose the days you do it as I did.
- don't be in there too long! Be ready to move up or get out after a couple months tops. In my office out of a couple dozen people there there were a couple making really good money for many months, but if you're like me and you start flatlining, don't waste your time.
Remember that Cobra is a big group with lots of little "owners". It's going to be down to who the owner is you work with how pleasant your experience is going to be.
squizzie
Australia#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, January 11, 2010
I used to work for a branch of this organisation in the Peterborough area of the UK. Basically my experiences were very similar, with the exception of the bond which would come straight out of the amount of each sale made (in the form of 30%). This bond would then be later returned minus the cancellations.
The owner of the business expected everybody's lives to revolve around it, even to the point of having most of the staff living in his house (which later resulted in one of them making an unsubstatiated claim about misconduct of bond money) and people were being told what they could and couldn't do in the evenings after they (eventually) finished work.
Contractors were told that they were building their own business and that this takes time and effort, so whenever any costs were incurred or queries were raised about the way of operating they were reminded of this, or when the business owner wanted someone to surrender a sale to another member of the team to 'motivate' them, they were told this, but business hours and days of work were dictated by the owner, who also took a vast proportion of the sales money.
On retrospect, I am horrifed at the amount of manipulation I was subjected to even to the point of me manipulating others without even realising it. I got friends into the business (which also horrifies me) and they would pitch in their sleep it would get so deep into their brains (as it did mine).
It got to a point where we ran out of territory and were using another site's, we ended up a good two hours drive away and as the driver this meant an extra four hours on my day. At this point I should also mention that this was during winter, as well, which in the UK is not a lot of fun if you're exposed to the elements for a good eight hours a day.
By the time I was home it wasn't until after 11, I was exhausted from a day of running (literally) from door to door to door (you are strongly encouraged to see 100 people per day), driving and convincing people to sign up for a product that had some bad connotations attached and I ended up getting lesions all over my mouth and being generally weak due to malnutrition as a result (severe enough that even water stung a LOT).
During my time of being bed ridden, I woke up a little, and realised what was happening to a very minor extent, yet despite this the decision to leave was still not easy, I had my own place and no job to go to, I really enjoyed the company of a lot of the people I was working with and had learnt a lot. I went back to work when I was (mostly) better and struggled acutely to last the day, both mentally and physically. Some part of me had made the decision to get out and I did so, which, to date is still the best decision I have ever made.
Cobra group is, for all intents and purposes a pyramid scheme and it only gets around the laws preventing these through loopholes. It can teach very valuable skills, but it is certainly not the only way for people to succeed, irrespective of their qualifactions. The descriptions of feeling like the individual is in a cult are widely shared and, logically, not far from the truth (except in this case the deity worshipped is currency).
For interest, since getting out of Cobra, I have moved inter-hemisphere, worked my way up to a management role (through helping people rather than manipulating them), begun a bachelor degree and taken out a mortgage. Part of me thinks that the skills I got from Cobra laid the foundations for some of this, but more of me thinks that Cobra did a lot more damage than it did good (I still have the occasional nightmare about the place and get occasional flashbacks as well as other symptoms, not inconsistent with post traumatic stress disorder).
In short, if you're in there, GET OUT; if you have any legal or political clout, this is definitely something you should be looking into and if you're looking at getting into it, don't, or make sure you keep a very very very close eye on yourself as it's far too easy to get drawn in without even realising.
Hosli
Auckland,#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, August 05, 2009
That all is so bloody true, i have been with Cobra Group New Zealand Charity division for over a month and i quit recently. i will write my story later but i really want to warn the newbies at this business.. company policy, YOU DONT EVEN GET PAID for your sales in the first while untill you pass the test (two weeks for me), so in case you decide to pull out soon they keep your money! If you dont do well for a while you'll get the bad vibes from the owner so when you quit they get to keep your money. i have never been paid for the 5 sales i made during my time in there, even though i passed the test already. i was being ignored when asking for it and never been given the payslip either. Had a great time with the people there, improved my communication skills, but didnt want to get myself more involved in it as i sensed that people start to mentally change and also start to lie and cover up after a short time being there. Cobra Group.. what kinda company name is that anyways! had the doupts myself when i first heard of it, no wonder why they dont mention it in the newspaper ads haha!
Bullboy
Melbourne, Vic,#5UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, January 01, 2009
I worked for the Cobra group from an office in St. Kilda. Everything in the report is correct, also the sites that you work at have different grades. What i mean by this is if its a grade A site then that site is going to do far better than a B or C grade site, your not told this when you first start because they always put you at A grade sites so your more likely to do well and make more money for the Owner. They take advantage of young people by dangling all these hopes and dreams in front of your face, making you work long hours for terrible pay. Something should be done.