I think it is sad that this only outlines the bad expierences. You must remember that any job has its downside but also it has a plus side.

I have had instances just as others with the appointment setters. Including days without any appoinments at all and no explanation. I am waiting to find out why.

I am now comfortable enough that I am now going out on my own and setting appointments. Those of you who say you are being sent to the lower income area that has been true of me and that is where most of my sales have been.

People assume they do not have the income for the service, my expierence is they are excited that someone cares enough to give them an opportunty or relieve them of the high prices others are charging them

It is all in attitude and willingness to work through the issues as with any job and be a part of the improvement instead of the negativeness.

This is my first time to do outside sales and it has been a very large learning expierence for me, but I have tried to keep my attitude positive. If you are unhappy,talk it out with your manager to see what has to happen to make it worth while or get another job.

Keep Smiling and let the client think all is perfect…. they will sign….

The appointments are marginal at best. Most people you are sent to see are uninterested, and only agreed to be seen because of high pressure tactics by the phone setter. That said, it gets you in front of people, and better prepares you for the cold-calling you will ultimately have to do, in order to be successful. Personally, I think Ameribanc would be better off trying to set their reps smaller numbers of better qualified appointments, but they tend to play the “numbers game” that most companies in outside sales do.
One of the biggest difficulties, is trying to portray yourself as a trusted rep, in a business where people are bombarded with these types of offers. Most people are very skeptical of who you are, if your company is legitimate, and if you can live up to the promises you make. It’s a tough industry to pull off a one call close. I’ve never been a high pressure closer, but it’s apparent, that unless you are, your income potential will be limited.

As for your position in the company, you’re right. I did assume you were in outside sales. Nothing in any of your comments or emails said what you did other than you worked for AmeriBanc. So, I assumed outside sales. And, we all know what they say about assuming… my bad. Sorry.

And no, you never explicitly said anyone was lying. But, if one guy says “it’s up” and you show up later saying “it’s down, it’s always been down, it would never be up” then you’re pretty much saying the first guy was lying. At least that’s the way I see it, but I’ve been wrong before… like when talking about your job title.

But on the topic of my blog, I think we’re reached a point where we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. You said

My complaint is more something I lay at your feet for building a site that supports such a negative bias.

I disagree with that statement for a couple of reasons. One of which is that your still judging my entire blog based on one post, or the comments left on that post. I have over 150 posts on this blog dating back over six years. Only 6 posts even mention AmeriBanc!

My other reason is that you still sound like I’m going out and recruiting people to come leave negative comments. To me (and this is just my perception), it seems that you only want me to let people leave comments that show AmeriBanc in a good light. And that’s not going to happen. I would love to see more positive comments, myself. Heck, when I first started getting all these comments I used to email my former manager and give them heads up on things. But, most of the people who find this page are either thinking about joining AmeriBanc or just left AmeriBanc. So I get questions from newbs and rants from ex’s. If you want to tell a few friends to come leave some positive comments, I’m totally cool with it. Heck, if you scroll up to comment 13 you’ll see where I was asking for someone to help field questions.

In closing, these days I’m staying busy building custom web apps for a few clients. I tried to get AmeriBanc to let me build a lead generation site back in ’06 and they told me no. I sent a couple questions using the contact form on their site a couple months back that, among other things, asked if if they were ready for that lead gen site yet. But, no one responded. I’m beginning to think I was blackballed. Hey, you think you can get them to update that paragraph they have on me on that new site? If they could replace that ’15 – 20 days’ with something more accurate, like ’5 – 6 weeks’ I’d really appreciate it.

I did work in the field for years, I have worked for other processors and I’ve even worked for myself before so I think my perspective should carry some weight (imho

The company is really good, but it’s only as good as the efforts and ability of the person working there. I can’t tell you how many times we hire someone only to find out that they haven’t quit their other job, they don’t want to work full-time or they don’t really have the commitment to outside sales they claimed to.

I double-promise to sign out for good this time, I think I’ve made all the comments that could be helpful – I just wanted to clear up why I called myself “Insider” since you appear to think I was “just” an outside sales rep and dismissed the accuracy of my statements – which is a little ironic.

By the way – what are you doing these days? besides blogging of course…

But, judging from your comments, you’re still not understanding what I’ve tried to make clear. Everyone here has spoken of THEIR experience. Throughout your comments and emails, you have repeatedly claimed that all these people are lying. How can you say whether someone else’s appointments were any good or not, were you there? How can you say whether or not someone was paid properly, are you privy to the company’s payroll records? The fact is, you don’t know. But rather than just share your good experiences, like I suggested in my email to you, you would still rather accuse complete strangers lying. It would be different if you were the person’s manager and wanted to share your side of the story. Or if you were one of the call center operators and wanted to speak on the rules that you have to follow. But, based on your comments and emails, you appear to be a happy, successful, outside sales contractor for AmeriBanc who, unless I’m missing something, does not have omnipotent powers nor the ability to read minds. As such, I’m sure you have loads of stories to share about how great AmeriBanc is. But I’m also equally sure that you can’t possibly know if the guy who said he was given appointments 171 miles from each other was lying.

You said “I see good candidates saying that after they read this stuff they would never consider working for AmeriBanc.” How, exactly, do you know they were good candidates? Is this more of your psychic abilities kicking in, that by just reading an anonymous comment you can tell their qualifications?

I believe that AmeriBanc, as a company, is strong enough that it can deal with criticism. I don’t think they need you to play ‘big brother’ and run out and beat up anyone who shares a negative experience they with them. The fact is, nobody and no business is perfect. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that the call center has had a few bad apples over the years that set appointments that were a waste of time. And it’s no stretch of the imagination to think that something didn’t go the way someone believed it should have and it left them feeling like they were screwed over; because when money is involved, it doesn’t take much to make people feel that way. And just because that wasn’t my experience with them doesn’t cause me to automatically assume these people are lying. I’ve met the owners and I think the company has a lot of potential. That said, they have areas where they could improve (who doesn’t). And like I’ve said in my posts and in my comments, AmeriBanc is a great opportunity if you know (or are willing to learn) ‘one call close’ type selling.

And, for the umpteenth time, I invite everyone who has worked or does work with AmeriBanc National LTD to write up a short comment sharing their experiences with the company.

MerchWizard, I do want to thank you for the link to the new site, good information there. I particularly liked how they focused on explaining the issues rather than just accusing folks of lying.

And, just for the record: Chris and Dan, if you guys have an issue with my site, you’re more than welcome to contact me. My email address is the same as it was when I worked with you. Heck, I’ve completed the contact form on your site a couple times over the last year and still haven’t gotten a reply.