Money For Nothing?

As I've been job hunting for the past few months, I can usually sniff out something fishy a mile away. If it's an unsolicited referral from CareerBuilder or some other job board I've never heard of, 7 times out of 10, it's probably an opportunity that's not quite what it presents itself to be. However when I get contacted via LinkedIn, I usually trust the referral as being something on the up and up. I don't how they've done it, but LinkedIn has managed to keep itself from being bogged down with ads and posts for "not so real" jobs. Probably because more times than not, an actual person/company is attached to each posted position...

Yeah. That doesn't mean anything any more.

About a week ago, I was contacted on LinkedIn about a local e-Marketing opportunity...

Hey Terence,

I noticed your interest in business deals as well as your experience in business. My husband, [name redacted]*, and I have a business and are looking for 3 people in the Greenville area to help with e-marketing, utilizing social networks. We are part of a marketing team that has a system of helping major retailers expand their online markets and repeat business. They currently have contracts with companies such as Office Depot, Disney, Bass Pro Shops and more.
This is an opportunity to generate a strong part-time income, if this interests you, send me your contact information (# and email) and I can go over some additional details.

Have a great week,
[Name & Contact Info Redacted]

I'll admit, I was a little skeptical about responding back to this woman. The name-dropping of three seemingly unrelated companies was a concern, but that was canceled out by LinkedIn's transparency. I could see who this woman was, where she was from, and her work history. Whether it was legit or not, the attaching of a face and business to this message went a long way.

Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and contacted this woman. I spoke to her for a brief moment before she handed me off to her husband. Her husband and I exchanged pleasantries before he went into the spiel of who they were and what they were looking for. On the surface, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about the type of people they were looking for. Hard workers who were business oriented with a passion to succeed -- also known as the same stuff every business is looking for. What was odd was his description of what his company does -- or better put, what wasn't in his description. He talked for about four minutes without ever mentioning exactly what it was his company does. Strike #1.

To be fair, he did mention that his company was heavily involved in marketing via online social networks, but marketing involves a lot of things. Was it promotional marketing? Are we talking sales? Doling out surveys? At the end of the day what would I be doing? And what type of social networks would be used? Youtube? Facebook? Twitter? Blogger? So many questions, so little answeres. Actually, when pressed him about the social networks used, he told me that he had never heard of Twitter.** Seriously? My dad, the same man who is amazed by text messaging, knows what Twitter is. Strike #2.

Right around this point I went on the defensive. I'm asking questions that he has no answers to (or wouldn't answer) and our phone conversation is all but over. The only thing that prolonged it is that I decided I wanted more information. Of course he didn't have a website or anything that he could email me, but he did have a video that I could watch online. Joy.

Being polite and somewhat curious, I agreed to watch his video -- which wound up being as vague and uninformative as every other piece of information he presented to me. The only good that came out of watching the video is that it provided me with the name of his "parent company" - LTD Team (Leadership Development Team). One quick Google Search while "watching the video" allowed me to find all of the information I needed to conclude that this guy's "e-marketing opportunity" was something that I didn't want to partake in. Strike #3.

After listening to him ramble on a little more, I politely informed him that "this opportunity was not a good fit" and that we should go our separate ways. He heard me but he didn't quite listen as he continued to invite me to attend a seminar that they would be having in Greenville on Tuesday [today]. I thanked him for the invitation, but I declined his offer and politely ended our conversation.

Unfortunately, the fun doesn't end there. When I got in Sunday morning, I had an email from [name redacted] waiting for me...

Hey Terrance (sic),

Thanks for talking with me on the phone breifly (sic). Although we did not get together on business I would still like to meet you in person some time. We have a guest speaker in Greenville this Tuesday evening that I think you would really enjoy hearing. Jake Baker is a former Marine and very succesfull (sic) in business and speaks to audiences all over the world about attitude and success. This is not a sales pitch for the business opportunity, I just thought that at not (sic) cost to you this is a rare opportunity to hear from one of the top business minds in the county (sic) from 8-9 pm this Tuesday evening. It is going to be packed out standing room only out the door but if you contact me early I can get you a good seat. I gurantee (sic) you will not be sorry if you can take the time to come out and see this guy. He is awesome.
[Name & Contact Info redacted]

Being as polite as I could be at 4 in the morning, I passed on this offer once again.

While I appreciate your invitation to attend the seminar, I am going to have to respectfully decline.

As of now, this story ends here. I haven't heard from [name redacted] since and I doubt I will. So with no real payoff, why the blog post?

Information sharing. Nothing more, nothing less. There's not a lot of recent information on LTD Team available on the web, especially not any that tells about their recruiting tactics. And with some of their "agents" using LinkedIn now, I figured I'd use my blog as a way to get the word out. Google's bots enjoy my blog, so I'm sure that this post will be indexed within a couple hours. Hopefully that'll be enough time to provide a "heads-up" to anyone who was contemplating attending the LTD Seminar in Greenville, SC on July 7, 2009, where Jake Baker will be speaking...

Consider this one a freebie.


*Why the [name redacted]s? Because I'm a nice guy.
**@LTDHQ - Looks like someone doesn't know their own company.