Be cautious... - Recensione dipendente - Dipendente anonimo presso Launch Local

I want to help everyone out on this website and tell them to be cautious when applying to Launch Local. To be totally honest, I did not enjoy my time here. And I want people to tread lightly. They will tell you that it is a Public Relations position when it's more of a Direct Sales/Cold Call sales position. I am a public relations major and I was super excited to start the internship this summer. It was going to my first real-world experience. However, being that it was direct sales, I did not enjoy it. Basically, you go out with one or two people (or by yourself) and try and sell tickets to businesses. The main thing that I was selling this summer was Pittsburgh Pirates tickets which was really cool, but you really had to sell to people. Like you didn't necessarily harass people, but you did your hardest to sell these tickets to people, even if they really didn't want them. And you don't even go to the city you're selling tickets for...you go to all these little towns and try to get the local business owners to buy them. It's very repetitive and really tiring. They will tell you that you can start working when you want and you can end when you want... but that's up to whoever is driving or whoever is the so called "leader." You have to be at the Youngstown office at 7:00 a.m. to have office meetings every morning and those last for almost 2 hours. And usually it's utter nonsense, such as intense practice pitching or learning the five steps of making a sale or what fear stands for. One time, I felt really belittled when there was a meeting about mental illness and people having to take medication for it and how they were weak. Hearing this as a person with generalized anxiety, I was really offended. Those were a waste of time... So you're already wasting 2 hours in the office, but then your destination for the day could be 2-3 hours away. So,a in reality, you could only be working 4 hours and have a 2-3 hour drive back. There were times where I was in Cranberry, PA and it took us 2 hours to get there and I wouldn't have time to talk to people. Oh, that's another thing: they expect you to talk to 200 people per day. One day, I was out from 9 a.m.-8 p.m. and then I had an hour drive back home... I barely had time to eat and then I went straight to bed to get up at 545 to be there at exactly 7. When I applied, I was told that I would be making $400-600/week. That's not entirely a lie, but also kind of is; it's all based on commission. Which makes sense, but also they said we'd be paid hourly... I guess that's kind of true. You could make $9/hour if you sell one an hour. And that's the thing of it...you may not even sell one an hour; you could sell one every three hours. I know a couple days there, I only sold 2-4 and they asked me, "Why did you only sell 2? Were you not confident in your pitch? Are you not a confident person?" Now, if you knew me, you would be like "Why the heck would they ask you that? You're super personable??" They belittle your confidence and make you feel really bad if you didn't sell as many. Now, you could sell 15 a day and make a good amount of money, but it's really hard to do that. Some people don't even want to buy one at all. They also want you to go into businesses that have big signs that say "No Soliciting!" I cannot tell you how many times I was told that, and then I got talked to about it when I got back because i didn't sell enough for them. I remember going into a court house and freaking out because I thought I was going to be arrested for soliciting these tickets. I know a guy who I worked with that got arrested his first day working. He didn't get charged with anything, the police just said that there were people complaining in that town that didn't like the solicitation. Another thing about the pay/compensation: they did not pay for your gas, even if you had a 2-3 hour drive... so I wasted a lot of money on gas. The people you work with there are really nice...most times. I liked maybe 3-4 people there; the rest were either really fake or I just got really uncomfortable when I was with them. Sometimes they made you feel inadequate when you didn't sell as much as they did or made you feel really bad if you did better than they did. I remember this one guy was just really unpleasant to work with, and made me feel unwelcome. Now, I'm not trying to knock it completely because some people really enjoy the job and live by it. But if you're a public relations major, specialist or professional, I 100% do not recommend going this job/internship. Be cautious and tread lightly...