Still wanting closure

I am wondering why I can't get closure on what happened to me. I bought a franchise that was a glaring bad investment. It had no chance of working. The whole system is very sleazy. Both the franchise and the company that lead me to it. They are using people and taking advantage of those just wanting to make a better life. Can you thing of a more low-life scummy way to do business. Barely legal but most certainly unethical. I wish I could get over the loss. I have a hard time putting this behind me.

Closing in on 4 years

After writing this blog for four years now I notice how some things have changed and some have remained the same. My first post is as relevant now as it was then. Now, millions more have joined me. I feel like a trail blazer. Instead of just me having to star over at 55 now it is staring over at 60. Now I have no 401 K and a house I can't get out from under. I have really struggled with the same issues for so long it gets into your head. Well at least the first post is a calm reminder that I still have a roof over my head, my health, and a great wife. Let's see what 2011 will bring.

Crestcom

Yes guys I still wonder how you sleep at night. There is not a day goes by I don't have to fight the anguish I feel about having been taken in by your shoddy franchise. I pray that that the Lord forgives you.

Pony Express Oath

More companies should have this kind oath:

While I am the employ of A. Majors, I agree not use profane language, not to get drunk, not to gamble, not to treat animals cruelly and not to do anything else that is incompatible with the conduct of a gentleman. And I agree, if I violate any of the above conditions, to accept my discharge without any pay for my services.

– Oath sworn by Pony Express Riders

New challange

I am really wanting to start a business. I know it will be challenging. But I think its the only way out. Next up what, how and where.

Job hunt

Its as bad as the first day I started this blog. Nothing has changed. The job hunting methodology is as dysfunctional as the economy. I am going to overcome and get a job like I had a TEP. We did it once we can do it again.

As the World Turns

As the World Turns ( is an American television soap opera which aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010.) My mom watched this when I was a kid. I was home sick from school watching it when Walter Cronkite broke in with the news that Kennedy had been shot. Now the long running show has past as well. Things of the world are passing away. The "new normal" is taking shape at an alarming fast pace. Can we keep up with the rapid acceleration pace without losing our minds and our souls?

Crestcom Dream Stealers

I wish to to meet the jerk who said to just take the rip off like a man. Hey pal they stole my money. I am pissed. They are the one's who wouldn't man up and buy back the worthless trash they pawned off on me. Even after they had made a grave mistake they did nothing. So shut up or man up yourself. I wonder if you would think it better if I just let them keep on stealing other folks dreams as well. They dashed mine.

Crestcom, four years gone

Four years ago I had enough of Crestcom International. They were about to charge me for unsold seats. How about the nerve of these pirates. After they had me using a marketing method they "scrapped," now they want me to buy the new crap material and penalize me for the time and money they wasted. Then they flatly denied me any more help on getting it off the ground. So I through in the towel.They won't buy back, even a fraction, of the crappy franchise they sold me. The company that helped me with financing told me they had never seen such a thing. They wouldn't lift a finger to help me sell the thing and then eventually sold another one in my area. Dirty rotten scoundrels, the lot!

It just keeps on.

This is my story

This is the situation. It is as clear as mud right now.

How Do You Find That Perfect Job?

Years after I had the most perfect job on the planet. I am trying to find that again. I wonder if you can catch the wave again.

Definition of Insanity

If you keep doing the same things over and over and expect different results. That was a definition of insanity. I heard it attributed to many different people. I think by that definition I am insane. I need to get out of this four year tale spin. I seemed to be hedged in.

Back to square one

I could repost the same blog's I wrote back in the fall of 2006. I seem stuck in the same rut. I know I can help a small business that's looking for someone to "run the show." It's just so hard to locate this opportunity. I really am stretching the limits of my faith.

The job hunt marches on.

I seemed to have hit a wall in my new career. The book print business is dying and I am hanging on to the last vestiges of the industry. Unless we are given the on-line part of the business to sell, we'll starve.
So, now my new strategy? I have to look to ways to make money. That's the object of a job. My brain hurts. Help!

Mountebank

This is a very good word to describe the guys at Crestcom. They scrapped and changed the marketing material I was relying on to get my business off the ground. Then they really didn't care that they had rolled out a bogus product and wouldn't do anything about it. Look up the definition of "mountebank" I simply say Hal.

Inspriration

Oh how I would love to own a business again. I don't have anything in mind right now. I think the time is right for the creativity and flexibility small business can bring. The time is right because after all the setbacks I encountered I won't be risking as much. As Janice Joplin put it "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." So I am looking.

College Degree Required

Its not so much that I don't have a college degree that it bothers me. What really makes me livid is that I am in SALES. I'm not in teaching, accounting, medicine or any field where one would think that a college degree would be a prerequisite. They didn't have a sales course at the time I would have went to college.If they did it would have been taught by a Marxist dope smoking professor in a tweed jacket. I learned sales and marketing through hands on experience and reading 100's of books and listening to hours of tapes/Cd's by salesman. No I did not go to college. I did work with and study my craft -in the real world. Well if they want that piece of paper that proves to them I have a brain then they need to watch the Wizard of Oz a couple more times until they get the point. I worked with educators for over 20 years. I did not have any trouble at all interacting with some of the highest level educators, publishers and authors. In fact with some people I met the higher level the education the less the sales/people skills seemed to be apparent. I think this requirement in sales is well quite frankly added on by someone who hasn't payed off there student loan and thinks if you didn't spend that money you got a free ride.

How to find a target

My biggest problem is finding a target to shoot at. I have so many skills and interests it's hard to focus. I have prayed about it but to no avail. I'm wondering what God is trying to tell me??

Resume

I have had to settle for a few jobs that could be best described as "bridge jobs," I am wondering how to explain them away on my resume. I know these are character building times. They are time that try men's souls. I am so ready to tackle that opportunity that leads somewhere. It has been 4 years off and on.

New Ways of Thinking

I have to come up with new ways of thinking in my career objective goals. Short mid and long term. Should I shoot for multiple jobs? Should I find a startup? I know that all starts with having a target. There lies the hard part. I have to find that one area that leads me out of this morass.

Just in the "Pursuit of Happiness."

I loved that movie. It showed me the real America. What I related to was when he bought those "Bone Density Scanners." I was ripped off too like that. Crestcom pushes that kind of thing while trampling on people's American dreams. Shame and blame on you people.

Employment Blues

Now in the ranks of the under-employed I'm just hanging in there. There are no permanent good jobs and the ones we get demand much and put in little. Pressure is great to push sales in area's that are profit making but not helping the customer at all. Like Radio Shack and the goofy service plans on items such as jump drives and MP3 players. Time Warner really pushed hard on dying land based phones, they punished 76 out of 77 people for not meeting the quota's. Stupid. Oh, well. If any potential employer see's this post and thinks this is all negativity, too bad. Clean up your act. Get fresh products, don't lie in your marketing and behave honestly and ethically. That is the only kind I will work for anyway. I think I may end up homeless, but at least I'll keep my integrity.

Read this then look at my older posts. Am I a prophet?

CNN Money

7.9 million jobs lost, many forever

Chris Isidore, senior writer, On Friday July 2, 2010, 4:28 pm EDT

The recession killed off 7.9 million jobs. It's increasingly likely that many will never come back.

The government jobs report issued Friday shows that businesses have slowed their pace of hiring to a relative trickle.

"The job losses during the Great Recession were so off the chart, that even though we've gained about 600,000 private sector jobs back, we've got nearly 8 million jobs to go," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute.

Excluding temporary Census workers, the economy has added fewer than 100,000 jobs a month this year -- a much faster and stronger jobs recovery than occurred following the last two recessions in 2001 and 1991.

But even if that pace of hiring were to double immediately, it would take until 2013 to recapture the lost jobs. And the labor market very likely doesn't have years before it gets hit with the shock of the inevitable next economic downturn.

"It's virtually certain that the next recession will come before the job market has healed from the last recession," said Achuthan. (Read 'Stimulus: The big bang is over')

More frequent recessions: Despite signs of slowing economic growth, Achuthan is not predicting that the U.S. economy is about to fall into another downturn later this year.

But a combination of a slower growth and greater volatility is a prescription for as many as three recessions over the upcoming decade, he said.

"We've entered a era where the United States will see more frequent recessions than anyone is used to," Achuthan said.

One of the big problems is that many of workers who have lost jobs were in industries that are not likely to recover their former strength.

"We've got the wrong people in the wrong place with the wrong skills," said John Silvia, chief economist with Wells Fargo Securities. He said construction workers in California or Florida and auto workers in Michigan will have to relocate and retrain to find new jobs.

"As many as half the people who lost their jobs will have to find something else to do," said Silvia.

Home building lost nearly 1 million jobs since the start of 2008, while the auto industry shed 300,000 manufacturing jobs due to plant closings. The finance and real estate sectors lost more than 500,000 jobs.

"Those are the areas with the biggest bubbles, and so it's not a surprise that those are the areas with some of the biggest job losses," said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, a provider of specialized career web sites. "Many of the jobs we lost are never coming back."

More new workers: And recapturing the lost jobs fixes only part of the problem.

The nation's working-age population grows by about 150,000 people a month. So the hole is deeper than it looks.

It would take the creation of 10.6 million jobs immediately for the same percentage of the population to be working as was the case three years ago.

Of course, it will take time to create jobs. If it takes three years, more than 3.5 million additional jobs will be needed because of continued population growth.

The unemployment rate is currently 9.5%. A return to the 4.4% rate it was the summer before the recession started in 2007 is out of reach.

In fact, the Federal Reserve, in its latest forecast, predicts that unemployment will stay around 7% or above through 2012, and in the 5% to 5.3% range in the long-run.

Crestcom Bad Deal

Yes, I forked over 60 k for a franchise. But, that bought me not much. They were no help in as far a targeting my market. They gave no advise other that pay one of the other franchisee's to be a mentor. I had no clue as to who or how to market. They are very unscrupulous bunch of people in my experience.

Career, job or business?

Broken down to essentials its about money. How do I get it? I have exhausted my brain chasing MLM's and franchises. Working for others will not get you above a J.O.B. Just Above Broke. So what's next?

Move on

The evil dream stealer pirates boarded my ship. They stole my cargo and sunk my ship. I am cut adrift in a life raft. But they did not kill me. I will return. I will see justice. I will have the victory,
Hey pirates remember your bible. The story of the rich man and Lazarus. You will lose in the end.

Forgiveness

I listened last night to a teaching by Chip Ingram on forgiveness. How all things work together for good Romans 8:28. That is what BS Bob quoted after his wife got mugged and he had to leave CC training. How ironic, see June 02, 2009 post. Well I know that Jesus commands us to forgive and bless our enemies. Well I am going to try to do that. Though I will keep on tying to warn others about the BS Bob's and Dancing Dave's and the Horseshit Hal and the like. They will have to answer for their deeds. I really do forgive them. Praying they turn from their wicked ways and God will bless them.

Crestcom Cult

If all these "positive thinking" guys had any grounding in reality they might have told me the truth about this rip-off of a franchise. Instead they filled their heads with "If I say it and beleive it will come to pass." They are in reality either liars or are delusional. The worst bunch of dream pirates I could have ever gotten to know. Scum of the earth. They are the kind that are dangerous because they hide beneath a mask of fake faith.

Underemployed

I see that our economy has created a new class - underemployed. Us baby boomers are now working for the same wages we made in the late 70's early 80's. The service economy will not produce good paying jobs. I had to move from PA to TX just to find work. I may have to move to India or some other country just to survive.
It doesn't help when you get ripped off either. If we can only survive by ripping off others like TES, Crestcom, Madoff, Worldcom, Tyco, Enron etc. Then we deserve to go under.

We can see clearly now.

If you go back to the first posts on this blog you will see I was on the first wave of this current recession and job loss. Everything I was posting in 2006 sounds prophetic now.

Putting it all behind?

It was four years ago when this Crestcom business was new and I was just getting started. I was scarred sure, but I was confident in "the system." I also had a lot of faith. I knew it would be an adventure for sure. Oh, how I long sometimes to savor that moment. Knowing your embarking on your dream, your own leadership and management training business. I was going enhance others lives and make a difference. Living my dream was happening. I was finally going to fill my true potential. Well the dream stealers where right around the corner. I don't know if I can put it behind me yet. Now my faith in just about everything is shaken to the core. If I can't get past this I'll die broken.

Crestcom and TES, beware of these two.

"When you're holding hope in one hand and hype in the other, it's very easy for someone to pick your pocket." author unknown

Thats what Crestcom and TES did to me.

Become a CEO of what?

Folks, it just you. CEO?
By the way, the only publications that rate them are ones they buy adds in. Also note on their website the endorsement is 4 years old. This is the kind of crap they pull.

From Crestcoms own site:
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Become the CEO of Your Own Management Training Company
Crestcom, a world leader in providing cutting-edge training solutions, is seeking Franchisees worldwide.

What Crestcom Franchisees Do
For nearly two decades, Crestcom Franchisees have marketed and delivered training in the areas of sales, recruiting, customer service and particularly management skills development. Franchisees are supported in this training by video-based instruction from Crestcom’s Video Faculty, which includes some of the finest management and sales authorities of our time, including: Lisa Ford, Amanda Gore, Dr. Jim Hennig, John Hersey, Tom Hopkins, Bob Johnson, Harvey Mackay, Dr. Terry Paulson, Bob Pike, Nido Qubein, Marcia Steele, John Tickell, M.D., George Walther and Zig Ziglar. Crestcom upgrades and develops new training courses on a regular basis.

Each month, thousands of executives and managers, from more than 50 countries, participate in Crestcom’s Bullet Proof® Manager training. Crestcom training works with all sizes of organizations, from small, local companies to multi-national giants. Crestcom materials are available in numerous language versions.

Crestcom Franchisees come from varied backgrounds, from top sales professionals, to entrepreneurs and corporate executives. Owning a Crestcom Franchise gives you the chance to run your own business, offer world-class training and be a part of a highly-respected, international organization

Top-Rated Management Training Franchise
Crestcom, has been recognized as the top-rated management training organization by numerous publications…numerous times. In 2006, Crestcom received the Exporter of the Year award from a division of the United States Department of Commerce. Crestcom has also received the President’s “E” Award for exporting excellence.

Goldman Sachs Crestcom and TES

Gee, sounds like some other companies I know.

The Daily Reckoning
The devil in Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs has been demonized in the last week as a result of betting against a market it knew would fail.

Crestcom Trainers to the World

They sell franchises. Franchisee's sell training. It's all about sales, little about training, It is about Crestcom making 60k a franchise and franchisee making 4k a seat period end of story.

Crestcom International

Yes this "stuff' may sell in Vietnam and Nigeria but try it in the Texas. Maybe CC training helped train the Nigerian email guys, the methods are eerily similar.

Crestcom is it legit?

What do they sell you that makes it a franchise? A few cd's, binders, and a territory. Yeah they have some tired old reference letters and some marketing tricks but what is worth 60k? My whole marketing material was totally scrapped and redone in the middle of my first few months of business. In my opinion they are in the business of selling franchises and could care less if they succeed or not.

Now what

I am so sick of thieving liars running the three c's corporation's, country's and church's. Well at least the so called Vicar of Christ- Pope Coverupus I, Barach Obamanation and almost every CEO - Cover Every Orifice. We are knee deep in scoundrels, liars and thieves. God will straighten this mess out soon. Judgment day is at hand.

Also staring Crestcom and TES

Yesterdays Ft. Worth Star Telegram had lead articles about R. Allen Stanford and Goldman Sachs. My buddies who suckered me in TES and Crestcom are like minded folks. Line your pockets with other peoples money. God will ask each on of us for an accounting. Repent!

Crestcom and TES

If you ever get involved with these two companies, let me give you some advice. Go to prison and drop the soap in the shower. When you bend over to pick it up, you will then enjoy the same feelings.

Crestcom and TES bad banditos

The was a scene from the Magnificant Seven where they asked the bandito's why they robbed the peasants. Their answer was if God didn't want them fleeced He wouldn't have made them sheep. That's the way these two company's think.

Crestcom Bad Investment

I guess my real beef with these guys is that it was bad enough that the sold me a "franchise" that was nothing more than a "territory" already plucked clean by someone else not more than 10 miles away. They wouldn't even give my back one penny of the 60 K they got from me. All they had tied up was a couple of binders, everything else I paid for. Even the promotional material that was incomplete and later redone. Oh yeah, also, the commission they paid "The Entrepreneurs Source," the guys who claim to be looking out for you but really only want a commission. They are a greedy bunch of heartless, well they know what they are, Anyway there is no way to get the word out about them so they keep on taking money and laughing all they way to the bank.

Reminds me of someone!

Setting the record straight

Stay away from TES and Crestcom. They are going after one thing and one thing only-your money. I want to see the day when they have to give an account before God. You can run but you can't hide from Him.

Just checking in

My new job is starting to take shape. I'm getting the hang of it. I still pray for closure on the whole TES Crestcom business part of my life. Why would God directly lead me into failure? But, even so it doesn't negate the fact that those two businesses are less than honorable.

Also staring Crestcom and TES

My new career

Well I am embarked on a new career. Well its not that new. Selling books again. It is a real challenge to learn about all these products but I am doing OK in my first 3 weeks. I push myself to do better.
I still don't have closure on the Crestom franchise fiasco but only God can give me that. I pray that the liars and hucksters at Crestcom and TES repent and turn from their wickedness. Learn to earn money the right way not by stealing the hope, money and dreams of others.

Crestcom and TES

I am still amazed these pirates are allowed to keep taking money from people. I never thought I'd say this (I used to believe in the free market) but these thieves are allowed to run amok. They really ought to be regulated. Liars and thieves. Judgment day is coming God is watching and He keeps records.

New Job

I have a new job now. I'm back selling books. Landed on my feet, after I was looted by the dream stealer's at Crestcom and TES. I now have to start over at age 58. Thanks guys, sleep well with your ill gotten gains as your dreams.

Crestcom Failure

What a waste of money the franchise was. These guys are con artists and hucksters who'll take anyone's money for their tired old "franchise."