Utah based company lures "door-to-door" salesmen

By: Chris Hokanson

Posted: 1/23/08

The chance at TV stardom and a mountain of cash isn't one many people pass up. For many college students, the thought of a reality show combined with summer employment was too good to ignore.

But a promising job quickly turned into a nightmare for many students who were recruited for the reality TV show, "The Prodigy." While they were led to believe they would be filmed for the show all summer, "contestants" spent the summer selling security systems door-to-door for Orem, Utah based Firstline, a bundled technologies company. From dog chases and policemen to fights and suspicious sales tactics, three students came away from the summer 2007 with plenty of stories to tell.

In March 2007, representatives from Actuality Entertainment stopped in College Station during their nationwide casting call. They interviewed almost 100 students and told them they would be competing for a prize worth $1 million in a format unlike other business reality shows - contestants would have a job with a real company. Instead of the glitz and glamour they were promised, they spent the summer focused on selling security systems.

Jerod Justice, a senior animal science major and a district manager for Firstline, told The Battalion at the time of the casting call that "everything is going to be filmed…"

Shea Stone and Chris Aaron, two Aggies who signed up with Firstline, went to Spokane, Wash. to sell security systems, Stone as a salesman and Aaron as a technician. Stone, a senior agricultural leadership and development major, said "The Prodigy" was promoted a lot by recruiters, but not much after the casting call.

"They definitely made it sound like it was going to be on-going filming throughout the summer." Stone said. "After the casting call, all of the emphasis was on the door-to-door sales. They emphasized so much that we weren't selling anything, just advertising, that we were advertising directors. But basically, it was door-to-door sales, everyday but Sunday, nine in the morning to nine at night.'"

Aaron, a junior sports management major, said he's never liked the idea of a salesman, but a job as a technician seemed good, especially with the promise of large earning potential.

"The biggest pitch was the money," Aaron said. "They would say that we would make a ton of money. I mean, it's commission, it's not guaranteed. But even the pay scale was shady, they cut corners wherever they could."

Selling door-to-door for entire summer means interesting stories, and Stone has more than a few.

"My first ten days in Washington, the craziest things happened. I had the cops called on me, I was attacked by a dog, a mentally challenged elderly lady talked crap about me throughout a neighborhood I was trying to sell in and I was assaulted by a 6'4'', 240-lbs-giant of a man."

Tyler Heald, a senior theater major at Arizona State, was recruited by Firstline as well, lured by the promise of excellent pay and a spot on a TV show. Heald did his summer of sales in Concord, Calif.

"A guy came up to me in the cafeteria and asked me if I wanted to be on TV. Right then, I thought it would be a bad idea, but I thought, 'Why the heck not? I'm in college,'" Heald said.

All three students said their experiences with salesmanship taught them valuable lessons about perseverance, communication and most importantly, ethics.

Stone and Heald said Firstline salesmen were taught to use shady tactics, including "slamming" potential customers by telling them they were getting a free upgrade to their current security system.

"You would end up making them think they were getting a free upgrade when really, they are signing a new three-year contract and paying more money than they had been paying in the first place," Stone said.

"After every sale, you had an accomplished feeling because you made a sale, but you also had a dirty feeling, because you just cheated or lied in some way," Heald said. "My managers and I went back and forth the whole summer, I would say something we were doing was wrong, and they would say, 'No, that's salesmanship.' Whatever got you in the door was fair game."

Stone, Aaron and Heald all had the police called on them multiple times, mainly because they were selling door-to-door or installing security systems without licenses or permits. But objections to this practice were either met with disdain for the police or relocation to avoid being arrested.

"I got the cops called on me several times because I didn't have a permit to install these systems," Aaron said. "But when I asked my managers, they just brushed it off. I told them that it would be easy to get a permit, they just told me it was no big deal. And when our reputations got threatened by the cops, they just decided to change cities."

The three students said there was a point when they realized that the situation they were in just wasn't right. Firstline, they said, was selling their products and recruiting deceitfully.

"I finally realized that this wasn't a good place when I went to install a system and found out that one of our top guys had sold a system to a mentally retarded family. He talked them into paying $1,000 to get out of their contract with ADT and into a contract with Firstline. He just completely lied to them to get them to buy this alarm system," Aaron said.

And what happened to the reality show? Stone said he was told that after he had served a one-and-a-half month extension, that the best sellers would be flown to Firstline's headquarters in Utah, where they would be filmed for "The Prodigy." At Heald's location in California, the story was different.

"They would have this weekly installment for "The Prodigy", where they would show us updates on DVD," he said. "But that's all I ever heard, they kept telling us the cameras would come, but they never did."

Firstline and Actuality Entertainment could not be reached for comment. A source close to the situation confirmed that a show had been shot and a winner was chosen, but could not give any other details.

But to each of the students involved, "The Prodigy" didn't matter in the larger picture.

"The show was just their hook for college students," Heald said. "You can't get anyone to come to a meeting by telling them to come learn how to sell security systems door-to-door."

"Over the summer, I made some really good friends and I learned a ton," Stone said. "I learned about sales, I learned a lot about myself. I had always thought that I would do anything for money, but I learned that money doesn't really motivate me like I thought it did."