Something happens when you are approaching the cliff that is
your 30th birthday. You suddenly realize you might not get to be a
rock star or the president. Your 20’s are spent questioning every decision you
should make for your future and your 30’s are spent questioning every decision
you made in your 20’s. My 20’s were full of great ideas that I forgot after 48
hour binge drinking marathons. Now that’s over I can focus…a little…
Clarity is not a luxury I have had for a longtime so luckily
there some cool people along the way to give me some advice and motivation. One
thing I know I can do is run my mouth and take part in lively conversation, and
debate. Realizing with most of these debates that the tables seem to tilt my
way by the end, I was drawn into sales. Sometimes I hate it and never want to
talk to another person again in my life, and sometimes I love it. That’s sales
for ya.
I sell a product right now that I love, believe in, and
think is the future of the planet. I love to talk about it to people that want
to listen and I like getting my customers set up. It feels good to get paid to
do something you enjoy. It is rewarding to do something you believe in. It also
helps that I can work from home sometimes and not have to get dressed until
10am or when I start feeling guilty for being lazy.
For now I am in a good spot. But, back to the turning 30
thing…
We all hit that point where we realize the pics posted by
former crushes go from cleavage clad sexy poses to driver seat selfies hiding
gained weight, pictures of food, and the worst….10,000 pictures of kids.
Priorities shift, people start having “favorite shows” on weeknights, and generally begin to
suck. As if this isn’t already disappointing enough, the next wave of
disappointment comes in a salesy business tone that you have never heard spoken
from that person. Yup, I am talking about the Multilevel Marketing, Networking
Marketing, whatever you wanna call it Marketing pitches. Things didn’t pan out
at college, you don’t like what your degree is in, your trade school degree isn’t
helping like the commercial said it would, or you just didn’t get an education…I
don’t know. But now you have found the most American of American ways to make
money…I mean, it only makes sense! You are the only thing holding you back! You
just need the desire and drive and you are chocked full of that man!
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have reached out to a couple “advocates”
or representatives participating in some of the programs. I have asked about
product for a couple of things. Most times I couldn’t get through asking for
something to give me some pep in the mornings before they would launch full on
into a pitch about how I was perfect for selling this product and I should join
their cult. As a sales professional, I have to give you some feedback, wait for
me to finish talking before shoving your pitch down my throat. You don’t know
my situation and you may be wasting your time or more importantly wasting mine.
If you think about it, it is a pretty narcissistic way to live assuming
everyone has 15 minutes to listen to you drone on about financial freedom and
early retirement, whenever you decide to talk about it. Ease off the green tea
extract buddy! Calm down.
Anyway, I get why you start listening to these pitches and
why you invest your $500 to be the owner of your new home based business. I understand
that the pictures on the brochures are exciting and that you may get a little
boner or lady boner, whenever you are in one of those hotel ballroom
conferences. It’s exciting stuff. I know because I was there.
When I was younger, I was madly in love with a beautiful
girl and I wanted to marry her. At the time I believed she was probably the
best I was going to do and needed to go ahead and lock this one down. Rookie
mistake. So when her father asked what I was going to do to take care of his
little girl, I said I was going to do what he did…Network Marketing. If this
idiot asshole could do it, I certainly could too. Immediately his concern with
our young age and my lack of a stable history in anything but playing in a band
went out the window and he launched full throttle into getting me up to speed
on how I would be retired by the time I was 30. He gave me the full run down on
how things worked, there were conference calls, motel spectacles, and lots of
books written by paid “third-parties” like Robert Kyosaki. That’s right, I had
the Rich Dad / Poor Dad boxset and I was on my to making millions of dollars if
I just believed! Then came Napoleon Hill, The Secret, Dale Carnegie, Stephen
Covey, and the list goes on and on and on. Whatever, he was off my back and all
I had to get people to do was buy some vitamins or want to sell some vitamins.
I mean I got pretty easily sold, how hard could it be? I was a something
something home based business diamond triad douchey mcsales guy for USANA!
Now in retrospect as a real sales professional, I see the
error of my ways. First, while sales does not require any formal training, it
should. Sales is a profession like anything else and not everyone can do it. I
can’t believe my way into being an MMA fighter or playing the NBA. I know there
are the hopeless that believe you can will your way into anything but you’re wrong
so don’t start. Sales is one of those things. You may have some natural ability,
but you have to hone the craft, have some coaching, and work really hard to get
comfortable, let alone be any good at it. Then on the flip side, there are
people that are just not sales people and it is painfully uncomfortable to listen
to them try and sell. We are all given certain abilities and to say that
everyone is born with the ability to sell is probably coming from someone
trying to sell you something. Bottom line, I wasn’t going to take my 500 pound
ogre of a brother that drives a truck and owns a trailer park in East Texas and
change him into top notch sales professional. There is not enough time or magic
in Neverland for that to ever happen.
That is the other thing that comes with these programs. You
have just signed on to harass, alienate, and possibly rip off your circle of
influence. Remember when you were in elementary school and they sent you home
with magazines or candy and you had to sell about 10,000 bars of chocolate so
you could win the TV, so you went to all your family members and friends and so
on…this is the same business model. The only difference is that you are now 30
and the shit ain’t cute anymore. Also, the kids that always won in those
programs were kids that probably already had their own TV because their family
was well off, so they would by the 10k in chocolate bars and magazines between
like 3 family members. My family on the other hand was too poor to do that so
they went back to the hard work philosophy and said I should knock on doors. The bitch of that was that we lived in the country and had like 3 neighbors that always seemed to have dogs that bite. The same principal happens here. You may sell a little to your ne’er do well
relatives, but your more accomplished relatives are more likely to enable this
and buy in…as a courtesy because they still think you are cute.
Next, you find your down and out friends that have buckets of
problems, can’t hold jobs, drink too much, and are not even healthy, and try to
get them to sell your HEALTH supplements too. Well the thought of not having a boss
has already hooked your maverick friend, and he likes that sweet magnet you put
on your car about that says “Fire Your Boss Today!” He would do that, but he
was just fired yesterday for urinating in the Coke machine. You stroke the ego, have them fish whatever your
initial investment charge is from the piggy banks and empty Crown Royal bottles
and they are off! Now you are seeing small commissions coming in and your color
code or rare gem status is rising in the ranks of this company! At the next
motel conference room banana pants conference you will get a new pin and lots
of pats on the back!
This is sales. That is true. But without integrity.
Here is why…
You are selling people a product that has a 90% fail rate. I
don’t care how many ass holes you have watched jump around a stage with one of
those Britney Spears microphones attached to his head saying that he went from riding the bus to a Ferrari in 2 years. The bottom line is that real stats show that
over all, in your industry, more that 90% of people fail. If I walked into Best Buy for a new TV and
they told me about a TV that would fulfill my wildest dreams but there was a
90% chance it wouldn’t work, I’d probably go with the good ole LG or Sony. If
you can’t honestly and upfront look at someone and tell them there is a huge
chance that the money they are investing is going to be wasted, you are not
being honest. Anyway you swing it, it’s lying. You place all of the responsibility
on that person to put in the work but you don’t create an accurate picture of
reality or what that work is. You can say that you care because their success
is your success, but when you are lying to multiple people, the buffer room is built in for some people to fall off.
You cannot take someone with no formal training or
inclination and make them a millionaire over night or even in 2 years in the field
of sales. It is insulting to even say that to those of us that actually make
our living that way. If you want to become a millionaire overnight, get your
teenage daughter pregnant, get on tv and act like an asshole. This is America
and that is the formula.
There are many many things people have to work through
before becoming sales people and you don’t let people know that…you are
misleading them. I have been rejected from sales jobs before because I wasn't a
strong enough sales person to join that organization. A popular saying around
your industry is that “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.” Well then
why the fuck are you telling everyone they can do it?
What you do isn’t real sales, it’s manipulation. BUT in your
defense people are responsible for their own decisions and if they invest their
money and lose it, hopefully they learn a lesson.
I have seen my share of strangers give moving speeches with
scripted rhetoric and nonsense with the silly headset microphone. I have heard
their stories and even read other peoples stories online. It was amazing
because after all, everything you read online is true and a businesses wouldn't
cook shit up just to make sales. I mean... come on...
I have been harassed, lectured, pep talked, and disowned by
people in network marketing programs. I have been told I would be great and
just needed to work harder and believe in myself, and I needed to want better
things for myself and so on. Most of it is pretty insulting, but I consider the
source of a desperate friend that got sucked into it and I let it go. Usually
this happens within their first 6 months of involvement in said program. After
that, I don’t really hear about it anymore…weird right? Maybe they had given up
on me and moved on to more qualified "down-lines" and started making that
residual magic money we hear so much about! Nope…usually those same people,
when asked months later, either have nothing to say or talk around it. I have
never seen someone I personally know make any real money doing it. If they say
they did, they cannot prove it. And trust me, I ALWAYS ask. It’s my last word
to a conversation that may have been had months ago where they left feeling
like they owned me.
Now we are back at the success rate of your model that you
will righteously sell without having even known the actual success rate for yourself. See
when I sell my product, I have to discuss failure rates, real justified rates
of return, and show actual numbers as proof to all of it. At the end of the
day, I feel good knowing that I was up front and the person knew exactly what
they were getting.
I know, I have beating you up pretty hard on the recruiting
aspect of what you do and haven’t even mentioned the phenomenal, revolutionary,
pioneering, lifesaving, money saving, incredible, products that you all sell.
Well that’s because for the most part neither do you! The minute I ask about
some supplements or whatever, you may give me a web link to follow but then you
jump right into your recruiting pitch. So again, go back to your sales training
and learn about process. Here are some examples of what I go through…
Me- “Man, I have the hardest time waking up in the morings.”
Salesperson- “You should try our all natural acai berry
battery acid flavored penis oil powder.”
Me- “Oh that sounds interesting. What is it?
Salesperson- “Here is a link. You can order it from me or
online with my code. You know you can get it cheaper if you sign on as an
independent distributor. Do you have a minute to talk about an exciting
opportunity that everyone is talking about?”
Or…
Me- “Man, losing weight is hard. I love cheeseburgers and
pizza and eat like 6 year old.
SP-“ You should try our Mega Protein Breast Milk Extreme! Meal
replacement powder and power bars.”
Me- No thanks, I like food as opposed to powder.
Sp- “ You don’t know what you are missing man. I know a guy
that lost 100 pounds last week just doing a simple 20 day challenge and it
changed it his life. It costs $400 but how much does being fat cost you in the
long run?”
Me- “Well maybe…
SP-“ If I get you signed up as a Class 3 super diamond
independent super distributor, in 6 months, you’ll get all this free and be
making more money than you ever have. Do you have minute to talk….
Me- Runs away and jumps from window….
Most of the time the products are pretty good. I will give
you that. Usana had supplements so good they would make you sick. Advocare,
Herbalife, and so on, all have some decent stuff. I take supplements and if I
could find a salesperson that wouldn't try to recruit me, I’d probably buy some
stuff from them monthly. But maybe not either. Most of the time because it is a
direct sale, it is extremely overpriced and again, there is no actual
measurable proof to justify the extra expense incurred in buying your product
over a less expensive brand that is easier to access. Showing me a study that
your company paid for is not proof. That is marketing material. Know your shit.
I am not trying to crush dreams or to be as you kids like to call it, a "hater". I am simply replying to the many many many advances from you that I have gotten. I feel it's fair that if you all are going to solicit me that I can reply back. At least I am doing on single forum and not invading your personal space.
To my friends that are involved. I love you just like I always have, I just don't want to talk about this. I want to talk about what we talked about when we became friends. Love you.
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