The idea for this comic was given to me by my good friend Sheri Dover. Sheri had been invited out to coffee, allegedly to discuss possible synergy between her business and the individual. Imagine her surprise when somehow the conversation segue strayed to the friend’s multi level marketing “business opportunity.” As if Sheri doesn’t have enough to do running her own business! Her comment was that the deception/lack of transparency in this scenario was over the top. This same stupid thig has happened to me on more than one occasion. I hate the Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) model on general principle. The chump end customer is way way overpaying for whatever the product is, because each distributor up the pyramid gets a cut. Plus, the MLM model is often used to distribute “health” products of questionable value. Interestingly, people tend not to recruit their REALLY GOOD friends, because they don’t want to annoy them. And most of the time you end up pestering all your aquaintences, trying to build a downline so you don’t have to work so hard to sell a product that after a while people catch on to and stop buying, or don’t want in the first place. Damnit, if you want to sell a product, get it into stores.
You also might know, recycling and recycling community activism is one of my passions, so knowing that and using it as bait, someone would be able to get me to go out for coffee.
Kangen Water is a MLM product that one of my friends swears by. To his credit, he didn’t try to recruit me. It is a filter that is supposed to do something magical to your tap water and bring you amazing health benefits. Of course you have to drink huge amounts of this magical water. Personally I believe any benefits you see come from drinking large amounts of water.
MLM ambush,
I had to slow my wife down from getting caught up into every little sales program. She was sucked into everything from exercise regimens to Mary Kay to Avon to pre-paid legal. She always made her investment money back at lest, but it's hard to find continuous clientele for all of of these ventures.
Your wife is the only one to make her money back.
That's because I'm usually the sucker that's born that minute who falls for her spiel. 🙂
No, she is truly a great salesperson. Plus, she loves to talk and has a very pleasant and arousing voice. 😀
So that's how those successful MLM peeps do it. They hit their family. All I can say is my family would disown me if I tried any of that on them. And that's kinda a zero sum game in the end, no?
I got roped into a meeting one summer when I was working at home. A guy overheard me talking about network administration and he said he was looking to hire someone with a background in admin. I mentioned some of my other skills and he said they were all great. Later that evening I met a hotel conference room full of the most desperate and sad people I've ever seen. I won't even talk about the video they showed. I definitely got my rage on. Super pyramid-y.
No kidding. At least you mention some of the more reputable ones.
I have a terrific line of chocolate wombat chewable vitamins that you might be interested in. . .
I couldn't eat anything shaped like a wombat, much less sell it. Actually I can't sell anything. The perception that I think something is worth buying is the cue for the potential customer to exit, post-haste, stage left, without leaving any money or taking any whatever.
Wow they sound great Binky, send me a pallet full.
Oh, yeah, I could name a few others….
Picture it… Ozark, MO… 2005…
My work friend, Milo, offers to buy me lunch to help him "practice" his speech for a new job he's trying to get.
Sure, I say.
Fast forward to lunch at a Chinese Restaurant.
I sit down with him and immediate two other strangers sit down with us. The two strangers and Milo proceed to give me the HARD SELL on marketing internet products and recruiting others to do the same in what they refuse to admit is an obvious pyramid scheme.
I was a nicer person back then and since I was his ride back to work I endured their snake oil pitch.
Not a day goes by that I don't regret not leaving him to WALK back to work by himself.
Cool, so you post on Hubpages! I'm going to have to check that out. Cheers.
Yeah, I do, or did a little. I haven't written anything at hubpages for a while. Leave me a comment so I can find you over there.
A ghastly practice – and a terrible abuse of friendship!
Drinking huge (or at least sufficient) amount of water is the only healthy thing I can still keep, among many unhealthy habits I have.
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Nothing worse than a friebdly coffee turning into an uncomfortable moment.
Well you just can't trust everybody.
I have read horror stories about Mary Kay. Ladies high up on the totem pole encouraging the ladies under them o leave their husbands just they can sale more makeup without being held down by their man.
In my book, Mary Kay is poison.
That's heinous Mel! None of the ladies I know who sell MK are like that. (Of course they are not top tier either.) Anyone who would leave their hubby because their upline suggested it must either have other reasons to want to leave or be incredibly wishy washy.
MK doesn't score well on the toxicity tests of personal care products and makeup http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/company.php?comp_id=8… and they refuse to sign the pact for safety, so you may be correct in a literal sense as well.
Poison I tell! I knew it 🙂
I wouldn't recruit my friends either for MLM we might end up hating each other.
I've fallen for many of those sales pitches in the past, I have to admit.
Lately, I've been getting hit by people who sell freeze-dried survival food, even though I specifically write *against* that in my blog. So it's a lot like trying to get a gung-ho environmental advocate to sell bottle water. But they're taught that it's a numbers game – for every 10 people you talk to, 1 will listen. For every 10 who listens, 1 will be interested. For every 10 who are interested, 1 will succeed.