---Disclosure: Some details have been fuzzified to protect the guilty---
Have you ever listened to somebody for ten minutes and thought, "If this guy was my dog, I would give him a whacking-big dose of worming medicine"?
There I was....
There I was in a phone call with the "On-boarding Specialist" for a multi-level marketing organization. I had emailed him and waited two days with no acknowledgement or response from him. I emailed his boss suggesting that he share his expectations regarding getting back to underlings and I got a text from the on-boarding specialist three minutes later. "Is it OK if I call you tomorrow?"
I emailed him a list of issues I wanted covered in the phone call. Examples:
- What is the suggested attire?
- What are the key competitive points between what I am selling and the major competitors?
Pretty basic information, I thought.
He started right off rambling. He acknowledge that he had received and reviewed my list of questions but didn't start answering them in the first five minutes of the conversation so I started asking him directly.
"What is the suggested attire?" I asked.
His response, "Well, we just want you to seem like the neighbor-next-door so you can wear whatever you want".
"What are the key competitive advantages that I should be hammering?" I asked.
His response, "It is my opinion that canned responses don't work and you should just wing-it".
In the nine-minutes and nineteen seconds I was on the phone with him (gotta love smartphones) the only thing he offered to do for me was to email a link to a "killer app" and he told me that I was expected to attend sales "pep-rallies" on Saturdays where "inspirational speakers" would energize us.
Every issue I raised where a proper response required that he actually DO SOMETHING/ANYTHING was met with the equivalent of an old, tired, worm-riddled Basset Hound mournfully lifting its eyes (but not its head) and huffing out a sigh. Does anybody want to guess the age of the OBS?
After cutting the phone-call short (hey, I was going to the beach and he had spent more than nine minutes saying nothing useful), I sent a quick email to the On-boarding Specialist's boss informing him that I didn't think I was a good fit with his organization's culture. That was the politest way I could think of to inform him that I have no intention wasting my time.
I've, sadly, had to jettison friends from my life because they got involved in a multi-level marketing scheme and wouldn't shut up about it. It was like they joined a cult.
ReplyDeleteI envisioned this as a three month gig.
DeleteMy perception of most MLM schemes is that they suck in naive young people and get them to sell grossly over-priced vaccuum cleaners and trinkets to their relatives. Everybody upstream of them gets a cut. After the young person burns through their friends and family's good-will and drops below "quota", they are dumped...sometimes owing money for mandatory, highly marked up demonstration merch or logoed clothing.
No doubt the OBS will blame YOU for what happens to him. Why did you have to be that way man....
ReplyDeleteOBS works for the parent organization as a scheduler, he isn't a seller so he has absolutely zero product knowledge.
ReplyDeleteExactly true. My brother the engineer would often be required to rectify that which the salesmen would say to the client.
DeleteI want to push back a little bit.
DeleteIf somebody who is supposed to be part of "the team" requests information needed to empower them and make them more productive and their questions are dismissed and diminished, you aren't "part of the team". You are a raw material to be strip-mined.
If the NPC was actually an On-boarding Specialist, he would have said "I cannot answer that question but here is the email address or a link where your questions will be addressed."
That did not happen.
I wasn't the sheep-shearer. I was the lamb to be fleeced.
A friend had hooked me into one of these. At one of the club rallies, the leader responding directly to my question said [quote] facts don't matter [/quote] While she hadn't answered my question, she told me all I needed to know.
ReplyDeleteMy brother the chef would say they sell the sizzle, not the steak.
BTW: that friend and I parted soon after
It is tacky to quote oneself, but I can't resist: "...the young person burns through their friends and family's good-will..."
DeleteMLM seems to benefit the "cheerleaders" that sell their fluff. The troops don't get to the promised land.... unless they sell their soul and start selling their "cheers", too.
ReplyDeleteTo quote a respected military admiral, "It's a trap!"
Once upon a time, I took up a day off to follow up on an "Independent path to wealth" possibility. It was selling prints out of a car to businesses. As it turns out, my role for the day was being the car. With no pay. It was a very eye opening experience.
ReplyDelete