Entry level marketing. Sounds innocuous
enough. It's bullshit. They prey on the fact that you don't have the
experience to know any better. They go by different names: “MLM,”
“Management Training,” (…) . Some of them provide a legitimate
product, like kitchen or home tools; some of them just panhandle.
They're always hiring because that's how they work. You can pretty
much sniff them out just by their language. They tease you with
promises of “unlimited potential,” or maybe when you reach a
certain level you'll get a free car or a vacation to some island
paradise. You can expect at least one of those motivational posters
with a picture of a mountain cliff, or maybe hands clasped together
showing the importance of teamwork. They make it sound easy. They'll
definitely want you to go on a “Day of O” or “Day of
Observation.” This is basically a day of unpaid training where most
people wash out because they realize what it is. Some people have a
knack for bullshit, and they become successful. I haven't met anyone
who has yet, but they must be out there. It's a proven business
model: let someone else do the work.
One thing to keep in mind about the
recruiters is: they are great salesmen. It's what they do. But,
unlike, say, a car salesman, what they are selling is the job itself.
And the are good. They wouldn't have the job if they weren't.
Whether they're chopping vegetables, talking about how much money
they save families on their mortgage, or making it sound like you're
just collecting money for some organization that gets cute kittens
out of trees, they make it sound fun, worthwhile, maybe even easy.
They make you think “I want to do that! I really could use that
knife, or at least my mom could,” or “I definitely want to keep
kittens out of trees, I want to be part of this!” Well, they're
just preying on you naïveté. (And the fact that you have nothing
else on your resümé.)
One thing I've noticed about sales:
It's just words. It takes invisible skills like tone of voice and
reading body language. A cold reader magician will make it look like
something that only he can do because he's psychic (he's not), and a
good salesman can make it look so easy even you can do it (you can't,
at least not without a lot of hard work.) That's the trick of it:
they're just using the same words, body language, and tone that
people do in every day life. You see a professional athlete, you can
just look at their body, how monstrous their muscles are, or how tall
they are, and say “wow, I can't do that.” You see a magician,
he's got his wand, his suit, and yeah, you might have seen that
special on TV on how they do it, but I'm not talking about kids'
parties. When you see Criss Angel walk on water on a swimming pool,
with people swimming under him, and cameras and people from a dozen
angles, you know you can't do it. But sales people? Well they walk
and talk just like you and me.
There are basically two types of these
scams. The first is your basic, run of the mill, either go
door-to-door in a rich neighborhood, or stand in a crowded area, like
Times Square, holding a clipboard, and shake people down. It's all
about the hustle in those situations. You're not actually selling
anything of value, you're just a panhandler with a boss and a
clipboard. You're one step below a squeegee guy, and you just don't
know it.
The second is the inverted pyramid,
best summed up with the “V” in “Vector Marketing.” I also
like calling it “The Spore Method.” Basically it involves whoring
out your close relatives, your friends, or their parents, and whoever
they can suggest you market to as the last part of the sales pitch.
Sometimes you set up house parties, like Tupperware, or the Pampered
Chef, or some of those ladies-only sex toy parties. You can expect to
get about two or three levels deep before you get past sympathy money
and you have to do actual sales work. Some people can do it, most
people can't. But the people at the top? They've already got their
money. Hell, for me, I had to pony up over $100 for a set of sample
knives my first day at Cutco. Supposedly, the money was completely
refundable, should you decide to mail the knives back upstate, but
here's what happened: At the end of my orientation – remember I
hadn't done one minute of actual work, this guy who was introduced as
the regional manager who had worked for the company for two weeks, (I
never figured out if that was a joke), the guy was one year younger
than me and dressed like Kurt Cobain, when I was wearing a suit and
tie. As I was walking out the door, he was supposed to give me some
shoe leather and rope, basically stuff to cut. He wouldn't give me
the stuff unless I threw out the shipping box. I made the logical
argument that the box was a perfect way to keep from losing any of
the knives, and to boot, the garbage was halfway across the parking
lot, while my car was completely across the parking lot. Logic didn't
seem to penetrate for this guy, so, long story short, a shouting
match ensued, and I was fired later that same day. In the few hours
before I got the phone call that I was officially fired, I found out
it was a lot tougher to call your family to set up an appointment
than they make it sound. I did get the last laugh, though. I bought
hundreds of dollars worth of knives at a steep discount, and I didn't
have a box to return them in. They've worked great for me ever since.
No comments:
Post a Comment