I'm sure everyone's heard of multi-level marketing. Not defacing any company in particular here - but, just an experience to share. It just rained and I'm bored as hell :p so I've decided to post my feelings on this. I'll try to keep things short.
It started off with an eBay deal - I sold all my 500++ pokemon cards to this pokemon card trader who'd just moved on from the....enthralling years of NS. I sold everything to him for $28, not just because pokemon cards aren't in demand anymore - but more because I just wanted to economically dump them. Well, the thing is, after a few days we agreed to meet so I could sell him my 2 Starcraft CDs - apparently he was interested in old games too - and then, he asked me if I wanted a job, one that I could work even during NS. And so I said, why not take a took and see? After all, I've been bored and I wanted to save up some money as well. Thing is, he didn't tell me what he was doing exactly, and so with an earnest heart I went off to meet him yesterday - and got myself into quite the time-wasting trap.
I still didn't know what job it was exactly, right until he brought me to this large, tall commercial building. It was raining then too yesterday, and he called his higher-up to come down to introduce me to my job scope and what the job actually was.
Long story short, now I understand why he didn't want to tell me what he was doing right at the start - simply because I'd have said no. MLM - it's a concept that holds a certain degree of notoriety especially in Singapore.
And so, I was taken through nearly 2 AND A HALF HOURS of what the company did - notably, the higher-up kept on mentioning how a few young individuals in Singapore started earning five-figure salaries and having a continental car (BMW, Lexus, Rolls Royce, yadda yadda) once they joined the company.
"Our big boss drives a Lamborghini." he said.
What really cheesed me off was that, out of that 2 and a half hours of time he took explaining things to me, I daresay less than 30 minutes were used to explain my job scope. The rest of the time was used to glamourise his company's assets, holdings and achievements. He even had the gall to advertise nearly all his company's products (using newspaper articles and advertisements too) as if I was a consumer as well. And did I mention that he threw in (several times) long statements about the company's ambassadors as well?
And at the end of it all, he presented me with an application form to sign up to work. And when I said "I have to go back to think about it - this is a big step for me.", that Bvlgari-cufflink (yes, I did notice his physical wealth while reading his mind at the same time) wearing person kept on insisting that I sign the form and sign up.
"What have you got that's holding you back?"
"If you take even one or two days to think about it, you could end losing...(writes a five-figure sum) doing so!"
He even got one of his wealthy, successful colleagues to try to reason with me as to why I should sign up immediately. At this point I really want to thank God that that trainee wasn't as persistent as the higher-up - I noticed he kept, not trying to convince me, but humour me. His eyes kept looking around and he gave only respectful nods, without the slightest hint of sincerity of trying to convince me to come on board - thank God.
I stepped into the building at around 4pm, and left the building at 6.20pm - and hoo-hah, the higher-up actually took the courtesy of "escorting" me to the station, throwing in more of the company's astounding achievements as we walked.
Even though I sound like the time there was completely wasted, I did come out with a new measure of learnedness about MLM (and about this particular one based in Singapore). Solely by judging that one higher-up who wasted tons of saliva regurgitating whatever he memorised from his salesman notes, I've drawn some conclusions from this:
1) That higher-up alone utilised a variety of confidence tricks, whether he knew it or not. By consistently lauding his company's achievements, the number of continental cars his directors have, and the directors' (there were lots of them...73?) wealth and influential power, he tried to manipulate and exploit certain qualities that many people possess: Greed, Vanity, Naivete, Honesty (yes, not DIS-honesty). Also, by constantly asking the apparently divine questions:
a) "Don't you agree with me?"
b) "Which would you choose, the (positive answer) or (negative answer)?"
c) "Wouldn't you like to....."
he sought to indirectly control my train of thought through a progression of psychological manipulation.
2) Throughout the conversation, he threw me crappy stories and theories about how referring friends/relatives to their company and buying their products would allow them to experience renewed lifestyles, better health and what have you. The thing about MLMs is that they depend a lot on the concept of word-of-mouth. (It is after all the cheapest form of advertising.) For every product that you sell to a person you referred, you earn 5-10% in rebates of the product's direct sell price. My conclusion is this: Working in such a business in fact, diminishes a person's sense of honesty. Behind the veneer of promising health benefits and well-being, the central reason is Money. The very thing that drives these people to sell their products "for the good of mankind" is money. Logically, it doesn't sound wrong - after all, MLM people are indeed perfectly logical and economical (PUN INTENDED) people. But, for any sane student of psychology, it's obviously a cause for great concern.
3) One grounding statement the higher-up said when he introduced me to the company is:
"Nu ren cong tou dao jiao dou shi qian." (in Chinese)
"From top to bottom, a woman is money." (in English)
I was appalled when I heard this. While it's no secret that today's women are getting very excessively concerned about a lot of things in their lives (especially their physical selves, if you get my hint), this MLM sought to exploit this very negative trait of today's women's self-consciousness, allowing it to fester and infect women even more by providing solutions for these problems, sometimes at an allegedly cheap price. It's the same scenario as providing more and more cigarettes to chain smokers.
4) With regards to the bolded statement, I also began to have greater insight into the mind of this higher-up. When he said that statement, I wondered just to how great a degree HIS higher-ups have subverted and twisted his mind, distorting it and allowing him to believe that such twisted opinion is justified and correct, TO EXPLOIT.
I've got more reflections but I'm going to stop here because I think I'm boring people :p In any case, I'm glad I was even able to get out of that building. Phew.
The things that money and economics can do to people.
Nice snorlax. Really beings back memories..
ReplyDeleteAnyway, to really comment:
Pt 2: As a matter of fact, every single job thet we are doing, the core of it all is Money. There is nothing wrong with having money as an objective, though i agree with the fact that sales-based wage is indeed a cause for concern. Sub-prime crisis last year was partly due to this. Still, incentive and fear are the only ways you can use to encourage or discourage people to work harder so its either this kind of incentive or using more strict laws (fear)
pt 3: business ethics is an oxymoron. (i dont know if i spelt it correctly ): You could call it an 'exploit' but in the eyes of business that is 'potential'. You cant certainly say that doctors are 'exploiting' the sick by selling them drugs, nor say that firms undergo RnD to produce new drugs so they can 'expliot' the sick. The firm gains, the researcher gains, the doctor gains, the sick gains. Its win-win - a positive sum game. Similarly, woman choose to induldge in whatever nonsense bags or shirt or what. They have such interest, someone must provide. Demand and supply. No one will want to 'exploit' if no one wants to get 'exploit'ed.
no offence. My twenty cents worth (more than 2 cents)
Hehe :) I read your mind right. I knew you'd comment like this :)
ReplyDeleteBudding Econs/business person :)
It's because I think from a psychological point of view, that we clash in thought. As expected, most if not all people who work successfully and happily with MLMs are logical people themselves and they think on the same track as you do:
ReplyDeletePt 2: What I was driving at is not that Money is wrong as a central objective - but in the case of this MLM it was clear that the very idea of Money corrupts the way they think, until they become like governments who think only dollars and cents when they legalize organ trade, with tazation of course. It's a matter of the mind - logically speaking such a business is lucrative and hence perfectly fine. But I deal with the things behind logic; what happens to the inner person when he gets more and more (via MLM rebates). I'm talking about the idea of corruption by money.
Pt 3: Once again, logically speaking, such exploitation is perfectly fine in the realm of economics and business. Hell, in economics, where the capitalist economy is concerned - efficiency is key and people who don't "work to their limit/potential" is deemed as inefficient. Psychologically speaking, this idea treats people as commodities. It's the same with the higher-up I was talking about. Sure, like you said - everyone gains. However, it's what goes on in the mind that I'm concerned about. For a person to think of womaen in such a way utterly diminishes their worth in his mind. I mean, exploitation is rampant everywhere - but that doesn't mean we should make it the norm.
Oh, and by the way, it's certainly not very wrong to say that firms exploit the sick - in fact, they exploit the sick not just through themselves or pharmacies, but hospitals and doctors who have to foot money for drugs. The central key word is "firms" - aka, business. Don't make a win-win situation sound so simple, because it is all definite that behind the scenes of this win-win situation, some people are profiteering and suffering.
Say I exchange your words here:
Similarly, some people choose to induldge in cigarettes. They have such interest, someone must provide. Demand and supply.
In this case economically speaking it's deemed to be a win-win because the firm wins and the smoker wins. But I doubt you can say with a clear mind that it's an all-encompassing, win-win situation.
But anyway, the apex of everything is that our trains of thought are different. Nothing wrong there :)