Opening the sales door (And then shutting it again)

Yesterday I went for a job that included the word sales in the title. This in itself did not seem remarkable.

On the very same day in the evening I was added by someone new on linkedin mentioning they may have an opportunity for me. Skeptical as always I preceeded to examine the links from her page finding a costume rental firm, a school and xango - a miracle drink made from mangosteens.

Xango is a MLM (multi levelled marketing) company. This means effectively they provide the product to individual distributors who then either distribute it on to other distributors or sell it directly. Distributors get to buy xango at wholesale prices and get to keep 50% off the profit.

Now I am not a scientist, nor am I going to claim to have an authority here but there is something I strongly dislike about this. I am not suggesting Xango is a scam (there are enough sites doing that) nor am I suggesting it works. (plenty of sites saying that too - from curing arthritis, asthma and even aiding cancer) I do however have an issue and always have had an issue with MLM and its concept. I dislike the idea of people selling to people they know, pressuarising them to buy a product they have been brainwashed to believe is a miracle cure for everything in existance. Even it is, they can simply tell people about it, the power of WOM. The fact they benefit by selling it at such high prices ($35 for 750ml) just makes it all a little less believable.

The joys of such schemes, so it is said, is that anyone, housewife, tinker, tailor, soldier...anyone can sell and make money from the product. The fact is however none of them can claim to be objective. The power of WOM in my opinion is objectivity. If a post a review of a product I own for others to see it is for objective reasons. I am not going to gain anything from posting the review, the company will not pay me for saying what a wonderful product they have and I am not going to then sell the product on. The moment that objectivity is lost then so is the value of those producing the review. It does not matter if your trying to be objective, you simply can't be, bias will creep in because you have something to gain and it is human nature to do so.

This is in essence my problem with sales(particularly hard sales) and why I have avoided seeking any sales based roles. The job at JPA was different, they really are offering services which are making a difference to older people with dementia, its black and white unlike the murky gray of products such as Xango

And thus the sales door shuts.