An Unconvincing Sales Pitch

Last Thursday (12th Oct), I met up with Rebecca and Evelyn at Aunty Muifong’s house for a Russian dinner and to listen to a long-time ex-church member share about keeping our good health. We were early, so we settled down to a quiet dinner before the others arrived.

It turned out that the Russian dinner was actually chicken cooked with Russian spices, with potatoes and salad. I was wondering and a little afraid of what I would be eating for dinner, as I have never tasted Russian food before. But the chicken cooked with Russian spices was delicious! How I wish I could ask for another piece, but I decided to leave it for those who had not yet arrived.

After dinner, we settled down and waited… and waited. Apparently, this lady by the name of Aliz was late. By the time she arrived, it was already 45 minutes past the start of the sharing time. I didn’t know about the rest, but Rebecca and I were pretty annoyed coz all of us had to work tomorrow.

Aliz began with an introduction about herself, followed by a presentation of the health products which she was marketing and selling. As the talk went on, I was surprised that this sharing had turned into a health products marketing session! What was all these about? Just selling health supplements? I am not in the position to judge how good are these supplement pills (and all the more not in comparison with other health products), but this surely isn’t what I had come here for! Perhaps I had mistaken, but I came here to learn some tips on how to take care of our good health and what are the natural remedies to common ailments!

At the end where we had a Q&A, I found that it wasn’t a fruitful session at all, as Aliz was not able to answer our questions adequately well. We were all aware that she is not a trained medical professional, but her knowledge of medicine was just too low to convince all of us who were listening!

In my job, I have to promote funding schemes to companies, and most often, I have to relate with managers, senior managers and even those at director-level. I may not be the best sales person, but I do have a reasonable amount of work experience in selling, to realize that Aliz was actually reiterating what she knows of the health supplements; possibly from whoever that she learnt it from.

To me, it was clear that she didn’t have sufficient medical knowledge, and much less adequate to successful convince us to purchase her health products. In fact, she was so quick to jump into explaining why this brand of health supplements is better than other brands; rather than understanding the concerns of those who were asking the questions!

In any case, even she wants to prove that her product is better, she should at least find out what other brands are doing, before even claiming that her product is better! And when I asked her about the comparison between this brand versus other brands, she could not even answer properly.

Furthermore, she was also very keen to share with us about this network marketing scheme and how well we can earn, if we sell enough of the products per week. In my mind, I was thinking – why is she so money-minded? Just keep on talking about the money? You are not even answering our questions enough to convince us, and you are talking about recruiting us to sell it for you?

In any selling concept that attracts people with good commission, there is a catch to it and I could see it clearly. Reasons being that (1) each agent is required to purchase $X of products each month, (2) use of a points system that calculates the lower amount of sales achieved between the agent’s two lower ‘legs’ and (3) setting aside a portion of the agent’s commission to purchase that $X of products every month.

In (1), this mandate is actually a strategy that ensures that the company secures and earns ($X multiply by Y number of agents) every month, irregardless of how much each agent earns. This is a smart strategy coz not every agent who buys this product will choose to engage themselves in aggressive selling every month. There are some who are not good at selling and others who are just promote to friends as and when they are interested. Furthermore, there are people who become agents because they can then purchase the products at a slight discount. So technically, the company earns money from BOTH their agents and their agents’ customers!

In (2), the use of a points system ensures that sales commission is monitored based on the company’s calculation system, i.e. their database. It is not a fixed x% of every sale of $Y. This ensures that the company earns more through variable commission, rather than fixed standard commission.

In (3), by brainwashing agents with the concept that each agent can get free health supplements from their commission earned through their sales, it seems like a good deal for the agent. In a sense, it is… however, the company is also smart to implement this strategy because it also makes sure that PART of EACH agent’s commission goes back into their company profits! So technically, what the company sells, their profit rolls back into their bank account again! And each agent actually gets less commission that actually entitled to.

In any case, network marketing is for people who have the drive to sell and are profit-driven. I am not such a person and I dislike having my monthly salary hinged on variable uncertainty and my level of aggressiveness. I am just uncomfortable about that.