Right about now, some of you have your fingers hovering over the delete
button, expecting a sales pitch of some sort, mostly because you know if I
say, up in What’s New, “more on that later”, “later” means in
Ramblings From the Editor. But, please, bear with me. For
those of you who know me only from this newsletter, the one thing I am NOT
is a sales person . . . at least not the kind who indulges in the Hard
Pitch approach.
Years ago, I tried my hand at telephone soliciting. I needed a job
and Econ Carpet Cleaners was hiring AND they were within walking distance
of home. When they handed me the page long spiel I was supposed to
read to the poor unsuspecting potential clients, I knew I probably
wasn’t going to last long at that job.
In the first couple weeks I worked there, I was Spoken To a half dozen
times by the shift manager because I was taking No for an answer. It
didn’t much matter that many folks from whom I took NO for an answer did
call back after thinking about it, mentioning my name and saying they were
calling back because of “that nice girl who called a week or so ago”.
However, I saw the handwriting on the wall the evening I got my call list
and saw, first, that it was from the same neighbourhood I grew up in in
North Seattle. The second things I noticed is that one of the phone
numbers was for a family I was well acquainted with, whom I KNEW had the
kind of carpets one tosses into the wash 3 at a time. I thought
about mentioning this to my shift manager and then thought better of it.
So I worked my way through my call list – rather quickly because I only
read the first paragraph and then gave the person a chance right then and
there to say no – and when I reached That Number, I place the call.
A woman answered, I said, “Hey Mrs. T. This is Lisa.” And
Mrs. T. asked how I was and if I had found a new job. I said that I
had, told her for whom, and that I was, in fact, calling from work.
She laughed and told me about the fiasco in laying the new slate flooring
in the entry way, and the unique way they protected the hardwood floor
while the slate was being laid. She then asked why I was calling
her, to which I replied, “I know that, but I have to call every number
on my call list, speaking of which I should get back to it. Say hey
to Lori for me.”
I had barely hung up the telephone when the shift manager swooped down on
me. He chewed my butt good for not doing my job and snapped up my
call list. I knew what was going to happen next, I’d seen him do
it before; he was going to show me how to sell carpet cleaning by calling
my last number and selling them carpet cleaning. Because I knew Mrs.
T (at the time, the mother of three very attractive and quite popular
teenaged girls), I felt it was only fair to warn the guy. He
wouldn’t hear it.
He dialed the number, and was about halfway through the first paragraph,
when he stopped, with a puzzled look, and said, “Your pardon?”
He was silent for the next three or four minutes, except for an
occasional, “Yes, Ma’am” and “No, Ma’am”. With a final,
“Yes, Ma’am, of course, Ma’am, no Ma’am, I understand completely,
Ma’am. NO, Ma’am. Thank you, Ma’am.” He hung up the
phone, made a note on his desk and brought me back my call list. As
he dropped it at my station, he said real quiet like, “If your sales
don’t pick up, you’re gone.”
I though about it for all of 3 seconds, and said, “Tell you what, how
‘bout if I just give you my two weeks notice now and save you the
hassle.”
My last paycheck bounced.
Over the years I’ve looked at the assorted “get rich quick” schemes,
and pyramid and multi-level marketing.; I even tried a couple
of those get paid to surf the web gigs, but… [insert rude noise HERE]
The new business opportunity is through Quixtar (pronounced more like
Quick Star), also known as True North. MLM Bigmouth reviews them at http://www.mlmbigmouth.com/_qr/quixtar.html
and, yes, Quixtar is what happened to Amway (I also tried Amway once,
long, long ago). The new spin they have is that even if you are your
only customer, you still make money.
There’s three basic levels of participation: IBO
(Independent Business Owners), Member (costs $40 the first year, and then
“$25 or $30 a year thereafter), and Client.
The IBO costs money, a one time investment, above and beyond the assort
books, tapes, and pep-rally-type meetings, usually held in the conference
rooms of local hotels, as well as the semi-annual Conferences.
A Member can order product from the catalogue at wholesale prices.
A client doesn’t pay any sort of fees and gets product from the
catalogue at retail prices.
The one thing that’s struck me as an Odd Thing is that their spiel
appears to target those with low self esteem. The speakers at the
pep-rally-type meetings talk about how poorly they were doing –
financially and personally – and how selling through Quixtar turned
their lives around, improved their familial relations . . . Lassie came
home . . . and they’ve been able to buy all this really cool stuff, and
new cars, new houses . . . expensive vacations . . . new friends . . .
(I can almost hear George Carlin doing a routine on it.)
I’ve perused the Catalogue. Some things are more expensive than in
the stores (then again the brands are high end), some are significantly
less, and, as Andrew pointed out, there is a lot of stuff that “people
use everyday, AND it’s delivered to your doorstep” within a week of
ordering . . . provided the order is placed before close of business on
Wednesday.
And I’ve been to two of the pep-rally-type meetings and will be going to
one of the semi-annual Conferences in Edmonton next weekend.
Cost: $110 Canadian, plus expenses (gas, hotel, dinner).
I’ll let you know how that Conference goes. And should I decide to
go the whole 9 yards and become an IBO, you’ll here about it here (and
I’ll be adding a page to the web site about it). ‘Course, now,
if you’ve had any dealing --fair or foul-- with Quixtar or True North,
do let me know.
