Days 4

I absolutely have no idea what to write about this time. Yeah, someday I might come up with a better excuse but today is simply not the day.

At the top of my mind, there are two things I really want to talk about. The first is about anime and the other is about network marketing. These two subjects I am equally passionate about, only for different purposes and reasons. I will talk about network marketing for now, because I have a lot of things to think about when it comes to anime.

But when it comes to network marketing, well, the one thing that instantly comes to my mind is “No”. This does not mean I am negative or close minded. I am open to hear any kind of opportunity. I guess I could not properly explain myself unless I tell what I experienced about it.

Technically, I only officially joined a network marketing company for less than three months. This involved being invited by a trusted friend, putting an investment that on hind sight I could not afford, attending those team meetings and events that often last for more than I expected (I was an auditor back then, meaning all nighters were an ordinary thing, but it didnt drain me quite like those meetings), calling people, experiencing rejection more than I ever had in my lifetime and worse, letting my main job suffer from this part time job. I guess that, considering all these including all the effects and lost attempts, I was actually doing network marketing for more than two years, that ism until I officially manned up and told myself that enough is enough. I only stopped thinking about wanting to go back to that business late last year.

I have given a lot of thought in that decision, and realized that the only thing stopping me from quitting back then was my pride. I was afraid of failure. Quitting meant admitting that I failed, and that I was wrong. It was something very hard for me to accept, so much that the denial stage took two years. For now, I want to share my reasons for quitting.

First, as much as most of these people try to deny, network marketing does involve selling. It involves hard selling. This is a tough thing to achieve because when you think about it, these people dont really just sell their actual product—in fact these things are just mentioned casually in the start—what they really sell is the idea that you can be rich by doing their business. They give you this hope that you can do it despite your zero selling and marketing skills. I have to admit that a lot of the leaders in companies like these are really good at marketing.

But then, not all of the people there are good at marketing. In fact, like me, they bought into the fact that this business does not involve selling but “sharing”. This is a lie that must be told in order for people (who are not really good at selling) to buy in, because most of the time, there are more people brought there without a bit of knowledge in marketing, and they bring in most of the cash inflow for these leaders.

To explain, back when I was still dreaming about getting it big with this company, I thought about how many people it would take for me to earn as much as the directors there. Well, it involves at least 50 people that has to be replenished every month. These people need to pay a total of 1 million a month in investments. This is the means on how the company can pay these luxurious trips to their leaders. The way I see it, it takes 50 new people each month who would give their money, without a guarantee that they would be able to get it back, in order for these people to earn those wild commissions. How was I so sure? Well, the two years I went to these meetings, I noticed something very important. I started to see new faces each day that it was hard to remember their names, but at the same time, I dont see these “new” faces after some two or three weeks. What happens to them? They get replaced by new faces again. The friends I had who also invested in this company were soon gone. By my third month I was considered Jurassic( a term they say for older members). This surprised me because I was still considering myself quite new in company standards. Who did manage to be there and not leave? Not surprisingly, it's the same leaders who admittedly have great sales skills.

Second is, after a few weeks from my team, I realized that no one really knows what they were doing. Well, except maybe for the people on the top. I mean, on the first week, everything seems so new. You meet a great leader, tells you their story, and you move on, thinking to yourself that you learned that day. Well, by the third week you realize that they say this to all the people they are introduced to, even all the “lessons”, stories, word per word. By your thirtieth time hearing this you realize it’s scripted. At one point I asked one of my leaders why we are not allowed to join the director’s only meeting, purely because I desperately want to learn more and maybe they discuss their secrets there. Her answer is that, they would only tell us if we were ready, meaning we have to reach a minimum quota to get there. I ask why, but she just replied that it was the system they follow. Follow the system. That’s mostly what I hear from our leaders but the sad part is, they don’t really explain what the system is. No one in our team had a clue. We were resigned to conclude that the system just involves calling people up to meet up with the leaders who will be doing the rest of the talking. I followed that system and honestly believed that once my friends listen to what our leaders have to say, like magic, they will be convinced and invest in that company. In hindsight, I should have known that the system they were talking about involves pretty much 99% of us failing, with no hope whatsoever in getting our money back. I realized they really wont tell us this fact for the obvious reason that we would be demotivated and quit right there. So I guess they did the right thing not telling us. The effects were, instead of just quitting, a lot of us desperately call any person possible and if luck gives us a chance, someone might join. But then it really wont last long for most of us until we broke down.

The next most obvious reason is that I quickly became broke. Just two months in, I got a different understanding on “keeping up with the kardashians”, basically, social climbing will only lead you broke. And it did. Aside from investing money that I couldn’t afford at that time, I increased that up by keeping up with my leader’s lifestyles of going to expensive restaurants (the ones I would never step on in normal situations), energy draining meetings that last for three hours at the minimum, paying the monthly member “retention fee” that costs about a third of my original investment and, much worse, paying additional investment just to get a downline. In my case, I sponsored two, so I easily tripled/quadrupled my debts. Emotionally I was depressed, in denial stage, frantic, not knowing where tomorrow will lead. Ironically though, we were selling multivitamins that they even claimed to prevent cancer. But at that point I felt so sick that I could not even tell whether the drugs were working or not.

 I officially quit when I realized I am broke and could not keep up with their demands anymore, both time and money. But then even then I fostered this hope of coming back as soon as I recover from my debts and emotional depression. I even attended some meetings, events, I sold a few products here and there and considered joining other internet groups, continued to read more about selling techniques and kept telling myself that one day I will come back with a vengeance. What finally made me quit thinking about it happened two years after that incident.

It was the last month of the year, and I was about to sell a product to one of my friends. But then I don’t have any so I have to go back to that company, and maybe pay all the accumulated retaining fees I had. I got smarter and devised a plan to just find a random distributor and buy from him and with any luck get the product at cost. There wasn’t anything in particular to be surprised about at this point. In the span of two years the faces I barely recognized were gone, replaced with even new faces. I see the people having the same look I had two years ago, the look of desperation and cluelessness. I felt depressed and didn’t even attempt my plan.

I got home, mentally slapped myself and asked, is this what I really want to do? Obviously, I was not cut out for direct selling. I hated selling, let alone talking to anyone on the phone. I was introvert in nature and would rather read books and write, and maybe learn more about my craft than be subject to the most awkward small talk and pretend to be amused and be basically someone I am not. No one would believe me anyway, because who would believe an accountant suddenly talking about medicine, health and multivitamins?  The way I saw it, I could learn more and train myself more on selling skills, devote my time on those meetings and sacrifice my sleeping time, even at the risk of my health to get barely minimal results, with a possibility of improvement, or, I can do something I love doing. I can learn more about my subjects so that I can work efficiently and be promoted, and invest in things I am genuinely interested in. I can hone my skills in writing, learn more on stock investing, read about financial news, the those things may not mean much to other people but it what makes me happy.

In the end, I just follow my heart and do what I want to do. If for any reason I fail again, well, I still have this small happiness that I was enjoying what I was doing at the end of the day.

I am not writing this to encourage people to avoid network marketing. Maybe someone reading this in the future likes selling and is a perfect fit for it anyway. But still, one thing I can say is that before you venture into something, learn more about it and ask yourself, will this make me happy? Will I enjoy this? We are different people for a reason. Find what makes you happy and cherish it, enjoy it, thank God for it.