I hate member get member schemes.
A friend of mine tried to soft sell me something the other day. I was partly amused and partly annoyed. Amused because being a normally shy and quiet guy, he's a disaster at selling. Annoyed because I hate to see a good relationship commercialized.
Ok, maybe its just me but I always have this thing against profiting from friends and loved ones. Money has a way of changing relationships, not always for the better. I don't like to wonder about my freinds' intentions everytime they call. It's not cool.
I agree there's nothing wrong with making a buck from a friend IF he is a willing party. The trouble is I was not a willing party. I didn't need the thing he was selling and I didn't enjoy telling him to zip it after he went on and on about it all evening. For me to buy it out of pity or to make him shut up is to be insincere. Either way it puts me in an awkward position. I hope he didn't take my rejection too personally.
I know many people have customers who eventually become their good friends but there's a big difference - the part about willing parties. Not everyone's willing to let their friendship be transformed into a platform to promote products and make profits.
Anyway it was a rude reminder to me that even reputable companies are not beneath the tactics of dodgy MLM companies in turning their customers into direct salesmen. I've seen credit card, insurance and telecomms companies do it and in the process contaminating the trustworthiness factor of their brands. So damn stupid.
Are the companies to blame? I don't think so. A tiger cannot change its stripes. If there's one thing they understand, its the power of money and people's hunger for it. In the end its up to us whether to take the bait or not.
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3 comments:
I know exactly how you feel. Some time ago, an old highschool friend called out of nowhere and wanted to meet up to 'catch up on old times'. Come the meeting, it turned out that she actually wanted to sell trust funds!
Was so very bummed about it.. but I tried to understand that maybe she thought she could help her old friends with money matters. Or something. Either way, she should've just said it straight up front over the phone when she called, rather put up a pretence of getting together.
Yup, everyone I know has had at least one encounter like yours.
yea.. I know how that goes, I think that most of us will eventually experience friendship being commercialized whether we want it or not.. it's a sad thing really, and an annoying one as well hehe
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