Freakin' Pyramid Schemes- Burn in Hell!

[East_TX_Spa]

What the hell is it with people???!!!

I take a couple of days off to regain my focus and hot tub fu after back to back weekend shows and I come back to this:

One of my customers is stalking me.  He keeps coming by the store trying to get me involved in some multi-level marketing pyramid Ponzi scheme selling electricity.

Now, my old college roommate Big Chief Willeford calls me and wants me to sell Goji Juice.  I was yanking his chain asking if it would make my hair grow back, and he said "Yes".  (Probally make me hunch like a tarpiddler as well)

In the case of the Goji Juice, I told him I'd buy a bottle, but no.....these goomers don't want to SELL you their PRODUCT, they want you to get downloaded on their crack-humpin' chain so you can pimp for them!

I've just moved up my plans to go postal by several months.

Jackasses!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Terminator

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

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[Tman122]

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Typical Californian.......not knowing what a tarpiddler is....sheeesh.

[Chas]

I dated a tarpiddler for two weeks one night.

Haven't we all had somebody try to rope us into one of these scemes? OK - anybody out there NOT have somebody at least once try to get them into something like this?

I have found some excellent articles on MLM - and why it ruins just about everyting it touches.

For one thing, the laws of simple supply and demand do not seem to enter into the thinking of these people. When I was roped into selling Amway a bazillion years ago, I thought I might make a few nickels, and this was stuff my friends were 'going to buy anyway..."

But before long, this same family had recruited everyone in my circle of friends, my parents, two neighbors, and most of the people I knew at church. And I was going to one of those HUGE churches at the time so that was no small thing.

But that meant that the market was flooded with agents, and nobody had anybody left to sell to.

 8-)

[96SC]

Frikin' tarpiddlers, got tangled up with one years ago  myself .  Fortunately, the door was near and the episode was shortlived.

[East_TX_Spa]

Tarpiddlin is when you get the squirts....you piddle tar and it'll make you hunch.

That's the whole problem with these crackwipers:  If they would just sell the products (some of them are fine products) I would buy them and use them.

I asked Big Chief what Goji juice tastes like and he told me "grape juice".  When I asked what was in it, he said "grape juice concentrate, pear juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, and Goji juice".

Crockwobblers, all of them!

My pizza is here.

Term

[wmccall]

My wife use to work at a place called Suppersuppers . One of the owners was selling that crap. (I've tasted it) If she would have kept her attenion to her main business, she might still have it.  

[stuart]

The people that are sucessfull at MLM are few and far between.

I get more of them soliciting me than mortgage brokers now days so I think there is a new upswing in the thought process.

Funny most of the poeple that solicite me drive old cars, rent cheap and can't afford a spa.

[thearm]

The people that are sucessfull at MLM are few and far between.

I get more of them soliciting me than mortgage brokers now days so I think there is a new upswing in the thought process.

Funny most of the poeple that solicite me drive old cars, rent cheap and can't afford a spa.

Thats the problem with MLM and other get rich schemes. They usually prey on the poor people who can least afford it. Kind of like playing the Lottery IMO. Little known fact here, 80% of people winning more than a million dollars are bankrupt within 5 years.

[Brewman]

Those MLM programs seem to be more interested in signing up people to be dealers, and everyone under the sun gets a part of the sale.  But they really never discuss how impossible it will be to sell the product, which has to happen in order for anyone to make money.  
 And so many people get commissions that the products are ridiculously overpriced so nobody will buy them.  
 Our neighbors tried to sucker us into Amway.  Who the hell is stupid enough to pay $32 for a bottle of dishsoap- which by the way Consumer Report magazine test once and it rated rather poorly.  They got sucked into the whole concept big time and even thought they'd be able to retire on the stuff by age 35.  They even paid their way to those sales rallies, and all that crap.  
 Funny how hard it is to get those people to actually admit they're pimping Amway- they always refer to it as "Our Business" or "Our Product".  
 Last we saw those two, the were still working jobs that actually generated income.

[ndabunka]

My wife use to work at a place called Suppersuppers . One of the owners was selling that crap. (I've tasted it) If she would have kept her attenion to her main business, she might still have it.  

I too detest the MLM crap out there.  Lot's of housewifes around here sell either Arbon or Mary-Kay or Southern Living or Party-Light or.... But it's funny you should mention SuperSuppers.  My wife and I are on (what seems like an eternal) quest for a business she can run.  She's a great cook and pointed out the trend of these "make-your-own" dinner prep places.  SuperSuppers was one of them and although they weren't in business when we did our investigation, there were something   like 8 other variations of them already in this small 3 miles radius in North Charlotte.  There's "My Girlfriend's Kitchen",  Meal Makers, Home Appitite, Dream Dinner's and a few others I can't think of right now.  After realizing that there were simply too many of them already and that the prices charged would have to be severly discounted in order to compete, we decided that wasn't a good business to be in right now (even though those are some of the top franchises listed as "hot" new businesses).  If you area is anything like this one, it doesn't surprise me that it struggled to compete.   One thing that is similar to these businessed but is a little different are the "cooking lesson" classes that are only open at night.  You can have a regular 9-5 job and then open this small 800 square foot place that is equiped like a regular cooking kitchen (instead of just a food prep area like those others) and sign people up to come in for what is essentially a private "cooking show" (like you would see on TV with Emril or Giada or whatever).  The only difference is that you do some of the shows yourself and you hire local "budding" chefs to come in and do something once a week.  The partons sign up for a months worth of "classes" and pay up front.  In many cases, they come to see the "local chefs" and seems like a profitable business (for this area) as Charlotte is also now the home to the world famous Johnson-Wells cooking school.

One drawback to the Cooking school is that my wife is not professionaly trained and therefore is afraid she won't be able to do it.  In addition, her brother had a couple of subway resturants as well as a couple of burger places (ala cookout-types) and said that any business dealign with food is a PAIN and he advised her against it so, the search continues....

[D.P. Roberts]

My wife and I got invited to one of those "million-dollar super healthy steam cookin' cookware" dinners. I only went on the condition that we would be out of there in two hours (I had a work meeting I had to get to) - and hey, free dinner. I figured that would be plenty of time - an hour to cook/eat/socialize, and an hour for their sales presentation, right? Besides, they promised it would be over in two hours...

Well, two and a half hours into it, we hadn't had a BITE of food - the guy was STILL doing his presentation! He's going on and on about how great this cookware is, and how much TIME it will save you - meanwhile, his wife/salespartner has been behind him at the stove - chopping, mixing, and cooking for the entire TWO HOURS! Yeah, great timesaver! Anyway, I hate to interrupt his presentation, but I had to go. I try to sneak out politely, but he makes this giant deal out if it. "Oh, but the food is almost ready, we're just about to eat" (which he had been saying for over an hour). He all but BARRED THE DOOR.  I practically had to move him out of the way. He followed me outside, still saying that I was backing out on my promises, that the host was backing out on her promises...

As others have mentioned, presentation is everything. My wife summed it up well - she thought the cookware was a good idea, but she would never buy it from that guy.

[drewstar]

One of my wife's friends - friends has been trying to find a home based business for a while. She got laid off 4 years ago and has tried several of them over the years. At first my wife was  supportive and went to a couple of her home parties were she shilled overpriced candles, baskets, cosmetics, any and all sorts of clap trap.   She then wanted my wife to host parties, (no!) and every month this lady  she'd have another "party". invinting the same people, expecthing them to contiue to shell out good money for what ever it was the latest product of the month.  

It's gotten to the point were we no longer return her phone calls.  The last time she was trying to get us involved in some Donald Trump program.  ( IThink it's the electricity thing term talked about). She wouldn't let my wife off the phone.   Even after my wife repeatedly told her no. We had to hang up.  

It's sad when friends get caught up in home business selling and enrolling friends to shill thier crap.

As far as the cooking ones, I'm not a big home cook,but I've discoverd if you have all the ingredents already out and measured,  mixing them and cooking them are pretty easy. Any dinner is a peice of cake when presented that way. It's the prep, the serving , the clean up et all that makes it a pain.  


ATTENION: ALL Multi Leveling Marketers.

Are you in a home based marketing business? yes, I mean you. Stop it. Your friends really don't want to be involved. Really. Have you called your friends more than once to tell them about it? if so, they hate you and are talking behind your back.  It's true. They despise you.  Have you invited them to more than 1 hostess party in the past 12 months? Stop it. They don't want to buy your crap. Really.  I know you think the Multi-leveling markteing program you has conviced your that the possibilities are only limited by your desire, but please honestly leave your friends alone.   I know you think you're different, and are helping them, but please stop.

[Brewman]

I think most MLM'ers bomb out when they discover that their family, friends, and co-workers will only buy from them for a very short time.  After that, they have to find other ways to sell the stuff.  

[ndabunka]

We have close friends who use to live two doors down form us when we first got married and moved into our first house together (15 years ago).  They had also just gotten married (2nd marriage for both of them).  They had a little girl around the same time we have our first boy and those two basically grew up together.  The families are so close that recently, my 11 year old mentioned it had been a while since he saw his cousin "Sara".  We had to correct him by telling him that although we did spend a lot of time with them in the past that they were not related.  I think he was quite surprised but in the end figured it all out.  Anyway, the point is that Sara's mother is a very indutrious lady.  She ran a sucessfull business form her home selling cleaning products to larger business (Never once asked us to buy anything back then).  But over the years took on the mommy role and sold that business to someone else.  In the past 3 or 4 years, they have run into harder times so she started trying different things to help out.  My wife has been to about 3 or 4 "shows" generated by her (it gives them a chance to see each other so that's OK and she never really placed any pressure on my wife to buy anything (although she always did).  About 2 months ago, she got into the "vacuum Cleaner thing" where she get's credit just for setting up an appointment.  She was excited about the product and told my wife that if she got just one more visit set up that she would get a free vacuumn for herself.  Of course, she wanted us to take a visit but she did first ask what kind of vacuum we had now.  I had bought us a top of the line Dyson only about a year ago so the reality is that we don't need one.  When we told her, she even said "Ohh, those ARE nice. I guess you wouldn't benefit from a demo".  We thought the issue was closed but each time they talked she would mention it.  Needless to say, we didn't take a demo and in some ways it did disrupt a friendship that had been in place for over 15 years.  We didn't hear from her for about a month and then I guess she realized that she should not be taking it out on us.   She and my wife had lunch again a week ago and it was like nothing had ever happened.  Which is great now.