learning to get over or are we the fools?

[Road Guy]

[SIZE=medium]I have a few friends whom I keep in touch with over the years from High School, and via Facebook, and also seeing them in “the real world” from time to time and they tend to rotate carrier wise between Independent Insurance Adjuster or Real Estate Agent. Both Profession’s I rate somewhere between Criminal Lawyer and Prisoner. They also always tend to always be selling some “31 product” or peddling some other bullshit..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Are these solid ways of making a living and providing for your family or are we all the fools who have regular 40 hour week jobs? I can’t ever tell? While none of these folks seem outrageously rich they do seem very comfortable?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]If you are in these professions during the lean times do you just max out your credit card, and then when you have a few good years you screw every one you can to cover the previous years?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I just don’t get it? & I don’t really want that lifestyle but sometimes I want to ask people what the hell do you actually do for a living?[/SIZE]

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

My wife has a few friends who do the "sell crap from home" bit and they do a decent living. Good enough that she is considering doing it part time too. I don't know how it compares to either of our jobs, but some extra $ is always good...

 

[knight1fox3]

I know some that sell candle stuff (PartyLite I think?) and also some that are crazy for Market America stuff. No idea how well they do though. Can't imagine it's all that good because I sometimes hear of their monetary troubles.

 

[Flyer_PE]

I think it's just like anything else. Significant effort is required if you're going to make decent money at it. Easy money is just about as rare as the free lunch.

By the way, when I see somebody driving a brand new high-end car every two or three years, I don't see money, I see debt.

 

[Sapper PE LS]

I've only known one person who did "well" at selling that kind of stuff, she was a widowed grandmother at the church I grew up attending. She sold Avon, and apparently lived off of the income combine with her social security. Now I say she did well, because she had a paid for house, drove a 20 year old car, and her kids were all grown and on their own. She had enough money to buy all the kids at the church a Christmas present every year and would invite people over to her house to eat dinner every sunday and she never seemed to be short of food, so in the area where I grew up, that was living large.

 

[MA_PE]

My personal feeling is that you really need to feel comfortable making money off of friends, especially when starting one of these type ventures. I have difficulty doing that. I tend to want to give my friends the same "deal" that's available to me and not tap them for a profit. That's why I'm a terrible salesman.

Many people are comfortable with the stupid mark-ups they put on that crap. the manufacturer will list or mark the stuff with a "retail price" that's 500% of the actual cost. everyone knows that the "dealer" is getting to for really short money and making a huge profit at "retail", so charging your friends that much for the crap....heck why don't they just ask you to write them a check and skip the "transaction" altogether.

 

[snickerd3]

I tried selling the pampered chef stuff for awhile. Found out I am a horrible sales person because I have a hard time selling you something I know you don't need or want because I know I hate people trying to sell me stuff I don't want or need. If you keep steady shows and can get people to join i.e. your underlings you get a portion of their sales too because you brought them in you can make a good deal of money.

 

[goodal]

I would starve if I had to sell something to live. My wife has done some of those schemes but we've never made any money at it. I've tried just to break even.

 

[envirotex]

I got spammed by the neighborhood 31 salesperson this year. She sent out "Black Friday" shopping deals...Email me your order between 1AM and 1:23 AM and I will give XX discount on the XX tote with free monogramming. It made me so crazy, that, now there is no way I would ever buy anything from her.

I guess I appreciate that she is trying to make a business where she can set her hours, but at some point you've got to start noticing that your friends and neighbors are all avoiding you because they don't want to host yet another party to launch the new spring line.

 

[mudpuppy]

My dad can sell anything, he's a real wheeler-dealer. He sold cars for 20 years and insurance before that. And he won't touch these schemes, so.....

 

[csb]

My next door neighbor has a paper route and works at Lowe's. I often wonder, "Is it nice not worrying about work?" Then I remember he's a 40-something with a paper route.

And I tried selling Thirty-One and I felt horrible selling people overpriced items. It's a dark period in my life.

 

[Road Guy]

I think most people that buy a 31 products from one of their friends who's always peddling them only do so because they feel sorry for you for having to sell 31 products

 

[Road Guy]

I actually got an email from an old high school buddy who has put all of our high school football games on DVD and is selling them for $39 per game. I sent him an email reply back and told him I could buy old NFL Super Bowl games on DVD for $19.99?

 

[goodal]

My wife is hooked on 31 crap. We have purses, bags, lunch boxes, calendars, etc. You would think a family only needs so many totes, but we never seem to have enough.

 

[snickerd3]

31 crap is more overpricved and overrated than pampered chef and tupperware combined.

 

[goodal]

^ amen. Can I give you Mrs. Goodals phone number?

 

[Road Guy]

my wife has bought it to, mainly cause she feels sorry for someone and gets guilted into it..

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Mrs Dex's friends who do these types of sales try to set it up so they're not selling to their friends. Basically, they use their existing friends to host the party (existing friend gets huge discounts for hosting), and sell to their friends' friends.

A couple weeks ago, Mrs Dex actually hosted a 31 "party" (mostly because she wanted some more crap and didn't want to pay for it). She only knew the saleswoman as a friend of a friend, so there was a separation of friends & clients.

 

[Sapper PE LS]

For a while there, shortly after I graduated college, I would from time to time run into a couple different guys that I went to college with in places like Home Depot or Barnes and Noble and they'd come up and say, "Hey, didn't we go to school together?". When I recognized them and said yeah, they would launch into their pyramid scheme pitch they were all in on at the time. After this happened two or three times, I got to the point of looking up the so called "business" they were in and realized it was basically a scam. About a year later, I saw on the news that Home Depot and Barnes and Noble were cracking down on illegal business solicitation and I never ran into those guys again.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

^^Back in the nineties, such folks hung out at Walmart.

I'm convinced an ex-friend of mine with somewhat unscrupulous morals became a preacher solely so he could sell Amway to his flock.