Rally

Question:

What do political rally, multi-level marketing, religion, and sales have in common?

Answer:

They all use the same strategy for control.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine announced that he was going to go to a political convention.  My response to this concept was that I had no interest in going to ANY political rally because they mirror mind control techniques that are used in other areas that I have distanced myself from due to how it made me feel bad about my interactions with them.

I have been involved in sales for most of my life.  I have always had the ability to move persons through the process of making a purchase.  In one week I was able to sell 14 boxes of candy bars.  Often times I would sell more than a box before homeroom.  “Hello, random freshman (or freshwoman to be politically correct, actually, freshperson) do you have lunch money?  You do?  Great!  I have a much better idea than for you to spend $3 on school lunch.  $1 per candy bar, three delicious candy bars or 1 gross school lunch, the choice is easy.”  Trusting eyes, a great smile with dimples, a unique but not unattractive face are all ways that I use to help in sales.  As I got older I was involved in more difficult sales.  Selling cars, knives, TVs, insurance and so on, I did well in these positions and I learned a lot about sales.  In sales, you ask “narrowing questions”.  These questions give you the idea of what the customer needs.  This concept is obvious, after all, if you are selling something and you want to keep the customer happy, but it doesn’t stop at giving the customer what they want.  The narrowing questions get the salesperson to what the customer needs, but also, in turn, gives the salesperson ammunition to add on to what you need by understanding what you want.  Although I did well, I was not pleased with the manipulation I went through to gain those sales.  Another reason for asking questions is to build rapport with the customer.  Creating trust, becoming similar to the customer, making friends with them; a friend wouldn’t sell you something you don’t really need, they want what is best for you.

I have been involved in sales through multi-level marketing.  Multi-level marketing, on my, multi-level marketing; I’ve come to terms with multi-level marketing being just short of scams.  Truth is, people can be very successful with multi-level marketing, but they have to be dedicated, and surrender themselves for the multi-level marketing endeavor.  That can be seen as a metaphor for being successful in most businesses or occupations.  However, unfortunately, with multi-level marketing, the scam doesn’t just stop at the metaphor.  The reason I refer to it as a scam is that most people are not able to be successful.  The “others” funnel their failure as financial gain to the person who is the next level up.  That person who is the next level up is not always successful, but their progress is paid to the person who is another level up from them; and by the way, the third level gets paid from the first level as well.  What grabs the first level into the work, the spending time and money toward their work?  The same thing that is taught to the first level people about how to sell their inventory is the same thing that a salesperson uses to get more out of a customer.  With multi-level marketing there were conventions.  At least that is what they called them.  Mostly, the first level people are solicited to participate in these events.  These events are like a huge party where people who have gotten to the top levels of the company give speeches that everyone in the room agrees about; the build rapport and credibility.  Then these speeches build upon the need for the first level people to do more work.  Building off unity, the need for higher levels of the multi-level marketing and fulfilled for the lower levels busting ass, but not making it to the next level, but that’s okay because there are always more people who would fall into the needs of the multi-level marketing not scam.  I do not like the feel of being manipulated in multi-level marketing just like I do not like the feeling of manipulating customers as a salesperson.

Religion, this will turn some people off.  Religion uses the same strategy as does multi-level marketing or salespeople.  Religions congregate people who have the same views, build rapport and trust upon their similar views.  Religion too manipulates its followers.  I would be happy to go into more detail about my feeling about religion in another post.  In regards to this post, I am not a fan of manipulation; religion follows the same trend I see used by salespeople and multi-level marketing.

Innocently, I told my friend that I was not a fan of political rallies.  I told him they remind me of multi-level marketing.  Similarly, they manipulate people by collecting people who have similar thoughts, goals, and missions.  They use that sameness to filter in a nugget of manipulation like a salesperson would to a customer or religion organizes its followers.  To be clear, I have no objection to people taking part in multi-level marketing, religion or political rallies, of any party, but as I have seen behind the curtain of the manipulation involved in these groups I am simply not interested in being involved in them.