This is my little piece of the world. I'm a relentless tech junkie and prepress guy ...these are my ramblings and useless swill.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

An Invite to "The Business"

 
So about a week ago I heard from a long lost friend that I hadn't seen or heard from in months. We had a quick short exchange after a church meeting before going our separate ways. Its always fun to catch up. Our families had hung out from time to time. No more then a week later do I get this great looking thank you card from him thanking me for the reunion. It was curious in quality and had his picture on the inside. Interesting, toss, rock on. Well that wasn't the end of it. I get a call fro him a few days ago telling me he has this great business opportunity he wants me to listen to. "Oh no" ...I'm thinking on the fly. "How do I get rid of this situation." I love this person, but I hate being propositioned like this...

This takes me back to a day where I had the grand daddy of all conversations and what I consider an "inside the park home run." Here goes.

9 years ago I get a strange phone call on my cell phone. The sweet female voice on the other line introduces herself and says she would like to meet with me for a few minutes. She said that she had heard about me and my abilities. "What abilities I thought," but lets let that go for now. She said things to me like "You seem like a real go-getter" and " I like your style"... and financial freedom and independence..."okay" I thought. She then went on to talk about how she had this "business opportunity" to share with me. Immediately red lights, flares, buzzers and civil defense sirens start going off in my mind. "Is this lady really cold calling me to set me up with some sort of multi-level marketing scam?" "No way!!" Well I called her on it and asked what "the business" was. I love it how when speaking in code, "the business" automatically referrs to Amway or some other multi-level marketing engine. Guaranteed, every time. I'm sure I know why they don't just blurt out the name of the company, but then if they did...nearly no one would be working for them. She never actually said Amway, but I assumed it. So she goes one at great length I may add explaining all the capabilities I have that she is looking for. I let her go on for about 10 minutes then I stop her and say

So I had to be somewhere and I know exactly what would end the conversing in a hurry. I asked her if "the business" opportunity she wanted me to hear was Amway? She said yes it was and asked me if I had heard about Amway. This is where I snapped into action. I told her the biggest of lies..but trust me, it was worth it. I went on to tell her that I had been involved with Amway since my early college days where some roommates and I started out as a distributor for some extra cash. I told her how I worked my way up, quit college and focused on building "the business' full time. I used terms like Diamond, and Double Diamond and Crown levels. I told her of cars unnumbered, trips with the family and boats. I told her that a few months ago I sold "the business" for 25 million and I'm now retired.

Silence

More silence

Then she spoke "I'm not sure what to say," she said. "It's an honor to speak with someone as successful as you." She went on to say that she had never talked to someone who had reached my level before. Clearly the tone of the conversation did an instant 180 and I was giving her something she wanted instead of visa versa. I gave her encouragement and told her to reach for the stars.

Funny how things change with a few industry code words.

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