Marketing. Everyone has to do it, to some extent, for some purpose or the other, be it personal or professional. However, that doesn’t mean you get onto someones nerves in some way or the other. And when you do so, you have achieved the exact opposite of what you intended to achieve in the first place.
Tring Tring (Nokia ringtone actually)
“Hello”
“Hello. Hey D. How are you? Do you remember me? We met at the bus stop last Friday.”
“Yes I do. How are you?”
“I am good. D, I wanted to discuss something with you. Is it good time to talk?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“D, we are a few friends from IITs and IIMs who have started this business….”
The modus operandi these guys follow is: You will be recruited at a bus stop, or mall, or a similar place. Once the small (actually micro) talk is over, their target is to somehow ask you for your number. Two (it is not one and it is not three) days later you will get a call which will be followed up with the conversation above.
No, I wouldn’t have written if it had happened once, twice, thrice, and so on. It just keeps happening. I don’t have a problem with whatever Ponzi Scheme they may be running. But my problem is these guys trick you in beleiving that they are genuinely asking for directions, land marks just to start a conversation. As a result, now I don’t talk to strangers even if there may be someone out there looking for a genuine assistance in locating a place or a bus number. Moreover, you will get calls from random people and when you sternly ask how they got your number, they reveal that there is a database of numbers acquired by recruitment method mentioned above which is then shared by the members! Now, I have contacts on my phone named as Random Rahul, Random Joe etc. What is sick is that these guys use their IIT/IIM tag to get people into their network.
The Business here is to get as many people under you and your commission/income depends on how the chain below you expands.
Dude this is very common in Bay area too… Here they dont even have have leaverage of being IITian/IIM guys. Being Indian is good enough. You will be in mall and they will ask you oh ur shirt looks nice where did you buy OR can you tell me where is this shop etc. And then they start the converstation to get your number and they will followup. Here we save their number (in case we save) as A**H**e 1, 2, 3, ….
Vijay: I don’t know if these guys fall for a trap or are themselves so cheap to pick up this kind of tactics. Really a sad thing to be called as an Indian if we keep doing this kind of stuff. I am surprised that they do this in other countries as well.
Dude, for the people who are in there. It works well for them it seems. They work hard and they earn it. I was trapped in one of their annual meeting and ppl did get like 25k etc on their milestones. I am not sure how long did it take to get this money. I am not sure if they could spend the amount of time in this on something else will they be able to make this much money? it is sort of no-mind, and looks like morally demeaning, but get you some extra money.
ARK
(Ack of Random Kindness)
Agree to what you say. It all depends on how one thinks about money and to what extent (physically and mentally) one wishes to go for the same.
All for the lure of big .. nahhh… bigger bucks
Gentlemen behavior gone for a toss
PD, now it is all about how far do you want to stretch for that extra amount of money, which itself will keep on stretching until death. In the journey, everything goes for a toss and people forget to ‘live’.
It’s a business proposition. Some make a ton, others put in a ton of effort hoping to mimic their success. Gets on one’s nerves but does that deter them from trying
Anyway, be more zealous in guarding your personal information and avoid contributing to such databases.
Thanks Ramakant for your advice on guarding personal information. Now I realize the importance of it