Massage Collage

I had a painful learning experience this week. I got a call from a woman who said an acquaintance of mine had suggested she get in touch.  She explained that she does cardio screenings that detect blockages, check artery wall elasticity and so forth, and that she offers them at the low price of 30.00.  She told me about the device she uses and said it was FDA approved.  It sounded like a good service my clients would benefit from, so I agreed to have her come to my office on a certain day to do it.  That was my big mistake; agreeing to do it before I thoroughly researched the device.  At my age I should know better!

She followed up with an email with a link to information about the device.  I went to the website, and it appears that the sole purpose of the screening is to sign people up into a MLM company, and get them on autoship for an expensive product that will supposedly reverse heart disease.  People who don’t have any problems detected are encouraged to buy the product anyway as a preventative measure. 

I should state that I have been involved with a particular MLM company for almost a decade.  This is not a slam on MLMs.  I personally choose not to recruit people; I don’t hold any meetings or go to any meetings; I just want the product they sell for myself and being signed up as a distributor allows me to buy it at a cheaper price.  My beef is not that the company she represents is a MLM company; my beef is that I agreed to host something because I thought it was about providing a service, with no knowledge that it was really about selling something.  She had not mentioned any relationship to any product at all during our phone conversation.

I emailed her and told her I was still willing to host her at my facility, only on the condition that I would advertise it honestly to my mailing list as an opportunity to hear about a MLM product, and stating that the cardio screenings would be available.  I wanted people to know up front that they would be listening to a sales pitch.  I also asked her some questions about contraindications for the product, and what kind of intake process she conducted–because by that time I had done some research and found that there are certain people who shouldn’t take it at all–and she wouldn’t answer any of my questions, but diverted every one of them.

I had all kinds of red flags going off in my head about the whole thing at that point, so I told her I was very sorry that I had agreed to it without doing the research to see what it was about, but I was going to have to bow out of it. I tried to be as polite as possible about it.

A few hours later, I received an email from her attacking my character, telling me I was obviously the type of person that she wouldn’t want to be associated with and that it was apparent I am only in this business for the money.  I was so shocked I could have fallen over. 

What my clients think of me is important to me.  I want my customers to think of me as someone who is concerned with their well-being and someone who conducts my business honestly.  I can’t recall ever being attacked this way, and it hurt my feelings to have those things said to me–even though it was by someone who doesn’t know me or know anything about me, and I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but that’s easier said than done at times.

Retailing anything already puts us in the position of assuming dual roles, and we must be careful about it. It just did not resonate with me to suck people in on the guise of having a health screening when it was actually about selling them something.  My big mistake was not doing my research first. 

If you’re hosting a health screening of any kind, that is a nice way of providing a service to clients, and in the past I’ve hosted blood pressure screenings,cholesterol checks,  and so forth with no problems.  But if you’re offering some type of screening that is related to selling people a product, I think you should represent that upfront and honestly when you advertise it.  It’s just the right thing to do.

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen

Posted on February 2nd, 2008 by Laura Allen
Filed under: General