Reaching out to the Unknown

Aruna and I went to the Walmart day before yesterday for some shopping (obviously, why would we go to Walmart otherwise. Not to meet someone.No!) We were almost at the end of our shopping. She had picked up the items she wanted. Suddenly in the aisle we come across a nice Indian couple. Looking at our cart he commented about the cutting board Aruna had picked up, saying how beautiful it was. I could sense that he was trying to strike a conversation with us. An earlier similar experience at Kmart made me sceptical and suspicious about this couple. But still I tried to control my thoughts and wanted to give them the benefit of doubt. (In legal parlance you are not guilty till proven otherwise.) He asked me where from I was. I told him that I was from Hyderabad. Immediately he said he knows Telugu and tried to talk to me in my supposed Mother tongue. He assumed that I was a Telugu guy and would endear him to me by talking to me in my native language. After exchanging the pleasantries and finding out about each others' professions. (All this while we were blocking the aisle from other shoppers, which was inconvenient to them and we had to apologize for the same to give way) All this in a span of 5 minutes! Then she started talking about her business where she does not have to work and enjoy her free time. I knew where this was going. I was thinking " Now he is going to invite us for a meeting with them". He said he has some business opportunity where we can enjoy our life and make money on the side in our spare time. He went on to say we can meet sometime to discuss further about this business. I said " We are not interested in this business" and " We do not have the spare time to do some other business as was have a 13 year old son". Then they said they have many people in their group doing this business with more than one child with most of them going to private Schools, which have more homework than kids attending public schools. We had to politely say no again to convince them that we were not interested in their proposal. Then we parted ways. I do not know how many people would have gone through this experience.

I guess many would have had a similar experience. From what I know this is an MLM(Multi Level Marketing) business. They have to constantly bring in new people into their business, so that they can go up the ladder. I do not know how others feel but I beleive that this is not the way to approach someone with a business proposal. I do understand that it becomes difficult for them to find new people after a while. After exhausting all the friends, acquaintances and relatives into this business, they have no where to go but to look for new and aggressive marketing approaches like this. My grouse about this business is about this concept of turning your friends and relatives and their friends and relatives into business opportunities. You can do business with your friends but you do not make friendships with the sole intention of turning it into one more opportunity for your benefit. They say that this is all done in your spare time. But your whole life becomes your spare time because of this business. Every Function and every casual meet becomes a chance to do something towards your goal of making it to the top of the ladder.

But the truth of the matter is that this attitude puts off people easily. At least it puts me off. We always have to be wary of strangers, lest they bring in their business proposal at the drop of a hat. I believe it is downright rude to talk to strangers about a business proposal. We make our friendships based on the acquaintances. We do not get into businesses with someone we don't even know where they live. I guess for them it does not matter as long as it reaches them their targets. I believe that these people are brainwashed that these marketing techniques work like magic. May be it does with many! I was told that failure is the stepping stone for success. But the problem is that I do not like to be their stepping stone for their success!!!!!!