The plagued marketer

A few years ago I attended a business networking event. It was being hosted by a neighbour, so I felt obliged to go along and support her. Over the years I’ve heard people rave about these events and see people make a real effort to connect with other small business owners. I can see the value in that if orchestrated well. This event I attended was for ‘female entrepreneurs’. The term, entrepreneur is bandied around far too much in my opinion and should be reserved for people of the same ilk as Sara Blakely (Spanx), Beyonce, Arianna Huffington and JK Rowling.

I won’t lie, my first thought upon arrival was how quickly I could escape. I haven’t dated in almost 25 years and this felt like walking into a blind date. I instinctively knew it didn’t feel like ‘me’, however my goody two shoe morals kicked in and knew I had to suck it up. What followed was a series of polite and painful introductions and stiff conversations. My one ‘complimentary’ champagne had been downed in the first three minutes, leaving me holding an empty glass and an empty personality. A lady then approached me and introduced herself as a dentist. I’d never thought about dentists needing to network.  My curious nature looked forward to understanding if she approached me because of my pearly whites or because she wants to grow her teeth extraction database.

Before I had the chance to ask her insightful questions about running a dental practice, she revealed her well-rehearsed Arbonne sales pitch. It became one of those moments where you become acutely aware of your own facial expression while you attempt to gently modify or transition your face from a WTF face to pretending to look genuinely interested, all the while thinking how to steer the conversation in a completely different direction and feeling sad her dental cred had just taken a dive. Not a dive. Instant death.

Arbonne is what is known as multi level marketing. The focus is on recruiting (endlessly) and networking to sell their $17 toothpaste and other overpriced products. I started to wonder if she cared more about my oral health or her white Mercedes she was working towards if she met her monthly sales quota over the next decade.

After the evening’s competition was drawn for the pair of snakeskin shoes, I couldn’t escape the networking event quick enough. I couldn’t remember the name of the dentist in sheep’s clothing, but she remembered mine as later that evening I was friend requested on Facebook. Not business to business page liking, but a personal Facebook friend request. Ignoring the friend request was unashamedly so easy to do, considering my renowned inability to say ‘no’ to people. It turns out meeting multi level marketers in day to day life is far more frequent than a trip to the dentist.

Six weeks after my first and last network marketing event, I met up with an old colleague I hadn’t seen for years. The catch up was instigated by a lovely birthday message she sent me and I thought it was a great opportunity to re-connect and chat about the trials and triumphs of running a small business and managing motherhood. After a lovely hour of coffee and chatting,  out came a laptop with the 5-minute prepared Arbonne presentation.  In that moment, I felt used. I’m not her 7-step face cleansing routine target audience. I wash my face with Dove soap in the shower. Parabens and all.

I understand many women are trying to find work they can fit in between their children’s school hours, after school activities, the grocery shopping, house cleaning, present buying for the ridiculous number of children’s birthday parties and so on. I don’t mean for one second to undermine women who want something they can feel proud of and earn money, but in my opinion, this networking career comes at a cost. You become the woman everyone starts to avoid for fear of being persuaded into buying $17 toothpaste. Preying on your network of family and friends in such a manner is a sure-fire way of becoming the ‘pearly white plague’, and in my mind, is far worse than parabens.

Put simply, I will never spend $17 on toothpaste. The $3 Macleans Extreme Whitening on sale suits me fine. Be my friend, not the plague.