I feel like I am ranting a lot lately. Stop giving me a reason to, people!
Let me tell you a little secret… I’m overweight. There I said it. Do you think I don’t know? Do you think I look in the mirror and can’t see it?
You can see it in my face – you can see it and I can see it too. It’s obvious.
You know who you are… you send me a Facebook message or an email and start out with small talk and then BAM you start selling to me. You have this great new wellness product that if I tried it the fat cells in my body would rejoice and run the other way leaving me a thin twig. Do you think your messages are helpful? Well, they’re not.
Why not you wonder? You are just trying to be helpful. You think you are doing me a favor by telling me about Isagenix, BeachBody, Advocare, or whatever is the hot thing this month. If I want more information, I will ask you. Lord knows you peddle it all over your feed everyday.
Do you know why I am overweight? I do. I have a severe food allergy and have reactions to food all damn week. Why? Because food manufacturers don’t label their shit properly. I’m allergic to soy and it is in 99% of all food. I can’t buy fish at the store because it has soy lecithin on it to preserve it. If I want fish, it has to come straight out of the water. Thankfully, I live in Alaska so I can ask my friends for fish or I can go out and go fishing.
Halibut fishing out of Seward, Alaska. 14 Halibut here and 13lbs made it into my freezer.
Commercial meat like chicken, pork, and other meats have been fed soy in their diets. I react to that too. Lovely, right? So now I eat mostly game meat and organic meat. Unfortunately, there is not a label that says what that animal was fed, so it is always a crap shoot if I will react to it.
I read a lot of labels. A lot. So imagine my surprise when I eat, let’s say hummus, and I react to it not 20 minutes later. I look at the label again and it doesn’t say it has soy in it. It is not uncommon to cut olive oil with vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is soybean oil. So… yeah.
You know the other reason I am overweight? I need to move more. I guarantee you if I got up off my ass more that it wouldn’t get so big. I try to run 2-3 times a week and hike twice a week. Sometimes that is hard as my Achilles will act up and sideline me. I know that if I could increase my cardio that my weight would come down.
Seriously, I need to move my ass more. I really do need to buy this shirt!
So you see… I know why I am overweight. I own it. I don’t make excuses for it, I’m not playing the victim. Every day, every meal is a choice. Sometimes I make the right ones, other times I don’t know I am making the wrong ones, and still other times I know what I am doing.
So stop selling me your weightloss supplements or shakes or magic weightloss voodoo. I’m not your target market.
Oh, and I am in contract with NutraSumma as their Brand Ambassador. So I can’t publicly use your stuff anyways. And that’s what you really want – you want a picture of me using your product and posting it to my social feed for free. I’m sorry, I don’t work for free.
And before you ask I use NutraSumma because it has a soy-free pea protein powder that I love (both the Apple Pie and Vanilla) and my body doesn’t reject it. Protein is hard for me to get in daily so I have a shake and I add in organic fresh spinach, kale, parsley, lemon, and fruit.
So please, for the love of our friendship, don’t reach out to me and say you can help me with my weight loss. Now if you are a doctor, a certified nutritionist who specializes in soy allergies, or someone I have personally asked for guidance… don’t do it. It makes me think our friendship is a sham and you just want me to buy your shit so you can win a free trip somewhere.
Sorry I keep ranting lately, but dammit people, stop giving me a reason to. Here is last week’s rant if you are interested. If we are Facebook friends, you have probably seen quite a few others. I’m a little fed up lately. I don’t typically write about this stuff either. But I realize that if I don’t get it out, than I am going to scream. Or avoid you when I see in person and I don’t want to do that.
Can we be friends and you not try to sell me stuff? Please?
Kristi, The sad part is that they don’t know any better. They are doing what they have been taught by their uplines. They believe in their products and can’t imagine why everyone is not interested in them, too.
Network Marketing/Direct Sales can be a great opportunity for the right people, but it is NOT for everyone. And the industry has the reputation it does because of people like you’ve talked about in your post.
Opportunity pushers: listen up!
Sharing an opportunity and products on Facebook makes sense in moderation if it is part of your life. But don’t become so brainwashed by your company and products that every other post is about it. People in other careers don’t post about their jobs every day. Even if they have jobs they love working with people they love, getting to go to cool places and “work” from the beach!
No one likes to be pitched to. If you experience great results from your product, such as personal weight loss, share that. But remember, please, if someone likes the picture – they’re simply happy for you. That is not an invitation to pitch to them! If someone wants to know more about what you’re doing that’s working, they will ASK YOU about it. Use social media to create intrigue. It’s way more attractive than slutting your business to everyone you meet.