Does Not Revealing the Cost of Your Opportunity Up Front Make You 'Unethical?'

The above question sprung from a recent interaction I had with a lead who entered my sales funnel. Allow me to paint a brief picture:

Prospect opted-in. Called me 10 minutes later on a Sunday morning and left a voicemail that said he “had 12 minutes to decide whether he was going to purchase an application for my opportunity.” Surprised that anyone would consider making a decision to start a business in less than half an hour, I decided to call him back and see if the inkling I had in my head that he was looking to “get rich quick” was indeed truth.

The conversation was as brief as I expected. This gentleman cared nothing about the features or benefits of my opportunity, or how it could become the remedy to the burns he was suffering from. His only concern was monthly cost and how soon he would recoup his expense.

As I ended the call, I knew what to expect. Nothing.

A few hours later, I was greeted by an email telling me this gentleman had unsubscribed from my mailing list and I was ‘unethical’ for not revealing the monthly cost up front before an Application Kit was purchased.

I laughed at this comment, but I feel I need to do this criticism some justice as I know many network marketers share a similar pain when it comes to recruiting.

First of all, this man’s behavior screams “lottery mentality.” The fact that he was basing his decision to join my opportunity solely on monthly cost, and the fact that that cost was going to make up his mind in less than half an hour, tells me value never even crossed his mind. All he wanted was a short-term bandage that he could try out, see if it stopped the bleeding and made him some $$$, then jump to something else when his minimal efforts brought him minimal results.

Second, I’ll never understand how anyone can ask how long it will take to recoup monthly expenses. The answer to that question lays in the efforts put forth by the individual. When I answered his question by saying just that, he became angry!

No one can dignify that question with a real, factual response because THERE IS NO REAL, FACTUAL RESPONSE! The answer could be minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, even years. It all comes down to what you put into it.

Starting a business is a risk, and if there was ever any certainty, it wouldn’t be a risk.

Lastly, calling the ethics of myself and my company into question seems very extreme for someone who invested no time into researching the opportunity. The fact that price is not shared up front is not a question of ethics. It’s a matter of promoting the value behind the opportunity and presenting it so people see how they can benefit from it. And when you find a business opportunity you feel can truly help you accomplish your goals if you devote time to making it work, cost becomes secondary. You find a way to make it part of your life.

This situation is a prime example of a serious problem that’s plagued network marketing since Day One. People with a lottery mentality want all the glory with none of the sacrifice. They kick tires, they dip a toe, and they expect the world to fall to its knees and hand them everything.

There’s not a chance of this ever working and it certainly hasn’t worked for any successful networker. And anyone reading this who’s viewing this industry with that mentality, consider this your wake-up call.

Yes, my opportunity has an Application process in place, and it’s for this very reason. We want to eliminate the tire-kickers, the ones looking to “dip a toe” and “test the waters,” the ones who want all the fortune with none of the effort, and the ones who are NOT serious about earning a full-time income from home. Running a business is serious, and it takes serious people to make it happen.

Certainly, my opportunity isn’t for everyone. That’s completely expected. But making the decision that it’s not right in less than 30 minutes and question someone’s ethics? That takes balls!

This was a unique situation in that I had never encountered a person willing to make his decision on whether to join me in such a brief amount of time. But it further illustrates the point that people in search of a “get-rich-quick” scheme will become roadkill on the side of the Network Marketing highway simply because they can only play in traffic for so long until they get nailed.

If you ever get your ethics called into question, consider your position and what you’ve done to provide your prospect with the information they need to make a well-informed decision. If you’ve done your part, the problem may not lay in you.

Someone taking less than 30 minutes to decide whether to pull the trigger may or may not be an isolated incident. But promise me one thing: don’t spend more than a 15-minute blog rant on that person if they decide to go a different direction.

Best,

Jason Cercone
www.jasoncercone.com