Selling Hate

I went to a presentation about Index Universal Life (IUL), and the salesperson pitched on how the IUL was created so not only rich people can get the benefit of Whole Life Insurance. He continued on implying very, very subtly how this is a game changer and bring equality for us, middle-class people.

B*tch, I want to hear about the returns, the fees, and the benefits that I can get from your life insurance plan. Whatever the rich people may or may not do will not be a deal breaker for me to get your product. You are not selling insurance plan, you are selling hate.

Sadly, his pitch might work with other people. Vilifying a certain party/group creates this separation of "Us vs Them", with the salesperson squarely put himself as "I'm on your team!". This newfound sense of togetherness made decision making a lot swifter as it is fueled by emotion and not logic. 

We've seen this happened, from political candidates to people selling hand soap. "Unlike our competitor who is [insert bad adjective here], we strive to be [insert good adjective here]". The underlying theme is the same "We are the good guys. We are the one who wants to help you. You want to trust us on this."

Working as a salesperson for 5 years I learn that this narrative is not only unfair, it is also harmful. It is unfair because you will get the quick gain of whatever it is you are selling, but the customer who buys it on impulse might not be happy with what they get. Heck, it might not even be what they're looking for.

It is harmful because you create (and input) opinion that will have an effect on the people you are speaking to. Opinions that might not be true or not based on facts can potentially damage the party/group that you vilified, all for the sake of profit. How cool is that?

"But they are just being passionate about their cause. We shouldn't be too hard on them." Well, no. Really. What they should be passionate about is their product, whatever they try to sell. If your selling point is not the product/service but only a jargon of "We're morally better than them", then your product/service has issue. 

The sad reality is, we can't stop these people who sell hate. We can't stop people from trying the easy way of division and grouping to incite the knee-jerk emotional reaction in order to gain profit from. But we can be smart about it. We can be careful and look at things with cool head and logic.

Back to the presentation: it doesn't work for me because I don't have a grudge towards wealthy people. Even if the salesperson managed to incite that grudge, it doesn't change the fact that the fee percentage is a lot higher, the benefit is limited, and the whole thing looks shady AF. 

The question that we should always ask is: will this work for us? Is it something that we want, something that we need? Get all the facts, look at all the data, ensure that everything is reliably sourced, i.e. not just "Well according to my friend who is a friend of the neighbor of…."

The divisions in America are more prominent than ever. It is time for us to do something. We can do that by forcing ourselves to make fact-based decisions and not fall into grouping narrative. Do what you think is right, but do it responsibly. Buy that IUL because you think it's good, not because "F*ck the establishment! F*ck rich people!". Then again, a nice, handsome sugar daddy won't hurt.