Why is MLM a Dirty Three Letter Word?
Why is MLM a Dirty Three Letter Word?
How can I use the current state of the economy to help my MLM business?
Now this post is a little off point but as my friend Melanie Milletics so brilliantly put it, sometimes you just have to lay it all out there and tell your own story. Admit you have had some rough times and tell folks how you found your way back.
The current economic crisis is putting record numbers of folks out of work and devastating family savings. After having laid off thousands of employees, Chrysler and G.M. are now closing hundreds of dealerships across the country. People have mortgage debt that is twice what their homes are worth. Bankruptcy cases and home foreclosures are breaking the banks and Government intervention is only putting us, our children and our grandchildren further and further into debt.
Tough times bring tremendous opportunities.
Tough times indeed…but listen up…tough times bring with them tremendous opportunities. As Earl Nightingale said, “You are standing in the middle of your own field of diamonds”.
I will explain later how these devastating times can turn into diamonds in your own field. But first… my story…or as I like to call it… my rant.
In the year 2000 (after a long career) I was downsized and drummed out of a Corporation simply because I made too much money! The following year I watched in amazement as my 401K was sucked into the largest freakin’ black hole in the Universe!
Well shucks, one of the principles of The Freedom Formula is to have the right attitude. My attitude tells me to believe that all bad things happen for good reasons. With this in mind, I set out to find the silver lining.
I started another business that was able to generate about one half of my previous income. HOWEVER…with two little ones to put through college in ten years (and me only 60 years old) there just wasn’t enough money coming in to secure the kind of future I wanted for my family.
So, to try and supplement my income, like many of you, I tried a few of the “get rich now…global economy…gift this…matrix that…MLM…monkey cluster…orangutan gangbang…wonderful money making opportunities”! Guess what. More black holes sucking away my hard earned dollars faster than Mr. Oreck’s famous vacuum cleaner.
What did I do then? I gave up. I just flat quit chasing what I had determined was “pie in the sky”.
Then one day I was approached by a long-time, well respected friend who asked me to partner with him in a new business. Now I knew enough to listen to Mike because over the years I had watched him find many gold nuggets among several different fields of opportunity. He always seemed to have the knack of coming up a winner in most areas he tried. I later found out that the reason was mostly because of his amazingly thorough research before he took on a new project.
Network Marketing in the 21st Century
So guess what…yes it was…another MLM program. But this time I started with a new understanding about what Network Marketing in the 21st Century should be all about.
I accessed the website, watched the movie and understood immediately…WHY THIS WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT!
First of all you must understand this…MLM should not be a dirty three letter word. No… MLM is not a pyramid. In fact it is probably the best business model there is for the average person. Where else can you get a turnkey business that has millions of dollars of inventory available for an upfront investment of usually under $500? If you want to see a pyramid just take a look at Corporate America where those at the top do earn most of the money while those at the bottom do most of the work.
According to Donald Trump and Robert Kyosaki (author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and of course you know who the Donald is), Network Marketing is the business model of the future and the best business model for the average person to catch the brass ring.
Now personally, one of the problems I always had with MLM was this. You had to convince people that they needed some kind of pill, potion or lotion that they had never heard of, didn’t know they needed and usually could care less about.
And then there was the method of recruiting. Make a list. Bug your friends and family, the three foot rule. Well…you know…most of you have been there done that. Am I right?
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking MLM. I’m not even knocking those recruiting methods. If it works for you…go for it. And I’m not knocking the pills, potions and lotions either. As a matter of fact… I truly believe that Xango cured me of congestive heart failure. But that’s another story for another time. I’m just saying that for me, pills potions and lotions are difficult to sell.
I just know now… there are easier products to promote and a better way to market them.
Network Marketing and the Internet…
A Marriage Made in Marketing Heaven
MLM or Network Marketing and the Internet were made for each other. The internet has made it possible for ordinary folks to earn an extraordinary income because they have access to the largest marketplace the world has ever seen.
Internet marketing works for me and it is working for thousands of others. So in my opinion…this is my opinion only…if you are still using those outdated methods of recruiting…you might as well be drawing pictographs on the cave wall. Cause guess what my friend, you are living in the stone age.
So Mike showed me a business that overcame the drawbacks that I had encountered in MLM.
First of all, he showed me a product that I didn’t have to convince people they needed. In fact they already loved it. That product was travel. Travel is now my main business. www.travel-with-traverus.com . I could go into a hundred other reasons why travel is a great business but that’s not the point of this article. Besides, if you are interested, you can find out all about it on my website.
The point is this. Here was a brilliantly conceived and well implemented system for success that was already finely tuned. All I had to do was plug in and let the automated system do the work. The reason it can be so automated is because it is totally Internet based.
Think about it. A business you can run from anywhere with just a phone and a computer. A business where you get to keep 75% to 90% of the booking commission! This is a business where well over 90% of the work is automated.
Blessed with blinding ambition and the right attitude, I had stumbled into the perfect program. Add a good portion of fabulous dumb luck and my sponsor turned out to be none other than Melanie Milletics who taught me the insider secrets about marketing online.
One of those secrets was how to use Social Networking for Internet Marketing. If you haven’t heard about the phenomenal success of sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, read some of the other posts on this blog.
It’s time to pick up your diamonds
As I said before…devastating economic times equal diamonds in your field. Here’s why.
If you have heeded my advice and have chosen network marketing as your method of putting your family on the road to financial freedom, your timing could not have been better.
The key to winning at network marketing is recruiting top players to your team.
As I look back at those days when my 401K was demolished and I entered the world of Network Marketing, I realize that it was a time very similar to the present. Back then I was not the only one looking for a way to supplement or replace my family’s income. There were many others with skill sets similar to that of my own whose 401K’s had also been decimated and their careers were uncertain. Therefore, I was fortunate to have a large pool of talent to recruit from.
It is very rare that so many leaders are available for recruiting to the direct marketing industry. Usually Corporate America has taken the cream of the crop and is using them to grease the wheels of commerce. So what happens when the wheels of commerce come grinding to a halt?
Now… as when I began my networking career… millions of top notch professionals are finding themselves out of work with their life savings dwindling and hard times staring them smack in the face.
There has never been a better time to recruit top quality leaders for your specific network marketing business.
Your field is overflowing with diamonds… so get on out there and start harvesting.
Now that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. The only thing left to say is… I wish I would have discovered this dirty three letter word, MLM , many, many years ago. Sure beats the snot out of Corporate politics.
Until next time
Live the Dream,
Dave Carter
