A Lesson From the Past

I learned about consequences of my actions to myself and others, a long time ago. 

I was a kid when I learned that if you are in business, you do your utmost to never offend anybody anywhere, even if it is out side your place of business.

I was 12 years old, when I first started to help my father in his repair shop, running errands, cleaning the workshop, and at the same time learning the trade.

One day, I went to pick up some parts for my father, on the way to the supply store I ran into a new sidewalk that had just been poured with fresh cement. The wet cement was calling my name, it was an irresistible impulse, I had to write my name on that fresh cement. I just knew, that marking would stay there for generations to come and people would pass by and comment as they pointed at my name inscribed on the sidewalk, “Roberto was here”.

What I didn't know is, that from across the street the worker that had just finish the job was taking a break and watching me as I bent over the cement, I hadn’t finished scratching my first line on the fresh cement when I heard him yelling at me, and when I turned around I saw him running across the street toward me.

I took off running as fast as my legs would take me. He couldn’t catch up with me, and I felt elated by the experience. I didn’t understand then, that he just wanted to scare me, and that if he had wanted to he could have caught me. But in my young mind, I thought I had gotten away from him, and I felt proud of it.

Later that day, while I was doing some cleaning in my father’s workshop, I saw the same man enter our store. I don’t know for sure if he saw me, or if he just ignored me, but I hid on the shop’s backroom, for what seemed like an eternity, until he finally left.

What were the odds that he would enter my fathers store, the same day he had chased me a few blocks away?

I learned a good lesson, that day. I understood that I worked with my father, and that I represented his business. If I got into trouble out side, there was a very good chance that my actions would affect my fathers business.

Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that I had the level sophistication to understand all the ramifications of my actions.

I just knew that I was trapped inside that store most of the time. I could very vividly imagine, a customer coming into my father’s store, telling my father what I had done, and that because of me he wasn’t going to do business with him, ever. I knew my father, and I knew that if that happened, my father would most likely kill me, and I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

So, why am I telling you this story?

Well, a couple weeks I got an email from Mike Dillard, just like everyone else that is on his mailing list, warning against spamming within the Better Networker, and/or spamming using the MS capture pages.

I thought that the message was very straight forward, if you spam you are going to get kick out of the affiliate program and out of the site.

I’ve just visited a forum where someone was defending his right to spam, except that he didn’t consider what he does spam. He called it direct marketing.

Using a program like the friendblaster, that automatically contacts 300+ people per day asking them to add you to their list of friends, is spamming.

Giving information that wasn’t requested within a social network is spamming.

I am yet to find someone that was flattered to receive some stranger’s link to a sales letter, just like, I am yet to meet someone that was happy to invited to a cookout, only to be ambushed with a MLM business opportunity.

Some people fail to understand that when you, as a network marketer, is labeled as a spammer you are doing damage to the industry, to the reputation of every network marketer that comes behind, and to the tools that are available to all of us through the Web 2.0.

I really don’t care how anybody else approaches people with their opportunity, as long as I am not associated with them. If they want to ruin their business reputation it is their right. But if it affects my business, and the business of my associates, then something needs to be done about it.

Mike is on the right track I support his decision to ban any of his affiliates that use MS system to spam.

If I at age twelve I learned this simple lesson; why is it, that there are people that insist on damaging other people’s business by their selfish actions?  To quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes “Your Right To Swing Your Arm Ends Where My Nose Begins”