The Hard Truth

Written by Keith Winn on Nov 5, 2007 1:09 pm

OK - I always knew there was hype, but, like mi llions of others, I bought into it. I should have known better. After all I had already spent over 30 years in my own businesses, and had retired at an early age. But MLM was intriguing, challenging, I just had to get more!

I attended the meetings, watched the videos, bought the leads, made the calls, listened to my upline, yet was going nowhere. Unlike most people getting into MLM I had substantial resources, and the ego to match. I couldn't understand why this "Duplicatable" system wasn't working for me...I was certainly working for it!

Over the months, it began to become clear to me. It's partially about hype, and mostly about people. Yes, just ordinary people...good folks. People attracted by all of the big money claims, big cars, luxury homes and yachts, and the promise of all this without having to learn anything, but the "duplicatable" system. Lottery mentality actually...but millions do join, and products, lots of products do get sold.

Of course, 97% of people never earn any money. And the MLM companies know these stats. In fact, their whole business plan is geared to this. These 97% would not be attracted if they were told they had to learn how to effectively market. Nor would they join if they knew that it could take much more investment in time and money to build their business.

So the myth prevails....every day, thousands attend these rah-rah meetings, and thousands buy into these companies, fueling their growth and profits. As long as their distributors are feeding this revolving door, companies will prosper.

But what about those people? What about their hopes and dreams? What about their time and money lost?

We are told at these meetings how we can better the lives of so many people. But are we really? It should be obvious to anyone in network marketing right out of the gate who will succeed, and who won't. It doesn't take an Einstein.

So I realized, that I had to totally rethink how and to whom I was marketing. I have a conscience. I advertise heavily, but do not use any hype. Sure, I get less responders, but those that do respond are more "doers" and less "dreamers". I find my leaders more easily now, my retention has increased, and I sleep very well.

Unfortunately, in this highly competitive world, hype, especially in our industry, will continue to prevail. It is up to us as caretakers of this industry to do our best to ensure we actually are helping our fellow man instead of hurting him.

That's the Hard Truth...Can you live with that?