Cruising around the
1. Why is there so much bias against the Network Marketing field in the liberal media?
2. What is the true value that leaders provide to their Networking Communities?
3. How do you hold communities together for the long term results vs. the one time pins?
4. What are the key principles that produce lifetime results in the Network Marketing field?
I will take each question as a separate post. Please feel free to comment and add your thoughts to the discussion in a cordial manner.
Network Marketing/MLM/Community Building is an enterprise where people help people start and build their own businesses. Some of the key factors in helping to build a successful business are: value based products, proper compensation plan to reward win-win behavior, world class training to train, educate and inspire the communities, vision of the owners of the company.
I believe the liberal media is biased against MLM’s because of the media’s ideological presuppositions that oppose any business which separates people based on performance standards. You will hear statements that lead you to believe that unless everyone does make big money then it is a scam. This explains more about the liberal critic than it does the performer building the business. Karl Marx argued along similar lines when he stated that inequalities of wealth would ultimately destroy the capitalist system. Mr. Marx’s system has been proven quantifiably false in every country that it was implemented, while free enterprise continues to flourish. It would be amusing to read the illogical statements from the liberal media if it weren’t so detrimental to the free enterprise system that provides the media their jobs.
Let me provide an example of the poor thinking involved. You will hear someone say, “But doesn’t only one out of 100 make it?” The answer is no, but it takes an understanding of probabilities to prove this. Suppose it takes 8 years to become a doctor and a certain new school claims to have a 100% success in helping every single student graduate and become a doctor. One year after the school starts, it has no graduates and a zero percent success rate. The headlines would blare, “New school has zero graduates.” But any discerning reviewer would know that since it takes 8 years to complete the doctoral program that no one has completed the process yet. After 2 years we now have both freshman and sophomores, but no graduates. Let’s fast forward to 7 years and still no graduates. The new school will have taken a beating and yet if all the students have stayed in school, they are right on track. Even after 8 years and one graduating class, the media could say, “yes, but only 1 out of 8 have graduated.” This displays a complete misunderstanding of sequential processes and an ignorance of basic statistics. The school can graduate 100% of the students and can be criticized mercilessly by an ignorant reviewer.
I will provide a specific analogy for the MLM industry. It usually takes around 100 active people in any network to make around $50k per year. By the very nature of the sequential process, the statistic will never be better than 1% make 50k if it takes 100 people to produce that result. This is plain common sense and more proof that common sense is the least common thing. Imagine network marketing as a bridge. If you use a bridge as an analogy of networking then it would take 100 cars lined up across the bridge before the first car would get to the other side. As soon as the car get to the other side, then this car builds it own bridge and requires a hundred more cars to fill its bridge. No matter how many cars get across the first bridge and start building other bridges, it would still not change the fact that only one out of 100 are ever qualifying to start their own bridge. Even if 100% eventually get across it doesn’t change the 1 out of 100 statistic. This is because you are taking a snap shot in time and not tracking the overall process.
There would be a huge difference in actual results between a traffic jam on the bridge where only one car has made it across and the others have no velocity and no results vs. another bridge that is clipping along at 55 miles per hour across the bridge and many cars are starting their own bridge. Anyone who would argue the results are the same because only 1 out of 100 are making 50k at any point in time needs a lesson in remedial statistics. But this is exactly what the liberal media does when they play with statistics that they do not comprehend. Amway was like a bridge with 100 people stuck in a traffic jam and only one person on the other side. People were falling off the bridge and no one was building any new bridges because of the churn rate. Yes, 1 out of 100 made it, but it was the same one that was replacing nearly 50% of his 100 every year.
MonaVie on the other hand, has grown from zero in sales in 2005 to a projected $1 billion in sales by the end of this fiscal year. Did you catch this? This means that MonaVie has been able to help enough people get across the bridge and start their own bridge so fast, that in just over 3 years they have more people succeeding than Amway has in nearly 50 years! This is the missing factor in that 1 out of 100 statistic – Velocity! The rate that people are making it across the bridge is the key factor in any network. This brings us at our first Network Marketing Creed.
I. Check the growth rates (velocity) of the any prospective company before investing time and money in a company with static or shrinking sales.
The rate of growth in any Network Marketing field is critically important in determining whether people are making it across the bridge or whether you are just another road kill on the bridge. The Team averaged over 50% growth in a Quixtar model every year that was rapidly falling outside of the growth of multi-cultural communities and the Team. The Team had developed systems and process to overcome the poor business model of Quixtar. When Quixtar announced that they were going back to Amway and changing their model to a point where I did not believe that I could help people win - I reacted by confronting them. I would have gladly worked with Quixtar, but refused to promote people onto a bridge that was traffic jammed and only fed the people who had already made it across under drastically different conditions. I felt this was unethical to promote a business where there was no velocity. As long as the Team that I was leading had velocity and people who worked could grow, then I felt I should work on change within the Quixtar system on the IBOAI board. When this was no longer true then a leader must confront the brutal reality for the sake of those following the leader.
Another major issue in the ideological conflict amongst the liberal media and the Networking Communities is the egalitarian principle espoused by the liberal media that claims all results should be equal. This is a horrid twisting of the founding fathers principles on equality before the law. We all deserve to be treated equally in our opportunities, but unequal in our results based upon our individual performances. If everyone was paid equally whether they worked 5 nights a week or stayed home and watched television then you would see everyone staying home. Only by rewarding your top performers, do you have people strive to be a top performer. Thomas Jefferson called it the “Aristocracy of Achievement.” Mr. Jefferson said that we do not have an aristocracy of blood, class, or countries and that anyone can be aristocracy based upon performance. By criticizing anyone who achieves a high rank in Networking Marketing, it only shows the liberal media’s bias for achievement in any area.
Think about the liberal media’s arguments.
1. If you attempt networking and do not succeed – they will grant you victim status and headline news quotes.
2. If you are doing networking, but do not have appreciable results yet – they will call you a sucker for being involved and mock you.
3. But if you work hard, change, grow, lead and accomplish your victory – they will grant you exploiter status!
How absurd is this? Do we really think that everyone who succeeds in Networking is an exploiter? Sure there are people who come and go from the field that have exploited others. This is true of any industry, but the people who make it in the long run are those who provide value consistently to their teams. The liberal media’s argument amounts to proposing a shut down of the entire Network Marketing field. We are talking about a 39 billion dollar industry in the
I do not believe the two fields will ever come to an agreement on the merits of MLM’s and training because their presuppositions are so opposed to one another. This leads to my second Network Marketing Creed.
II. If you desire to do something bigger in life, then you must expect the criticism of those who desire to do something smaller with their lives.
I have no hatred in my heart for anyone either pro or con in this discussion. I believe everyone should have a choice of what they do with their life as long as you are not hurting others. Why all the personal venom against people that neither side has even met? I wish we could address the issues in a more professional manner and not resort to name calling and personal attacks. At the end of the day, we are all interested in producing a business that works for anyone who is willing to work. We all must play a part in making this happen. I believe when a person has run out of logical arguments that they tend to resort to name calling or unsubstantiated generalizations. I have much more to share, but I will stop for now and open up the dialogue. What other areas to you feel the liberal media displays bias when it comes to the Networking field? God Bless, Orrin Woodward
