Be Your Own Boss

Here’s a project — look around the web today for every MLM (multi-level marketing) program, every network marketing blog or company or trickle-up program. I have $10 for the person who finds me the one with the biggest claims to success (I’ll give you until February to find it). I have a “wall of success” with printouts of the craziest claims to guaranteed money.

After you find the wildest claims, read the fine print. Print the fine print and highlight the words you don’t understand or that are contradictory to the claims on the front page — you might end up highlighting the entire fine print!

I’ve seen almost everyone I know try MLMs. Some of them make very good products (I really like Cutco knives!). Most are real time and money losers, though. When my retail stores were still in business, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t have a network marketing “expert” come into my store and try to con my employees into joining some program. I heard about guys selling over $500,000 their first year!

My own family has bought into various MLM programs over the years (against my recommendations) — phone cards, long distance programs, knives, real estate ventures and even vacuum cleaners and air purifiers. None of them came out ahead of the deal, especially factoring in the time and ruined relationships that came with them.

I know I’ll get yelled at today by a very small minority who has made money in MLMs. I’ll tell you a few secrets that I’ve learned, though.

1. If someone tells you a big number and says that’s what they’ve sold in a small period of time, ask them how much they actually took home in actual money. One guy at my old store told my employee he sold over $50,000 in a month alone in his network marketing MLM! When I asked him how much he made, he wouldn’t tell me. A little research showed me he made 1% — $500. He sold $50,000 worth of goods for someone else, and made $500. Not bad income, right?

2. If someone tells you how much they took home, ask them how many hours they worked in the multilevel marketing program. Our dear friend from the previous paragraph made $500 in a month — but he put in over 40 hours a week to get there. 160 hours a month is about $3.13 per hour — not including taxes and expenses.

3. If someone tells you how much they worked on the MLM, ask them how much their expenses were. One of my regular readers here has been e-mailing me since the beginning, telling me about his affiliate marketing program he runs on the Internet. He made about $5000 on his website, take home, last month. When I investigated more, I found out that he spent almost $4000 paying other websites to forward him readers. So he actually made $1000 profit — but he could very well have lost $1000 if his readers didn’t convert to new members of the affiliate program.

4. Once you have the actual figures, as them how much of that business is repeat, and how much is new. I’ve seen figures as low a 1% for repeat customers — this is not what makes a business successful. In fact, my belief is that you need to have a 30%+ return customer rate for the rest of your business life — this is how you make more and more money in the long run.

Make 10 customers happy, and ask them for names of others who would like your product. Ask if people are happy, and ask them to tell others. As you build a good product and service that offers people real value, they’ll come back. As you bring on more than you can handle, you grow your business from a 1-man shop to a many-man shop. Return customers love watching businesses grow over time, and this gives them more reason to send you even more business as time goes on and you continue to make them happy.

MLMs, network marketing, all these programs can be helpful in teaching you to have a positive attitude or how to deal with people face to face, but they’re really not very successful, in my opinion. Some of the websites have such huge offers of success that it is very easy to sign up — some are very cheap to order and have a money back guarantee. Remember though, that even if you can get your money back, you can’t get your time back. Don’t take a risk until you’ve read the fine print and hit me up with an e-mail. I’ll find you people who have tried the scheme you found, and failed.

Go out and find me the biggest claim so I can add it to my wall! I especially love the sites with video content and real time graphs that let you enter your own numbers. If I have the time, I’ll make a parody infomercial to throw up on this website for your viewing pleasure.

Get out there today and talk to real business owners. Talk to your friends and family about how they feel about you owning your own business. Get out there and smile and see how you can spread happiness. Don’t go out there and pay someone else to be your boss — as is the case in most network marketing programs. I want you running your own business, not someone else’s!