No, four different people, five different companies, same Multi Level Marketing industry.
What were the companies?
No, I still don't know them, even if I read about them on the Internet. And this is exactly how the people I do know got ripped off by this industry, spending money on books like this.
They were asked to pay for their own training and marketing materials, to buy a significant amount of inventory, and to pay to go listen to motivational speakers make exaggerated income and success claims about this industry.
If you do not know them simply by reading about them on the internet, ...should it not stand to reason that you also do not know the network marketing industry not having participated in it yourself?
I can understand where the purchase of mktg materials and training expenses can be burdensome, ...especially when many participants have previously and historically often only entered the arena in a financially precarious position to begin with, however, there is a cost for training which must be borne. In recent years, technological advances have reduced those costs significantly. Email, Video conferencing via the internet, pdf files, powerpoints etc., have streamlined and reduced costs to next to nothing, however, there are still costs involved. A good education
put to use is more valueable, and less costly than stumbling around in the dark. If you think the price of an education is expensive, you don't want to know how costly the price of ignorance is.
As for requiring people to pay for their own training and marketing materials, and paying to listen to speakers,
...how does this NOT differ from the model we see used every day in post secondary education.
Are university students not required to pay for their own books, tuition fees, housing costs etc.?
They spent years in school, accumulating tremendous amounts of debt, and cannot even begin to start earning an income in the field until and unless they graduate, ...provided of course they are fortunate enough to be hired. Some don't even finish their schooling. They drop out, ...with an accumulated debtload; a wasted investment they will not recoup, ...but do they blame the university, or the concept of post secondary education? No they often have a more realistic assessment of the situation; they realize they didn't have the discipline required, and/or were not adequately prepared financially or mentally to pursue a level of higher education.
Then too, there are those who pursue a career path in a dwindling sector. If someone spent thousands in tuition, books, etc, and years studying how to become an analog TV repairman, or how to run a horsedrawn livery fleet, ...and upon graduation, couldn't develop a customer base that preferred to be transported by horse drawn carriages, or who discovered technological advances had moved the market to flat screen digital LCD or HDTV, would it be a case of his being ripped off by the educational facility, ...or would you say he made a poor decision when charting his career path? That perhaps he should have studied how to run a limo or car service instead?
If you spent a fortune studying to be a surgeon, then upon graduation, decided you couldn't stomache the sight of blood, and decided to quit, did that make Harvard a rip off, and were they wrong to make you pay tuition etc?
Maybe one should have studied in Libya where post secondary education is completely free?
This way, if you decided to simply up and quit, you wouldn't have wasted money on university tuition.
Good for you, ...sucks for the university though.
Any company (educational facility / employer / army etc.,) bearing the costs of training and educating others is going to ensure it is a good investment. If the individual has the ability to quit after so much has been invested in them by others, that would pretty much ensure the demise of the entity... be it a company, business, employer, etc.,) unless it is operating on a pay as you go system. Without one, you'd be looking at a world of indentured servants. That's why the military owns your butt when you walk into basic training, ...and you can't leave until they tell you that you can.
Good network marketing companies often have mechanisms in place to determine which distributors are worthy of investing in, out of the thousands who may join at any given moment. Those mechanisms are performance incentives. Do this, ...and you will get this. Accomplish this, ...and you will get this. Good companies reward distributors for their commitment, consistency, and performance. For instance, my own company awards points which are redeemable for free merchandise, free marketing materials, free tools, free event tickets etc.,
Then too, there are those who start traditional brick n' mortar businesses. They are required to invest thousands upon thousands in inventory, pay for leases, pay for their own training, marketing materials, advertising, leases, employees, licenses, and horrendously burdensome compliance costs. They are loaded down with debt, and will struggle through whatever hardships they encounter because up and quitting means the loss of
EVERYTHING ...often hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. Walking away from an investment of a few hundred dollars in rough times, is alot easier than walking away from a 6 or 7 figure investment in even rougher times. If their business fails, ...do they blame the country that afforded them the opportunity to take advantage of the free market system? Well some do... but not as many who dip their toes into the waters of MLM. If you're going to take a bath, and you dip your toe in the water, and find it a little too warm, or a little too cool for your comfort, ...adjust the faucet. Don't speak ill of personal hygiene, ...adjust the faucet so the water is a more comfortable temperature for you.
There is a thing called personal responsibility, which we all must take for our decisions in life.
Too frequently, people look to the compensation plans of network marketing companies, as the be all and end all, and forget all the other aspects & factors that must go into a successful MLM business venture, ...or any successful business venture. So they disregard everything else, look to the comp plan to do it all, ...and when their business doesn't thrive, they wonder what went wrong. Then they blame it on MLM. The fault was not MLM, it was the poor decision demonstrated by not looking at the other factors associated with the business, like the company, it's capitalization, the mgmt team, product(s), the market, the timing, the trends, the future potential, duplicatability etc., etc.,
