Who Stole The American Dream
Who Stole The American Dream
Who Stole The American Dream
Its been a long time since the first edition of Who Stole the American
Dream?the best selling book in the history of Network Marketingwas first
published.
Fifteen years, to be exact.
I wrote the book in the summer and fall of 1991, and it was released to the
public in December of that year Scary to think how many changes Ive seen
during those 15 years. Off the top of my head, here are a few.
Back in 1991, there was no commercial Internet. No email. No hybrid
automobiles. No GPS navigation. No Starbucks outside Seattle. No DVD players.
No free long distance. No caller ID. No satellite TV or radio. No flat-screen
TVs. No hi-definition TVs. No lightweight laptop computers. No MP3 players.
No i-Pods. No Palm Pilots. No BlackBerries. No X-boxes. No digital cameras or
camcorders. No debit cards. And just a few fax machines.
Back in 1991, cell phones were clunky and expensive, service was limited, and
features were few: No ring tones. No cameras. No calendars. No games. No
phone book. No voice recognition.
Back in 1991, the U.S. exported more than it imported... China and India were
third-world economies.., the Berlin Wall had just come down... the Soviet
Union was just converting to capitalism... gasoline cost $1.04 per gallon...
GM was the biggest, most profitable company in the world... the airlines made
money... college tuition was still affordable... companies that laid off
thousands of workers saw their stock prices fall, instead of rise... Wal-Mart
did not sell groceries... Fox TV was a fledgling network... and Iraq invaded
Kuwait, sparking the first Gulf War.
Back in 1991, I described the basic premise of my first edition of Who Stole
the American Dream? with these words: Somebody or more accurately, a whole
big bunch of somebodieshas stolen the American Dream. Right out from under
our hard-working noses.
Sadly, its still happening today. And this totally revised edition will tell
you how to get it back!
Dedication
To my father, Burke O. Hedges, who passed away when I was a child; and to the
men and women who dare to take advantage of our greatest right of all.
FREE ENTERPRISE
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without: the relentless support of
John Fogg and Steve Price, two dear friends whom I admire enormously.
A big thanks to all of my teammates who take care of the homestead while I
venture down entrepreneurial paths: Katherine Glover, the organizer; Debbie
Cortes, the Marketer; Tony Cortes, the technician; Steve Price, the thinker;
Sandee Lorenzen, the Coordinator; Gail Brown, the Jack of All Trades; Julia
Bullough, the Detail Person; and Dianna Bazalar, the Versatile One.
Finally, my gratitude, deep admiration, and love for two people who passed
away, darkening my doorstep forever: Ted von Schullick, a co-worker and good
friend; and Dayton, a younger brother who I miss daily.
Also by Burke Hedges
Who Stole the American Dream?
You, Inc.
Read & Get Rich
Parable of the Pipeline
Copycat Marketing 101
Why I Wrote This Book
Have you ever been made fun of... ridiculed.., abused... misunderstood and
mocked... until finally there came a time when you stood up and shouted,
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Well, Ive come to that point in my life. rm madand rm not going to put up
with it anymore!
So, Im writing this book to set the records straight and tell you the
truth... to tell you what your real chances are today to make it in
conventional business that are cutting salaries and benefits or, even worse,
closing their doorsand laying off people by the thousands.
Notice I said conventional business. Truth is, there is another way... an
unconventional business where average people can be their own boss and
succeed in an industry that is revolutionizing the way the world lives,
shops, and works.
In this fast-growing industry called Network Marketing, you can set your own
hours... set your own goals... and earn anywhere from part-time income to an
absolute fortune.
Is Network Marketing a scam?...A scheme?...Or the American Dream?
You deserve to know the truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth!
Read this book... and you be the judge!
Contents
A Facts Lift for a Classic 3
Why l Wrote This Book 7
Introduction: Stop, Thief! 11
3 Pyramid Schemes 31
4 Illegal Pyramid Schemes 33
5 - Legal Pyramid Schemes 39
6 There Is No Security Anymore 51
7 What Are Your Options? 61
Stop, Thief!
And whats more, that whole business of Get a college degree, work your way
up corporate ladder or start your own small business and achieve your
dreams could be a setup. For an increasing number of us. its turned into a
con, a scam, and a scheme the big-shot power people to get us to work our
lives away trading too much time for - enough money just to make them rich!
Just thinking about it brings up the same feelings in me that I had when my
home was broken into.., with one exception.
This time I dont feel powerless. Not anymore.
I found a way to get back the American Dream.
But before I tell you my waythe average persons waylet me ask you some
questions.
you know that works for some, but reallyhow many? And isnt it true that for
the doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs of government and corporate America
the future isnt what it used to be? How many college grads Find work in
their chosen fields today? How many are doing that same work 10 years
later... or even 5 years later? Likely one out of a hundred.
Is the American Dream getting a good job? Working for a living? Can you get a
job where you can earn what youre worth... where youll become financially
independent.., and find fulfillment.., and gain freedom... trading your time
for money?
Did you know that over half of all first-time heart attacks occur Between the
hours of 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Monday morning? That tells me that people would
rather die than go back to work!
What about owning your own business.., is that the American Dream? I tried
that. Made a million dollarsbut it cost me $1.2 million to make it!
Did you know that 90% of all small businesses fail in the first ear?,.. and
80% of the survivors close their doors in the next 5 years?. and 80% of those
lucky survivors never see year 10? Which means fewer than 1 out of 100 small
businesses last a decade or longer.
Doesnt look like owning a conventional small business is the way to achieve
the American Dream. does it?
Now, notice I said, conventional business.
Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow is happening today. If you cant see if you
dont know whats coming, youre going to be left behind.
And not just one or two steps behind eithermiles behind! And things are
moving so fast you may never catch upever!
Look, if youre not already in place, at the top, on a leading- edge career
wt your job is out in the margins, literally working in the future today
youve got no better than one chance in 10,000 of making it to the top of an
Old Economy company. Believe me, its true. Whats left over are dull, dead-
end government jobs, like airport luggage checkers,. or cheap, unfulfilling
service jobs cleaning up after or waiting on the hot-shots smart enough to
go where the action is now... and, more importantly, where it will be in the
future.
Look around you. Its already happening. Leading-edge entrepreneurs, like the
founders of MySpace.com, FaceBook.com, and YouTube.com, are working in the
future by cashing in on the Internet, even after the dot.com bubble burst.
The three guys who started
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YouTube, for example, sold it to Google for $1.65 BILLION only one year after
starting the company.
Mind boggling, isnt it? Oh, to be a computer geek....
In Yogi Berras words, The future aint what it used to be.
Do you think big steel and other U. S. heavyweight industries are going to
make a comeback? Whos going to replace a robot or some other error-free,
automated machine that just replaced 20 human beings for less than half the
money they were being paidand that does a better job?
Lets face it, blue-collar jobs are becoming extinct. Think I exaggerate?
Ford Motor Company is planning to eliminate 75,000 American jobs and close
more than a dozen North American factories by 2012, and theyre seriously
thinking about terminating three high- end brandsJaguar, Land Rover, and
Lincoln. GM is closing 14 plants and PERMANENTLY ELIMINATING 30,000 jobs in
the U.S. and Canada.
Poofonce-secure jobs gone forever. And thats just the beginning.
So, what about white-collar jobs?
I can answer that with one bureaucratic buzz word: outsourcing. The U.S. will
lose 6 million high-paid white-collar workers to India in the coming decade.
And not just call centers. Entire info-tech departments are being outsourced
to India. Along with accounting services. Healthcare services. Banking and
back office support. Software design and production. Even movie-making, all
in the effort to save money and boost profits for the fat cats at the top and
the hedge fund managers who badger CEOs to get leaner and meaner in
exchange for buying their stock.
The rich are getting richerand the poor..? We all know the answer to that!
Lets seecollege degrees, corporate careers, small businesses, blue-collar
jobs, white-collar jobs... all heading for underemployment o overseas.
Where can people turn to recapture the American Dream? Whats left?
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Whats left is a way of life and work called Multi Level Marketing (MLM) or
Network Marketingthe most powerful form of distribution of goods and
services available in the world today. A new and better way of working and
living. A proven industry that people from every walk of life are turning to.
A way for the average person to achieve the American Dream. Thats what this
book is about.
MY STORY
You see, I had the American Dream stolen from mejust like Im saying most of
you have. Ive experienced those feelings in the pit if my stomach: broke,
scared, couldnt pay the bills, couldnt provide for the
kids, no vacation, no fun, no futurefrustrated, angry; and feeling powerless
to change it.
Then I discovered Network Marketing. And, yesperhaps like you-I wasskeptical
at first. It sounded too good to be true. I felt it was justsome sales scam
you know, a pyramid scheme.
But, hey, it didnt cost me anything to check it outand what if It were
true? What If ii really was my ticket to the American Dream?
I couldnt afford to risk losing out!
They say the mind is like a parachuteit doesnt work unless its open. So, I
opened up my mind. I tucked my doubts and disbelief under my arm and took a
look.
What I found was that Network Marketing really was simple
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even I, a boat.-builder earning $5.50 an hour who couldnt pass the lest to
become an insurance adjustor, could do it! It was fun, too. There were lots
of people to help me. I got to make a powerful positive difference in
hundreds, even thousands, of peoples lives. And, yes, I made money, toomore
than I ever dreamed possible, iii tact!
But who cares what I did? Who cares what I think? 11w important question is,
What do you think?
Is Network Marketing right for you? Can you be successful in Net work
Marketingwill you?
I dont know the answer to that. But I do know that you absolutely,
positively owe it to yourself to learn the truth about Network Marketing.
I meanwhat if...?
Whats it going to take for you to learn the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth? The cost of this book and a couple of hours of
readingmax.
It will be time and money well and wonderfully spent. Thats a promise.
You see, in my opinion, Network Marketing is the wave of the future.
In my opinion, Network Marketing is called a personal franchise for a good
reason.
In my opinion, Network Marketing is putting the freedom back into free
enterprise.
In my opinion, Network Marketing is the very best way in the World --perhaps
the only wayfor average people like you and mc in live far-above-average
lives.
But thats my opinion.
In the classic novel, Fathers and Sons, Russian author Ivan Turgenev wrote:
I share no mans opinion. I have my own.
So, its really your opinion of Network Marketing that counts isnt it?
See, it doesnt really matter what my opinion is.
Youve got to know for yourself, isnt that true?
What really matters is what you think and feel about Network
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NO EXCUSES
Now I know some of you will make excuses for not investigating this industry
Some people will say, I dont have the time... or Its not for me... or
Fm too old to try something new... and so on.
All these half-baked excuses remind me of a guy who wanted to mow his grass,
but his mower was broken. So he went next door to his neighbors house and
asked if he could use their lawn mover.
Sorry, said the neighbor. I cant lend you my lawn mower because my wife
is cooking beef stroganoff.
Startled by his neighbors response, the man asked, What does your wife
cooking beef stroganoff have to do with you lending me your lawn mower?
The neighbor looked him square in the eye and replied, If I dont want to
loan you my lawn mower any excuse will do!
NOTHING TO LOSE
How about youare you accepting just any excuse to avoid finding out about
this industry? Hey if youve made all the money youll ever spend (and you
have time and freedom to enjoy it)... you probably dont need to investigate
the possibilities of becoming successful in Network Marketing.
But if youre like most of us, youve got everything to gain and nothing to
lose by finding out the facts about this fast-growing industry
Theres no better time to check it out than right now!
And if you decide that Network Marketing is for you, youll look back on this
moment in rime as the single most important moment in your life!
This could be that special moment when you start to take control of our life
again.., the moment you begin to feel the freedom, security and happiness of
the American Dream.
Best of all, it could be the moment you start to make the American Dreamyour
American Dream!
The
American
Dream
PHASE 1
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01
The Myth of the American
Dream
America is too great for small dreams.
Pres. Ronald Reagan
We all want freedom and security for ourselves and r families. We want more
money than we have now. We want health and happiness. We want to do something
meaningful and stimulating. We want to help others while helping ourselves.
Basically, we want what we dont have. We want more money
And more time to enjoy the things money can buy.
Isnt that true for you?
Truth is, most of us arent free to live where we choosein a se and a
neighborhood we lovebecause we simply cant afford
Today, tens of millions of people arent living their dreams at are they?
ha: else do we want? A topnotch education for our kids... spending time with
old friends and making new friends.., travel and -vacations...
entertainment... recreation... going out to dinner...
22
new clothes.., and a whole host of other possessions and possibilities for
realizing our dreams.
So what happens? We finally get that special car we wantand then we stay
home because we cant afford to go out! Unfortunately, were forced to pick
just one of the things we really wantand sacrifice everything else.
Weve made a habit of settling for lesssettling for less as a lifestyle!
Today, people arent free to do what theyd really love to do for a living
what theyre really good at. Theyre strapped to a job they dont likeor
worse, one they hatebecause they just have to have that paycheck to survive.
Ive done thatworking for $5.50 an hour building boats for someone making a
whole lot more money than I was. Waiting on tables for $150 a week (including
tips!). Doing work I hated. Hanging out with my buddies after work. Going
nowhere in a hurry
Thats when I asked myself, Is that all there is? I used to hear that song
in my sleep! Is that all there is, my friend?
My life was in the pits, yet I was too scared to leave and take a chance on
something better. I knew I was worth more than $5.50 an hour. But I depended
on that paycheckand I had a family depending on me!
Sound familiar?
You know, the truth is less than 1% of the people in America make over
$100,000 a year. And thats just about haw much it takes today to even get
close to financial security
The cornerstone of the American Dream has always been financial freedom
enough money to do what you want, when you want to do it.
Thats not to say that money alone is what we desire most. We all know its
not the money, but what the money will buy. As the famous restaurateur Toots
Shor used to say, I dont want to be a millionaire. I just want to live like
one. And its true that one thing money does buy in a society like oursis
freedom.
Money builds churches and schools and puts clothes on our childrens backs.
Another thing money can buy today is good health.
The rising cost of medical care in the United States has made it
23
Sir James Barrie, who wrote the classic fairy tale Peter Pan, once
Dreams do come true... You can have anything in life if you cU sacrifice
everything else for it.
Can you believe that? Do we really have to give up everything else to get a
little of what we want?
How much freedom do you have if you cant pay the mortgage :r the rent?
What happiness is there if you dont have security?.., if you :an afford good
health and medical care? (Or if you have to work yourself to death to pay the
taxes that subsidize the other guys health insurance?)
What good is having anything if you have to give up everything else to get
it?
No. the real American Dream is to have it all.
But the sad truth is the vast majority of people today dont stand
24
a chance of getting what they want out of life. For them, the American Yream
has become a fairy tale. A myth.
For an alarming number of people, the American Dream may even have becomethe
American Nightmare!
25
02
Why?
Walt Disney once said, All our dreams can come trueif we have the courage
to pursue them.
If what Uncle Walt said is true, then the only thing standing between people
and their dreams is the courage to pursue
Lets talk about that for a minute.
Was it a lack of courage that made us put away the childish we dreamed of as
kids? Was it lack of courage that forced us
give up the dreams and aspirations of becoming a ballerina basebal1 star
doctoractor-astronaut... and settle into something more reasonable?
Was it a lack of courage that sent high school grads into four years of
college-at a cost of $40,000 a year or moreonly to graduate and find there
werent any jobs for them? (Or if they did find a job, it sure wasnt
anything they studied in college... anything theyd spent years learning how
to do... anything they really enjoyed
Was it a lack of courage that got millions of blue-collar men women laid off
as dinosaur industries died out... as business after business closed, as
farms were bought up by big corporations, as advancing technology made tens
of thousands of jobs obsolete?
26
Are you living and working the way you thought you wouldthe way you wanted
the way you would choose?
Do you have what you dreamed of as a child...? What you went to college
for...?
27
Were you rewarded by your company for your years of hard work and loyalty?
Will you able to retire like you want to? And after retirement, when you
finally have the time... will you have the money to enjoy our life, your
family, and your friends?
According to Mr. Disney, if your dreams havent come true, its cause you
didnt have the courage to pursue them.
Is that really true?
Are we really all just a bunch of cowards...?
NONSENSE!
I truly believe that each and every one of us has an inner fire, a basic
survival instinct, to fight back when the chips are down.
Were not cowardsneither are our friends, our families, our children.
I guarantee you, none of us lacks courage! We dont need a pep talkwhat we
need is a 21st century vehicle to drive us to our
tell you what I thinkwere frustrated. Fact is, were more than frustrated
were angry! And we feel powerless to charge the way things are.
You and I may be mad as hornets, but there sure doesnt seem m be much we can
do about itor is there?
Folks, the American Dream is not a myth. Its realvery real.
Dont you dare let anybody steal your dreams from you!
Were not cowards. Were victims of a crime! The crime of the century
Somebody stole the American Dream!
And its not so much the American Dream itself that they took us because we
both know the dream is still theresomewhere.
What they stole was the vehicle that delivered it.
What they stole was our ability to achieve it.
What they stole was our belief that we can have it.
Its part of a cover-up that keeps telling us, Do what everybody
else is doing... Dont rock the boat ... Hey, you could lose what little
iive got nowdont blow it!... stay where you are, there is no other way
No wonder that by age 65, nearly 95% of all Americans are dead, dead broke,
still working... or dependent upon family,
28
church, or state. Take away Social Security, and one out of every two senior
citizens in the U.S. would immediately descend into poverty. By the time we
reach our Golden Age, only 5% of Americans are financially independent!
Thats not only sadits unacceptable
I challenge you to quit doing what 95% of the people do which is to end up
at age 65 struggling to get by on Social Security subsidized by a minimum-
wage job.
In the coming pages, Im going to show you how you can have everything youve
ever dreamed of by becoming one of those special 5%-ers! So keep dreaming...
and keep reading to discover how to recover your American Dream.
Who
Stole
The
American
Dream
And Why
Phase 2
31
03
Pyramid Schemes
youve probably heard some people call Network Marketing a pyramid scheme.
Do you know what that means? The reason I ask is that most people have no
idea what a pyramid scheme really is.
04
Examples are chain letters and the airplane game, moneytree games that come
back around every few years until the government steps in and shuts them
down.
One day you get a letter or email. You may or may not know the person who
sent it to you. Usually the letter is filled with compelling, even inspiring,
language about prosperity.. and how, if you follow a few simple steps
outlined in the letter, in two to four weeks, thousands to tens of thousands
of dollars will appear in your mailbox as if by magic.
Something for nothing. And heres all you have It do ho get it.
Somewhere in the letter is a list of name and addresses. You
take the name on the top of the list erase it, send that person the cash or
money order$l, $5, $10, $100, whatever and you add your name to the bottom
of the list. then you make 10 to 100 copies of the letters and send them to
everybody you know.
34
Theres usually a sense of urgency about all of this. The letter may
encourage you (0 send your money and mail out your copies that same day, or
within 48 hours at the most. Some letters even include threats, such as, If
you break the chain, you will be punished with a plague of ;poverty or
someone will put peanut butter in your TiVo box
Seriously, some chain letters Ive seen tell stories of people who lost home,
businesses, even died, because they broke the chain!
And breaking the chain is exactly the problemthe chain letters fatal flaw
If everybody who received a chain letter responded by sending money to the
name on top of the listand if all those people also rut out their own
copies of the letter, and so on and so onthen everybody but the people on
the very last level of the pyramid would actually receive thousands of
dollars in their mailbox.
But it never happens. It cant.
The people who start the chain letter, and the ones near the top who get in
early before it gets busted, are the only ones who stand a chance of making
moneyand everybody else loses out.
The plane has passengers, a co-pilot, and a pilot. Passengers (alt buy a seat
on the plane for $1500, $6000, or even as high as
Depending on the particular game being played.
Once you become a passenger, you must go out and recruit new passengers to
buy seats on the plane for the same amount of money you paid for your seat.
Each time you bring on a new passenger, you move forward one seat toward the
cockpit. When you bring on enough people, you become the co-pilot.., and
eventually the pilot.
Now, you bring your new passengers, with their cash in hand, to a meeting.
Thats where they turn in their money and get a seat on the plane. Thats
also where you get coached on how to bring people into the game. The co-
pilot and pilot are usually excellent coaches. Youll see why soon.
So, where does the money go? To the pilot. See, when youre the pilot, all
those new passengers who came to the meeting give you their money right then
and there. Ten new passengers, at $1500 each, calculates to $15,000 cash. In
most airplane games, it takes four to six weeks for a new passenger to move
from the back of the plane to the pilots seat.
What does a pilot do then? Flies off into the sunset to spend his moneyor
buys a seat on a brand-new airplane. And when youve done it twice, hey, move
up to a $6000-per-seat airplane game. Simple math shows that $6000 times 10
is $60,000or $10,000 per week (if all goes right and the plane doesnt
crash)!
But in the airplane game, what goes up, must come down. With a thud!
Airplanes crash when there arent enough new passengers that is, when the
newest passengers on the plane run out of friends and family with $1500 to
spend in hopes of hitting the pilots jackpot. What happens then? The people
who became pilots early on made a quick little fortuneand the rest of the
folks are out $1 0() each. Why? Because money goes up the pyramid, but value
in the form of a product or service doesnt come back clown.
Thats the second reason these money games are illegalthey rip people off.
Somebodyand eventually lots and lots of somebodieswill break the chain or
fail to recruit more new people. When one person isnt able to get enough
other people to send money and letters or
36
play the gamehe or she is out. You dont get your money back. Thats the
risk you take.
A few people at the top make a small fortune and everyone else down at the
bottom of the pyramid never gets a cent.
Some of these illegal money games (like the airplane game) require thousands
of dollars of cash up front in order to play. There are lost of people out
there whove lost lots and lots of money when the chain broke and the plane
crashed.
And one thing is true about everyone of these illegal pyramid schemes-sooner
or later they always crash and burn.
In fact, when the state attorney general of New York finally busted the
airplane game, they discovered it had roots in organized ,crime, It was
started by the Mafia!
PONZI SCHEMES
Theres one more category of illegal pyramid. Its called a Ponzi scheme,
named after an Italian immigrant, Carlo Charles Ponzi.
Ponzi came to America in the early 1 900s. from Canada, where he spent some
time in jail for passing bad checks. He ended up rather quickly in federal
prison in the U.S. for smuggling illegal aliens into the country.
If Ponzi had been a botanist, history would be forced to recognize him as the
man who discovered the money tree.
Heres what he did.
Prior to the 1 920s, the post offices of the world issued what were called
International Reply Coupons, which could be exchanged for postage stamps
throughout the world. Ponzis idea was to purchase these coupons in countries
where the inflation rate was high and redeem them in countries where the rate
was low. Simply put, this enabled him to buy low and sell high.
On the strength of these coupons, Ponzi created the Securities Exchange
Company and issued his own promissory notes. An investor could purchase one
of Ponzis notes with a face value of, ny, $1 So for only $100. In just 90
days, the investor could redeem the note for its full value. In the days when
banks were regulated to offer 4% interest Ponzis notes promised an
extraordinary return of 50%!
At first Poiizis investors were cautious and risked only $10 or $20, However
after earning 50% interest on their money a couple
37
of times, they felt more secure and soon began to invest thousands.
Ponzi also cut the time frame in half to only 45 days to sweet (Ii 1w
deal for investors. (It did!)
In no time at all, Ponzis empire grew to staggering proportions. One million
bucks would flow into his offices every day (the equivalent of $100 million
in todays dollars)! As his investors got rich and spread the word, Ponzi got
even richer. He was hailed as a financial genius. He now owned a local bank
the Hanover Trust Companylived in the posh suburb of Lexington,
Massachusetts, and was known far and wide as The Great Ponzi.
The full amount of money lost in the Ponzi scheme will never be known. Over
$15 million (in 1920 dollars) was paid out to investors before the
business collapsed. Carlo Charles Ponzi was the proud father of one of
the most incredible inventions of all timethe illegal pyramid scheme.
What made Ponzis scam an illegal pyramid scheme was the
38
merry-go-round principle. As long as money was coming in from new
investors, money could continue to go out to the early investors. For a
time, investors were paid in full, on time, and everyone was happy.
However, when the money stopped coming in, the jig was up because there was
no money or items of value, like stocks or CDs or real estate or gold bars
held in reserve. Because Ponzi used new investors money to line his pockets
and pay off the early investors, when the flow of new money stopped, the
scheme collapsed like a house of cards.
Eventrually, the people who invested late in the game lost their
II ) )I 0
Some of them lost everything they had.
What Ponzi did was to live on the float you know, like writing a check
today to pay yesterdays bills based on money that wont arrive until
tomorrow in the hope that the check wont be cashed until sometime next week
and so on and so on.
Sound familiar? Likely too familiar.
You know, it seems to me that a whole big part of the world of government,
education, and business today is doing just what Carlo Ponzi did.
hi the next chapter well look at several big, BIG pyramids that make Ponzis
scheme look like penny-ante poker.
To make matters worse, theyre perfectly legal.
Should they continue to be legal? Or ruled illegal?
You be the judge.
39
05
It should be obvious to you now why illegal pyramid schemes are, well,
illegal. Illegal gambling, illegal airplane gnaws, Poazi schemes, and
outright rip-offs that permit a select few to get rich at the expense of many
othersthese acts break human laws.
But theres another set of laws that govern how human live and work. Natural
laws. Gods laws. Its these laws that Dr. Black was speaking about when he
said that pyramids collapse when theres no value flowing down to balance the
power of the dollars (or votes) flowing up.
The alarming truth is that there arc many organizations and enterprises in
the world that are without a doubt pyramid schemes of the highest (or more
accurately, lowest) order In fact, the biggest pyramid scheme in the entire
world is legal?
The pyramid Im talking about is run by the United States government.
Its called Social Security
Theres not a person in America under age 50 who should expect to collect all
of their Social Security benefits at retirement. Everybody knows the Social
Security Administration will be broke by the time all the Baby Boomers start
collecting their fair share.
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So, what happens to the money that the government rakes in from Social
Security and Medicare taxes? It goes right back out to people eligible to
draw Social Securityretirees, survivors, and the disable. Whats left over
goes into the general budget, and our elected officials spend it on roads (if
were lucky) or failed government programs, like the $20 billion anti-drug
media campaign that the government reluctantly admits has had zero effect on
illegal drug use.
In other words, when the U.S. government uses new investor money to pay early
investors and then squanders the rest, ITS A LEGAL PYRAMID. But when Carlo
Ponzi did the same thing, IT WAS AN ILLEGAL PYRAMID!
Now, heres the really scary part. When Social Security was first enacted in
1935, there were 35 workers for every eligible person and life expectancy was
around 60. In 2026, the year the government will be paying out more in Social
Security benefits than it takes in with payroll taxes, there will be 2
workers for every eligible recipientand life expectancy will be near 80.
So what are politicians doing to avert this looming crisis? Nothing
constructivejust spouting slogans and pointing fingers
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Right now the government is doing okay with their version of the Ponzi scheme
because between 1946 and the mid-1960s, 76 million kids were born into a huge
mega-group of humanity called the Baby Boom. All these millions of Boomers
have been donating money into the fund all their working lives, and theyre
paying for those folks who are old enough to qualify for Social Security
benefits right now.
But what happens when it comes time for the first of those 76 million Baby
Boomers to start collectingwhich will Occur starting in 2008?
You guessed it... there wont be enough money to pay all those its my.time-
tO-collect Boomers! You see, after the Baby om came the baby bust. There have
been nowhere near the same number of births since the Baby Boomand probably
never will be again. So, there will be far fewer people paying in money than
there ni taking it out.
In business terms thats called a negative cash flow too much month at the
end of the money!
Did you know that males who turned 30 in 199() will pay $200,000 more into
Social Security than they will eve rake out? Fact is, 70% of American
families pay more in FICASocial Security and Medicarethan they pay in
income taxes! Talk about a scam and a scheme!
Whats going to happen when the first wave of baby boomers takes out so much
money that theres nothing left? Your kids and grandkids will be working
overtime to pay a whole bunch of old geezers to fish and play golf. If you
thought there was a generation gap in the 60s, just wait until Gen X-ers
start paying a thousand bucks a month (or more) in Social Security taxes so
that the Boomers can live the life of Riley in Sun City; Florida.
The crash of an airplane game will be like a fly going down the toilet
compared to the nationwide devastation when Social Security crashes!
You tell me: Is value flowing down this pyramid? Surein dribs
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The essence of all pyramid schemesthe illegal ones and the legal onesis
that the guys at the top get rich while everybody else at the bottom loses
out.
Its like when corporate CEOs get paid millions and millions in pay, perks,
and benefits.., while the stock price takes a nosedive. Larry Ellison, the
CEO of Oracle Software, for example, hauled in nearly $800 MILLION during the
dot.com bustwhile the company stock dropped 61%!
So, what did Ellison do while thousands of loyal Oracle employees received
pink slips and tens of thousands of stockholders lost their shirts? Why, he
bought the worlds largest privately owned boat, a 550-foot mega-yacht
costing $125 million.
The money that the guys sitting on top of the corporate pyramids make these
days is nothing short of criminalunless, of course, it is criminal, like
Andrew Fastow of Enron and Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, just two of the dozens
of top execs who were caught with their hand in the cookie jar in the go-go
years before the dot.com bubble burst. Both men were sentenced to prison for
their contributions to two of the biggest corporate frauds in American
history, Their greed drove their respective companies into bankruptcy,
costing tens of thousands of employees their jobs and wiping out employee
pensions, some of which were worth millions.
Fastow cried at his sentencing. (1, on the other hand, didnt shed so much as
a tear for either of these post-Ponzi crooks).
Meanwhile, the rest of the top dogs at public companies are taking payouts
just as big as Fastow and Ebbers, but, eager to stay out of prison, cautious
CEOs are stuffing their pockets with perfectly legal tacticsoversized
paychecks and an obscene number of stock options.
Since 1980, average CEO pay has skyrocketed 442%, while average worker pay
has inched up less than 2% during the same time period. how piggish is CEO
pay? The average CEO of a Fortune
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1OO company makes nearly $15 MILLION PER YEAR. Compare that to the average
worker, who makes less than $30,000 per year. If average worker pay had grown
at the same rate of CEO pay since 1980, workers would be earning $164,000 a
year instead of $30,000.
You know CEO pay is out of control when pro-business Fortune magazine
featured a smiling pig in a suit on their cover with this headline: CEO Pay:
Have They No Shame?
American CEOs are the worst abusers. CEOs in the U.S. are paid more than
twice as much as Canadian CEOs... three times more than British CEOs... and
four times more than German CEOs.
Have you no shame, indeed?
Tell me, does it make sense to you to raise the pay of congressmen and
senators whove been running U.S.A., Inc. at a lossnot billions, but
trillions, of dollars! for generations?
And then our elected leaders have the nerve to set up a cushy pension plan
that will pad their pockets for years after theyre voted out of officeeven
if they only serve one term! No wonder politicians have a bad name!
Look, youre a stockholder in this country We all are. How do you feel
about the performance of the executives and managers in your government?
Remember, these guys work for us! And remember, too, these are the people who
provide the military with $650 hammers and $6,000 toilets!
Not their money, not their problem.
Does all this make sense to you?
We pour in money (politicians call it revenues; we citizens call it
taxes), and the politicians spend us into the poor house, despite record
revenues flowing into the IRS (why not?.., they arent accountable until the
next election, right?). As one political observer put it, ... in recent
years, Washington, wrestling with the budget deficit, has come to resemble
more and more a drunk wrestling with alcoholism.
How does the U.S. compare to other countries? Well, thanks to huge deficits
and a looming Social Security and Medicare crisis that our politicians refuse
to act on, the World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. sixth in global
competitiveness, behind Nigeria, Peru, Uganda, Venezuela, and Vietnam!
Do you think its fair that individuals, many of whom struggle from
paycheck to paycheck, are paying more in income taxes while
I
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humongous corporations earning billions each year are paying less? Fair? No.
Fact? No Fact? Yes.
In the 1950s, 28% of federal revenues came from corporate taxes. Today,
corporate revenues represent only 7% of all federal tax receipts, a 75%
DECREASE.
Who picks up the difference? Individual taxpayers, thats who. You and me,
thats who. Meanwhile, the corporate fat cats exchange high fives and award
themselves more stock options.
Could it be the U.S. government is a legal pyramid scheme? I hate to think
so, but look at the facts: Our leaders in Washington have run up a $5
TRILLION national debt while penning laws with loopholes that enable major
corporations to pay less and less taxes. Meanwhile, Congress authorizes the
IRS to pay outside agencies 24% commission to collect back taxes from
individual taxpayers.
Lets seethe IRS is terrorizing the little people while sipping martinis
with the corporate fat cats. Is this what the founding fathers had in mind
when forming a new nation? Dont think so.
As for the IRS, its choking on incompetence and bureaucratic red tape. The
IRS recently spent $8 billion of our tax dollars to overhaul its computer
programs. What we got for that money was, a top official admitted, a system
that does not work in the real world.
Heres proof. The IRS sends out 30 million tax penalty notices each year.
Yet, according to their own admission, nearly 50% are incorrect! This is an
agency that is so incompetent that they couldnt account for 64% of their
budget at a year-end audit.
The IRS is worse than a pyramid scheme. At least Ponzi knew how much money he
was stealing!
Charities like the United Way are do-good, non-profit organizations that we
can trust, right? Wrong. Non-profit for you and me, maybe... but all too
often, BIG profits for the hypocrites who run them!
A former director of the United Way was paid $463,000 a year plus perks
including JO free trips a year to Las Vegas for business (yeah, monkey
business). Get this: Thirty-three different non-profit organizations
including the Boy Scouts of America, pay their directors over $200,000 a
year!
In many non-profits, less than 5% of the revenues is actually spent helping
the victims, while 95% goes to pay expenses, includingyou guessed itthe
salaries, expense accounts, medical benefits, and retirement packages for
administrators and directors. And you thought all your money went to kids and
cancer research.
Not!
What about a college education? oh, theres a great one! They call it
higher education because thats where the costs are headed every year
higher!
Tell me, where else can you spend $40,000, $50,000, or $60,000 a year for
four years (or more) to receive a piece of paper that doesnt even guarantee
you a decent job?
Who gets the good jobs right out of college? With the exception of the top
jocks who turn to pro sports, its those very very few at the top of their
class in those few top universitiesthe ones that
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Most people are under the illusion that theyll graduate from college and
walk right into a solid career opportunity Boy, are they ever in for a
reality check That kind of thinking reminds me of the story about a man who
died and went to Purgatory
The archangel in charge explained to the man that he could choose between
going to Heaven or Hell, but once he made the choicethat was it. The man
asked if he could see them both before he made his Final choice. The
archangel said, Sure.
When they got to Heaven, it was beautiful. Everybody was smiling. It was
peaceful and tranquil-just perfect. The people seemed content and so happy It
certainly looked very lovely indeed.
This is beautiful the man said. May I see the other now? The archangel
rook him down to Hell.
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It was incredibleone huge party! People were laughing and dancing the music
was blaring. There was a lavish spread of magnificent food, everybody was
drinking and carrying on. The man had never seen anything like it in his
life, and his eyes grew as big as silver dollars.
The archangel leaned over to him and asked, Well, which do you choose?
Oh, this onethis one! said the man excitedly, I want to be in Hell.
The archangel reminded the man that he only had only one choice. re you
certain you want to be in Hell? The archangel asked the man. Oh, yesIm
positive) came the reply.
The archangel clapped his hands and, in a flash, the music stopped, the party
disappeared, and the man found himself chained to a post with flames shooting
at him from every direction,
No! he cried to another suffering soul. Where did the party gothe people,
the dancing, all the food?
Oh, said the suffering soul, you must have attended the marketing
presentation. This is what Hell is really like.
The moral of the story? Things are not always what they appear to bejust ask
the college graduates who have to move back home because they cant find a
job in their field!
Today, moving back home after college is the rule, not the exception. Thats
why theyre being called the Boomerang Generation they get tossed out,
only to come spinning back home again. What college is best at preparing
people for ismore college. Get a degree, then another, and another.
Do what I do and you, too, can become a professional student.
In 1960, we graduated 9,733 Ph.D.s. Today, more than 40,000 students earn a
Ph.D. each year! Where do they all go? Back to college to teach others how to
get a Ph.D. so that they can go back to college to teach others how to get a
Ph.D.
Do you see a pattern here?
Folks, its time we all took a reality check. Lets face it, when you try to
use your 13.8. degree to achieve job security and financial independence,
youll find out what 13S really stands forBack to Schoolbecause thats
where youll head when you cant find a job.
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ADD UP THE DREAM DEBT
Are you beginning to see how legal pyramid schemes are robbing ou of your
opportunity to achieve the American Dream?
Just look at the list of dream stealers againa soon-to-be. bankrupt Social
Security system.., outsized CEO pay and unaccounted for stock options,.,
corporate wealthfare that decreases corporate taxes while increasing your
personal taxes... trillions of dollars in national debt supported by loans
from decades- long enemies like Russia and China,,, college tuition costs
increasing at twice the rate of inflation,., and an IRS that goes after
individual taxpayers while playing tootsie with corporate cash cows.
You get the feeling the deck is being stacked against you? It reminds me of
the old poker saying: If you sit down at a poker table, look around to see
who the sucker is, and if you cant spot one, then get up and leave cause
the sucker is YOU!
I dont like being played for a sucker, especially when it comes to my
dreams.
How about you?
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06
IM STICKING TO MY STORY
One night a guy decided to drop by a local bar after work to have a drink
with his friends. Everybody was having a great time! Swapping
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stories.., singing along with the juke box... buying rounds of drinks for the
table.
Before he knew it, he and his friends had dosed the place down. As he
stumbled to his car, he could see the sun breaking over the horizon. He
glanced at his watch, 6 am. Oh, no, he thought to himself. Ive done it
again. My wife will kill me... I promised her no more all-night binges!
Twenty minutes later he pulled into the driveway, rehearsing the excuse he
thought up on the way home. As he stumbled through the front door, he looked
up to see his wife waiting for him with her arms crossed.
Where have you been all night? she demanded. He straightened up, looked her
right in the eye, and slurred, I got home just after midnight, and I didnt
want to wake you... so I slept in the hammock outside.
His wife glared at him and responded. Nice try.. only one problem... we took
the hammock down two years ago!
The man gave her a startled look and then blurted, Well, thats my story and
Im sticking to it!
My friend, people who think they can have the same job security today that
workers enjoyed in the 1950s are just kidding themselves... theyre telling
themselves a ridiculous lie.., and then sticking to it.
In the words of workplace consultant Mary Lynn Pulley:
The rules that people grew up with about lifetime security and employment
no longer work.
Lets face it, there is no security anymore. We cant turn back the clock.
Its time to tell yourself the truth, prepare yourself for the consequences
and get on with your life!
Today, it takes at least two incomes for most Americans to achieve the
standard of living our parents had with one paycheck. And even thats a
stretch: People are now talking about the three-income family as if that were
normal!
Things are changing so fast in our world and workplace that people who had
iron-clad, lifelong positions with solid companies just a few short years ago
are out of work today.
Did you know that 30% of all Americans lost their jobs during the last two
decades of the 20th century?-thars 3 out of every 10
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workers! And as globalization... outsourcing... and automation continue at a
galloping pace, that trend will continue for decades to come.
Blue-collar workers were the first to go, replaced by automation and advanced
technology as entire industries were transformed, seemingly overnight. White-
collar workers were the next to feel the ax, as sophisticated computer
systems replaced whole departments of clerical workers.
Telephone operators are a perfect example. In the days before powerful
personal computers, Ma Bell and her rivals employed several hundred
thousand operators to handle local and long distance calls.
Today, one high-tech AT&T supervisor monitoring a souped-up software system
can do the work it used to take 10,000 live operators to doand automation
will do it better, faster and cheaper.
Im no big fan of voice mail, but voice recognition software has become so
good that entire industries as laying off rectpd0n1 and service reps. Today,
its nearly impossible to get a live person on the phone when you call your
credit card company... mortgage company... bank... or insurance company.
Where do all those laid off workers go for employrne1t after theyre kicked
to the curb by automation? Starbucks or The Home Depot, if theyre lucky.
Wal-Mart, if theyre not.
And its gonna get worse, trust me.
Since 2001, there has been only one private sector in the U. S. economy that
has added jobshealth care. In the five years since the dot.com bubble burst,
health care has added 1.7 million jobs. The rest of the private sector? Zero.
As the Boomers age, health care will continue to add Jobs Millions of them,
in fact. So, if you want to escort senior citizens to dinner at the local
assisted living facility.. change sheets and empty bed pans at a nursing
home, then youre hi the right place at the right time.
Heres what Fortune magazine says about todays new economy:
America factories are lean (with 12% fewer employee than at the 1979 peak),
strong (producing 51% mote stuff), and fast (increasing productivity at a
torrid 3.5% annual rate).
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Most of us can accept that certain industries are born, grow, prosper, get
old, and eventually die. Thats just the way it is. And its foolish to hang
on to the past and fight progress.
Around the turn of the 20th century, we were a land of farmers. Nearly 90% of
the population was involved in producing the food we needed as a nation. In
1930 there were 30 million farmers in the U.S., and they fed about 100
million citizens.
Fast-forward 70 years to the year 2000.
Guess how many farmers were working the land as we entered the new
millennium: Amazingly, fewer than 300,000 farmers are
* needed to feed 300 million Americans, plus another 100 million people
throughout the rest of the world. In only 70 years, just 1% of the farmers
are producing four times as much food! Incredible!
So what has happened to all those displaced farmers and their children? The
sons and daughters of farmers today are business owners, software
programmers, chemical engineers, insurance salesmen, doctors, and lawyersnot
farmers. Why should they be? Theres no security in farming anymoreand,
unless you inherited thousands of acres, theres little opportunity left in
farming.
CUT... OR BE CUT
GET AN EDUCATION
Going to college, getting a good job, providing a secure future for yourself
and your family isnt what It used to be. Its a myth, Isnt It?
Sure, they teach you a Lot in college. But none of the professors teach you
how to become financially secure. It reminds me of a poem by Stephen Crane,
the author of The Red Badge of Courage:
I met a seer.
He held in his hands
The book of wisdom.
Sir, I addressed him,
Let me read.
Child he began.
Sir I said, Think not that I am a child,
For already I know much
Of that which you hold.
Aye much.
He smiled.
Then he opened the book
And held it before me
Strange that I should have
Grown so suddenly blind.
The book of wisdom that tells you how to achieve the American Dream doesnt
exist in any college library Even if it did, only a very
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few college students would be able to understand a word of it.
The job market for college grads is bad and getting worse! Why? Demographics,
plain and simple. The Baby Boom that created the most awesome market for
goods and services the world has ever seen... that created the most massive
block of college graduates... also created the most cut-throat, competitive
job market ever!
Thats why the clerk at the local Starbucks and the checkout girl at the
local Borders book store are college gradstheyve got a diploma, but
unfortunately, all the good jobs are already filled by people with diplomas
and experience. Sorry Mr. and Ms. Generation X, were not hiring.
The night shift at the nursing home down the street is hiring,
though....
GET A JOB
Weve lost as many as a quarter of a million jobs in a single month and that
figure is destined to get higher and higherand that doesnt include the
millions of people whose jobless benefits have run out and whove given up
and quit looking for work!
Are there jobs out there? Surelots of em. The classified ad section in the
local newspaper is as thick as the yellow pages. But 90% of those jobs can be
summed up in two hyphenated words:
dead-end, low-paying.
Thanks, but no thanks.
The number of men and women changing jobs every year now is astonishing! It
used to be that youd get into an industry and there youd stay til you
retired. Maybe youd make one or two changes to move up the corporate ladder.
But today, employment experts expect people to have 10 to 12 different jobs
in five to six different careers during their working lives! Wheres the
security in that?
I tell you, there is no security anymore.
Even the most secure job in the world, working for the U.S. Postal Service,
is in jeopardy these days. Currently, the postal service employs more than
700,000 people. But with the advent of e-mail and increasing competition from
UPS and FedEx, the postal service has automated scores of backoffice
functions, resulting in the Postal Services goal of eliminating 13,000 jobs
a year for the next 10 years.
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NON-TRADITIONAL LABOR ON THE INCREASE
FRANCHISING
Okay, lets say that you accept the fact that theres no security in the work
world anymore... and that If its going to be its up to me.
Where do you go?
What do you do?
Lets take a look at your income options.
Option 2: Self-Employment: Most people fed up with being ti red will wrn to
self employment in an effort to create more security n their work. However,
as I pointed out earlier, the odds are stacked against you even for starting
up the most modest of conventional
62
small businessesmuch less keeping it open and making it profitable.
If youre one of the few who make it past the first couple of years, youve
got a chance, but be realisticyou have less than a 1% chance of making your
business last 10 years or longer.
Option 4: Investments: This is how the rich get rich and how Palm Beach
socialites maintain their estates and pay their country club dues. Problem
is, it takes a TON of cash to maintain even a modest retirement. A million
dollars aint what it used to be. Do the math. With a million dollars in CDs
paying 5% interest, youd earn an annual income of $50,000 a year before
taxes without ever touching the principle. After payroll and income taxes,
that would leave you about $31,000 to spend on your million-dollar
investment. (And thats assuming you have a million in the first place).
Option 5: lheres One More Way: Its the path to solid, ongoing income that
successful authors, songwriters, musicians, actors, and performing artists
follow You produce work, usually in the form of intellectual property, that
pays a pipeline of recurring income via royalties, also known as residual
income or passive income. Unfortunately, very few of us have a bestselling
book or record or a brilliant invention in us. Only a very elite group of
gifted people has the God-given talent to become the next Thomas Edison or
Stephen
But you know what? There is a way that youwhoever you are, whatever your sex
or race or family background or social status... whatever your education or
past history of success or failure in any endeavorcan begin to earn
enduring, residual-like income right now, starting today!
Its called Network Marketing or Multi Level Marketing. And before you sayor
thinkanother thing, I want you to
63
give me a chance... noscratch that 1 warn YOU to make lie chance FOR
YOURSELF to take a look at Network Marketing and see what it has to offer
you.
in earlier chapters you learned how our entire world is filled with pyramids
good ones, bad ones, legal ones, and illegal ones. Doesnt the fact that all
these businesses and social and cultural institutions like schools,
colleges, government, churches, and, yes, even familiesare all multi-level
pyramids tell you something interesting?
Phase 3
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08
Paradigm-$100 Word
and a Million-Dollar Idea
Do you remember what the gold standard wasthe prevailing paradigmfor watch-
making back in 1975? The SWISS watch, right? It was Rolex and the like,
perfecting technology that dates back to the 14th century: classic, accurate,
31 jewels, a mainspring to wind up, tick-tick-tick-tick-tick....
Suddenly, one day, this little old Swiss watchmaker comes running out of his
shop jumping up and down about this neat, new watch hed just made.
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The last time the Swiss had a really big hit in the watch business was
Swatch. Cheap, light, cute, bright.and quartz! They copied them from the
Japanese!
See, a paradigmthe way it isbecomes the way it was when it doesnt work
anymore. Or when somebody invents a new and improved paradigm to take its
place.
Right now, for example, the old paradigm of the American Dream has stopped
working for all but a very very few.
We know thats true by answering one simple question: Have
69
you gotten your slice of the American pie? Is it working for you, Are you
living the American Dream right now?
If youre not, believe me, youre not alone. Youre part of it mega group
thats been given a new definition of middle class youre in the middle,
all right, caught between a rock and a hard pined
Now, dont get caught in the trap of saying something like, Well, I just
dont work hard enough... or, Im just not smart enough....
Tell me the honest truthif you worked twice as hard as you do now, would
that really make a difference? Would you be earning twice as much? And do you
really need to be twice as smart as you are right now to make it in this
worldto be a success?
Look around: the A students are working for the C students. Being two or
three times smarter isnt the answer, either, If intelligence were the
answer, college professors would be the wealthiest people in the worldand we
both know thats not the way it is,
If youre like most people I know, you probably believe the reason you dont
have the American Dream is because you didnt take all the right steps you
were supposed to take. You probably think you got off track somewherethat
youre missing somethingand if you only had the missing ingredient, youd
have your Dream and be able to live it, too. Is that true?
Well, my friends, its not your fault. Youre not missing anything. Whats
missing is a new American Dream paradigmone that works. Because the old
American Dream isnt around anymore. Why?
Its been stolen!
Wanna know who stole the American Dream? Ill tell you who stole
the American Dream:
CEOZ who are making hundreds of millions while their companies are laying off
loyal workers by the thousandsthats who!
Giant Corporations that are eliminating pension plans for tens of thousands
of workers while giving a handful of key managers hackdated stock options
and retirement packages worth hundreds of millionsthats who!
Politicians who are voting themselves raises and perks and generous pension
plans, all the while twiddling their thumbs and
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Out-of-touch friends and relatives who keep telling you to trade your freedom
for dependence on a job that probably wont be there in a few short years
thats who!
Uninspired and timid teachers who brainwash students into thinking that the
sole purpose of a good education is to get a good jobthats who!
Rich hedge fund managers who make themselves even richer by pressuring U.S.
companies to ship good-paying jobs overseasthats who!
Dozens of Fortune 1000 companies that make their profits from North American
consumers yet transfer their corporate headquarters to a Caribbean island
address to legally avoid paying federal income taxesthats who!
State and local unions who are bankrupting our cities by demanding excessive
pensions and retirement benefits for their millions of members-thats who?
weekly paycheck, the big money will keep rolling right on Up to the top of
the pyramid, right into their corner offices.
And the best way to do that is to make sure you dont get your fair share.
Less for you, more for them, tight?
Look, if you were king of the mountain, would you really want to rock the
boat? Would you risk being the one on top just to try something new? Or would
you be like the guys who owned the Swiss watch business and hold tight until
that foolish quartz thing blew over?
Remember, people generally resist change. And the comfort zone is all the
more comfortable when youre rich and famousWhen youre the one whos king.
What Walt Disney was talking about when he said it took courage to pursue
your dreams was having the courage to accept change the courage to climb
aboard a new and better idea before everybody else does... because if you
wait til everyone is doing it its too late!
The late Sam Waltons advice for success was to swim upstream, as he put
it. If everybody else is doing it, Sam said, theres a good chance you can
find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.
Think about it: By the time regular people get into a hot real estate
market... or by the time the stock market hits a new high, the big money has
already been made, isnt that true? The experts are long gone and all thats
left for the ordinary guys and gals are the crumbs.
Mark Twain, who unwisely invested in a string of unsuccessful business
ventures, speaks for most of us when he said: I was seldom able to see an
opportunity until it ceased to be one.
The new and better paradigm Im talking aboutthe way you can get back the
American Dreamis not the college.and-a-care& track paradigmlike it used to
be.
Not the job.with..corporate.Ameflca paradigmlike it used to be.
Not the start..a,smallbusinesSfr0mtth paradigm, either.
Believe me, I tried them all. And I didnt make it in any of them.
But I did make it in the new and better paradigm of Network Marketing.
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The Home Depotallow consumers to wander around a giant warehouse and take
advantage of home improvement products and services at contractor prices.
Dell-Offer low-cost, custom-built PCs on line and have them delivered to the
customers door in less than a week.
All of these better ideasthese new and different ways of doing something-
became wildly successful because they shattered old paradigms by delivering
more value down the pyramid in exchange for money going back up.
Yes, franchising was a better idea, with its proven, cookie-cutter system and
corporate support.
But personal franchisingin the form of Network Marketing is the best idea
because it has all of the advantages of traditional franchising at a fraction
of the up-front costs. Network Marketing a brilliant idea whose time has
come.
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09
Throughout human history as changes have come to light, people have run
around blowing out candles and throwing the switches, demanding continued
darkness.
In every field of endeavorthe arts, sciences, medicine, businessmost new
ideas have met with resistance and rejection at first. And the more unique
and revolutionary the idea, the more sweeping and vast the change, the louder
and stronger peoples opposition to it.
Its not hard to understand why frightened, superstitious people
in the Dark Ages, or even in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries,
were threatened by new paradigms. The authorities threw
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Once upon a time, back in the 1700s through the early 18OOs, North Americans
bought what they needed at small, family-owned specialty shops.
It was the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. paradigm.
Then, an Irish immigrant named A.T. Stewart had a very bright idea. He
decided to combine all these separate little shops under one roof in one big
store. In 1862, he built what became known as the Marble Palace in New York
City a giant, multi-storied building where shoppers could buy everything they
needed for their households just by walking from one department to another.
Department stores with now-famous names, such as Macys... Lord & Taylors.
.. Sears... Woolworths... Hudsons Bay Company... Marshall Field...
Wannamakers... and JCPenneys sprung up across the continent, and we entered
the golden age of department stores.
Department stores offered consumers a new paradigm for shopping... a new and
better way of doing things. More merchandise. Better pricing. Better quality
More convenience.
And people flocked to them. In 1900, as many as 40,000 shoppers a day would
march through the aisles of Marshall Field in Chicago.
Can you guess what happened next?
The individual merchants who owned those mom-and-pop specialty stores were
unhappy people, to say the least. They saw their business drop to next to
nothing as more and more people sought the wider selection, lower prices, and
greater convenience of the local department stores.
The small mom-and-pop outfits started dropping like flies.
Well, those shopkeepers didnt take it lying downno sir! They fought back.
However, they didnt fight back with a new and better idea themselves.
Instead, they fought change by clinging to the old
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After the chain department stores took over the major market share in
retailingthe smaller merchants finally came to their senses and embraced the
new technology They began to look for innovative ways to leverage the
department store paradigm for themselves.
As the automobile made growing suburbs out of near-city farm land, groups of
small merchants got together in a collective way and formed shopping centers
a variety of individual stores all in the same convenient location. The
zoning battles that followed fueled by all the shop owners who didnt get
into the new shopping centerswere nasty indeed.
Eventually shopping centers, too, proliferated. And before long, developers
enclosed them and put roofs over themkind of like what the chain department
stores had done initiallyand called them shopping malls.
Malls quickly became a way of life in North America.
Yet today, both department stores and malls are becoming old and dying
paradigms.
As futurist Faith Popcorn says in her best-selling book, The Popcorn Report:
Like the corporation1 the shopping experience as we know it has grown
cumbersome, inefficient, a violation of trends. The big department stores are
discovering that its no longer possible to be all things to all customers.
The shopping center is becoming a dinosaur in the grand scheme of things.
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FRANCHISING
One of the most amazing innovations in how America buys and sells what it
wants wasand still isfranchising.
You know, 50 years ago franchising was a revolutionary new technologya new
and better way to retail goods, food product and services to the consumer.
And boy, did people hate it Resistance, big time.
Newspapers and magazines shouted bold headlines about what
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a scam and rip-off franchising was. Stories of little old ladies who lost
their life savings to some flim4lam franchise were everywhere.
Even though some very big, well-known Fortune 500-type companies were
involved in franchising, CEOs refused to allow their corporations to be used
in ads or magazine storieseven about their own franchises In fact,
franchising actually came within 11 votes of being outlawed by Congress
(sounds a little like the first department stores, doesnt it?).
Todaythis once shaky shady so-called scam is responsible for over 33% of all
retail sales in North America. Franchises sell nearly a trillion dollars of
products a year from 1000 different franchised conceptsand its still
growing! What will this figure be once franchising catches fire in China?
Scary Isnt it?
Franchising was simply a new technology. Clearly, a revolutionary very
powerful, and very,very successful technology a new and better and different
idea for the distribution and sales of goods and services.
Is there a new next step in the evolution of our free enterprise system?
Is there a new, emerging distribution and sales technology on the horizon
thatll out-perform franchising, the current king of retailing?
Yes, there is.
Its called Network Marketing.
And even more than department chains, big-box discount stores, shopping
centers, malls, and franchising that came before, Network Marketing has been
resisted. Its been misunderstood, criticized. laughed at, and lobbied and
legislated against.
Just like department stores... just like franchising..- Whos laughing flow?
THE PIONEERS
Direct Selling has a long, rich history in North America, dating back to the
1600s when Yankee peddlers would canvass city neighborhoods and travel back
roads from village to village peddling much-needed household wares, such as
pots and pans, candles, and
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the like.
Then, in the late 1 800s, Richard Sears, founder of Sears and Roebucks,
installed the first formal Network Marketing compensation system by rewarding
catalog customers with points that could be exchanged for merchandise or cash
for referring friends and family members to Sears mail order division.
In the early I 900s, an African-American woman named Madam CJ Walker laid the
groundwork for modern Networking opportunities by recruiting ambitious but
underemployed black women to sell her hair and skin products for commissions.
The uneducated daughter of slaves, Walker quickly recognized that personal
growth was essential to success, and she opened training centers in several
cities to teach her reps strategies for success. By the time of her death in
1917, Walkers company employed 20,000 independent sales reps across North
America. The Guinness Book of World Records cites Walker as the first
American female self-made millionaire.
Mr. Sears and Madam Walker set the stage for Network Marketing by adopting
unconventional approaches that would motivate everyday consumers to make
money while making a difference in their lives and the lives of family and
friends.
Thats why I say the Network Marketing of the new millennium is such a
powerful vehicle for financial independenceit has a history of continually
reinventing itself by exploiting the latest technologies. As one industry
observer puts it, The futures so bright you gotta wear sunglasses!
10
Whisper This Word to Yourself:
Distribution
All too many men go through the
forest and see no firewood.
English proverb
In his breakthrough book, Unlimited Wealth, noted economist Paul Zane Pilzer
asks the reader to recall a memorable scene from the 1 960s iconic movie The
Graduate. Dustin Hoffman plays the part of Ben, a recent college graduate who
is clueless about what to do with his future. One evening at a party, an
older, wiser man pulls Ben aside to share the secret to business in the years
ahead. lie whispers one word in Bens ear:
Plastics.
In Unlimited Wealth, Pilzer whispers a different, though no less profound and
magical word, in our ears:
Distribution.
Heres why.
The most visible and powerful impact technology has had to date on the goods
and services we buy is in reducing the cost of making a product. And its a
proven marketing law that when you lower the price, you sell much, much more.
For example, few Americans owned calculators when they sold for $125. Once
the retail price dropped below $20, everybody got oneand then two or three.
The same was true for computers and cell phones and a whole range of
products.
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When it cost $5,000-plus for a flat-screen T only the rich people owned
them. But when the prices started plunging to the $1,000 range, or cheaper,
they started flying off the shelves. Today, you can buy a flat-screen, hi-
definition plasma TV with remote for what it cost to buy a black and white
console TV in the 1960s.
Pick a productany productand youll find the same thing has happened.
Adjust the dollars for inflation, and today you can buy six to seven times
the value, quality features, safety, and longevity than you could 20 years...
or even 10 short years ago. Today you get a far better quality TV... or
refrigerator.., or microwave.., or desktop music system... or laptop
computer... and it costs 60% less yet has 10 times the features.
Advances in technology that is, new and better ways of doing things (in this
case, of making things) have slashed retail prices, and, as a result, more
units get sold. When the price comes down, then what was once a luxury item
suddenly becomes a necessity Everybody has to have one... then two.., then
three (got to have one in the garage).
Today, 95% of homeowners have at least two TV sets; the majority of homes
have three or more TV sets. Many upscale newly built homes have P/s projected
through the bathroom mirror!
We are the worlds biggest market for just about everything, They (the
Chinese, the Japanese, the Germans, and any other of they) may giggle
behind our backs.., make snide remarks about materialistic Americans, but
the laughing stops when the marketing
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begins. They know which side their bread is buttered on and they
know whos got the bread, baby!
Okay, if prices are dropping like autumn leaves in Maine, why is it that some
prices havent come down in price? Food, for example?
Great questionand food is a perfect example of prices that keep edging up.
Heres why. The cost of growing food, such as wheat, and turning it into,
say, cereal, was lowered to rock bottom by new and better growing and
production technologies many years ago.
In a box of cereal, the cereal itself may cost 10 cents. If you improve
farming and manufacturing 20%, you only knock 2 cents off the price of the
food. So, why does Kellogg or Post charge $3.50 for the box of cereal?
Because the biggest cost of the product isnt in the manufacturing. And its
not in the packaging, either, which adds only another dime. Other than
marketing, the biggest cost is in something you cant see or taste.
But while manufacturing costs were being slashed, the costs of distribution
and sales were climbing higher and higher. Today, those expenses represent
about 80% to 90% of what a consumer pays for a product.
Now, if you want to be the most competitive retailer with the lowest price,
which are you going to do?
a) Focus your efforts on reducing the already rockbottom cost of making a
product to recapture a few pennies? -
Or.
b) Concentrate on the 80% to 90% it costs to distribute and sell that
product?
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Distributionthats where the money is these days. If you need proof, just
look at the richest family in America: the Waltons.
The late Sam Waltons family owns Wal-Mart, easily the most successful
distributor of merchandise in the world.
Just how successful is Wal-Mart?
When the four Walton heirs sit down for Sunday dinner, the collective net
worth of the people at the table is $100 billion, give or take a couple of
hundred million that might have dropped out of somebodys pocket on the way
to Moms house. if Daddy Sam were still alive, hed be the richest man in the
world, nearly doubling number two Bill Gates at $53 billion.
And what did Uncle Sam Walton and his Wal-Mart stores do to create this
amazing mass of money?
Distribution.
Wal-Mart distributes and sells other peoples products. In fact, they dont
really sell anything. They just make available the bestselling models and
brands as part of the widest selection in one convenient location at the
absolute cheapest prices in town. How good are they at distribution? Heres a
joke thats made the rounds:
How do you find the local Wal-Mart store? Its right across the street from
the boarded-up Kmart.
Yep, theyre that good. And getting better, moving into distributing
groceries.., and prescription drugs... and tires... and gasoline and setting
their sights on conquering China.
Distributionthats the key!
If you can develop a new and better methoda better technology for
distributing goods and services than most businesses are using todayyou will
be ver3 very rich tomorrow.
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And the good news is you dont have to design and develop that new and better
method of distribution and sales all by yourself. Because its already here,
up and working, right now. Whats more, it has been successfully tested,
refined, and proven in the market Place for more than 50 years.
11
product Edge
1. Volvo a. Lowest prices
2. Apple Computer_ b. Sin and excitement
3. BMW c. Superior driving experience
4. Las Vegas_ d. Individualism
5. Wal-Mart e. Safety
6. Tiffany Jewelry_ f. Glamour and luxury
ADS AD NAUSEAM
The six products listed above have been around for decades, so their edge in
the marketplace is firmly planted in the minds of consumers. But what about
the other hundreds of thousands of
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products seeking buyers?... how are advertisers trying to get an edge amid
all of the commercial clutter? The answerby getting more creativeno, make
that MORE DESPERATEin the content and placement of their ads.
Advertisers will not be satisfied until they put their mark on every blade
of grass, quips Rance Cram, editor-in-chief of the trade magazine
Advertising Age. Desperate to gain an edge, advertisers are pushing into
areas of our lives that are annoying, if not downright disturbing.
Some samples. CBS laser-stamped 35,000 eggs with its famous eye logo. Public
schools are not only pumping radio and TV ads into buses and classrooms, but
theyre also selling naming rights to athletic facilities and, gulp, even
lunchrooms. U.S. Airways takes in nearly $10 million each year selling ads on
tray tables and napkins and is negotiating -to sell adsIm not making this
upon their airsickness bags! And Columbia Pictures signed an agreement to
cover the bases at all Major League Baseball parks with Spider Man H logos.
(Fortunately, irate fans revolted and the studio called it off).
The result of this mad scramble for an edge? Consumers are becoming immunized
to the messages and even turned off by the messengers. When ads become too
intrusive and violate our sense of decorum, we make sure to remember the
product so we will be sure NOT to buy it.
So, how do savvy marketers get an edge by cutting through the clutter and
impacting consumers with quality-over-quantity messages that resonate with
sincerity rather than shock?
Most people assume that low prices are still the Biggest Edge in. marketing.
Not true.
Yes, low prices, as Wal-Mart has proved, is a big edge. But having the lowest
prices is NOT the Biggest Edge. If the lowest prices were the biggest edge,
then every one would drive a Kia and eat at home,
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Price is what you have to give up to get what you want, says marketing guru
Dr. Bill Quain, author of the bestselling book, Pro- sumer Power. When you
shop at Wal-Mart or Costco, posits Dr. Quain, you may pay less money than
shopping elsewhere, but you GIVJi up tons of intangibles to get that low
price. When you shop at Wal- Mart, just look at what you have to give up to
get what you want:
You give up great service.
You give up beautiful surroundings.
You give up a friendly, knowledgeable sales person.
You give UP luxury.
You give up top-quality one-of-a-kind products.
Thats why I say the Biggest Edge isnt the lowest price. Not even close. The
Biggest Edge today is the same as the Biggest Edge was 5,000 years ago... and
the same as the Biggest Edge will be 5,000 years from one-on-one, person-to-
person, face-to-face interaction with a knowledgeable representative.
Thats the Biggest Edge. Always has been. Always will be.
The need for hi-touch explains why air travel is at an all-time high in an
age when technology of cell phones, free long distance phone service, and
instant messaging make communication faster,
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cheaper, and easier than ever before. Why would someone pay $500 to fly to a
business meeting when they could video conference via the Internet for $5 or
less? Because technology can enhance person- to-person relationships, but it
can never REPLACE person-to-person interactions.
Looking for the Biggest Edge? Then create hi-touch experiences with people,
be they business associates, clients, customers, prospects, friends,
relatives, children, spouses, or acquaintances. No amount of hi-tech can
replace our in-born need for hi-touch, one human being relating to another
human being face to face.
As recently as the 1970s, advertisers could reach 90% of the U.S. television
audience just by buying ads on the three major networks at 9 p.m. Todays
marketers have it tougher. Todays consumers expect morea lot more! than a
30-second commercial touting the features of their product.
We are in a new business era, says Danny Meyer, author of Setting the Table
and owner of 11 successful restaurants in New York City This is now a
hospitality economy, no longer the service era. Service is the delivery of a
product. Hospitality is how the delivery of a product makes its recipient
feel
Network Marketing, with its emphasis on person-to-person
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presentations and mentoring, is the epitome of the hospitality economY.
Networkers make people feel special. Feel energized. Feel hopeful. Feel
engaged. And, well, feel human again.
Now that you understand why Network Marketing lays claim to the Biggest Edge,
lets turn the page to discover what Networking is and how it works.
The Truth
About
Network
Marketing
PHASE 4
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12
What Is Network Marketing
& How Does It Work?
THE8O2ORULE
Now, Im not saying Network Marketing is pure and perfect. People fail in
this business, too. Just like they fail in school or drop out of college. And
by the way, look at the worlddo you see more people failing or succeeding?
Its absolutely true that Networking companies make mistakes... some even do
downright stupid things. Some products dont cut it in the marketplace. When
the value stops flowing down, any pyramid collapseslegal or illegal. And
yes, there have been people who abuse the concept and make it dirty
Sadly, there are Ken Lays and Bernie Ebberses in every business. Its the
same with anythingand yes, Network Marketing, too.
You see, when its all said and done, Network Marketing is quite an
unconventional approach to distribution and sales. Thats why the timing
couldnt be better to become involved right now. And that doesnt sit well
with people whove got their hearts and minds and walletsheavily invested
in keeping the status quothe same old conventional Swiss watch paradigm of
doing things.
But keep in mind the late Sam Waltons advice: When everyone else is
floating downstream, swim upstream. You think the guys in the vinyl record
business had great things to say about compact disc technology when they
first saw it? If you want to catch major flak in this world, go out and do
something in a new and better waythen duck! Nay-sayers are everywhere. (I
wonder who pays those guys!)
Just for fun, take out a U, S. one dollar bill. Turn it over. Look at the
left-hand side. What do you see? A pyramid!
The founders of our country recognized the pyramid as a strong, enduring
structure. According to geometry pyramids are strongest of all. Wide at the
bottom and growing narrower at the topable to support great weight and stand
for ages against the natural elements.
The Founding Fathers of our nation were Freemasons, a brotherhood of
builders. And in this case, a group of nation-builders who created the
worlds first real democracy founded on the principles of equal opportunity
freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and free enterprise.
The Latin mottos above and below the pyramid say: Annuit Coeptis, which
means, God has favored our undertaking. And, Novus Ordo Seclorum, which
means, A new order of the ages.
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Interesting, isnt it? The United States of America, the pinnacle of free
enterprise, is represented by a pyramid! And if ever there was a pure and
perfect, democratic example of the best of free enterprise, its Network
Marketing.
About 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ appeared with a compelling message about a
new and better way of doing things. He gathered around him a small core group
of peopleaverage folks: fishermen, tax collectors, teenagers, and the like
who caught the vision, who shared His dream. He spoke to individuals, small
groups, and large gatherings. The word spread.
Yet even among His ardent believers and followers, there was one who betrayed
Him and others who denied and doubted, too. But no matter, for Jesus had
taken a stand for a new way of living that was unshakable. It was such a
powerful commitment that it extended long after He physically left this
earth.
Now, almost 2,000 years later, that handful of believers has conveyed the
message of Jesus Christ by word of mouth down through centuries to vastly
more people than that small, original group probably ever dreamed possible
today more than 25% of the population on this planet are Christians... thats
well over a billion peopleand growing!
From the money saved on advertising, Networking companies can offer their
distributors the support they need to market the
productsonline order consolidation sites, online information and 4
education, brochures, flyers, etc. Companies even provide training in how to
grow the business.
The distributors jobs are to move as much product as they can through an
independent network of distributorslarge or small because distributors get
paid on every product distributed through their organization. Since the
individual distributors can personally sell only a small volume of products,
they recruit other like-minded people to join them in their business. As an
incentive to build big networks, distributors can earn a percentage of the
volume of their entire organization.
Success in traditional direct sales depends upon a few super salespeople who
can each move a mountain of product. Network Marketing, on the other hand, is
just the opposite. Success in this
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No matter when you join a network organization, you are always the head of
your own company... at the top of the pyramid, so to speak. Unlike
conventional corporations with one chief executive at the top, in Network
Marketing, everyone is the CEO of his or her own independent organization.
Lts literally a network of CEOs.
Now, the Network Marketing company has done something pretty brilliant here.
Theyve slashed a huge amount of money from their costs of distribution and
sales. (Remember, as much as 80% of a products cost comes from marketing.)
If youre like most people, youd probably choose the million dollars. But
take my advicedont do it. Instead, take the penny doubled.
Why? Because the doubling concept is sneaky powerful. Check this out:
At first glance, a penny doubled every day for a month doesnt sound like
much, and, frankly, it doesnt look like much in the beginning, either.
After five days, youd have all of 16 cents.
After 15 days, you have a whopping $163.84.
Doesnt look very promising, does it? (If youre beginning to regret taking
my advice, hold on, theres more.)
On day 19, youd have $2,621. Six days later, day 25 just 5 days before the
end of the monthyoud have just over $167,000. Now, this is where it gets
interesting. The next day your money would double to $335,000. The next, more
than $671,000. The nextthe 28th dayyoud have over $1,340,000. And two days
later, on the
3Oththe last day of the monthyoud have a grand total of
$5,368,709.12! Thats over $5 million! (And if you were lucky enough to
choose one of the months with 31 days, youd have close to $11 MILLION!).
You know, McDonalds didnt start off with 10,000 restaurafl5 all over the
world. They started with just one. And thats just how you can start in
Network MarketingYou plus one other person.
Do you think it would be possible for you to find just one person each month
to join your business? Just one partner whos interested in more freedom,
recognition, happiness, and security.. one partner whos interested in
improving the lives of his or her family?
Now, in month two, you teach your first new partner how to sponsor one other
person, while you sponsor another new person. So, at the end of month two,
youve personally sponsored two people and your first partner has sponsored
one, as well. Now youve got a group of fouryou and three others.
Now, thats in a perfect worldand you know we dont live in a perfect world.
Remember Murphys Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
Lets say that 80% of your distributors are no longer selling products (as I
pointed out earlier, 80% of all businesses fail in the first year). But all
is not lost. These former sellers have now become consumersSo even though
theyve stopped working the business, youre still getting paid commissions
on their reorders. (So, even if theyre not working their business, theyre
contributing to the bottom line of YOUR business. What a deal!).
Now lets take it one step further lets assume the worst of the
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worst., lets assume 9 our of every 10 people you sponsor quit. To make
matters worse, lets assume 90% of your entire group quits. Pretty bad news
dont you think? In a traditional business, youd be in deep trouble.
Now, each one of these 400 people is using and selling products. Remember,
thats how Network Marketers get paidon the sales of products moved through
their networks. So, if each person in your organization is moving $100 or
$1000 worth of products each month, thats a total product volume of between
$40,000 and $400,000 a month!
Here comes the exciting partthe company pays the distributors a percentage
of that sales volume. If the Network Marketing company pays a 5% sales
commission on your downline volume, you would be earning somewhere between
$2,000 to $20,000 per month.
Now you understand the power of Network Marketing.
ow, lets talk a little history
In the early 1940s, a company called California Vitamins discovered that all
their new sales reps started out as satisfied customers first and that most
of the reps new customers came from Mends and family The company also
discovered that it was easier to get a lot of people to sell a little product
than it was to find those few superstars who could sell a whole lot all by
themselves.
So, the company wisely combined those two ideas and designed a marketing and
compensation structure that encouraged their sales reps to recruit new
distributors from the ranks of satisfied customers, most of whom were family
and friends. And then the company rewarded the sales staff by giving them a
percentage of the sales produced by their entire group. The result was
staggering: Even though each individual in a distributor network sold only a
couple hundred dollars worth of products, the whole group moved tens of
thousands of dollars worth of vitamins.
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Now that Network Marketing is gaining worldwide acceptance, more and more
products are being offered through this dynamic industry. Today, you can buy
at wholesale virtually any product you can find in a storethe variety of
products and services is nearly endless. From groceries to automobiles...
long distance phone services to sports equipment... personal development
tapes and tools to discount travel services.
The list is nearly endless-and growing!
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People just like you and me. All kinds of people from every conceivable walk
of life, from bank presidents... to house painters... to homemakers... to
contractors... to chiropractors... to comedians... to engineers.., to police
officers... to teachers... to doctors.., to farmers... to journalists.., to
janitors.., to financial planners... to retirees on fixed incomes.., to
retirees sailing the world on yachts... to everything in between.
In Network Marketing, its not where you start that counts, but where you
end, and if you are open to new ideas, positive, and are teachable, you could
end up owning your own high-profit business and calling your own shots, no
matter where you started.
One of the big reasons for the success of Network Marketing is that its
based on cooperationnot competition. Unlike traditional business, career
advancement in Network Marketing comes directly from your helping to create
success for all the people in your group, in your company, and in the
industry as a whole.
Its much like the story of the woman who died and suddenly found herself at
St. Peters gate. She asked him to show her the difference between Heaven and
Hell.
St. Peter took her to Hell, where she Saw an endless banquet table set with
the most abundant spread of magnificent, mouth- watering food and drink shed
ever seen1 Yet the people seated at the table were all shrieking and crying,
pulling at their halt; and tearing their clothes to rags. She had never seen
such horrible pain and anguish.
She was about to ask St. Peter whyin the face of such delicious abundance
the people were so miserable. But as she glanced around, she discovered the
answer for herself All their eating utensils were three feet long! None of
the people at the table could even get a taste of the luscious feast.
When she arrived in Heaven, she was surprised to find the exact same scene,..
the same endless table, the same fantastic food and drinkever, the same
three-foot-long forks and spoons. But here, everybody was happy and laughing
having a wonderful time.
1 dont get it... why is everyone so happy here? she wondered
105
out loud.
Because here in Heaven, St. Peter whispered, they reach across the table
and feed each other.
Cooperation instead of competition is a powerful reason that more and more
people are attracted to the Network Marketing concept. In fact, the best word
I can think of to describe Networking has become a business buzz word
empowerment. And Network Marketing is the most empowering business of all!
People are involved in Network Marketing because they have a burning desire
for a better way to live and work.
Theyre involved because they want to set their own schedules and be their
own bosses.
Theyre involved because they want to help themselves succeed by helping
others succeed.
Theyre involved because they dared to dream their dreams could come true.
Theyre involved because they had the guts and drive to do something to
change their circumstances for the better.
Theyre involved because theyre passionate about being paid what theyre
really worth, instead of what the job is worth.
Theyre involved because somebody cared enough about them to show them the
awesome opportunity of Network Marketing.
And theyre involved because they were ready to make a change.
Folks, heres the truth: Network Marketing is in your future. One way or the
other you will be involved. How you are involved is up to younobody else.
Youre either going to be spending money, buying productsand lots of them
from Network Marketers. Or youre going to be selling products and building
an organization and making money.
Its your choice.
Ask yourself, Would I rather be the one spending the money... or the one
making the money?
The truth is, we cant live on two incomes today the way our parents did on
one! Its a new world. For the first time in Americas
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history theres a whole generation of workers who are financially off than
their parents were at the same age.
Remember, less than one half of one percent of all North Amen. cans earns
$100,000 a year or more. And if you want to be one of them, youre going to
have to do something new and different.
Youll never create real and lasting wealth trading time for money Even the
doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs cant do it anymore and if the high-
priced college grads cant cut ft. how can you?
In Network Marketing you can break out of the time-for-money flap.
Passive income.., recurring income.., is where its at. How many self-
employed people do you know who could take off for a month and come back to a
bigger paycheck than when they left? In facts bow many self-employed people
could come back and find their business in one piece?
In Network Marketing, you could do just that. Ive known a number of Network
Marketers who left for a honeymoon or an extended vacation.., and returned to
find an even bigger check waiting for them than when they left Thats the
power of passive income
Not Network Marketingits wide open. No glass ceilingin fact, theres not
any kind of ceiling. Youre free.
I was making $550 an hour building boats. I waited on tables gettin nowhere
in a hurry Ive had my own business, too. I got out Just in rime and only
lost $200,000-plus!
in Network Marketing.
13
If Network Marketing Is So
eatWhy Havent We Been
Told the Truth About It?
There are lots of know-it-all bosses out therelots of them! And its not
just your boss at work Im talking about. Its all the self. proclaimed
bosses in government, education, business, your neighborhood, or family,
etc., who think they know whats best for you and me. Is it really your best
interest theyre looking out for...
or their own?
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The truth is that most of the people in power today are scared to death.
Their overriding concern is the fear of lossloss of their own power!
Everywhere they turn, they see the handwriting on the walland they dont
like the message. So what do they do?
They shoot the messenger.
Well, Network Marketings message is power to ALL the people
not power only to the bosses.
Weve come a long way since the W60s. Remember the antiestablishment
movement? How so many of us wanted to change the way the world worked? Well,
one reason that revolution didnt work was because we were spoiled and
inexperienced and were better at whining and tearing down than building new
and better ways of doing things to replace the old paradigms.
That was then... this is now. And now we do have a new and better paradigm
for living and working.
Thats why more and more Network Marketing companies are wearing bulletproof
vests.
Remember how the Romans treated the Christians? They fed them to the lions!
Remember what the power-people did with franchising in the beginning? They
called it a scam and a scheme. They were threatened by the message, so they
tried to shoot the messenger full of holes.
It reminds me of the story about the first time a movie was shown in a
Colorado mining town in the early 1900s. When the villain started threatening
the heroine, a prospector jumped to his feet and shot the movie screen full
of holes,
Sorry pahd-nahwrong tactic.., and wrong target.
The movie just kept on playing.
Like the ignorant prospector, the media powers want to shoot the villain,
too. After all, slaying villains attracts viewers and sells newspapers (and
if the media cant find a villain, they create one),
As I mentioned earlier, in the 1950s and early 60s, a big media
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Back in the early days of franchising, when someone complained about losing
money in a franchise, the media searched for all the dirty stories about
franchising they could find. Blew the stories up bigger than life and tried
to take franchising down.
Why?
Because the old, established department stores and chains were kings of the
mountain, spending tons of money on T radio, and newspaper adsand no one was
in any hurry to put the cash cow on a diet. So, the media ran negative
stories and the department store honchos got on their phones (and got out
their checkbooks) to persuade their congressmen to pass legislation that
would stop these upstart franchises dead in their tracks.
Came within a handful of votes of making it happen, too.
But in the end, new and better ways always triumph, and today, franchises
account for 33% of the goods and services sold in North America.
The media would have you believe they arent about the money... that theyre
about truth and justice.
All 1 know is, if someone tells you its not about the money, rest assured
its about the money!
How many millions of dollars of advertising space do you think those early
franchises were buyingcompared to all the advertising bought by huge
department stores and national chains that the franchises threatened with
their new and better way?
Whats morewhat if youre some upstart competitive marketer taking sales and
profits away from those free-spending advertisers
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ALL ABOARD!
Lets face itthe story I just told you about franchisings early struggle
for acceptance parallels the emergence of Network Marketing.
To make matters worse, Network Marketing is getting too big for our
britchesin other words, were succeeding in the marketplace of the free
enterprise system, big time. After all, worldwide, there are millions of
Network Marketers... and tens of millions of satisfied customers... and
billions of dollars worth of products sold every year through Network
Marketing!
And thats even harder for the giant corporations and big-box retailers to
take because theyve got the sneaking suspicion we just may be right.., we
may really be the wave of the future... we may really have managed to put the
freedom they stole back into free
enterprise.
Now, if you were sitting around the conference room in one of those
traditional Goliath companies and your sales were slipping away being stolen
from you by a fast-growing Network Marketing company you simply couldnt
compete withwhat would you do?
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Well, if you had a friend in the state attorney generals office. youd make
a call, wouldnt you? And if youd been contributing a bunch of money to an
industry lobbyist or a political action committee, youd call them too,
wouldnt you?
In fact, if your job were on the lineeither as the VP of sales or one of the
executive staff who sooner or later had to answer to stockholders and explain
why your market share was being taken away by some kooky pyramid scheme
youd grab any strategy you could get your hands on and fight backwouldnt
you?
Look, like I told you earlier, Im not here to champion any particular
Network Marketing company. My commitment is to the industry.. to free
enterprise itself... and to you! But Ill guarantee you this you wont catch
me cringing and biting my nails behind a palm tree while the bullies take
over the beach!
One thing about bullies, thoughthey never fight fair. They always have their
gang around to back them up in case the tide turns against them. And the
biggest, baddest member of the corporate America gang is the media.
If life were a hockey game, the media would be the enforcer (hes called the
goon in hockey lore). The goons job is to intimidate the opposition. He
patrols the ice like the Terminator, and first chance he gets, he throws down
his hockey stick and starts serving up knuckle sandwiches.
Well, the media are the goons for big business. When some Network Marketing
competitor comes along and starts scoring points in the marketplace, the
media send in the goons to cut em down to size. Traditional companies pay
the media big bucks via advertising dollars.., so, they send out their goons
to protect their interests... and everybodys happy as a clam. Except the
Networking company,
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When was the last tune you saw an expos on a corporate giant that spends
hundreds of millions every year on TV advertising...companies like
McDonalds? Or Pepsi? Or Nike? Never!
I have yet to see an expos on ABC, NBC, CBSor cable TV for that matteron
the lawsuit that cost Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. $100 million for
misleading sales tactics. Or an expos on John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance
Co. settling with 3.8 million policyholders for $600 million. Or an expos on
Prudential Insurance Co. of Americas plan to pay $3.8 billion to settle a
sales fraud lawsuit. Or an expos on the $50 million fine against the makers
of Bayer aspirin for price fixing.
Do you know why? Ever hear the expression, Dont bite the hand that feeds
you? What happened to fair play? You dont have to be Sherlock Holmes to
solve this one.
As far as the media are concerned, its always been open season on Network
Marketing companies and their top distributors.., while mums the word when
big TV advertisers are caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Its
happened before (and believe me, it will happen again).
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
Now, lets get one thing straight. Just as there are scams and schemes in any
industry, there are a few Network Marketing companies that are blatantly
illegal. There are good and bad apples in every industry arent there? Real
estate has its swamp land scams... banking has its savings and loan crooks...
the stock market has its insider-trading scandals... and so on.
So why should people expect Network Marketing to be any different?
Its a fact of life today that you cant be too trusting or naive. So open
your eyes and ears. Do your homework. Check out the products... the people...
the company... everything! So you know what youre getting into. Thats good
advice whether youre walking down a dark street... investing in the stock
market... or getting started in a new business.
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Years ago, John Wanamaker the legendary founder of one of the oldest
department store chains in this country, said:
I estimate 50% of my advertising is wastedI just dont know which half
But that fact is lost on the Big Boys running corporate America. Advertising
and media analysts estimate that advertising easily exceeds $200 billion a
year, with the lions share still going to TV (although Internet advertising
is catching up fast). Lets face it, corporate America and the media arent
just in bed together.. theyre joined at the hip like Siamese twins!
Do you know what it costs today to buy a 30-second spot during the Super
Bowl? More than $2.5 million, up from $1 million in 2000. The big traditional
companies buy three... four... five of those spots and then pay Cindy
Crawford or Tiger Woods. For the six hours leading up to and including the
playing of the Super Bowl, advertisers spent a recordnow get this$221
MILLION. Budweiser led all advertisers with 10 spots, costing them more than
$20 million for just one afternoon of advertising.
Ever see any ads for a Network Marketing company during the Super Bowl? Not a
one. And lets face factsthe media has no love for an industry that doesnt
have any major advertising bills to pay... and never will
NEGATIVE MOTIVATION
One day there were two curious frogs who fell into a pail of milk. The pail
was pretty deep, so it was a long way up to get out of the pail. The frogs
started jumping and jumping, but neither of them could quite reach the top
edge of the pail.
It just so happened that one of the frogs was nearly deaf. So he didnt
particularly notice at first that some other frogs had gathered at the rim of
the pail. They were razzin and jeerin at him and his friend. They laughed
and pointed at the two stuck in the pail. They mocked them and called them
names.
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Now the other frog heard all of this and he became pretty angry He jumped and
jumped, just saying to himself, Ill show those guys wait nil I get my
hands on them. But after a while, he got tired. He became dejected and
bitter, and the more the frogs outride taunted him, the more depressed he
became. Finally, he gave up hope, stopped trying to jump outand drowned.
The other frogthe one who was nearly deafdidnt hear the negativity of his
buddies, and he kept trying and trying to jump out of the pail. Every time he
looked up at them, he got even more determined and would jump even higher.
Eventually, all of his jumping around turned the milk to butterand he was
able to jump free of the pail with one easy hop.
When he got out, the other frogs asked him why all their name calling and
making fun of him hadnt discouraged him like the other frog. The frog
replied, Gee, I had no idea you were puttin me down, I thought you were
cheering me on?
There are many hard-of-hearing frogs in Network Marketing
today.
We think the media are just cheering us on.
The very first amendment to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the
United States of America is our most famous, guaranteeing all citizens
freedom of speech.
I quote:
Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech....
Well, I guess a number of states and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can
abridge anyway. I guess the Constitution doesnt apply to them.
You see, youwhoever you are, whatever you do for a living can stand up
anytime, anywhere... in front of any number of people... and tell them how
much income you earnunless you are a Network Marketer.
Check this out. In some states, Network Marketers are not permitted to
mention their incomesIm talking about their own personal, factual,
documeflted.Ofl-PaPeYthe4 incomesin public!
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I suppose they are allowed to lock themselves in the bathroom and scream out
the numbers on their most recent commission checks until they turn blue. But
they cannot announce it to a group of people. If they do, the state attorneys
general will invite them to jail and the FTC willif the numbers are big
enough to make it worth their while-swoop down on them like starving legal
eagles.
What the state attorneys general say Networkers can do is to take all the
money your company paid out in commissions in your local geographic region,
divide it by the total number of distributors in that areaboth active ones
and those who arent even involved anymore-and you can tell everybody that
figure.
Its like forcing a professional athlete like Tiger Woods to state his income
only in terms of the average salary of all the professional golfers in the
world put together.. including all the retired players! Can you imagine that?
A couple of years ago, U. S. News and World Report published a list of the
highest-paying occupations in America. They listed the specific career and
gave the upper income range.
They refused to print the income for Network Marketersthey said it wasnt
believable! Now thats unbelievable! I guess its true what they say about
how the more powerful you are, the bigger your enemies are, too.
Lets say you were sitting atop a glass-and--granite building in New York or
Boston and the talk around the big polished conference table was about how
come youre not selling more xyz product. and lets say some junior executive
(clearly on his way down) had the stupidity to say that Network Marketing was
taking a big bite out of your marker sharewhat would you think? What would
you do?
Put yourself in their shoesif you were involved with any of
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these major companies whose lunch was getting eaten slowly but surely by an
upstart industry... an industry that talks to consumers face to facewhat
would you do?
Remember the rule, If you cant beat emjoin em? Well, these traditional
companies have their own rule: If you cant beat em beat em up!
These three Fortune 500 companies LOVE their Networking subsidiaries, and for
good reason. Theyre growing and making money and making stockholders very
happy.
And you know who else isnt trying to beat up on Network Marketing anymore?
Dozens of international companies, such as Dell Computers, Office Depot,
Barnes & Noble, FTD Florists, and Sony, to name a few, offering thousands of
name-brand products available through Network Marketing.
More and more corporations have stopped trying to beat us and started
joining us. And the tidal wave is just starting to build!
Why? Because Network Marketing is making more and more common sensewhich in
business is defined as dollars and cents the bottom line.
Meanwhile, costs in the conventional marketing world have gone
crazy:
Advertising IS too expensive even for multi-million-dollar companies...
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The unconventional approach of Network Marketing has more and more of the
right answersright when businesses need them most
I know you havent been told the truth about Network Marketing before.
Now youve got a pretty good idea why.
And you know what? In a way, Im kinda glad we havent been told the truth.
Its like finding a great fishing hole. The kind where you throw your line in
andbang! catch fish in minutes. Then another and another; Big ones, too!
Its the kind of discovery you share carefuil3 Its a secret. You only tell
your good friends about it.
Network Marketing is like the gold mine story about a man who was driving
along a mountain road late at night when his headlights reflected off
something bright on the side of the road.
The man eased his truck onto the shoulder, grabbed his flashlight, and walked
over to the bushes where he thought he saw the object.
He parted the bushes and scanned the ground with his flashlight. As he pushed
back the final branch, he was astonished to find himself staring at a bar of
gold near the opening to a huge cave. He lunged
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forward and explored the cave with his flashlight. ft was filled with gold
bars!
The man couldnt believe his good fortune! He grabbed an armful of gold bars
and loaded up his truck. But when he came back to the cave, he was even more
amazed... magically, there were twice as many gold bars than there were
before!
He worked fast and furious and filled his truck so full of gold bars that the
tires were ready to burst. By the time he left, the gold bars were spilling
out of the cave, through the bushes, and even closer to the road. He covered
the opening to the cave with the bushes as best he could and headed for home.
Now let me ask you. If you were that man, who would you share your gold mine
secret with? Would you run an ad in the local newspaper or stop strangers on
the street and tell them you had discovered a gold mine? Or would you share
your discovery with people you know and care about? Of course youd tell
those people closest to you first, wouldnt you?
I know theyre coming on board the Networking train. Everybody is. Its just
a matter of time. But before they do, before Network Marketing gets to be a
multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry like franchising, I want all of us
little guys to get ours first.
The people whove had the American Dream stolen from them should have the
first shot. Im all for letting the new paradigm people get the cake while
the old paradigm thieves get the crumbs this time.
Whats the song say?
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PHASE 5
125
14
No mystery about the moral of this story, is there? But just in case a reader
might miss the moral, the authors spell out the message with these words:
126
If you were riding a horse and it died, what would you do? Ancient wisdom
advises the rider to dismount and find a better
d transportation, whether it be another horse or something entirely
different. Unfortunately too many people try to revive the horse with well-
intentioned yet unrealistic solutions.
What about you? Are you riding a dead horse? To find out, these questions
honestly:
Will your current job take you where you want to go.. . or is it just a
habit?
Are you making tigress on your retirement plans... or sitting
Are you heading in the direction of your dreams... or stuck in
Are you growing in your current occupation... or dying on the vine?
Are you getting paid what youre really worth... or just what the job is
worth?
Are you getting ahead in your career... or just treading water? Is your
future bright.., or are the lights dim and getting dimmer. One final
question: Is your current career a shiny, new vehicle
Can deliver you to your dreams in style?... Or is it a dead or
Robert I Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book series, has this to
say about Network Marketing:
companies?
To answer that, lets look at the special features that set Network Marketing
apart from traditional businesses and make it, to use Kiyosakis words, an
idea whose time has come. And, according to the experts, is just getting
ramped up for blast off.
Weve already talked about how every organization is shaped like a pyramid,
including our military, the government, the Boy Scouts, and even your church.
And we distinguished between legal pyramids and illegal pyramids, concluding
that pyramids are legal as long as value flows down from the top (in the form
of products or services) in exchange for money flowing up from the bottom.
Which means, by definition, the vast majority of Network Marketing companies
are legal. (The ones that arent legal dont stay in business long cause
their founders end up in the calaboose sharing a cell with the Enron
crooks!).
So far so good.
But just because a business enterprise is legal doesnt necessarily mean its
a great opportunity I mean, mowing the neighbors lawn and hosting a car wash
are both legal business enterprises, but I wouldnt consider either a great
business opportunity.
So, why do I say Network Marketing is the average persons best opportunity
for making money while making a difference in peoples lives? Lots of
reasons. Off the top of my head, here are the 20 biggest reasons for people
who are riding a dead horse to dismount and jump in the drivers seat of the
super-charged, dream fueled vehicle known as Network Marketing.
additionone store plus a second store plus a third, etc. Networking grows
exponentially by multiplicationyou get six new people... who each get six
new people... who each get six new people, etc.
5. System of Education & Training: Systems are proven procedures that people
can learn and copy to get the most out of their ability. Great Networkers
have a system they can plug their new people into.
7. Help Others While Helping Yourself: What better way to make your mark in
life than by giving back to others? The best way to get everything you want
out of life isto help others get what they want.
9. Choose the People You Work With: In Networking, you select your teammates,
as opposed to a job where you are thrown in with strangers, many of whom you
would NEVER choose as friends.
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10. Be Your Own Boss: Set your own hours... set your own goals... choose your
own projects... work 2 hours a day or 20 hours a day. Youre the CEO of your
own company, so you call the shots, and you reap the rewards.
11. Choose Level of Participation: Need a few hundred extra dollars a month
for spending money? How about a part-time opportunity? Or a full-time career?
Want to stay local? Or expand internationally? The choice is yours and yours
alone.
12. No Glass Ceiling: Tired of banging your head against corporate cultures
that hold you back for no other reason than your gender?... Or ethnic
background?... Or accent?... Or failure to attend the right school?
Networking is totally democraticwhoever gets results, gets money and
recognition. Period
13. No Cap on Your Income: In a job, the owner pays you at wholesale and then
sells your services in the marketplace for retail and pockets the difference.
Consequently, youll never make more than what the job is worth. In
Networking, the sky is the limit.
16. Get Paid to Pull People Up: Network Marketing gives people a personal
hand up (as opposed to a government hand out motivating them to grow and
become self reliant and independent.
20. Have Fun, Make Friends, Make Money, Make a Difference: The best thing
about Network Marketing isnt that people are getting rich (although many
are), its that people are building rich lives in the process. Making money
is nice, but having fun, making friends, and making a differencepriceless!
There you have it20 reasons why Network Marketing is a new and better way of
working and living.
Truly, this is an industry whose time has come. Right now experts estimate
that Direct Selling, led by Network Marketing, is a $100 billionyes BILLION
with a Ba year business.., yet, amazingly, its still in its infancy! King
Kong in diapers!
To learn where the industry is heading in the coming decades, turn to the
next chapter: Why Network Marketing Is Exploding!
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15
Throughout this book, weve pointed out how times have changed and how
theyll be changing even faster tomorrow. Weve pointed out how technology is
marchingmore correctly, racingforward, making entire industries and ways of
working obsolete almost overnight.
Its because of technology that Network Marketing is exploding!
Its hard to imagine Network Marketing without credit cards, airplanes that
fly coast to coast in less than six hours, free long distance phone service,
unlimited hours on cell phones, POAs, voice mail, e-mail, instant messaging,
phone calls over the Internet, pod- casting, toll-free phone numbers,
teleconferencing, etc.
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With one click of a computer key, Network Marketers today can send product
and training information anywhere in the world in an instant. They can
prospect for new partners on their car phones while stuck in traffic. A
thousand people or more can get on a weekly teleconference call or view a
live video broadcast on the Internet and invite new people to hear all about
the companys products and opportunity without leaving their own living
rooms!
Today Network Marketers can tell people across the country (or around the
world, for the matter) about their company, products, and income opportunity
by sending them CDs or DVDs... or by having them log onto a Website. Talk
about conveniencefor just a few dollars your new distributors can receive
trainings from the top producers in the industry. Or they can tune in to a
live satellite program broadcast right into their homes.
None of this was possible 20 years agoeven 5 years ago, for that matter
because much of the technology wasnt available or affordable until recently.
And tomorrows technology will be even more extraordinary With the growing
popularity of the Internet, the possibilities for the future are virtually
endless!
Imagine selecting the Network Marketing products you want from a full-color
talking catalog on your home computer in the kitchen... imagine ordering what
you want simply by touching the screen... imagine having conference calls via
video phone... imagine having multi-media video presentations sent directly
to your home by satellite whenever you want... imagine talking back to your
computer or TV with interactive programming.. - imagine having your monthly
commission checks automatically and instantly transferred to your electronic
checking account.
Weve talked about the reality of the most productive time in this nations
history yet a time when millions of people will be changing jobsor even
careers... a time of 20% unemployment (or 80% underemployment) in many
industrialized countries!
Weve talked about the American Dream of health, wealth, happiness, security
and freedom.. and how fewer and fewer people are in a position to have even
one or two of these qualities in their lives, much less all of them.
Weve talked about how the odds are stacked against us in the working world
today. . . about glass ceilings, unequal opportunity the sand trap of using
a college education to lead to a corporate career track, and the scams and
schemes that rip off almost any chance we have for getting to the top and
living the good life,
Weve talked about the lack of real creativity and control in the
workplace... and the lack of satisfaction and fulfillment available in most
conventional jobs.
Weve discussed illegal and legal pyramid schemes and how theyre sucking the
life out of the average American woman and man.
Weve talked about how frustrated people are,.. how angry people are at
whats happening.., and how millions of people are feeling totally powerless
to do anything about it.
What weve shownsadlyis that for most of us, the future can be a pretty
hopeless situation.
Remember the definition of hope? Hope is the expectation that someone, or
something, will come along and save you.
My friends, the cavalry aint coming to save you. That bugle you hear isnt
playing a cavalry charge... its playing taps for the dear departed jobs being
outsourced to India and China. Sure, you always have the hope of hitting the
lottery. But things are pretty hopeless when all thats left of the American
Dream is a one-in-a zillion chance to make it big.
Thats not the American Dream. Thats the American fantasy Difference is,
dreams can come true.
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DREAMING OF SUCCESS
Let me tell you a wonderful story that illustrates the biggest key to
success.
One day, a man walked into a psychiatrists office and boy, did he look bad!
He was ashen graylike death warmed overand he was shaking all over. His
eyes were sunk deep into his head. He hadnt slept in months! He begged the
doctor to help him!
The man told the psychiatrist about a recurring dream hed been having. Seems
that every time hed fall asleep, hed have the same frightening nightmare.
There he was, just walking down the street. Hed go right tip to this
building.., come up to this huge doorand then, no matter how hard he pushed
he could never open the door to get inside!
Hed push and strain against the doornothing! It wouldnt budge an inch. No
matter what near-superhuman strength he could musternothing. The door just
wouldnt open!
He would wake up in a cold sweat, shakingscared and exhausted. He dreaded
the dream so much that no matter how tired he became, he was afraid to close
his eyes. He said it felt like he was going to die if he didnt get in that
doorbut it just wouldnt open!
The doctor asked him why it was so important to open that door, and the man
replied that it was the door to his future. This was the door that would lead
from failure to success, and he couldnt open it!
The psychiatrist thought for a moment, then asked, You have this dream every
time you sleep?
The man nodded yes. The doctor thought long and hardand then smiled.
I think I have the cure for your nightmare, the doctor said. Tonight,
before you close your eyes, I want you to tell yourself that when you come to
the door again, youre going to notice everything about it, every detail, no
matter how insignificant you think it is. Then come back tomorrow, and tell
me what youve seen.
When the doctor saw the man the next day, he couldnt believe his eyes! Gone
was the shaken, shrunken fellow who was there the day before. This man looked
vibrant and alive. His eyes were bright, and he was smiling! The startled
psychiatrist quickly ushered the man into his office for an explanation.
I followed! the advice you gave me, the patient said excitedly,
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and before I fell off to sleep, I told myself to notice and remember every
detail about the door to success.
Just like always, the dream returned as soon as I nodded off. When I came up
to the door, I pushed harder than I ever had before. I strained against it
pushing and pushing. Like always, nothing happened. Finally, I remembered
your advice, and I stepped back and studied every detail of the door. And do
you know what I saw?
No, said the doctor, excitedly. Tell me, tell me.
There was a sign on the door Id been pushing, the man said, smiling.
The sign said, PULL!
Are you straining to get ahead in life, struggling against the odds, pushing
to get ahead, only to find yourself locked outstuck in a dead end rut with
no way out?
Well, quit pushing
Pull!
The door to the futurethe door to the American Dreamis wide open for you.
Theres no struggle involved.., no nightmare of fear. All you have to do is
what the Bible tells you:
sk, and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock, and it shall
be opened unto you.
That is, if its the door to Network Marketing.
As youve seen throughout this bookand more importantly, in your own
experienceall doors do not lead to the future you desire.
Network Marketing can and does.
Millions of people have passed through Network Marketings door to a richer,
more rewarding life. Theyve learned from direct experience how they can have
their cake and eat it, too.
Today these people own businesses of their own. Thanks to Network Marketing,
theyre the boss, the CEO of their own growing enterpriseworking when they
choose, where they choose, with whom they choose.
Network Marketers choose whether they work part-time or full. time, and many
who began just to supplement their incomes have made Network Marketing their
full-time career.
Network Marketers have learned the power of leverage, what
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J. Paul Getty meant when he said, Id rather have 1% of 100 peoples efforts
than 100% of my own. Theyve seen how a lot of people doing a little bit
each can keep all the qualities of small is beautiful, and yet, accomplish
a big, BIG job.
Theyve experiencedor have begun to experiencegoing beyond mere security to
true financial freedom: having all the money they need... doing what they
want, when they want... with no one to tell them otherwise.
YoLI know, 80% of all bankruptcies would be prevented if people had as little
as an extra $50() per month! In Network Marketing thousands and thousands of
J)eople have that and thousands more have 10, 20, 100 times that--and
more!
And its not just about money, either. Its about running your own show...
calling your own shots.. doing well for yourself while doing good for
others... and sharing your dreams and your time with the people who count the
most in your lifeyour family and friends.
You know, sometimes change is a difficult thing to accept. I know. When I was
building boats for $5.50 an hour or waiting tables for $150 a week, I
agonized for months about whether or not I should quit my joba job I
absolutely hated! and risk getting out of my comfort zone by trying
something different.
President John Kennedy once said:
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the
present are certain to miss the future.
He couldnt have been more right!
Just think: 40 years ago only 6% of meals were eaten out of the home (today,
60% are eaten out)... 25 years ago there were no video stores... less than 20
years ago Russia was a communist country... and 10 years ago only computer
nerds were plugged into the Internet!
The lesson is clear: Changeor get left behind.
step of my life!
I quit pushing and PULLED!
I challenge you to do the same.
I challenge you to ask yourself the toughest questions of all. And if you
dont like your answerslike I didnt like minethen do what I did. Take
advantage of Network Marketing now before its too late to you.
Weve all heard the expression, Timing is everything in life and business.
The key to running a successful business.., or to getting rich... is to get
in at the right time,., to get in on a business explosion just before the
boom.., to catch a wave just as it starts to rise.
There are four phases of growth in the cycle of any successful business or
industry. First is the Foundation Phase. Next, the Concentration Phase. Then
comes the Momentum Phase. And last, the Stability Phase.
You could call the Foundation Phase the pioneering years. The industry is
just getting started, and the general public doesnt understand what youre
doing because its new and unproven. The pioneering years are tough. Lots
of rejection... lots of ups and downs while the foundation is being laid.
These are the high-risk years.
Its like the pioneers who settled the West. Because they were the first ones
to open up the frontier, they had the first shot at the best land. But they
were also the ones who got the arrows in their backs!
The Foundation Phase for Network Marketing started in the late 1940s and
lasted until 1979, when Amway won a landmark court decision against the FTC.
This decision made it clearonce and for allthat Network Marketing was a
legal, legitimate system for selling products and services.
After the pioneering years comes the Concentration Phase. This is when
business starts to shift gears, to gain some acceptance from the masses. When
the first McDonalds restaurant opened up, for example, it was little more
than a local curiosity No one but the founder, Ray Kroc, believed it was the
beginning of an American institution. By the time the 100th McDonalds opened
up, however, this trend-setting franchise was not only gaining
acceptance...it
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Think about this: In the 1960s, personal computers didnt even exist. In the
70s, only techies owned them. But by the mid-80s, the industry hit
Critical Mass... and today, almost 75% of the homes in North America have a
personal computer! The same happened to dishwashers. And microwaves. And cell
phones. And CD players. And DVD players. And digital cameras. And the
Internet. Once they hit Critical MassBOOM... demand mushroomed and sales
went through the roof!
Thats whyyouve got to position yourself in this industry today! There has
never been a better time to start laying the foundation to your international
business!
In his book, The Next Millionaires, bestselling author and noted economist
Paul Zane Pfizer observes that from 1991 to 2001, the number of millionaires
in the US. doubled from 3.6 million to 7.2 million.
In Pilzers words, Today we are poised for an economic growth spurt that
will far exceed the explosion of the 1990s, and those entering the growth
industry of Direct Selling are perfectly positioned to benefit from the boom
ahead.
You couldnt pick a better nine to get involved in Network Marketing! In the
next few years, average people just like youperhaps someone in your
neighborhood or someone you see at church each Sunday will make a ton of
money in Network Marketing by taking advantage of Critical Mass.
The risk is small. The reward is great. And there will never, ever
be a better time to you to get involved than right now!
So go ahead.., do what I did and take a chance on an industry
whose rime has come. Better yet, take a chance on yourself!
I dare you to pull when the rest of the world is pushing.
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-Mac Anderson
5-10-3 Business Model
I was in Cypress a couple weeks ago training with a direct marketing company
that has been around for 35 years. What Im aboui to share with you is the
same business model I shared with them and I can guarantee you that their
sales increased dramatically just because of this business model. I call it
My 5-10-3 Business
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Now, let me explain how you do this: When you bring someone into your
business as a partner, youre going to help them sponsor 5 people. It may
take you 2 months, 6 months, or even a year to get those 5 people. You may
even have to go through 10, 30 or even 100 people to find 5 good people who
stick. It doesnt matter. Whatever it takes, your goal is to help your new
business partner sponsor their 5 people. This is part one.
Now, part two: Youre going to demand that each one of your business partners
have 10 personal customers. You need to have 10 personal customers & each one
of your business partners also needs to have their 10 personal customers. The
success of your business depends on a lot of people each doing a little bit.
The beauty of this industry is that you dont have to go out and sell
hundreds or thousands of customers. All you need is ten. 1,pically, your
product customers will be those people who dont see the big picture of the
business opportunity But the people who arent interested in becoming your
business partner will typically be the ones who become a customer of the
product.
Now, once youve got your 10 customers and each of your 5 business partners
have their 10 customers, youve already met 2 of the 3 qualifications for
this business model.
The third part of the 5-10-3 business model is crucial. You must build your
organization 3 generations deep. Because this business is about leverage,
residual income, exponential growth, and breaking the time for money trap-
its essential that you build your organization three generations deep and
you teach each one of your business partners to do the same.
Lets look at what takes place mathematically if you follow this business
model:
On your first level, you have your 10 personal customers. The 5 people youve
sponsored each have their 10 personal customers as well, so youre getting
paid for at least 60 customers. Now, because youre teaching this business
model to your team, they all
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have depth mentality and their mindset is to go out and do the same. (Its
very important that your team understands how important it is to build depth
in their organization right up front because this concept is foreign to most
people. This is how network marketing works- so it becomes your duty to stamp
that blueprint in their minds eye right at the get-go.)
Next, your 5 business partners will duplicate what youve done. Theyll go
out and, with your help, sponsor 5 business partners who get 10 personal
customers. This will give you 25 business partners on your second level, and
250 customers.
Finally, youre going to go one level deeper- you job does not stop until you
get to that 3rd level. Each one of those 25 business partners on your second
level needs to do exactly what you did- they sponsor 5 people with 10
customers. That would equal 125 people and 1250 customers on your third
level.
This is the power of exponential growth and the power of the 5-10-3
business model. When each person does a little bit, it compounds. Likewise,
when each person on your team builds depth in their business, it compounds.
Thats when you know you have a successful business.
With the 5-10-3 Business Model, you can finally stop getting up at the
crack of dawn and start getting up at the crack of noon!
B.H.