The End of Network Marketing?

Hi all,

We just celebrated one of my favorite times of year again….Independence Day in the United States…commonly referred to as the Fourth of July. The day when some “friends” of mine get the “good fireworks” for us to light (check out Fireworks.com to see what I mean). So that, combined with my patriotic iPod playlist, always makes for an exciting evening display for my family and neighbors.

Nothing beats big fireworks in the sky to celebrate love of country and freedom, right? 😉

Anyway…another way I’ve been celebrating recently is by traveling all around. In the last few months, I’ve been to Aruba, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Orlando, Pennsylvania, St. Thomas…and I’m already planning a few other fun trips (Vegas, Disney World, Caribbean cruise, United Kingdom.) No one can say having a home business is ever dull. And heck, it sure is the ultimate independence!

Honestly, it’s an important time to step back and realize the blessings we have. Regardless of if you’re American or not…if you’re reading this message, then you have some amazing freedoms and opportunities at your fingertips. It’s important you remember that, and also that you defend it when needed (see the critical, time-sensitive article in this month’s double-feature issue).

And this illustrates an important point: Get out of the office and away from the computer screen…and HAVE FUN every once in a while. If you’re spending all your time at weekly meetings, conventions, sit-down presentations, 3-way calls, sending emails, putting up mini-sites, etc. – then you have another job, NOT a business. So get off your ass, and spend some time with your family and friends this season (and every few months). It’ll keep you grounded – and also fuel your passion for bigger and better fun each time. 🙂

Now, to let you in on a little bit of my fun, I’ve made a little video for you of some of my recent adventures (just click the PLAY button/arrow to begin). (Note: You Must have the latest version of FREE Flash Player Installed (Version 7 or Later) You can upgrade FREE by Clicking Here Now!)

 

And without further delay, let’s hop into this very special Instant MLM Profit Secrets issue that I prepared for you…

What’s Instant MLM Profit Secrets, you might ask?

Good question…

You see, I spend tons of money buying new information (over $20,000.00 last year alone), checking out new products, attending seminars, reviewing material people send, reading a bunch of books and newsletters, etc.

So to keep up with the trends in network marketing and business, I’ve decided to share with you what’s new, what’s hot and what’s going on inside “Instant MLM Profit Secrets” newsletter/blog. You’ll find this site filled with resources, tips, and stuff I recommend. Every few months, I’ll let you know about the cool stuff I’ve come across and want to share (unless you’re nuts and unsubscribe). 🙂

Let’s get started…

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Online Prospecting Secrets Almost SOLD OUT Again!

Wow! I had no idea my new Online Prospecting Secrets home study course would be going so fast again!

If you’re new to my newsletter, last fall I taught a very exclusive closed-door course called “Online Prospecting Secrets”. In only 6 days, my live “Online Prospecting Secrets” coaching program was completely SOLD OUT (and it will never be repeated again). Unfortunately, that meant many people were completely shut out.

Now I have no plans to ever repeat this live class again. But ever since I posted the SOLD OUT notice, I’ve received tons of emails from people practically begging for access to the information I taught. (I’m not that surprised. No one has EVER spilled the beans like this before. In fact, the first week of the program alone was enough to make many so-called “heavy hitters” furious!)

So after a lot of thought and consideration (and the pleading of my customers), I turned my six-week program into an edited, updated version you can learn from (and profit from) at your own pace. To celebrate the launch of this breakthrough home study course, I decided to up the ante and offer a few very powerful, exclusive “special edition” limited bonuses.

 

As I’m writing this, only 37 free special edition bonuses remain. (It’s not a marketing gimmick – it’s a very real number we update on our website.) If you’re serious about building your business with the Internet, there’s no
excuse for letting this limited opportunity slip through your fingers (again!). Check out www.OnlineProspectingSecrets.com before the special edition is SOLD OUT!

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“The END of Network Marketing?”

by Chris Zavadowski

It happened to infomercials…

It happened to fax broadcasting….

It happened to emails….

And now it might happen to direct sales and network marketing: The FTC, in it’s infinite wisdom (think back to the “suppression lists” they were proposing 2 years ago), is attempting to create new regulations for the MLM/network marketing industry. If this passes, they would make fast downline growth a thing of the past.

This is vitally important, so listen up!

Right now, there’s a proposed new rule out (16 CFR Part 4370) that if passed would have a severe negative impact on your network marketing business. In fact, these new regulations would completely change the face of network marketing and recruiting. Now, the actual Federal Register document is 44 pages (you can download a .pdf copy here), but, according to the Direct Selling Association’s website (www.DSA.org), it boils down to this:

The FTC would require all prospective sellers to be provided with a “disclosure document”. This document must include information including (but not limited to):

  • YOUR associate/distributor information
  • A list of legal actions (i.e. lawsuits or otherwise) filed against you and/or your company in the last 10 years
  • Whether or not earnings claims are made
    • Under the proposed rule, an earnings claim can be considered ANYTHING from a picture of a boat or car purchased with earnings from direct sales activities, to actual dollar amounts. And get this: If earnings claims are made, additional information must be provided, including:
      a. The beginning and ending dates when the earnings were achieved;
      b. The number and percentage of all sellers represented by the claim; and
      c. All “special characteristics” of those who made such earnings that may distinguish those sellers from others, such as geographic location. (In reality, the fact that anyone has created success in MLM is out of the norm anyway. Most people, in MLM or otherwise, never do anything with the opportunities they are given.)
  • The number of all associates/distributors who have canceled within two years (which means your company has to constantly provide you with a new list)
  • A list of the 10 closest current or past distributors/associates to your prospect, with personal information so that your purchasers may contact these references (something you would continually have to keep updated from the company)

And the proposed rule would require that the disclosure document above be given to your prospect at least seven days before they sign any contract or give you any money. Talk about squashing weekly meetings, conference calls, three-way calls and more!

And look at how many privacy violations (and safety issues) this rule would require: Sharing your downline’s personal contact information, the company’s “refund” percentage and even the lawsuits against the company. I agree that lawsuits against a company are important to consider, but merely having been sued is NOT the same as having been found guilty.

Unfortunately, the FTC’s proposal does not distinguish between this. If some wacko decides to sue you or your company for ANY reason – you have to disclose it.

Plus, now someone you don’t even know is being given YOUR personal information so they can contact you and ask you anything they want. Who is the FTC to mandate that your personal information (or ANYONE’S) be given to potential prospects? That’s dangerous and irresponsible.

But forgetting all of the privacy violations this ignorant rule would require, think about what this means to you: If you have a hot prospect (whether it be from a lead you generated, a lead you purchased, someone you just met), you basically have to give them a list of all the reasons everything you are telling them should not be listened to.

In other words, the government is trying to require you to give them a list of reasons they should NOT consider becoming an entrepreneur (the FTC seems to forget that EVERY business venture has risk.) Then — to top it all off – you’d tell them to take that document home and look it over for a week.

You think after a week of staring at their list AND having been exposed to nay-saying family and friends…anyone would want to join? Heck no!

I’ll admit, there are many business opportunity scams online and offline, so the FTC is correct in trying to protect consumers and prevent them from getting duped. However, they are going about it in completely the wrong fashion.

At what point do we let the government do our thinking for us?

The people who are scamming aren’t going to care about the regulations above anyway, and the average prospect won’t even know about these regulations – so the only thing this ANTI-BUSINESS rule would accomplish is squashing the “good” network marketers. And there are MANY other discrepancies and even safety issues involved with this clueless proposal.

Hopefully you’re angered and fired up at this point (and if you aren’t, you shouldn’t call yourself a true entrepreneur). If you understand what I just said, and what the FTC is trying to do, then you need to take immediate action (read: TODAY) to voice your opinion on this. Until July 17, 2006, the FTC is accepting public commentary on the proposed, idiotic rules.

So, I *highly* suggest you read the DSA’s Q&A and MLMIA’s information about this topic, and then head over to the FTC’s website to send a personal, from-the-heart letter voicing your concerns and what type of impact this will have on you and your business. And if you’re in the USA, you should also consider writing to your congressional representative and/or your senator. Plus, your network marketing company should also be a source of actionable information.

Make no mistake: Wherever you are in your MLM career or business – it’s very important you step up to the plate and make your voice heard now.

Just because you have independence and freedoms today, doesn’t mean they will be here tomorrow. So keep your head out of the sand and take action when your liberties — and livelihood — are being threatened.

Copyright 2006, InstantMLMSalesLetters.com – All Rights Reserved.

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Note: If you’d like to reprint this article you have permission to do so as long as the copyright information and the resource box below remains with the article. Resource box:

Chris Zavadowski has gained top recognition online and in the network marketing community for his unique ways of growing Internet businesses and MLM downlines! Having worked full-time from home since 2001, he’s taught thousands his successful ways of working online and leveraging their efforts.

Chris creates breakthrough online MLM marketing tools, and more details can by found at: http://www.InstantMLMSalesLetters.com and http://www.OnlineProspectingSecrets.com

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New Software Allows You to Finally Create Replicating Mini-Sites

Now, if you’ve been in my world for any length of time, you should know that using your company’s cloned site as your main online marketing tool is a BAD idea. Instead, you should be using “mini-sites” for your main online efforts.

Well, when I started teaching this strategy last year and also in my six-week Online Prospecting Secrets program, I got a lot of questions about how to create “replicating mini-sites”. At the time, the only place I could refer people was to eLance.com or Rentacoder.com to have something custom developed from the ground up. And while that’s still probably the best option, it can be quite painful if you have no experience in working with programmers on complex projects.

That’s why I was so excited when James Grandstaff pulled me aside at Yanik Silver’s “Info-Marketing Player’s Workshop” last weekend to tell me about his latest invention. It turns out I finally have a plac

Comments

  1. Jamie Thompson says:

    Chris…I didn’t know quite what you were talking about when you sent out that strong email today, but after reading your article…that is scary! I will definitely fill out the forms online….hopefully this won’t happen! Thanks for letting me know about it…

    Jamie

  2. You’re welcome, Jamie!

    I agree, my email was stronger than usual and a bit dramatic…but it’s nothing compared to how prospecting would change if the FTC got their way with the current proposal. My article only hit the “highlights” of this anti-business FTC idea.

    I doubt, with the amount of backlash this is causing, that it will pass in its current form…BUT…they doesn’t mean SOME form of it won’t pass. Which means you need to voice your opinion to everyone you can so they realize how they are going to negatively impact your business if they pass ANY of the items above.

    This country is founded on people voicing their opinion to influence change…and if you sit back and don’t take an active process, you lose the right to complain about it when things don’t go your way. With 13 million+ direct sellers in the USA…we should be able to rock the boat if we get off our boat and do something!!!

    Chris 🙂

  3. Hi Chris,
    here is Mary Nesnidal and I’m living in Switzerland and here is the freedom more worth then every money. For this freedom earlier in the history the people have defend and fighted for it. I’m proud about to live in a country with an international thinking and also a traditional will to have the own freedom. Here are many different opinions, but when it needs, all are standing together and are talking, till is found a way, all or the most can say yes. It’s not a dictate from the state, the state are we all together.

    Your article was very interesting, but I don’t really understand all of it. What I have understand was, that this rules are cutting the freedom of many people, they have an own thinking and own opinion and the most of all networkers are self-standing, are able to make their own decisions and are also able to carry the followings of a mistake. And everybody learns most, about making mistakes.

    When I’m looking around in this world, I see, such rules, are coming always from them, they want have their own advantages.

    I don’t know exactly, what is FTC. Is this an international organisations with different members from different countrys in?

    I ask, because the internet is global, with people they have their business in their country and do action from there in different small and big networks. They have different cultures and different backgrounds. As this facts are, rules can only be created by an international organisation, with different members from different countrys in.

    Such rules, they are attending other countrys in the world, have to be confirmed by their law too. So such rules becomes then validation, when all laws of all countrys in the world are confirm this rules.

    When this rules are only created from Americans, without international feedback and they haven’t ask other countrys about their opinion, then this rules can only be valid for the Americans.

    I ask me, how has given them in the world the permission, to create such rules and how is paying them, to do this? Who will gain with such rules?

    Generally I think, that them, who are creating rules, have also to carry responsibility and carry personally the cost, that are attend with this rules. They want to publicy private and sensible informations in internet, so they have to pay for this informations monthly. It can not be, that an undefinied organisations with many noname people in can have all informations from everybody, and themselfs are always saying they do only the job. That’s not right and not thru.

    Now, I don’t know, if I’m in right, but this is my opinion. I like my freedom, and I like to do what I’m doing. And rules, I never have said personally yes to it, I don’t accept.

    Many greetings to all from Switzerland!
    Mary

  4. C. Wyatt says:

    Generally speaking the FTC is hostile to MLM because it is controversial.

    MLM is controversial because of unfavorable comparisons to illegal pyramid schemes.

    Pyramid Schemes are so named because because victims put money into an upside down funnel. Each level has fewer people, till only one is left at the top of the pyramid. Everybody loses except the top one or two levels.

    Pyramid schemes used to be easy to spot. If no product or service was purchased it was a pyramid type scam. Astute crooks have added product/service elements to their schemes, making it more difficult for even government regulators to legally discern the difference.

    A general rule of thumb is the perceived value of the product/service. If the value of the product/service is perceived as low by too many people, its probably a pyramid. Perceived value is obviously a subjective evaluation.

    Since the FTC is a non elected regulatory body it has the power to go after anything they perceive as hurting the public interest. Their perception can be greatly influenced by current political winds on capitol hill.

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