AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR…

George Orwell said:

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary Act.”

Anybody who has been in this business as long as I have, knows that there are some things that you just don’t say.

“Don’t tell him that”

OR

 “They don’t need to know that”

OR

“Wait until they have been in a little bit longer”

That is literally how cults operate, they bring you in as a novice, make all these wonderful promises, and then slowly and deliberately reveal how things really are, its the proverbial frog being slowly boiled to death. I know saying companies operate like religious cults isn’t politically correct, but speaking the truth in this age is a revolutionary Act and revolutionists usually get shot at by those wanting to defend the status quo.

Well I’ve been down the rabbit hole and it goes pretty deep, and in network marketing there are just things people that are new to this industry usually will not find out, especially not from their sponsor.  Your sponsor may have a vested interest in keeping information from you that could scare you away before you are a “team player”.

We live in a culture where our sports heroes use performance-enhancing drugs or PEDs and then they deny using them. Politicians make promises knowing full well they have no intention of keeping them, yet people keep voting for these people over and over and over again. Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Donald Trump, Hillary, it doesn’t matter whom I name, we live in a culture where lying is the accepted norm. What is the equivalent of that type of mentality that you can find in network marketing?

Sponsors lie about other companies, (how terrible they are) about their own company, (how wonderful it is) they make excuses, they inflate their pin rank, and  they especially lie about their income because if they don’t “fake til they make it” they won’t make it all. I have seen a lot of those fakers and they didn’t make it anyway.

These are the realities of network marketing. It’s the cult-like mentality I’ve spoken about in previous posts before. There’s a veil of secrecy that surrounds what goes on in the Inner Circle but it doesn’t necessarily go unnoticed all the time. Lawsuits from former distributors, Attorneys General, the FDA and  various and sundry policing agencies of all kinds are pursued vigorously and companies usually settle (because that is the least damaging course of action for them- they don’t have to admit guilt and they don’t have to fight a protracted legal battle which brings even more negative press and they know they will lose anyway).  But they can tell their BRAINWASHED parrots to squawk:

“AWWWK THE COMPANY ADMITTED NO WRONGDOING, THE COMPANY ADMITTED NO WRONGDOING AWWWK”

The media also does frequent expose’s on network marketing companies and the concept of the business practice in general. They equate all network marketing companies with pyramid schemes which is unfair but not entirely unwarranted. Because I would hazard a guess that in the industry 90 – 95% of all the so-called “opportunities” are nothing but a smoke-and-mirrors exercise in deceiving newly minted Distributors into this industry on false pretenses.

Of the few legitimate network marketing opportunities that are out there today, I would say even though they’re legitimate doesn’t make them a good business opportunity. You have to understand the difference between:

A legitimate network marketing company…

A legitimate network marketing product…

and

A legitimate network marketing opportunity.

They’re not all the same and just because you fit one of the above criteria doesn’t mean you fit them all.  And that’s what distributors in both legitimate and illicit opportunities don’t understand. They are pretty one-dimensional in their viewpoint because they have to be. It’s a self-protective mechanism that people use in all walks of life and in all areas of their experience. You can call it confirmation bias, justification, self-delusion, or just outright

“I have no other choice but to take this course of action. I choose to willfully lie to people about my opportunity so I can make some quick cash before the thing collapses.”

I’ve talked to people like this in the last 26  years. That’s their mindset… they’re crooks and they don’t care.

Any company that you’re in, you will usually tout that it’s:

the best product

the best company

the best leadership

the best Compensation Plan

the best system for recruiting

 etc etc etc.

Non of those mean DIDDLY if the end result isn’t:

A Walkaway RESIDUAL income

This will attract the lowest common denominator of prospect. Don’t you want good business people in your network building the network with you?

That’s where sponsorship comes in. Sponsorship means support. Advertisers support magazines, television shows, podcasts, and sporting events. When I was growing up, right before a commercial you’d hear the words:

 “And now a word from our sponsor.”

It didn’t mean much to me at the time, but now that I’m in Network marketing those words mean a lot more to me than they did when I was a young lad growing up.

A sponsor is the person who pays the bills. In network marketing it’s really no different. Your sponsor is the person who takes responsibility for the success of the person they bring in.  Unlike most recruiting schemes where sponsorship really isn’t the focus. Instead you actually have to train and Mentor that person to the point where they can do it on their own and that takes time, for which most simply don’t have the patience. I certainly remember I didn’t have the patience for it when I  started this business 26 years ago. Before that in  the three network marketing companies I was in for a brief period of time my sponsors didn’t do that either. I probably would have stayed in those companies longer but I had worthless sponsors. Most people are sponsored by people that they personally know, but who don’t know anything about network marketing. A sponsor can also pull advertising dollars from shows they don’t agree with. Why do you think Bill O’Reilly got canned?  Because Fox news decided that sexual oppression of female underlings was a horrible moral practice and ole Billyboy needed to hit the bricks? No! they fired him because they were hemorrhaging ad revenues from the sponsors in O’Pervey’s time slot.

Even in the company I’m in now, my sponsor quit, and so did his sponsor, and also his sponsor three levels up from me quit, just plain quit. Leaving me alone to pretty much figure it out for myself ..

…and I did but it would have taken me less time if I knew then what I know now!

I did have some help from some cross-line people and even people in my downline for which I’m grateful.

So a sponsor is probably one of the most critical elements of success in this business but with the internet, viral marketing, and face(book)less systems replacing actual interaction between two people it’s become even more and more rare to get that kind of attention from your upline. A lot of people may think I’m too harsh in my evaluation but no one’s dared to challenge me yet. If this is the state of network marketing where we have an industry in which  everybody has the most lucrative and attractive opportunity, why aren’t all the smart people filling those “opportunities” up? I’ll tell you why, it’s because they are smart and they can spot a scam.

Try to look at your opportunity objectively. I do this for my own program as well. I have to and you may want to try and see your opportunity through your prospects eyes. Trying to evaluate it objectively so that you can understand what someone’s mindset is as they investigate your business.

The fact of the matter is they’re going to find out your company’s dirty little secrets at some point. Depending on how fresh those dirty little secrets are will make the difference between sponsoring someone in and losing them forever. I have talked to so many people who basically dismiss their companies tawdry past. That’s not a smart thing to do. Because you destroy credibility and erode Trust between you and your potential  marketing partner. If I get into a conversation with someone and they’re looking at my opportunity seriously I’m going to tell them what they’re going to find I’m not going to hide it from because I can’t make adjustments without lying or deceiving. Most people say they have respect when someone owns up to their mistakes but Network marketers don’t do that. They gloss over the fact of their company’s lawsuits, kicking out the “trouble-making” distributor (who always happens to be extremely successful and was previously a shining example for the company to showcase), and all the kind of stuff that really turns a prospects enthusiasm into doubt.

I would rather walk away from my company and never do it again if I ever had to lie or deceive someone about how they operate. Are you willing to walk away from your company for the sake of your own conscience? I did many years ago and I never joined another company either because they all have the same issues. I am coming up with solid plan to change that.

Jesus said,

“what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his own soul?”

There is not an amount of money or a pin rank that I would trade for my own soul.