Carmon

MLM - Multi Level Marketing. All MLM's have "tools" to help "build" the confidence and character of the membership. Well, that is what they are SUPPOSED to do.

These tools come in various forms. Most often they are the books, tapes and functions promoted by the "big pins" - the Diamonds and Double Diamonds and the like. Originally designed to build people up in confidence, the big-pins promoted them so heavily that they soon realized that value of the tools outweighed the value of the product moved. So, there was a business within a business.

Disproportionately, the big-pins were the ones making the vast majority of the money. Surprise, surprise!

Also, disproportionately, a partnership, and for the sake of convenience we will refer to it as a marriage, also suffered because the one "on the road" - usually the husband - got to listen to all the tapes. Most of them were what I call "rah-rah" tapes. Stuff like "you can do it - don't worry about the negative people" etc etc. Add to that the reinforcement of the books and you can see what starts to happen.

That lead to one side of the marriage growing internally while the other remained the same. Often disdain set in where one partner began to see the other partner as "negative." Oh-oh! Looking around the business congregation little relationships began to form between partners from other marriages.

Before anybody jumps in and says "bulldust" let me say I saw it happen many times and there is a website devoted (oddly enough) to broken marriages caused by the MLM "business." Reading it is like reading a "who's who" of MLM. It's pretty sad stuff actually.

To top it off a very senior Executive Diamond woman directly attributed her marriage breakdown to the business. How do I know that? The ED lady confided it to my own sponsor with the warning: "This style of business will destroy your marriage."

Without identifying people it is a name that many would recognize - a VERY big pin indeed. Now, like so many others, neither partner is still active in the business.

So-called leadership meetings tended to re-inforce this unfortunate by-product too. Partners grew apart with resentment on both sides. "Gee, why isn't my partner more like him/her?"

I could write a dozen pages about this but I won't. But that is just ONE side of relationship breakdowns.

The other side is the losing of friends through being far too pushy with the "business."

Let's face it - SOMEBODY has to buy these products. Friends and relations are prime targets. Part of the business technique is:

1. try to sponsor first
2. if sponsorship fails then turn them into a customer.

However, this does not take into account the people who don't want to do either. They DON'T want to be a distributor and they DON'T want to be a customer. Fair enough. But the glassy-eyed MLMer cannot understand it and keeps pushing the issue. Again - resentment.

Any person who has ever been in MLM will have experienced this. If you haven't been in MLM then chances are that somebody in MLM has probably either tried to sponsor you or tried to push product onto you.

People grow apart in MLM. It is an unfortunate consequence of this style of business.

You will have to weigh up whether that "cost" of alienation outweighs the "gain" in potential income. Bear in mind, of course, that only one third of one percent of people who get involved in MLM actually make enough money to quit their day jobs. For me, an MLM'er with more than 10 years of experience that cost was just far too high. I HAD to quit. Most people do when they are faced with such an option.

For more information on the faults of MLM see "MLM - Why Most People DO NOT and WILL NOT Make More Money Than They Will Spend - Part One" It sets the groundwork for all the following parts.

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Gary Simpson is the author of nine books covering a diverse range of subjects such as motivation, self esteem, affirmations, self defense, wealth creation and much more. His many motivation and success articles appear all over the web.