The Makings of a Pyramid Scheme

I think this says it all right here...

Any questions?

You Can't Handle the Truth... A Real Network Marketers Journey

Is this all I'm worth?

You've expressed interest in making an additional income from home. Okay. Now comes the time I have to make a presentation to you.  I decide to show you a DVD on what my company offers.  You look at everything very carefully and you tell me, "I have to think about it."

"No problem," I say. "Take all the time you need but can you do me a favor?"

"Sure," you say enthusiastically.

"When you get paid on Friday can you look at you paycheck hold it up to the light and ask yourself, 'Is this all I am worth?'"

Ouch!

Five Fridays go by and you do the same thing with your paystub.  You're starting to really contemplate how much you are really worth and you begin to wonder if this job is really worth it. You ask your coworkers if they get paid what they are worth and they say it'll never happen working here.

Is this the car of my dreams?

I follow up with you later and I notice a little white smoke coming from your 1995 Honda Civic and I ask you if you've given consideration to what we talked about and you say you are still thinking about it. Fair enough, I did tell you to take all the time you need however I ask you is that 1995 Civic the car of your dreams.

As you are "thinking it over" and "evaluating the risks" your 1995 Honda Civic blows a head gasket and you're stranded on the side of the highway.  Now this is going to make you so late for work and maybe you are going to be out of a job soon.  You pray the boss has mercy on you and he does this time.  As the wrecker driver hauls your car away you think to yourself, "This really isn't the car of my dreams. It never was."

Is this the home of my dreams?

Let's fast forward to a year later.  The Civic is running well but you're still paying off the credit card you paid the mechanic with. When you tell me about it and you're complaining about making ends meet I ask you if you'd like to do something about it. You then proceed to tell me that your wife is pregnant again and you need a bigger house but can't quite afford to and that you'd like more time to think about making an additional income from home.  I turn around and say when you go home tonight and you put your key in the door ask yourself, "Is that the home of your dreams?"

While at work you receive a call that the furnace in you home went out.  It's the middle of winter. You knew it would be a matter of time because the inspector last year said it would be a matter of time before it goes and sure enough you are staring down the barrel of a $5,000 bill for a new furnace and that's a bargain! Your wife says it's necessary because she wants to have a furnace that will be safe for the new baby.  Not to mention that she is also implying that you have to do something about that Civic because she doesn't think it's safe enough for the family anymore.

Now cursing yourself you yell out loud, "I don't get paid enough to take this crap at work, I am not driving a good enough car and my house is falling apart!!! HOW MUCH MORE CAN I TAKE?!!"

And so you call me back...

We're excited and you're ready to get started and you sign up with the last bit of cash you have in savings.  I set you up with training videos and weekly business meetings.  You're excited and I'm excited and then it really hits the fan because you tell your wife what you have done and how it's going to change your life and how she's going to have the big safe SUV and a bigger kitchen and a bigger house with more bedrooms for the kids and that you no longer have to worry about money because you will have all this residual income from the new business you signed up for.

And then she yells at you, "YOUR A ^&^$#@$ IDIOT!!!" Then she goes on a rant about how she should have married Lester in college because he was a doctor now and his parents put him through medical school and how he's living in a gated community driving a Mercedes and making more than enough to take care of his wife and children and that she is starting to regret marrying a loser like you.

It's the pregnancy hormones. She loves you and will apologize later.

Doubts are creeping in...

You retreat to your bedroom and call me back and say, "I can't believe she shot down the idea. I mean I am so excited about recurring income and leveraging my effort to build a team.  I think... No, I KNOW I can do this but all she wants is security right now and doesn't believe network marketing works."

"You know, nobody is going to get rich right away and you can't expect people to get on board just because you're excited.  Let's work on some skills and I will help you get started.  This is a people business and you need to learn the skills to help you with people."

And so we practice lines, questions and scripts.  We go over product materials and the compensation plan to the point you can talk about it in your sleep.  You are getting better at 'breaking the ice" with your friends and family and some have signed on as customers.  You're even talking to strangers. Your confidence is building and you are taking it to the next level with your team members.  Recruiting is getting easier and easier and we start to train those folks.

Pretty soon you are getting into a groove and then your first bonus check arrives and it's only $100.

You're excited and you show it to your wife and she says, "After all the effort you've put into this God-forsaken home business thing this is all you have to show for it? This won't even pay for diapers!"

So you hang your head in shame...

Now you're upset.  You've done all you can do to make it and your team is set up pretty well and all you are think about doing is quitting.  So you do and take a part-time job delivering pizzas at night until you pay off the credit card and furnace.  You go back to your thankless job and beg for a raise. You struggle to pay for a new minivan because the SUV wasn't quite in reach.  The minivan will do for now because it's safe.  You're right back where you started all because you quit.

You should have hung in there because your next bonus check was slated to be $1,000.  That would have made a difference because it would have paid off the credit card.  Five more months of $1,000 checks and your furnace would have been paid for.  The whole time you could have been growing your business with customers and distributors under you.  Pretty soon you'll see those $1,000 checks turn into $5,000 checks.  And your situation could have been a whole lot better for you and your family but you quit because you couldn't handle what your wife said to you.

Is this where you want to be or would you like to do something about it?

There is a better way... Consider this...

The naysayers, the ones who say it doesn't work are the ones who don't know how to make it work for themselves. And, so, they're giving you an opinion and I tell people, "Don't confuse people's opinions with expertise because opinions are free. And son't confuse sincerity with the truth because people could be sincerely wrong." - John Assaraf as quoted from Rise of the Entrepreneur, The Search for a Better Way

Where would you be if you didn't give into the naysayers?

If you knew you couldn't fail how far would you go?

If money wasn't an issue for you what would you be doing right now?

I Hate My Job...

Working for a family-owned propane business was a blast, right? (Pun intended, propane = blast)

While I bear no ill will towards my former employer (and while missing my former customers) I realized that the only favor I was doing for the company was adding to their bottom line.  The realization came when I was unloading tile at the company owner's other home in West Texas.  This wasn't what I signed up for and ethically I have a problem using people on payroll for personal favors.  Sometimes wealthy business owners exploit their staff in that manor.  I used to see it with my dad and his employer.  That solidified my decision to leave the propane company along with other things like making more money. I make almost twice what they used to pay me now.

My beautiful and intelligent redhead wife has no desire to "put up with stupid people."  What she means is that in her world she wants to be her own boss free from the interactions with intellectually inferior people.  Although she has received a formal college education, finding a meaningful job where her intelligence isn't insulted every day has become a challenge.  Her last W-2 worthy endeavor was at a national restaurant chain where whining crybabies get all the attention and management is fearful of litigious, sue-happy, soon-to-be-former employees. In slave-labor conditions that subject you to third-world wages (two-something an hour) you are expected to serve others with a smile on your face and sharing the drink menu with people who probably have no business going out to eat because they can't afford to tip.  She finds more satisfaction with Uber moving people from place to place and venturing out into the online world of eBay and Etsy.  It pays more than your run-of-the-mill corporate restaurant chain.

Truck drivers have it worst of all and after fifteen years in the business there are some things that will logically allude me.  Why do some dispatchers find it necessary to verbally abuse a driver and lie over and over to get a driver to work when most drivers actually want to work and want to be told the truth?  Why is it everybody hates truck drivers until they have something on a truck that is needed by someone?  Why do people assume that truck drivers intentionally want to create tumult and chaos when in actually that's the last thing any driver wants to do?  It is such a thankless job. When everything goes smoothly it's business as usual.  When something goes wrong, even if it is not the driver's fault, everyone wants to blame the driver.  Should I even mention ambulance chasing attorneys who like to see dollar signs when a driver gets in an accident?

Who do I really feel sorry for?  I feel sorry for the 9-to-5 corporate types who commute long hours to work 8 more hours to commute even more hours just in time to make it to their suburban homes to barely have dinner with the family fifteen minutes before the kids have to go to bed.  Truck drivers don't even have it that rough.  I feel sorry for the man or woman for whatever reason that has to work two (or more) jobs to pay the rent and utilities while barely being able to put food on the table.  I feel sorry for the small town people whose local factory is the best it's going to get provided they can get a job there at all.  I feel sorry for anyone who works in food service of any type because you are a wage slave to that particular industry.  I feel sorry for those who fell for the 40/40 plan, work 40 hours a week for 40 or more years and get a gold watch at retirement.  I feel sorry for the people who do what they have to do in a place they hate and dread because everyone is counting on them and if something happened to them the results could be disastrous.

What about the educated among us? I value education but colleges are really nothing more than places to teach people how to be good employees when it used to be that you went to college to learn how to think.  Now it's expected of you to know what to think and anything outside of that could be considered politically incorrect.  I'm glad college didn't work out for me because my self-education has enabled me to see things in a different light.  For those who drank the Kool-Aid, I hope you get a taste of real refreshing life soon.  Please don't tell me that you feel justified in $100,000 of student loan debt while waiting tables in a major city hoping that after 7 years Corporate America will be calling.  They won't.

If you are not following your own dreams, someone will hire you to build theirs.  Let's start dreaming and visualizing again.

Check out this funny page on Facebook that pokes humor at hating your job.  It's run by a friend of mine.