97 percent

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“Leader” is an often used term in the online home-based business world, and is used to describe those people who build successful businesses, inspire others and generally show the way. So it’s a massive source of disappointment when a “leader” turns out to be no better than most pretenders.

Now I’m not going to get into naming names, there really is no point, but I once heard a “call” where the guest speaker inspired me to the point that I’ve been following their blog and subscribing to their newsletter ever since. This “leader” was a major identity in a business I was involved with at the time, and seemed to represent something/someone to aspire to.

So it was a huge shock and blow to me when the emails started to take on a different slant, their “previous MLM” started to be talked about negatively and, lo and behold, they started extolling the virtues of their new opportunity! Not only was this change completely against everything they had taught up to that point, but the new opportunity did not have tangible products and cost a lot more. In fact, there had been a complete shift from an affordable consumer product, to yet another “wealth training” system that cost an arm and a leg.

Of course, the usual lines like “if you are serious about your business…” came trotting out, and this training (unlike all the other look-a-like training systems) will give me the very things I need to become wealthy.

Now I’m sure many of you will recognise this type of behavour, and at some level it’s entirely up to the individual in question what program they want to promote. What irks me is the way the existing downline and/or newsletter readership suddenly start getting fed a completely different story. What is worse is that some of the existing downline will follow their “leader”, giving that person “instant success”, when they tell people “we earned 5 gazillion dollars in just 48 hours” they will neglect to mention that this money was made from the list of followers built up over a number of years, and seemingly via a number of different businesses.

There is real value in finding a real leader, and such people are a rarity. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that most of the online “leaders” do not deserve the title.

A real leader cares about their followers to a greater extent than milking them in business after business…

It doesn’t matter how many new “opportunities” spring up, how many training programs appear, or how often people tell us “this is the one” and “this one is different”, the fact remains that most systems, schemes and programs that we find on the Internet are:

• A waste of money
• A waste of time
• Destined to grind to a halt

The exception to all these points is the people who start the program, system or scheme. For every online marketer that struggles to make a dollar, they are making, typically, about 30 to 50 bucks. It doesn’t matter to them if you get a big downline or not, just as long as lots of people sign up to their latest new thing, and they can milk it for a while.

When the whole thing runs out of steam, they do what a lot of programs teach you to do with online marketing; “rinse and repeat”. The thing is, people are so desperate to make a difference to their lives, so sure that they will find success, that they keep trying the “new” things. Each successive program brings the same results as the previous one – not much for the majority, but a stream of subscription payments to whoever is running the program.

What is annoying (to me) about this is that far more people could experience success if they simply ignored all the hype, stopped being dazzled by the shiny lights of “new” programs, and simply picked one thing and stuck with it. What is more annoying is the way that online marketers actively work to prevent this from happening. Every piece of junk mail, every loud, flashy sales letter page is designed to grab our attention and persuade us to move on to something “new”.

If the majority would just stop for a moment, focus on real opportunities with real products, concentrate on a few proven tools to help achieve this (mostly tools that have been around for a while and not the latest, greatest gimmick) – if they could manage to do this, then some of the nonsense would stop, and a lot of people would finally start to taste success.

I live in hope…

OK, the title of this post was inspired by some money game “opportunity” I was sent recently. The sales letter proudly told me “This System Makes Me At Least $107,428.06 Per Month” – well that’s probably true, if you view the quote as coming from the person who created the system, and to whom people pay a monthly fee.

It is also probably true for about 3% of the people involved in the system, leaving 97% with the taste of “fail” in their mouths yet again.

Actually, let’s just pause a moment – notice that figure that the system makes each month? You couldn’t get a more specific amount if you tried – and that’s the point! By giving a very specific figure that is not some neat round figure like “100k”, it makes it all seem so much more believable. That’s why it’s so specific, it’s a marketing/sales trick.

Anyway, back to the original point – can this system make that kind of money? Perhaps, but not for too many people, and possibly not for too long as this type of system almost inevitably collapses as people realise they are “failing” yet again.

This type of scheme fails on all fronts; lack of decent product (or ANY product), unbelievable claims of massive fortunes (setting unrealistic expectations) and the vast majority set up for failure even before they clap eyes on the sales letter page.

Ask yourself, is it better to fail to make this kind of income over and over again, or to make a few hundred bucks each month and experience the sweet sensation of success?

Home-based business has been around in various guises for a long time. Whether in the form of mail order catalogues, Avon cosmetics, Tupperware parties, or the network marketing opportunities such as Amway, people are drawn to the idea of earning a little extra to make life a little easier.

I believe it is a great business model that not only makes a difference to people’s financial situation, but can also foster greater sense of community and increased social interaction. Commerce conducted at such a local level also has the potential to be immune to the issues faced by global monoliths, and harks back to the era of cottage industry.

There are 3 main problems, in my opinion, with the home business industry (particularly with network marketing) and especially now the Internet has expanded the horizon dramatically.

1. Many questionable tactics and approaches have simply been translated to the online age, and people are still being sold systems, books, audios and tools on the basis that “you’ve got to invest in yourself to achieve success”. While that is undoubtedly true, the reality is that the people making the money are often those who are selling the tools.

2. The marketing methods are still based around images of cash, flash cars and opulent lifestyles, and people are encouraged to “develop the right mindset”. This generally translates to “buy more self-help products from me”.

3. The products. All too often the products being peddled are empty, useless, vapourware or overpriced. In fact many of these opportunities are thinly disguised “cash gifting” pyramid schemes.

My vision for network marketing is simple:

• a wide range of useful products that people want, need and can afford
• removing the veil of mystery and secrecy that surrounds the industry
• active promotion of it as a way to earn extra income, not a “sack your boss” path to incredible riches

Having spent time immersed in the online home-based business “scene”, I know there are many decent everyday folk who continually find themselves heading up a blind alley, becoming despondent because they are being asked to pay for yet another training course, and rarely seeing a commission cheque. Business “leaders” tend to dismiss these people as not having the right mindset, and I guess it is true that anyone can sell anything as long as they make the right mental adjustments, but sometimes these “adjustments” do not sit well with people’s attitudes, beliefs and personal integrity.

Over the period of 2 years or so, various plans and ideas have been formed, all of which have been steadily refined and simplified until they took shape as a new service aiming to cut through the myths, helping people avoid the need to learn a multitude of things they have no real interest in (e.g. building a web site), and ultimately enable people to build local-level commerce networks without the hype. The service is a simple one, it matches opportunity seekers with those who are building their own networks; the world’s first home-business recruitment agency – Avallach Recruitment.

But that can only be the start of it, to make a real difference to this all-too-often “shonky” business sector, we need to encourage and/or create better opportunities, better products, and genuine value for people.

The journey has only just begun…

I had lunch today, with a friend of mine who works in the banking industry. We were chatting about various things, during which he revealed that the fraud unit in the bank still have to deal with people requesting large overdrafts, because “someone in Africa needs their help to get inheritance money out of the country, and they will be rewarded for their assistance…”

I seriously cannot believe that the whole world doesn’t know by now, to give these scams a wide berth. But perhaps the reason it still happens reveals just how much people want to believe there is a solution out there, and illustrates why cash-gifting and other scams are still sucking people in on an hourly basis.

As I have said before – ask yourself the question “if I sponsor no-one into this business, would I still be willing to buy the product?” Having a great product beats “mindset” hands down every time. Having a great product is what will allow 97% of network marketers to, ultimately, succeed.

Remember – no-one is trying to give you a large chunk of their massive inheritance, and any business without real products is not a business. Keep those two things in mind, and you will do well

It is with enormous pleasure that Avallach Technology has thrown open the doors to a new service aimed at the home-based business industry.

Looking to join a business but want to be sure of real products and not just hype and hot air? Wanting to work with people who won’t keep screaming at you to do stuff that the 3% do?

Avallach Recruitment brings solutions and ways of working from the world of traditional business world, to online Network Marketing. Opportunity seekers can register for no charge, and can relax knowing that the Avallach team will work to identify suitable opportunities.

Business builders in turn know that by using the Avallach Recruitment service, people we introduce to them as prospective business partners have a down-to-earth sense of perspective that has been lacking in the industry thus far.

This approach leads to the creation of networks where individuals are committed to the products, not driven by the “get rich quick without doing anything” mentality, and much more likely to stick around for the long term.

In other words, everyone wins.

Check out the Avallach Recruitment web site at AvallachRecruitment.com