MLM Networking Women

This is the third and final article in my series on Make Money Fast Scams.  

The first part was on Chain Letters, and the second on Pyramid and Ponzi Schemes.

Whenever financial times turn into times of financial hardship, people start panicking and looking for ways to make extra money.

They are usually looking for a quick fix to their money worries.  When people are desperate, it is easy for us to believe in a slick sales pitch that promises easy money with little or no effort on our parts.

One such pitch common today is Cash Gifting.  This is also referred to as “Mailbox Money”.    Cash Gifting programs are all over the internet.

They seem like a no work way to make a lot of money simply by giving gifts of cash to people in the organization…usually a “Gifting Club”.

To “join”, you give a “gift”, generally $500 – $3500, to a member higher up in the organization. The new member is promised that they will receive similar “gifts” once they recruit more members into the organization.

Sound like a Pyramid Scheme?
It is.

Cash gifting programs are illegal.

The Federal Trade Commission reminds you to:

* Consider that a legitimate gift has no strings attached and is not an “investment.”
* Avoid being misled into thinking a gifting club is legitimate because the ads say that members consider their payments a gift and expect nothing in return. This is an attempt to make an illegal transaction look legal.
* Be wary of success stories or testimonials of tremendous payoffs. Very few members of illegal gifting clubs or pyramid schemes ever receive any money.
* Take your time. Don’t buckle under to a high-pressure sales pitch that requires you to join immediately or risk losing out on the opportunity. Remember, solid opportunities – and solid friendships – aren’t formed through nerve-wracking tactics.”

 

Just remember, the famous P.T. Barnum quote:

“There’s a Sucker born every minute”

Be smart and educate yourself so you know the difference between a scam and a legitimate MLM business opportunity.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

This is the second of a three part series in making money fast scams.  The first post was on Chain Letters.

When money is tight and we have bills to catch up on or there are nicer things we would like to buy, we often search for easy and quick ways to make some extra cash.

The internet, and sometimes people we know, offer a multitude of opportunities for making money with “no experience necessary”.

Some of those opportunities are legitimate, while some are scams intended to part you with your money.

Pyramid Schemes and Ponzi Schemes
Seductive Offers of a High Rate of Return in a Short Time Span

The term “Pyramid Scheme” has a long standing reputation of being a scam.

The problem is that most people don’t know how to tell if an opportunity is a pyramid scheme or a genuine business opportunity, so many people get sucked in.

Pyramid Schemes and Ponzi Schemes are both similar and both illegal.

Both make extravagant claims for huge earnings in a short timeframe.
They both rely heavily on recruiting new affiliates.

A Pyramid Scheme has a product to sell, but relies on the members within the organization to buy the products. This is often a huge monthly quota my mentor, Hugh, calls “filling your garage.”

There are also no retail sales to the general public.

A Ponzi Scheme only recruits new members. There are no products or services offered. There are no commissions paid for recruiting new members.

The promotor just collects the sign up fee and pays it to the upline.

“Both pyramid and Ponzi schemes are illegal because they inevitably must fall apart.
No program can recruit new members forever.
Every pyramid or Ponzi scheme collapses because it cannot expand beyond the size of the earth’s population.
When the scheme collapses, most investors find themselves at the bottom, unable to recoup their losses.”
(http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/other/dvimf16.shtm)

Legitimate Network Marketing, or Multilevel Marketing, businesses should not be confused with Pyramid or Ponzi Schemes.

A genuine MLM business offers a product or service and generates retail sales to the general public.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Financial times are tough and you need extra income NOW!

This is an ages old dilemma.

Money is tight in your household budget, your paychecks just aren’t enough, unexpected expenses keep popping up, and you just gotta have that new gadget or gizmo that’s been on your mind for just about forever.

Whatever the financial problem you are facing, you need money soon.

There are a lot of Make Money Fast and Get Rich Quick schemes that come before us every day.

Most promise thousands of dollars in returns in a matter of days or a few weeks.

Unfortunately, many of these offers prey on a person’s desperation in their financial situation and on an individual’s greed.

Most are scams and are designed to part you with your money and have no intention what-so-ever of providing you with the riches promised.

Chain Letters

Via Snail mail or email

At some time in our lives, we have all received a chain letter in the mail.

They typically contain a list of names of people you may or may not know. You are instructed to send something to the person on the top of the list, remove their name and place your’s at the bottom of the list.

You then are to make a certain amount of copies and mail them to a specified number of people.

Many times I have received and participated in recipe or dish towel exchanges. These types of chain letters are just for fun and exchange something of very low value. I’ve usually only received back 2 or 3 responses.

Chain letters that ask you to send money, however, are a scam AND are illegal. Even if the amount you are asked to send is just $1 or $5.

According to the USPS, chain letters are

 “illegal if they request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants. Chain letters are a form of gambling, and sending them through the mail (or delivering them in person or by computer, but mailing money to participate) violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute.”

 I received one that claimed to have gotten my name and address from a mailing list of people who were “opportunity seekers”.

It claimed potential earnings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and had been seen on Oprah.

All I had to do was send $1 to the person on the top of the list.

The mathematical chances explaining how one would receive their money was believably explained.

However, it’s faulty reasoning.

A lot of people who participate in these chain letters are well-intentioned folks looking to make some much needed extra money.

Unfortunately, they are not aware that they are involved in a scam and are breaking the law.

They could easily be reported to the authorities and face federal charges.

Many scammers are turning to the internet with these schemes.

Although the enforcement on the internet is not as stringent, they are still offering the same dirty deal.

Often payment is arranged through a PayPal account to avoid using the postal system.

Do yourself a favor and stay clear of these kinds of “opportunities”.

Do you ever feel like you are chasing down your prospects or some of the people in your downline? Does attempting to work with them feel like you are pushing a rope up a hill?

How often has someone expressed interest in what you have to offer, only to ignore your calls and emails? Or how about those people who were so enthusiastic when they signed up in your business, but are nowhere to be found a month or two later?

The thing that makes me shake my head is when someone signs up for my free ebook and gives the wrong telephone number. OK, so maybe some were typing too fast and hit the wrong key, or transposed numbers. That’s understandable. But others just simply do not give their correct contact information.

Why do they do that? Why do some people dip their toes into the water only to turn and run like hell in the other direction?

Part of it is FEAR.

MLM is a wonderful industry where AVERAGE people can make ABOVE AVERAGE income.

MLM is also an industry where most of us enter without knowing anything about the business. The “vultures” know this and start circling around the fresh meat that so trustingly entered the arena of Big Hopes and Dreams.

Because the MLM industry is open to anyone, it unfortunately attracts the scammers and “Pyramid” schemers. The pitch always sounds GLORIOUS and GLITTERY. The REALITY is that only the people at the top make money, most people get ripped off, then the company disappears in a few years. POOF!

It’s no wonder so many of us become jaded and skeptical. How many times do you get burned before you stay away from the fire?

But running scared from the potential scammers will also keep a person running away from potential positive business or training opportunities.

Another, more significant reason people run or hide, is TIMING.

Each one of us grows at our own pace…in our personal development, in our commitment to build our businesses, and in our personal lives.

A person may contact you for information, but still feel some insecurity about being successful. As a protective mechanism, he/she will avoid contact or avoid taking action.

You might have sponsored that someone into your downline who seems to have evaporated into thin air. He or she may not have a strong enough belief in themselves, or may have family members who are filling them with negativity and doubt.

Whatever the circumstances are for the individual, the TIMING for them is not right.
TIMING is not right for them YET.

Trying to Motivate someone who’s TIMING is not right…yet…is like trying to push a rope up a hill. Or have you heard the expression, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”?

Tom “Big Al” Shreiter has a saying: “Only take the volunteers. Look for the ones with their hands raised.”

This doesn’t mean you give up the ones hiding. Some may never come back to you for help again. Let it go.

But many others will be looking seriously for help when the TIMING is right for them. That may be in a month or it may be in a year.

So how do you increase your chances that these people will return to YOU?

That is where the beauty of an autoresponder comes in. If your prospects or downline have signed up to receive information from you through your autoresponder (such as a weekly or monthly newsletter), then they will continually have your name in front of them.

Always, always, always offer valuable content when using your autoresponder to keep in touch with folks on your list. This is not the time to pitch your business opportunity…it’s a major turn off and sets off salesman alarms.

Valuable content consists of sharing marketing and advertising tips, leadership skills, and personal development information.

A carefully constructed informative newsletter is an efficient tool that takes only 20-30 minutes. This leaves you with plenty of time to work more closely with the prospects and people in your downline who have their HANDS RAISED.

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

When you first got into MLM, I’ll bet you were like most people.  You were new to the industry, had no formal training, blindly believed your upline sponsor and trusted your company’s leadership implicitly.

I’ll bet you never thought about distributors having…or being entitled to…a Bill of Rights.

I’ll bet you never thought that there was an MLM Distributor Rights Association or that there was a Network Marketing MLM WatchDog.

Now that you’ve been working your business awhile and probably have some questions, you may not know quite where to turn for answers.

The MLM WatchDog, founded by Rod and Marcie Cook, is a great place to start.

Rod & Marcie have dedicated their efforts into making sure the MLM industry gets fair representation.  They are also committed to protecting their readership from being scammed.

I have included below the Distributor Bill of Rights as found on the MLM Distibutor Rights Association.

Read it carefully.     

 

Distributor Bill of RIGHTS

1. Distributors have a right to own and operate their own independent contractor business. The company and the government should recognize that a distributorship is an independent small business with all of the rights and tax benefits of any independent small business. By entering into an agreement with any company, each Distributor is entitled to specific and undeniable rights to protect and preserve immediate and long-term residual income.
2. Distributors’ personal business relationships shall be honored and protected. Distributors’ downlines that are personally sponsored and personal retail customers are part of the distributor’s business. Companies will recognize the sacred nature of the sponsor/distributor relationship. Distributors have the right to expect company’s efforts to support and sustain that relationship, and do nothing to compete with or harm the Distributors business. No restrictions should be placed on any legitimate business relationship, regardless of a competing company being involved or not.
3. Product usage by a distributor’s personally sponsored downline and customers is considered as retail sales of that distributor and is commissionable. The use of the company’s products within the sales organization is called “internal consumption.” Whether a distributor or a customer receives a discount is immaterial, as in the case that factory or wholesale outlet sales are still considered as retail sales.
4. Distributors have a right to a fair and balanced contract. Distributors shall be protected from termination without just cause. Distributors have a right to automatic renewal without material breach of contract. Distributors have a right to a process and system of fair and independent recourse.
5. There cannot be any restrictions on the distributor’s spouse or family conducting any other legitimate business of their choice. The company has no right to condition their distributors’ business based on any third party that is not a signature party to the independent contractor agreement/contract. Such attempts may be illegal.
6. Distributors have a right to sell, transfer or will their independent contractor business to any party that would qualify as a distributor under normal conditions. This is a provision that also helps protect the independent contractor status.
7. Distributors have the right to expect that their company and employees be honest and treat them courteously and respectfully; and submit to likewise treat them with mutual respect.
8. Distributors have the right to expect that their company has taken all reasonable steps to insure that their products are properly represented and meet any and all legal standards, have taken all reasonable steps to protect the proprietorship of the products and they are shipped in a timely manner.
9. Distributors should have the right to join any legitimate association of their choice.
10. Loyalty is expected from both Distributor and Company to each other.

Does your company’s contract and policy and procedures follow the principles in the Bill of Rights?

Have you even read your contract and policy and procedures?  If you have, do you understand the legalese?

Do you fully understand what could happen to your business if your company has a termination clause, or some other clause not in concordance with the Bill of Rights?

Who owns your downline (aka “your list”)?  If you left your company, are you allowed to contact your downline to introduce them to your new opportunity?  Or will you get sued?

These are questions you have to have answers to.  It means the survival of your business…the one you’ve worked so hard to build.

I can help you find those answers. 
All you have to do is ask.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Do you ever get that uneasy feeling that your MLM company may be hiding something from you?

Do you ever wonder who’s paying for those millionaires?

Are you doing things that don’t feel natural to you?

Do you ever wonder if your products are too expensive?

Are you feeling scammed by MLM?

All good questions, and all worth answering!

These are exactly the kinds of questions we answer on our Saturday night free training calls at Mentoring For Free.

On tonight’s call, Richard Dennis and Bob and Anna Bassett will discuss
The Five Pillars to Success – what YOU need for success in your MLM company.

At Mentoring For Free we work to train the little guy/gal so they won’t get scammed by the MLM Heavy Hitters.

It is F*R*E*E to listen to our live conference calls, but we only have a limited number of spots.

Just email me at k.j.miller.777@gmail.com with “Five Pillars” in the subject line to confirm your planned attendance.

Or call me at 1-541-484-5455
Or skype karen.j.miller

As soon as I get your reply, I’ll make sure to reserve you a spot on the call and get the access information to you.

This is going to be packed out call!

This information is critical to your financial future, and we hope you can join us.

Your Friend and Mentor,
Karen Miller
k.j.miller.777@gmail.com
Skype ID karen.j.miller
“I Believe In You”

PS…

If you can’t make the call, just let me know.
It will be recorded and archived.
I am happy to forward the information to you.