How about YOUR question here?
Read below or choose another question.
I get many letters like the following:
Dear Karl,
I've just discovered the miracle of miracles. It is brand new. There has never been anything like it. You can make thousands of dollars within a few weeks.
I am not allowed to tell you much about it, but the whole story is on the tape I've sent along. I have also included one piece of literature from this company.
Please listen to it and call me right back.
Sincerely,
Joe
Dear Joe,
No!
If you were a very close friend, or a very good customer, I would be polite, perhaps, and even maybe listen to the tape. But almost always these tapes are crazy hype from some MLM which has been just discovered by you.
From the literature which you sent I see phrases like the following:
1. "Can we slow down the aging process?"
2. "Can society's most dreaded diseases be stopped cold in their tracks?"
3. "The results [of the tests] were tremendous."
4. "Victor Roehrich is fast becoming regarded as an Einstein of health and healing." [fill in any unknown person announced to be the inventor of the new stuff]
5. "Animals respond incredibly well to Intrasound." [fill in any new product]
6. "The harmonic signal within these formulas goes immediately to the root of a health challenge to create harmony and balance -- so the body can heal itself." [fill in any scientific claim not based on recognized science]
Hogwash!
But, Joe is a friend, so I say, politely, "Joe, I'm really very busy and have enough to do with my current activities."
He would usually answer that "Well, I know 'Bill' and he is making $54,000 per month with this new company. Are you making that much?"
To which I say, if I am NOT being polite: "Hogwash!" If I am being polite I find any number of other responses.
Don't get me wrong. I have gotten enthusiastically involved in at least 25 different MLM companies. Some, like Amway, I got into on three separate occasions! I don't even think badly of these MLMs, only that they did not have what it took, or that I didn't have what it took to be successful.
The Internet is FULL of them. There are thousands of pages you come across where it looks like a gigantic corporation. But, it is nothing more than some poor distributor who has spent hundreds of dollars to pay the MLM company for a web site. He gets 13 visitors per month (all from his family) and never makes a penny from his web site. But, he is proud of being on the web.
I accept as true that virtually EVERY MLM company has to operate by marking its costs up by a factor of TWENTY! Often the factor is much higher. That means that they produce something with a total cost, including packaging, that costs them $1.00, sitting on the shelf in the warehouse, waiting to be shipped to a distributor. They sell it to the distributor at the wholesale cost of $20, and suggest a retail price of $25. The wholesale distributor buys at $20, and there would then be a normal 50%, or more, paid to his "upline." That means that the company collects the $25 and spends $12.50 to pay commissions. There would be lots of other expenses for the company, but they finally wind up with a net profit of about $5 for every one they sell.
They might even, then, claim that they make ONLY $5 profit on a $25 sale -- a percentage of only 20%. But the truth is different.
When you look at the total of all distributors, and divide that number into the total paid out in commissions, you would find that the average distributor is getting a very tiny amount. There are some distributors who get a lot. They are about 1% of the total number of distributors.
Those very few distributors who work more or less 10 hours or more per week on their distributorship would, after figuring their actual commission earned, be earning less than $5 per hour for the time spent.
They will deny this, of course, because self-delusion is the number one requirement in any MLM company. The distributor has to believe the product hype without question, and has to believe that he will be in that 1% of the top money earners.
But, you can't say this to your friend because he will be very upset and probably you lose a friend. So, you listen politely and say no in some gentle way.
I have never earned enough money in ANY MLM to make it financially rewarding. I have found a few products, unique of course, high-priced of course, that are still quite good and we sell them here on these pages. We even sign people up as new distributors under Vibrant Life, but I tell you here and now that you should never get into some MLM for the purpose of making money.
It is so rare that it is not worth figuring!
You might get into an MLM because the product works for you, and you might even help some others with that product -- but you will hardly ever make more than $5 per hour for your time.
Currently we are selling a lot of Microhydrin. It has a retail price of $46 per bottle, and a wholesale price of $35. It is absolutely unique -- even patented. I even believe it is a fabulous product. But the profit on that product, to the owners, is astronomical, and that same 1% of the distributors are getting rich off the backs of the thousands of distributors earning less than $5 per hour for their time.
Now, because MLMs have such a terrible reputation, they have all gone to about the same trick to get you to join.
It is called the "mystery approach." They tell you just a little bit, and then give you a free tape or even a free video.
You should realize that if they give you a brochure you can glance through the brochure in less than 60 seconds and see that you are not interested -- throw it away.
But, once you put a tape into the machine, and start to listen, you are very likely to listen through the whole thing. You might even become interested -- it will be an emotional decision, I guarantee you, not an analytical decision. The tape gets 30 minutes of your attention while the brochure would be lucky to get one minute of your attention.
So, tapes are the thing! To recruit new people into MLMs. Except that they were the new thing many years ago and they are old hat now.
There are other techniques. One is what Joe used. He is told: "Make a list (called a 'warm list') of all the people who would recognize your name. Send them all a tape. About 10% will listen to the tape and about one of three of them will sign up. It is all a matter of numbers. You invest $2,400 in 3,000 cassette tapes, add in the postage, send them out to that list and, voila, you become a millionaire within 17 2/3 weeks!
MLM companies can't possibly sell anything which is also available in the general market. Their price would always be astronomically higher than the general market can get for a product which can be made and sold by competitive firms.
That means that they ALWAYS have to find some way of making their product unique -- so you cannot compare costs on the market.
That means that they almost always create claims that you can't possibly investigate, or that can't be backed up with "standard science." They are generally always backed up only by anecdotal testimonies. Again, don't get me wrong.
We hear at Vibrant Life ALSO give you lots of testimonials, we also offer you a free cassette tape lecture (two 30-minute lectures). We also make fabulous claims.
But, it's interesting, any other firm COULD duplicate our formula and sell it -- we have no patent and all the ingredients are on the label.
No one does!
Why?
Many reason -- another day, but they have to do with the fact that we have more than 2,000 web pages of scientific stuff to validate our claims. It takes time and money to do what we have done -- and the guy who just copies the formula doesn't have that resource.
When you get my cassette tape, I thank you for listening to it -- but it is a slow go to promote that way!
It is not easy to market a health product because there are literally thousands of crazy claims trying to capture your attention. All the while the TV is full of adds that tell you that Tylenol is the only way to go!
So, Joe, "No, I'm sorry, but I won't listen to your tape. And, I won't study your literature. I've seen enough in the literature to know that the claims depend on "science" which is not generally recognized by the scientific community and if they can't evaluate this thing, I can't either."
You might ask: "Well, Karl, how DO you find new products?" A good question for another day.
Next!
Regards,
Karl
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