When I enrolled more than 12 years ago I believed in
the premise that this was "it" in the industry. My personality may be
similar to yours: if I am going to work at something I am going to
succeed. In doing so, I never looked around to see what else was out
there. In fact, that behavior was greatly frowned upon in the
"teaching" I received. I complied, and worked diligently. However, upon
leaving that business I began to study the industry itself. I
recognized flaws that would have been apparent had I only acknowledged
my own concerns early on.
I used to say, as many of you still do, "we pay as
deep as we go in depth". What I could never understand was, if it was
so good why did so few make any real money. I heard people say
countless times, "We made $250 last month!" What many of them did not
say is that they spent $500 in books, tapes and seminars that same
month. This is a net loss of $250.
It may be very simple for some of you to tell me
that in the early stages of a business one is expected to spend more
than they make. I would agree. However, I would remind you that I am
talking about people that had spent years pursuing their business.
People like me were used as the examples of how it
could be done. Because of our early successes, we stood on stages and
repeated the same things we were taught. Yet, over time I saw fewer and
fewer people achieving any significant levels of income. (It was then
that I began sharing my concerns and was told it would change. This
feedback came from my "upline" as well as the "corporation".)
Additionally, those I saw generating the larger incomes were doing so
as a result of the business support materials income
Regarding this notion of paying as "deep as you go."
I would ask you to rethink the benefit of that statement. Remember, a
dollar is just a dollar. The "further you go" the more diluted it
becomes. Some companies say they pay 20, 30 levels deep or even
infinitely.
How many levels deep are you? Not how deep do you
want to be, but how many levels deep are you? How long has it taken to
get there? Be honest with yourself. I would encourage you to call the
corporation and ask them this: how many people does the average IBO
sponsor? The answer might surprise you. You might be told by your
"upline" not to worry about the average person. Be the "above" average
person, you are told. Fair enough, who are they? How many of them are
there? How do you identify them? How many do they sponsor? How many new
platinums or emeralds have your own diamonds "broken" lately? Most
people never gain depth. Additionally, who is the beneficiary of depth?
From my experiences, it is once again a small few.
The point here is this: it does not matter just how it looks or sounds, but how it works.
I witnessed people more ambitious than myself fail to build any real
depth. These were not lazy people. They were good, hard-working people.
Many left being made to feel as though they were failures or quitters. They were neither.
On this topic of depth I would encourage you to ask
your corporation the following question: "If I have $1,000,000 of
volume in leg A, and 2500 to 7500+ PV of volume on the side, do I
receive 4% of the $1,000,000?" Many people think so. However, that is
not true even though many of us were told this when seeing "the plan".
The compensation plan can be very confusing to most people, in or out
of that business. It is therefore easy to gloss over issues that are
critical to developing a solid personal business plan.
Most of the diamonds I knew could not explain the
intricate "workings" of the plan. That is one reason you may hear the
following cursory answer to many thoughtful questions: "You need to
worry about that when you start making the money."
Think for yourself for a moment: would you take a job if you did not know the specifics of how you were going to make money?
