Forum Post: First 99% Conglomerate Subsidiary: Network Marketing
Posted 10 years ago on July 21, 2013, 8:50 p.m. EST by Kavatz
(464)
from Edmonton, AB
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Actually Snowman (me and my shovel), would technically be the first Phase 1 (P1) Subsidiary, but I don't plan on incorporating that business any time soon. It does not have to follow the democratically decided P2 rules of Responsible Capitalism. The P1 Subsidiaries draft the P2 Conglomerate Constitution. The P1 Subsidiaries can choose not to upgrade to P2 status, and do not have to abide by P2 rules until they do. Both P1 and P2 Subsidiaries draft the P3 Constitution. Oops! Got way off track, but this will help refine the concept in your head, so I'll leave it.
We usually think of a pyramid scheme when someone approaches us with an "opportunity" to buy products and a system that will make you wonderful and rich. I've been watching a particular one for over a year now, listening to the audio they share, and have to admit I've improved as predicted. I agree with nearly everything they share, but still can't shake the idea that there's something wrong/evil in it. I can explain why it's NOT a pyramid scheme and feel confident defending it. But there's just something wrong with "Christians" who own yachts and jets.
I don't have a name for the Subsidiary yet, or know if it should be called a Franchise Subsidiary.
If you want to buy into this business, by accepting and not innovating the system (*Very important not to improvise, but always stick to the script), you are at the same time starting your own Subsidiary.
Every single person you've ever associated with, who you still can contact, and anyone you bump into in the future, can get "nestled" under you. Like in any network marketing business, the more people you get involved, the more money you make, especially if your recruits are productive for a long time. The problem I've seen is that the compensation (profit/bonus) plan is always complicated. This is how we fix that:
You pay 5% of everything you receive upwards.
Everyone under you pays 5%, and you pass your 5% upstream.
We sell information and motivation. The product is a more equipped YOU with the ammo to survive capitalism. We create opportunities and actively work to improve local economies. We go door to door to raise awareness and ask for money so we can continue, if our customers agree it is the right thing to do.
We recommend a minimum payment for our service, but ask for any amount our customers think the service was worth.
We try to recruit people who need work or are afraid of losing their job.
Most network marketing costs a few hundred dollars to get started with the system, and more to help your business accelerate. We will have a website with the materials we need listed for purchase (if you want it delivered), or the templates (and printing/material specs) to download for free. Go to your local print shop Subsidiary (your neighbor's basement) and have it printed there.
So where should all the profits go after reaching the top? Obviously to pay for the website and other shared operating costs. I think anything above that should be used by the owners of the Franchise Subsidiary for projects aligning with the mission statement, or just a bonus for the owners' hard work.
Can you think of any reasons this is a bad idea, or suggest enhancements?
Good idea! Possibly one that could be effective.
What specifically is the product? How do we convince people in a door-to-door situation that they are even interested in learning about our product?
The message is good and maybe the timing is right.
Thanks! People need to understand that the first thing they are paying for is a better local economy. They need to believe its the start to a revitalized Detroit, for example. We are fixing communities that capitalism chewed up and spit out. By supporting our worker-owners, money is being distributed to local consumers who otherwise would not be financially independent.
How about call it equashift?equishift?
The script for introduction could be like this:
Hi, I'm Kavatz and I am a worker-owner of a new business called equishift. This is my job, knocking on doors and introducing new people to our mission.
The business is like network marketing in many ways. The money I earn, I keep 95% and pass 5% upstream. Every member has the same formula. Everyone directly below you (but not below them) gives you 5%. You take everything you earn and the 5% from each of your recruits, and move 5% of the total upwards.
There is no one person at the top. All the money moved to the top is in an account to pay our operating costs, pay us bonuses and to finance projects.
Our current mission is to improve the local economy and the financial intelligence of our members, and we have two offers for you at this time.
A subscription to our non-member information portal, which is a growing library of must watch, must know video, audio and articles. This includes access to a private forum for discussing relevant current events and topics related to business plans. For this service, we ask that you pay whatever you think the service of coming to your door with this message is worth.
Join us by becoming an equashift worker-owner. It typically costs a few hundred dollars to get into network marketing these days. To be an owner of equashift, you pay $30 a year. That's it! You get access to the materials I have with me today at the lowest possible cost and member access to the secure website.
We take advantage of the most powerful tool used in capitalism: the corporation. As an owner, your car is now a business expense, and lunches are now business meetings. A part of your house becomes office space.
We also take advantage of an organizational structure becoming very popular these days among the 99%. We are a Worker Self-Directed Enterprise (WSDE). We democratically make business decisions. We do not have fancy executives earning more than their fair share. For the first time in history, WSDE meets network marketing.
Would you like to know more?
Well, that's what I have so far. What do you think? More viable that you thought yesterday?
Can you think of a better way to spread the message of the 99% and bring the movement into the homes of people only tuned into MSM? This seems too good to be possible.
Great pitch!
No sarcasm?
No, it is a well fashioned pitch. It invokes exactly the sentiment needed for people to participate.
Wow thanks. A second edit should make it impossible to resist then ;)
Okay, think about this. If this is your job and you show up at my door, I'll pay you. I'll already have all the information you have, but making sure youre getting a good hourly rate is as important as groceries for myself. Come back in the future I'll pay you again. Abuse me and I'll have your membership revoked because you're not following the script. You would be ruining it so can't be a part of it. But that would never happen anyway.
Would you pay me a few dollars for my effort if I rang your doorbell to spread the message and recruit?
Could society ever develop a supportive culture for this?
Four people could make this work. At least read it. If 99% Conglomerate isn't your thing just yet, at least just read the posts and let it "sync" in.
Has this grown on anyone yet? I'm practically ready to quit my job and start. The best time to get started with revolutionary network marketing businesses is as soon as it starts. The next best time is now.
It would be good to start with a few partners. We need to decide what's included in offering #1.
website with two focus areas: evolution and financial intelligence
evolution includes current solutions to world problems angled towards world revolution. It suggests best audio, video, subscriptions, links rated by our members as most relavent, motivating, and critical knowledge.
financial intelligence also provides links to our top rated media, everything the middle and lower classes typically don't know about how money really works. it's geared towards motivating people to become financially independent, and ideally to achieve financial freedom.
One thing I'd want for the website is an interactive component where people advertize their local businesses, building a directory for the financially intelligent folks (those aware of the economic benefits of keeping money local), so you know where to shop.
This would include garage sales, farmers markets, and classifieds.
Allows sellers to find buyers.
Search for products, like ketchup, and the closest advertizing ketchup producer appears.
The key to network marketing is to make it worthwhile to the individual, regardless of having downlines. An appeal to profits from downlines becomes discouraging to the vast majority of marketers that will never sufficiently achieve them. That's why, for the network marketing scheme I have for the Cooperative Union, I avoid this by limiting benefits to just one level of recruitment for one year and make the benefits discounts rather than profits. There's a lot less stress involved for the average individual by taking part in a savings opportunity than in taking part in a profit pursuing opportunity. With one opportunity, you're saving on money that you're already spending while mainly focused upon the greater good of your efforts. With the other opportunity, you're going out of your way to make additional money for yourself that won't come easy for the most part while contributing to someone else's success above you. In a profit oriented network marketing venture, it is mathematically impossible for most people to ever be successful in comparison to the people at the top. There will always be a small percentage of successful people at the top with a majority of unsuccessful people beneth them.
What is the savings and discount part about?
There are several reasons why people at the bottom don't succeed financially. It's usually laziness, disregard for the system/script, or fear of meeting and talking in front of people.
I think in this unique implementation of network marketing, building down line communities is a huge way to be successful. And even if I started a year before you, if you were signed up under me, directly or indirectly, you could quickly catch up and pass me.
Patronization of the National Mutual Insurance Company can be further increased through an incentives program in which any person who is a member of both the National Credit Union and the National Mutual Insurance Company can pay 1% less on their premiums in the next year for every new member they are responsible for recruiting to the same type of insurance. If a person recruits 10 people for the auto insurance, that person will pay 10% less on their auto insurance in the next year. If a person recruits 103 people for the health insurance, that person will pay nothing on their health insurance premium in the next year and 3% less in the following year. These one year discounts on premiums will not only slightly ease a member’s financial burdens but will also provide the incentives for member recruitment and becoming patrons of both financial institutions thereby enabling larger loans and better coverage for the cooperative community.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-cooperative-union/
In network marketing, it is simply impossible for the vast majority to ever be successful. That fact has nothing to do with laziness, disregard for the system/script, or fear of meeting and talking in front of people. It has to do with the mathematics of it all. No matter what some individuals can do in being successful, if you were to clone them to replicate their success, only a few clones would be successful while the vast majority of them wouldn't.
Fewer than 1% of all MLM distributors ever earn a profit and those earning a sustainable living at this business are a much smaller percentage still.
Extraordinary sales and marketing obstacles account for much of this failure, but even if the business were more feasible, sheer mathematics would severely limit the opportunity. The MLM business structure can support only a small number of financial winners. If a 1,000-person downline is needed to earn a sustainable income, those 1,000 will need one million more to duplicate the success. How many people can realistically be enrolled? Much of what appears as growth is in fact only the continuous churning of new enrollees. The money for the rare winners comes from the constant enrollment of armies of losers. With no limits on numbers of distributors in an area and no evaluation of market potential, the system is also inherently unstable.
http://www.mlmwatch.org/01General/10lies.html
I like the incentive plans, thanks for reminding. Not sure how many people would recruit a hundred others, especially if doing so isn't that person's primary focus.
I also hear what you're saying about MLM. The math probably varies from company to company though. Pyramid schemes fall into the category you're referring to. Some actually have products purchased and consumed by members.
Personal results and ambition/skill are definitely correlated, until a community is saturated, and even still there would be a correlation.
When WSDE (worker owned,democratic organization) is combined with MLM, different natural laws apply.
I'm a member and another member comes to my house, I will give $10 or $20 if I can. We will have small talk about the state of things, if I have time. Then onto the next house he/she goes.
If it ever gets to the point where multiple members come to my house in a day, or if I can't afford it, I'll say Sorry, I am unable to help today. Actually, if that happens, I should be out working!
By the time communities get close to saturated (as if most people will be using this as their primary income), the real mission will be achieved. Most people/zombies in the community will know where they should be locally spending their money, and be pressured to boycott certain businesses.
Another objective will be completed, which is that people who desperately need an income will not have to beg on the street or hang themselves. Rather, they can own their own business, and get back on their feet with the financial intelligence to survive capitalism.
We'll bring about a cultural shift where members and customers know participation balances wealth distribution and bolsters the local economy. Society will be enlightened and tuned into the movements rather than MSM. We'll be able to deliver a message to all owners, globally, simply and simultaneously, which is one of the most powerful assets any organization can have.
"(*Very important not to improvise, but always stick to the script"
That is probably what I hate the most about those schemes. Personally, I cant be tied down like that. It's too frustrating.
One thing might change your feelings on this though, is that the script does change. As the primary mission of equishift changes, when the worker-owners democratically decide to take on new focus projects, the script will change.
So if you owned a macdonalds, you wouldn't follow the system exactly? That's how you fail. The system is designed a certain way because it works nearly all the time if done right. If you don't follow the system, McDonald's will tell you to beat it, for good reason.
Bad idea because it always has to expand to avoid collapse. If people aren't constantly getting in people below them (probably a high pressure discussion to join), the music stops.
There is no breathing space. That gets tiresome quickly and not everyone has that kind of energy. Most people don't. And yet you constantly need more bodies for that model, not to succeed, but just to avoid collapse.
This is pretty much what I'd expect from someone who doesn't understand the objective and whole picture. It will seem like a pyramid model at first. If you read more of this thread, that perceptual error should dissipate.