Ad Infinitum: Who Gets the Bacon?

The three foot rule – Anyone who is within a radius of three foot or less around you is a prospect. You swallowed hard, recall your pitch and plastered your well rehearsed big smile on your face. Then you try to catch the attention of your prospect. Some reacts positively, and most – don't even care less.

That scenario was common for someone who's been drowned by the MLM (Multi-level Marketing) hype. Going to the mall was no longer the usual shopping spree, having lunch / dinner with friends or just simply strolling. It became a prospecting time wherein an MLM distributor try to offers that "once in a lifetime opportunity" to random strangers with that much confidence in themselves that they are helping people change lives. Changing people's lives to best… or to worst?

Not too long ago I was one of those MLM junkies who are armed with confidence and motivation to spread the great news that will save the world. Yeah, save the world, as what our "respected" uplines say upfront. Why keep the great news within yourself if you can share it with your family, your friends and even strangers?? You can help build the world a better place to live in - financial freedom at everyone's reach. I had a dream then. Am I a superhero or something? I was naive.  

I had invested… rather wasted two valuable years of my life getting on this "get-rich-quick scheme" business plan. It was called in various names. Networking, Direct selling, Multi-level Marketing, E-commerce business – in fact this is just a legalized Pyramid Scheme. I was duped. I certainly was. Spent almost $ 3,000 ++ for sign-up fees, product re-order and training fees. Not to mention the out-of-pocket costs for transportation and food expenses for the so-called business meetings and orientations. Include further the hotel fees, phone calls, and most importantly the time spent on attending the different rallies. Everyone is not conscious of the time. More time spent means greater commitment to your "business". They say "work now, play later" because all your labor shall never be in vain because it will pay-off after some time. It is normal to fail because without failure you cannot succeed. You need to invest more to get more. You need to have that title of gold, platinum, diamond even if it means stocking your garage or your room with those overpriced product till you cannot breathe. You turned out to have the "kryptonite" title rather than the "diamond" title as the little superhero in you get sucks up and drained… financially. By the process you turned out to be an MLM zombie ready to eat your prospect's brain and their bank account!

The experience was quite overwhelming though. It was overwhelming in the sense that you get to meet a lot of people. Some you may get along and some simply get in to your nerves. Various people of different walks of life gather in MLM. It does not evaluate any of its members. Irregardless of educational attainment, religion, culture, family background… and even criminal record. So there might be a chance that you're "so-called" business partners has been passing up the law or like fugitives. I even remember one upline who is hooking up with ladies in order to get them in the scheme. He played with their feelings, make them his downline and start having secret relationship with them. At the end this cheater upline dump the ladies like a hot potato! And the devastating fact is that upline was already married. He con on people's dream and break a lot of hearts. What a loser. He really is a hundred percent sham!

There is also a chance that you might be dealing with someone who had a case before of felony that you are unaware of. I have also seen some distributors that are having immoral relationship with fellow members. This one lady distributor doesn't care about her reputation of being a mistress. And she was even proud! The nerve of a dim-witted mistress, she could have used her brain for a minute or so. Even married women had relationship with random men in the group. Most guy members are in troubled relationship and they try their best to court downlines and crosslines for their short-term pleasure. They also claimed that they will be filthy rich soon. Funny thing is that these brainwashed guys couldn't even afford to pay for their prospect's coffee. Because they are just so broke! Seeing these kinds of business partners makes me want to puke. I bet they left their morals somewhere else, or maybe it was buried deep in the desert.  And so I left the group like its funny.

MLM doesn't qualify any of its prospects. It's because the main requirement of joining this "prestigious" group is to have the ability to pay. I would like to say the "ability to pay" rather than "financial capacity" because even the prospect is at the cliff of his debt bed, these uplines will still motivate them to find a way to purchase and pay for the sign-up fees. Even if it means, pressing more on your piling debt, borrowing from relatives or selling your valuable things in order to pay for the joining fee. And it is for "limited time" offer only! Here's the catch, they will inform you that you're so lucky you will be joining at the perfect time but you have to join immediately because of the current promotions that the company was having. They will pressurize you to join immediately and you might miss half of your life passing up a very lucrative offer! With this, the unassuming prospect gets caught up thinking he really did accepted a great deal. A great deal that will later consume his personality --- and his relationships.

Sleeping is only for the broke. This were the exact words of my upline as he try to justify that one must not miss an opportunity even for a blink of an eye! Even if it means passing up sleeping time and being up all night and loitering around like an upbeat horse. Lack of sleep affects my work, and my quality time with family and friends was greatly affected. I became distant with my real friends and spend most of my time with my fellow brainwashed distributors. What used to be a happy weekend became a prospecting time not to mention the rallies and meeting in between weekdays. I was so tired and I spent money like trash. Money spent that I could have just enjoyed or just sent to my loved ones. Investment that I thought will be reaping benefits in the long term was sucked up by my hungry uplines.

Would you like to earn your passive income while helping others? This was the question whenever we start a meeting with unsuspecting prospects. Looking back I hope I could have passed on this question. I could have not been scammed. I could have not wasted my time, money and energy. It is because this kind of system was already flawed right from the beginning. Only those who sit on the top make the big chunk at the expense of the members at the bottom. They earned their six figure income out of the huge losses of the most. Endless prospecting, endless recruitment,  countless training and never ending meetings, ad infinitum as they say. If you are still a member of this offbeat group, I do hope after reading this you will now have the answer to this question… In this kind of "business" who do you think gets the bacon???