MLM COMPASS - Direction To MLM Success; A Proven Duplicable System » Policies and Procedures

New Ground Floor MLM Opportunity

Don Standard — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:48:12 +0000

Everyday it seems there is a new ground floor MLM Opportunity announced. Find your direction to MLM success with this new one of a kind business opportunity. We have a patented advanced compensation plan, a product used by over 200 million people daily in the US alone. And with our proven duplicable MLM system, no one will be left behind because we do 95% of the work for you.

Sound familiar?

Today someone asks me to check into this new ground floor MLM opportunity for them. Where do all these gamblers come from? Don’t they know that the failure rate for new companies is around 95% during the first two years. Already this guy could be looking at only having one chance in 20 of making it to the third year with his business.

Oh, but not this new ground floor MLM opportunity. These guys have been around since 1999. They adopted the retail business model for their product. It didn’t work, but you know what, the MLM business model is what they should have gone with.

Here is what I found out in a few short minutes.

The website does not list any information about the owners or managers so we can see what kind of experience they have in MLM or don’t have.
They have a single category niche product. It failed in retail so now they want to go with MLM. They claim 200 million people use similar products daily in the US. Of course those products cost about one tenth to one twentieth the cost of this product. Looks like they described a different niche.
There is no compensation plan on the web site. All I know is that they use the MLM compensation plan model.
I checked out the product. I have seen it in the retail stores. Of course it is not there anymore. The price has gone way way up now. A package of the product is about $15. Similar products can be purchased retail for under $1.
But there is science behind their product. Yep, one ingredient makes it different than some of the competition. But there is already competition well established who use this one magic ingredient.
So I know nothing about the people running the company, or the compensation plan. But still I go to see what happens when I want to sign up. I have to agree to the terms and conditions. Guess what? By agreeing I am stating that I have read and understood the policies and procedures and the company’s compensation plan. They want me to lie right off the bat. Where are these items for me to read and understand.

There is more, but any of these things is reason not to look at this company seriously. Yet people will probably flock to it to get in on the ground floor MLM opportunity. They will not recognize how the company is spinning negatives into what looks like positives.

Sadly most will lose their money. Some will lose their trust in people and MLM. Some will feel their failure was all their fault.

But the first thing people should be doing is properly evaluating an opportunity. Before anything else, you must put yourself in the best possible position to achieve MLM success.

When you fall for a company with even a small amount of the kinds of problems listed above, you are reducing your chance to succeed.

It’s time to get educated.

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Ooops, MLM Policies And Procedures, Gotcha

Don Standard — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:00:53 +0000

Ooops, do you have a problem.

Did you miss the gotcha on line one?

This little one.

All Independent Business Owners (IBOs) are required to read, understand and comply with ALL [Company] IBO Polcies and Procedures..

Do you really think they put it in your contract, your policies and procedures, for no reason?

Why would they want you to read and understand your policies and procedures anyway?

Well, they don’t really want you to read them because you might actually understand them and realize what a bad deal you are getting into.

Fail to read them and now you didn’t comply. They gotcha.

But if you agreed that you read them and understood them then when you show up in court, it is an open and shut case. You lose. Because you understood what a bad contract you were agreeing to comply with.

Really, you can’t see why they are setting you up from day one?

My recommendation is to stop everything you are doing. Stop wasting your money. Stop working to build something that they want to take away from you? Get an education. Find companies that have reasonable policies and procedures. Fair ones. Learn about The 5 Pillars To Success.

Don’t be one of those people doomed from the start because somehow you think you can make more money in network marketing with no education or skills than what you have ever made in a job where you where trained to succeed.

Read Success In 10 Steps Join Mentoring For Free.

Are You Already In Trouble?

Don Standard — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:47:52 +0000

Most network marketing applications have one or more boxes that you check right before finalizing your sign up as a distributor with the company. If you don’t check them, you can’t sign up.

Why are you being asked to check the boxes?

The boxes usually say something about you agreeing that you have done something. Checking the box is how you acknowledge that you agree.

The things you are agreeing to may be that you read your terms and conditions and agree to abide by them. Or it could be that they have multiple boxes. One for terms and conditions, another for policies and procedures and still another about the compensation plan.

I have found that most people check these boxes and continue with out even reading why they are checking them. If they do read the statement then almost no one looks at the document that the statement refers to so they have no idea what they are agreeing to do.

If you were to read the terms and conditions that your are agreeing to abide by then you would likely find a statement like this one.

I have carefully read and agree to comply with the [Company] Policies and Procedures and the [Company] Marketing and Compensation Plan, both of which are incorporated into and made a part of these Terms and Conditions.

So not only did you agree by checking the box that you had read the terms and conditions but those terms had the statement from above. I think it is pretty clear what they ask you to agree to do.

You have violated the contract with your new company’s contract on the day you signed up because you did not carefully read the documents. Did you?

And they tell you in your policies and procedures that if you violate any part of this contract that you can be terminated. So you just set yourself up for termination at any time in the future.

So, Are You Already In Trouble?

Learn to stay out of trouble. Join Mentoring For Free. It’ free.

The MLM Dream

Don Standard — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:51:04 +0000

The MLM Dream and Your Policies and Procedures. What do they have to do with your MLM Success?

Throughout the world of MLM, there is one dream that almost everyone has in common. They have the dream to build a big MLM team with a big income and then retire from their MLM responsibilites and continue to earn that big check.

Does that sound like you, or people on your team?

In the almost 30 years that I have been in MLM, this dream of retiring with a big MLM income has been a big selling point for bringing people into the business. Thirty years ago it may have been true. But is it still true today?

Check out this example from a company’s policies and procedures. In this policy, IMC is the company’s designation for their distributors.

IMC Supervisory Role. Any IMC who sponsors other IMCs must fulfill the obligation of performing a bona fide supervisory role in the sale or delivery of product to the ultimate consumer and in the training of those sponsored. Each IMC must have ongoing contact and communication with their sales organizations and also provide management supervision. Examples of such supervision may include, but are not limited to: written correspondence, personal meetings, telephone contact, voice mail contact, electronic mail contact, providing training sessions, accompanying individuals to Company training, and sharing genealogy information with those sponsored. Each IMC should be able to provide evidence to the Company semiannually of his/her ongoing fulfillment of sponsor responsibilities.

I see similar statements in almost every company’s policies and procedures that I read. They may be worded a little differently each time but all say the same thing that you don’t want to hear;

YOU CAN NOT RETIRE AND KEEP YOUR INCOME.

Let’ start by looking at the word “ongoing”. It means current, staying current, being actually in process, moving forward. With the word “ongoing” in this statement then you can’t ever stop doing what they are saying you must do. How can you retire and still keep doing all of this? For that matter, how can you get sick and keep doing everything?

Do companies actually enforce a policy like this? Don’t ask your upline, they will always say of course not, don’t worry.

Why did the company put it into their policies and procedures if they don’t intend to use it? Give the CEO a call and ask him to remove it since they say they would never use it. They will not do that for you, because of course, they intend to use it. That is why they included it.

The young lady I met last year found out the hard way. She was pregnant. And half way through the pregnancy her doctor prescribed bed rest. No activities. No going to meetings. Ninety days later the company invoked a policy like the one above. They terminated her and she lost the team that she built.

Now if the company is going to steal your dream of building a big income and retiring, right from the beginning with your contract, then why would you bother to build the company? The only answer that I have is that you didn’t read your contract, your policies and procedures. You don’t even know the rules.

To learn more about policies and procedures and how not to get taken advantage of by MLM companies, then I suggest that you plug into this blog and join Mentoring For Free.

Yes, there are companies who will not steal your dream.

MLM Policies and Procedures – Famous #9 Enroller Policy

Don Standard — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:28:07 +0000

This is one of the worst policies ever included in an MLM company’s policies and procedures.

The Famous #9 Enroller Policy!

As far as I know, this policy can only be found in one company’s policies and procedures. So there is no need for me to name the company. Just look in your company’s policies and procedures to see if you have it. Do be aware that they may move it from the 9 position to another position which they have done at least once already. I have removed the company name and replace it with [Company].

9. Enroller Policy
Should an individual personally enroll someone and place that individual under another person in their downline, [Company] reserves the right of the personally enrolling individual to later regain that placed individual for other placement options should the situation deem necessary. This policy is enforced at the discretion of the [Company] Corporate Sales Manager.

Let’s take a look at this policy. First you should know that the company encourages distributors to place personally sponsored people somewhere other than their first level. There is nothing wrong with doing so in my opinion as long as the person being placed agrees to it.

Now notice that the policy is talking about these people that have been placed in the distributors downline. Now the really bad part. Later the company can take those people and place them somewhere else should the situation deem necessary.

What I know from watching the company, is that placing them somewhere else means outside of the distributors downline. That means the distributor loses this personally sponsored person and those in the personally sponsored persons downline. They have been stolen from the distributor and possibly legally since he agreed to the policies and procedures.

Should the situation deem necessary must mean when the Corporate Sales Manager wants to make more money because they always get moved to help the income of the Corporate Sales Manager.

Then the final sentence let’s you know who gets to decide how this movement of distributors will work. You guessed it, enforced at the discretion of the [Company] Corporate Sales Manager. No wonder everyone that gets moved ends up under him.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you after seeing this to learn that this company makes the new news often at sites whose mission is to protect distributors from companies like this one. And most of the news has nothing to do with their policies and procedures.

It sure wouldn’t take much research to avoid a company like this one.

Learn more by reading Success In 10 Steps.

Save Those Sales Receipts

Don Standard — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:12:09 +0000

Let’s take another look at policies and procedures. This one could be a part of your company’s policies and procedures and could cause you some major difficulties. So hang on to those sales receipts.

Here goes, and as usual I have removed the company name and replaced it with [Company] so I wouldn’t hurt any ones feelings.

Retail Sales Receipts
Federal law requires that you provide each customer with a Retail Sales Receipt at the time of sale. [Company] requires that you use authorized Retail Sales Receipts that can be purchased from [Company] for each sale of [Company] products. A sample is included in your Distributor Kit.

In addition, you must keep copies of each Retail Sales Receipt you issue for one year after the date of the sale. [Company] may, at any time, request that you provide your Retail Sales Receipts to [Company] in order to verify retail sales for a given pay period. If you fail to provide Retail Sales Receipts to [Company] within 10 days of a request, your Distributorship may be suspended or terminated, at the sole discretion of [Company]. Submission of falsified Retail Sales Receipts will be grounds for termination of your Distributorship.

First paragraph, no big deal but I wonder how much they make selling distributors those sales receipts that they can not get from any other source.

Second paragraph is a big big problem. The requirement to keep those sales receipts comes from the company, not the law. They want to be able to verify a distributor’s retail sales because distributors have agreed to do retail sales in order to receive compensation from the company earned in the compensation plan.

If distributors can not provide these retail sales receipts then company can take actions against the distributor. I forgot to mention that the reason I chose this particular company’s policies is because they have taken action against distributors. The action; termination. The distributors that I know about were all top distributors in the company.

This company just stole the distributors checks.

Could it happen to you? These distributors never expected it just like you probably would not. Hey one of these guys couldn’t comply because his house blew away in a hurricane. It’s funny that the IRS had no problem working with him when they learned all his paper work blew away along with his home, but this company terminated him.

They wanted his check the same as they wanted all the other terminated distributors checks.

It would really be ashame to put all your blood sweat and tears into a company for years and create that nice recurring income only to have the company steal everything from you.

This is not the only company to worry about.

This is not the only policy to worry about.

This is a well known company and there are many other well known companies with questionable policies and procedures.

Ask yourself, why is it in the contract, your policies and procedures, unless they are planning to use it. If you see it in your contract, ask the company to remove it. After all, if they don’t want to have that policy in the arsenal of weapons to terminate distributors then they would gladly get rid of it. Right?

I hope I got your attention. Read your companies policies and procedures and those of any new company that your consider joining. Not all companies have these bad statements in their policies.

There are a lot more of these to cover so come back for more. Better safe than sorry.
Plug into Mentoring For Free for company evaluation training. Just a part of the free a to z success training available to you.
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Linear Income vs Recurring Income

Penny Dude — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:57:04 +0000

Most people do not understand the difference between Linear Income and Recurring Income. I like to use recurring or passive income. Some people call it residual.

LINEAR INCOME

If you are like most people, you have to work for a living. If you don’t work you don’t get paid.

I will give you a couple of examples. First one is the bus driver, he drives his bus and when he is done driving his bus at the end of the day he gets paid for the time he drove the bus. If he does not drive the bus he does not get paid.

Another example, a brain surgeon. The brain surgeon goes to work and preforms his surgeries and when he is done for the day he gets paid for the surgeries. But if the surgeon is unable to work, do you think he gets paid? No.

So you would agree that both the bus driver and the surgeon are in the same boat. The size of the income is not the same but they are in the same situation. They work, they get paid. They don’t work, they don’t get paid.

RECURRING INCOME

The best way to discribe recurring income is that when you do something right the first time, you get paid over and over and over again for what you did.

I will give you a few examples of this.

Most people have heard of Elvis Presley. Elvis recorded many amazing songs that turned into hits and he has made many movies. Elvis has been deceased for many years but we still hear his songs on the radio today. His daughter, Lisa Marie is getting a recurring income for the work her father did all those years ago. He did it right once and gets paid over and over and over again.

Another example is Michael Jordon, a famous athlete. Michael played basketball and was asked to be a spokes person for Nike. Michael became famous, signed a contract with Nike, shoots some commercials, gets his picture taken and receives a check. So Michael was asked to do this from Nike to represent them and he keeps receiving a check over and over and over again for being such a great basketball player. He never has to play in another game. He did it right already and will always be famous. Nike and other companies will keep offering him money to use the fame he created just one time. He can be on the beach or sleeping and the recurring income still comes in.

An other way to have recurring income would be if you had few million dollars laying around in your bank account and you get your dividend check every month. You did something right one time to earn that money and now that money pays you dividends each month forever.

Recurring income sounds nice but unfortunately we can not all sing like Elvis or jump like Michael and we sure don’t have a couple million dollars laying around in a bank account.

Recurring income is what most people building a MLM company or network marketing company are trying to achieve. You do the job once and have this check coming in month after month, depending on your company’s compensation plan.

So hopefully that sheds a little bit of light on the differences between Linear and Recurring Income.

I am currently experiencing the recurring income and I can tell you I love going to my mail box every week to get that cheque. Feels great and it keeps growing. I use a proven duplicable system, Mentoring For Free, and it is so much easier to create that recurring income this way.

Many people expect that all MLM companies will get them the recurring income if they have success building their program. You need to actually take a close look at this. Some will get you the recurring income alright, but they will not allow you to retire and keep the income. It’s in their policies and procedures, your contract.

Other companies have pay plans that never create recurring income. They talk about it and show you nice examples of how it happens but in reality, there is never any recurring income produced. The easiest way to spot this is to look at where the income comes from. If it is coming from sponsoring then as soon as the sponsoring drops off, the income is gone. That is essentially a one time sale. You only get paid for sponsoring someone one time. If the company product or service is sold one time, you have the same problem. In either case you have to keep sponsoring and keep selling. They make it appear to work by showing you how you make money from other peoples sponsoring and sales but it only works on paper.

Be sure you understand policies and procedures, and the company compensation plan before you build your house of cards like so many before you have done. Get the free training at Mentoring For Free.

Now you find yourself building your MLM business. You checked out everything and you know that if you build it, the recurring income will be there and you can retire if you like. But most people have been participating in the linear income model for so long that it presents a problem for them. They work hard at their business and make very little in the beginning. Often times they will give up just when they are getting close to seeing success, just because the old linear income model got in the way. Now they either drop MLM because they can’t build their recurring income quickly enough or they move to another company and start all over again.

When you fully understand the difference between linear income and recurring income, and learn to evaluate a company so that you know if you build it then the recurring income is really going to be there, then you will be on your way towards sticking with one company long enough to reach your goals. The day will come when you feel overpaid for what little work you do building your business.

Build it Once, Build it Big, Build it to Pay Your Children’s Children

Don Standard — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:53:38 +0000

Build it Once, Build it Big, Build it to Pay Your Children’s Children is my motto.

I read Success In 10 Steps and joined Mentoring For Free three years ago and learned how to put myself in the best possible position to be successful in network marketing and it has really paid off. It starts with choosing the company that puts you in the best possible position for success.

So when I was searching for my last network marketing company, the following clause could not be in my new company’s policies and procedures and should not be in yours either.

“Distributors must renew their Agreement each year…”

“The Company reserves the right to reject any applications for a new distributor or applications for renewal.”

When I checked, had I seen this type of statement in the company’s policies and procedures, I would have quit reading and rejected the company as a possibility for me.

Why? Because the company has given themselves a way to

get rid of a distributor every year on the distributors anniversary with the company and they don’t even need a reason to reject the distributors renewal. They can take away everything I build. The contract says they can do it and you better no agree to it.

Most of you don’t know a single person who has ever been terminated from a company and if you do the company told you that they terminated them because they were bad, but you don’t have the distributors side of the story.

I know many people who have been terminated. I know the stories behind the terminations. It not only happens in this industry, but the numbers of terminations appear to be rising dramatically. Companies have learned to use the contract to take advantage of unsuspecting distributors.

If you agree to a contract with a clause that allows a company to dump you just by not renewing your contract then you are setting yourself up for big problems. It may never happen to you. It may never happen to anyone you know.

But the point is, that you want to put yourself in the best possible position for MLM success from the beginning. And that starts with reading the company’s policies and procedures, and not joining a company that puts your future in jeopardy. This business is hard enough for most people as it is.

MLM Success – Not With MLM Policies and Procedures Like This

Don Standard — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:47:51 +0000

We are going to continue examining MLM company policies and procedures in bite size pieces today.

The policy below could present a serious problem to your MLM success in the future. This is right from a major network marketing company’s policies and procedures. I changed the company name to [company]. If you think it could be your company, just go to your policies and read 10.3 but also be aware that when the company does a revision they may put it in a different section.

Read it, then we can take a closer look at it.

10.3. AGREEMENT TERMINABLE AT WILL
You may terminate your relationship with [company] at any time by providing a signed written notice to [company]. [Company] may also terminate the relationship with you (including any partnerships, corporations or other entity) at any time by providing written notice. You or [company] are not required to have any reason, nor do you or [company] have to claim or prove any cause to terminate this relationship. If and when the relationship is terminated, you shall have no claim against [company] nor any right to claim or collect lost profits, lost opportunities or any other damages. Termination will result in the loss of all benefits as an [company] Independent Consultant.

So what do you think? It starts nice. You can terminate your relationship with the company. If you are making money, why on earth would you want to do that? Of course you would not. If you have any recurring income, then even if you change companies you don’t want to quit, if they are sending you checks because the checks would stop coming if you terminate.

Fair is fair, or is it?

They let you terminate your relationship with the company so they want to be able to terminate the relationship with you. Why would you ever accept that? They can terminate you and your business is gone. Are you really willing to work for years to build a business that can be taken away that easily.

How easy is it for them to terminate you? First, they just told you that they only have to send you written notice. Next they tell you that they don’t even have to have a reason to do so.

Then they follow everything up with a statement to be sure you understand that after they terminate you, your business is history. No more income for you.

So let me ask you again, do you really want to build a business that can be taken away this easily?

You may be thinking why would they ever terminate me. There are many reasons this could happen. But remember they don’t need a reason to terminate you. Maybe their reason is nothing more than to keep the money they pay you and they really just don’t want to tell you they are greedy. And of course they may never terminate you. But they have set things up to make it easy if they want to.

Think about this. If they never thought about the possibility that they may want to terminate you and never even have to tell you why they did it, then this clause would not be in your contract. Instead they have been thinking about it. The clause is evidence.

There are many similar clauses to this one in MLM company policies and procedures. So you are not off the hook here eve if you don’t have this exact clause in yours.

Now for those of you who don’t think these clauses ever get used to terminate people, here are just a couple examples that I know about.

One guy I know helped promote his product so well that the company finally said, we don’t need to pay you guys any more. They put the product in retail stores like Walmart and terminated all of their distrubutors.

One company decided to terminate about twenty-two of their top distributors to show extra income for this public company. Twenty-two people terminated with a combined income of one million dollars per month. Wow, the clause worked.

To make it worse the company executives that did this are still out there and you may be in the company that terminated these people or you could be in a company where one of these executives has moved to. I think your possibility of future termination is much higher than most peoples. What do you think? I think it is easier the second time around for them.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Terminations happen all the time and it is a growing concern for distributors in our industry. You really need a contract that does not allow the company to get rid of you without even a reason and they only have to notify you.

To get a great education for free on companies and their policies and procedures, check out Mentoring For Free.

Your MLM Success May Depend On Your Company’s Policies and Procedures

Don Standard — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:59:48 +0000

You will hear about company’s policies and procedures over and over on this blog. We are going to look at them in bite size chunks.

These policies and procedures are your legal contract with your MLM company. You really need to know what you are signing and how it may affect you long term.

So let’s start with an easy one. This one is found in a lot of policies and procedures so instead of naming a company I have inserted [company] where you would normally see a company name.

[Company] expressly reserves the right to terminate all Agreements upon thirty (30) days written notice in the event that it elects to: (1) cease business operations; (2) dissolve as a corporate entity; or (3) terminate distribution of its products and services via relationship marketing.

When you read this statement, what do you feel. I feel that the company is already making plans for when they fail to succeed as a network marketing company. They may want to cease business operations. What will that do to you as a MLM distributor for the company? They may want to dissolve as a corporate entity. What will that do to you as a MLM distributor for the company? Or they may want to terminate distribution of products and services through network marketing. What will that do to you as a MLM distributor for the company?

In all cases that leaves you without a business and since you are agreeing to give them this right, you have no recourse if they take it. They are putting a plan into place to take away your business.

And look at the 3rd option again. They may take away your business and stay in business themselves, marketing the product are service by some other means. I know someone who built a network marketing business to an income of $100,000 per month. Then the company ceased marketing as a network marketing company and went into traditional retail, selling the product at stores like Walmart. The distributors did such a great job of promoting the product that everyone knew about it and they where no longer needed. So the distributors were left with nothing while the company continued to earn. I have another friend who was making about $46,000 each month when his MLM company did the same to him.

To enjoy MLM Success you will want to read your policies and procedures and avoid companies that are planning in advance for you to fail due to this contract. We will cover many statements from companies policies and procedures in this blog, taking them in easy to understand pieces. Be sure to come back for more.

Those of you who get the free ebook, Success In 10 Steps, or sign up for the free
Mentoring For Free MLM skills training will be offered additional training on the subject.