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Archive for February, 2008

The headline slaps your eyeballs:

“98% of the population is dead or dead broke by the age of 65, only 2% are financially free.”

This is one of those silly “facts” circulated by promoters who love “statistics” that support their promotional style.

You can do like I did. Check out the U.S. Census – www.census.gov.

First, 27% percent of Americans die before reaching 65. If we substract those from the 98%, that leaves us 71% who are supposedly “Dead Broke.”

Of course, if we are inclusive, then we’d say that 98% are dead and/or dead broke. That’s because the way the headline states it, all groups are included. So, those who died “dead broke” before age 65 must be included in that 98%. If we count them, then those who are dead, plus those who are dead-broke but living, it all adds up to 125%. Which means that, from the standpoint of the I.R.S, we definitely have a taxation problem!

But let’s be concrete. According to the Census of 2000, only 17% of the population aged 65-74 were below the poverty level, which was set in 2005 at $10,210 for one person, $13,640 for a household of two. If a retired person has his house paid for, as most do, plus medicare, he could get by and is certainly not “dead broke.” In fact, the net worth of this age group is the highest of all age groups, including those in their 30s and 40s. Why do you think all those “investment experts” especially target them with their schemes? (They are excellent prospects for a part-time business with high integrity and rewards. But, because of their years of experience, they can often zero in on any silly statements. I guess I’m in that group.)

Here are less glowing statistics, according to a March 8, 2005, report from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

“WESTPORT, Conn. — The MetLife Mature Market Institute Demographic Profile of Americans 65+ shows an aging population of 36 million people, some with few assets and relatively low income; 10 million live below the poverty line [that’s 27%]. The publication reports the segment of the population between 65 and 69 has a median net worth of $114,000, including the equity in their homes, but $27,588 without it. For those between 65 and 74, the average before-tax income is $35,118 with most coming from Social Security. Of the entire 65+ population, 80% own their own homes and 20% are renters.”

An income of a retired household of $35,118 is not exactly “dead broke.” And of this segment, about 80% own and live in their own homes. I think that’s enviable and a tribute to these people who, for 40 or more years, put in much hard work and careful planning. Please – don’t demean this respectable group with your put-down of the “dead broke” label.

This blogger attributes the “fact” to Dani Johnson – it always helps to attribute your “facts” to someone famous in her own right. The blogger writes, “Our coach, Dani Johnson teaches this concept. However, this is a perfect example of how you can hear something over and over again but still not completely get it. Learning is without question a process and this just proves that point over and over again. – [Dani] teaches that 98% of the population is dead or dead broke by the age of 65, only 2% are financially free.”

To me, this goes to show that we can hear mis-facts over and over again without questioning them because they serves our goals. Often, we will even ignore common sense because some “fact” quoted by an authority figure seems to bolster our objective. Our goal should be truth — and not trying to convince prospects that they ought to join our system because “98%…etc.”

We should question more of what we read and hear, especially if our observations don’t seem to support a certain statement.

We don’t build any credibility in network marketing, or any other field, by repeating silly statistics that must have originated from the Wonderland of Alice.

What some companies call S&H (shipping and handling) should be called S&M – sadism and masochism. Punishment. Pain.

And it’s about time we raised some S&H about it. Stink and Hell.

I just received a two-ounce bottle of a magic concoction from an MLM company, and they charged me $8.50 for S&H. That was their cheapest option – USPS priority mail. That means I got it in two days rather than three – big deal. Just think — $8.50 would buy me a good lunch plus a Starbucks! But, hey, I have two ounces of magic (it hasn’t lived up to its hype, by the way), for $41.00 plus $8.50 plus sales tax (normally charged on the S&H too.) Note to myself: Cancel autoship.

After all, don’t companies make enough profit on the product itself? Why do they have to try to make money on getting it out to us? And if they shipped it out by regular first-class mail, it might cost a dollar or two.

Oh, I know, some companies outsource shipping to a “fulfillment center,” that in turn has to make a profit. But more conscientious companies try to save costs here, both for themselves and us. And a few absorb some of those costs in their expenses. Just like normal retail stores do. Take a look at Amazon.com. You can get $25.00-plus worth of books with no shipping costs. And even two or three-day shipping will cost you a reasonable amount.

What would it be like if you went to Costco or Safeway, bought your products, went to the checkout, and the clerk added “shipping and handling?” You see why in some MLM companies it gets more and more difficult to keep customers because a product that costs $20.00 winds up costing $27.00 or more.

Of course, some companies charge extra on S&H because they send out a two-ounce package by FedEx. That’s because, in order to simplify their operation and increase their margin, they send everything out by FedEx, often in oversized boxes that they have to stuff with eco-destructive stuffing. After all, it’s more efficient to stock a one-size-fits-all box than a dozen of varying sizes. (You’d think their shipping department is run by gorillas who haven’t yet discovered how to use their opposable thumbs.)

Several years ago I went to the convention of a new MLM company. I ordered a few hundred dollars worth of products and picked them up right there. Yet, they added shipping and handling. When I questioned that, the worker told me, “We have to add that to all products we sell in order to keep the cost of the products down and pay out commissions.”

Something seemed wrong to me. What? The attitude that the distributors should pay some of the expenses of selling products to them. So I soon quit that company.

Another squeeze play. In what other industry does a company charge you a fee for paying you commissions or earnings? So what if it’s only a fee of $2 or $5? When you deduct that from a $10.00 or $20.00 check, that’s quite a deduction. I assure you, it’s quite a letdown to a lot of beginners in this MLM business.

Perhaps soon some companies will charge you a fee for talking to their order department rather than doing it online, like some airline companies do now. Why not? Aren’t the customers/distributors an endless source of nickels and dimes and dollars? After all, they’re making all those commissions because of what the company is doing! So we ought to be thankful for the opportunity they offer us. I say — Phoo-ey. Double-phoo-ey.

Plus sales tax. Of course, there are products that are subject to tax. But there are others, like juices and food products, which normally aren’t taxed. And yet, some MLMs charge tax on these too. Why? Because they don’t want the hassle of arranging with various states to have these products be tax-exempt. The states like to receive sales tax even on products that aren’t normally taxed.

What do some company owners think? Well, distributors shouldn’t complain, because they can make SO MUCH MONEY in their company. What’s a little more cost for S&H or over-priced sales aids?

Another thing. Sales aids. There are some companies that make too much extra money on their sales aids. After all, they justify, distributors will think that their company is high-class if you have to pay $50.00 for two CDs or DVDs rather than $4.00 for their production costs. Another source of revenue for the “law of attraction” owners of the company. And, just think — that information you’re buying is worth hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in potential earnings. It will change your life – by taking more dollars out of your wallet! Blachhh! No company should make excessive, or any, profits on sales aids that help distributors to sell that company’s products.

I bet there are some MLM companies that make more profit on their S&H, sales aids and training programs, than they do on selling their products or services. I guarantee you – there’s not much future in those companies.

But we’re often told we shouldn’t complain – that’s so negative. And we are to be positive. When we invest $200.00 in their training program, or $500 in their convention, so much more will come back to us. “Sow and reap,” you know.

Well, I’m an old farmer. I know that when we sow, we have to keep our costs down, saving every penny we can. And when we reap, we have to do the same. If we spend too much money in sowing and reaping, then after harvest, we wind up moaning and weeping, and owing money to the bank.

There’s encouraging news. There are some companies that recognize reciprocity. They do their best to keep our costs down. They offer training and sales aids sometimes at a loss to the company. In the long-term, that company’s rewards will be greater. Why? Because we are grateful for their efforts to help us get good value for our money and to earn some money without spending too much.

What a positive impression these companies make on us with their generous attitude! They do their best to keep down our operating costs with minimal or no shipping costs, free web sites, at-cost or subsidized training and tools. It’s as if they realize that the customers (distributors) are of primary importance. Without us, they’d have no business and their message of better health and wealth wouldn’t reach the world.

What a concept! It’s so powerful that it really can invigorate the power of inner marketing. I believe today’s tightening economy and increased competition will weed out those companies that profit too much from sales aids, S&H, training, etc. This is especially true if we all start complaining to the over-chargers and demand greater value for our money.

This is one such complaint. Please send me yours. Thanks.

The act of composition is “a putting together of parts, ingredients, etc., to form a whole.”

Many people imagine that composers, writers and other artists often reel off their work in moments of inspiration, almost effortlessly. I like what my wife, Martha, wrote about this. She has been a musician all her life, starting as a child playing for church. By the way, Martha has her own blog – http://learn88keys.com.

Martha wrote: “Some composition is spontaneous and just comes, like an idea for a song. At other times it comes from working on it like anything else — the more you do it the better you get at it.

“Bach was one of this world’s greatest composers. He composed out of necessity as well as pleasure. With 20 children in his brood, he needed to make money, not just music. His position as church organist required him to perform new organ music every Sunday. And this wasn’t just little songs – some were 15 or more minutes long. So he composed all the time. I’m sure he had moments of great inspiration when the music just flowed into and through him. At other times, the task was more laborious and time-consuming. He had to think through each measure.”

Something else interesting about Johann S. Bach that might encourage us. Once, when he tried to quit his job, he was jailed for a month. During that time behind bars, he wrote 46 pieces of music, many still performed today.

So what’s my excuse for not putting together some parts of my business today, or at least this month?

Isn’t composing music much like building a business? Sometimes it just flows out of us – we’re “in the zone.” We seem to do the right things effortlessly, and we love it. We might call it enthusiasm – God in us.

But other times, talking to people, picking up the phone, doing the paperwork, all seem to be so daunting. They seem to be a bunch of tasks that we have to do in order to get the job done and go about doing the things we love to do. At those times, we might even question whether the business world is really for us.

Here’s an image to keep in mind. No task stands by itself, as no musical note or word stands alone. There’s arrangement of the elements, experimentation of how they fit best together. It often takes a lot of time, revisions, beginning again, and just continuing the task. But if we begin to see the relationship among the parts, we begin to see the coming together of our new creation. We glimpse the beautiful composition that will come from our work.

So we connect with a person here and there, we teach by word and example, we encourage and share what we’ve learned. We ourselves are learning, and then compose what we’ve learned into our own work. We can’t do this in a vacuum. We need to do it with people, talking and listening to them.

Keep at it and you could produce a masterpiece. It might be in that one person you have helped to bring from the edge of hopelessness to a dream fulfilled. By sharing what you’ve learned, it might be turning someone’s health around. You could make an impact on the world that you don’t even realize. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

First, you learn basics from others, then turn them into enhancing attitudes and skills, and then fit them all together into your life’s composition. I believe that’s what we’re called to do – something bigger and more beautiful than “a downline.” We shine “this little light of mine” upon some dark area of the world.

Don’t learn too much too quickly, or you’ll become scattered and confused. In fact, learn a little and do it well. Then go on to the next “little.” In learning to play the piano, one must learn the basics, and play them well and naturally. You’ll find network marketing more enjoyable if you follow this principle.

By a harmonious approach to our life’s work, we deepen our perceptual awareness of many daily experiences we encounter. We freely learn to encourage others. We hear melodies in their lives and harmonize with them. Also, we become more attentive to our loved ones and many others.

When we begin to achieve the power of inner marketing, we feel a new freedom to compose, arrange and re-arrange the ideas and skills we’ve been exposed to. In composing this wholeness, we turn more and more towards “music” that is bigger than our whistling. I believe we cannot achieve this kind of wholeness unless we are using our compositions to bless others.

These are the four powers of music that you can weave into your networking life –- harmonization, transposition, improvisation, and composition. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Thanks.

“To provise” means to do what you foresee. “Improvise” means to take an action that you do not foresee.

“To improvise” means to produce without prior preparation, at least in a specific application or arrangement. In music, it means to invent and perform without prepared material. Often jazz lends itself to improvisation.

Several decades ago I was promoting a product called Slick 50, an oil additive. The company had a big meeting about 200 miles from my place, and I traveled there because I had a few distributors in that area. Leon, the vice-president of the company, was the featured speaker.

We met for dinner a few hours before the meeting. Leon asked who had brought “the movie.” At that time, before DVDs, we ran the film on a portable projector.

Nobody had brought “the movie.” But, hey, we had the vice-president, a guy who had personality and a good speaking voice. And he knew the product and marketing plan inside and out. All we needed was a blackboard and chalk — and we could roll.

Oh yeah? Leon was in shock. Out of the hundreds of presentations he had done across America, he had never done one without “the movie.” And he wasn’t going to start now. He made several phone calls, found a distributor 150 miles away who had “the movie” and projector. At a cost of hundreds of dollars, Leon arranged for a charter plane to deliver film and contraption to our meeting location. They arrived barely in time.

Leon could not improvise. He did not see a challenge in a new approach, in “inventing” something new. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the knowledge or the skills. But he was stuck in a rut, limited to one way of doing something.

In order to improvise, you need the basic skills and the ability to harmonize. But you also need imagination — to “let go” of your previous track and “be in the moment.”

How often do you improvise in networking? Quite often. Why? Because developing relationships with people is not a rote action. You can learn principles, skills and techniques, but when it comes to application, be ready to improvise.

When you and your associates learn to improvise, at least a little, you all will gain self-confidence like never before. It’s learning to “paint outside the lines.” It is taking risks, of course, but often with encouraging rewards.

Improvisation – stimulates the imagination…encourages self-growth…provides variety for you and your audience… produces deeper feeling of harmony…develops problem-solving skills…frees your spirit (gets you out of the old box.)

Improvisation is a skill that will last you a lifetime, not just for networking, but in all areas of life. You’ll experience warmer connections with people, seeing them at a more appreciative level. 

For example, you will often sense how to talk to a particular person, even a stranger, when before you tried to think of some “ice-breaker.” Because you’ve discovered more of your creativity, you start to recognize uniqueness in others who sense that you are honoring them as real people.

That quality deepens your power of inner marketing. So enjoy improvisation, and make your own harmonious music.

Dr. Martha Baker-Jordan tells of attending a dinner party hosted by a famous concert pianist. A well-known singer from the big-band era was scheduled to perform, and she assumed that the pianist would accompany her with no problem.

But there was a big problem. That pianist, along with eight other pianists in attendance, never developed the skill to play from the singer’s lead sheet. They didn’t know how to transpose and provide the accompaniment. All said that they “couldn’t read chord symbols.”

They all were accomplished musicians, even teaching at university level, but they hadn’t learned “to relax” with simpler music.

So in our networking, we can learn a lot of higher skills and theory, such as positive thinking, goal-setting, and the laws of attraction. We can even earn marketing and communication degrees. And yet, we might fail in communicating on a heart-to-heart level.

In music, to transpose means “to move a chord, melody, composition, etc., upward or downward in pitch while retaining its internal interval structure.” In short, it sounds the same in most ways, except it’s in a different key.

A piano student, for instance, has learned a song in the key of C major. He can repeat that song note for note, almost without thinking. But then he finds he needs to accompany some other musician who needs it in the key of G major. In order to do that, he needs to transpose, or change keys.

When we have harmony in our lives, we live by principles that are congruent – the internal structure remains the same no matter what situation arises. But the application of those principles might vary according to the need.

But you may ask, “How can I be so agile and adept?” The answer – by internalizing the right principles so they become second nature. That’s the power of networking from the inside out.

We learn skills that sometimes will need transposing. You learn how to do a good person-to-person presentation . But then, instead of speaking to just a few people, you are put before a large group or even before a television camera. How do you transpose your skills? When you are in harmony, you have no doubts about what you are offering. You are actually on a mission to share the best with others. Thus, you can transpose your method of delivery from one-to-one to one-to-thousands. And, although you may be somewhat unsure and nervous, you’ll be able to do a good job because you are working on principles that have become a part of your makeup.

A bigger situation. Because you’ve sought for more harmony in your life and learned the principles to do so, you realize that the program you’ve spent a lot of time with may no longer fulfill your life’s purpose. It doesn’t resonate with your inner spirit. You may find that now you have to transpose your attachment from your current company to a new one. And that can be tough on both your finances and your networking group. So what do you do?

You can not live in disharmony. But you can retain harmony by transposing the internal structure to a different key.

“To thine own self be true,” said the poet. That’s where good soul music begins—and continues.