MLM(7) - Say No to LB (MLM)

Skip to ***** if you wanna cut my 'crap' short.

Well, se7enth post about MLM, I'll probably stop writting about MLM from now on. :P

I actually regretted to meet up with my friend. I met with her because

1) We didn't meet for 5 years.
2) I hope I can tell them my point of view.

But apparently, I wasted my time and energy.

They are professionally trained to counter whatever you are gonna say.

Er, actually not really professionally trained. They are programmatically trained.

Why?

Everyone of them is approaching you in the same style.

1) Very friendly
2) Talk about life with you
3) Talk about the problem of this society - lack of money
4) They boast how good their product/plan/company is
5) You can retire early with thier plan.
6) They'll tell you xxx had given up their job just to join this company
7) Most important point, there's no way they'll say their product/plan/company is bad.

Like robot, they are.


And latest one that I heard from LB people,

"Bill Gates once said that Networking is the future trend"

Guys and girls, if you have reference to this statement, please let me know, else I won't even consider it as a point. (My little question, which networking? The computer's networking?)


Oh, back to the previous point - why am I so regret?

Yesterday my secondary school friend called me up again, after our dinner time meet in last week. I (we) wasted more than an hour just to debate - like kid, we were.

From the 'debate', I can summerise it as follows:

1) She claimed that I have *STRONG* misunderstanding of LB/MLM.
2) She kept talking to me, because she would like to make sure I understand her 'good news' (of how good their product, and how MLM can help me)
3) At one point, her EQ was low. She didn't even allow me to talk - she just kept talking(rapping).

Because of point #1 and #2, she kept asking me to attend their talk - just to understand their product/plan/company better - and guaranteed that I won't be approached by any of their person for asking me to join their company etc.


At last, I finally used our friendship to call off the call. I told her:
"The reason why I met with you, sitting down with you, listening to you patiently - was because I treat you as a friend. I don't wish that our friendship get worse because of this"


*****So, I can summerise again, after all, the best practice against MLM people is: Keep yourself from them.


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Here, I'd like to share few points that I think why MLM is a short-lived strategy:


1) MLM WILL NOT be the future trend

Imagine one day, in the world of MLM, when you need to buy a car, called, IJK, you need to first join as their member, pay the joining fees, and pay the marked up price, to support their upline.

Then, you don't have enough money, you need to loan, you go to bank, which is on MLM plan, you can loan as a normal member. But you wanna get better benefit, by joining their RMxxK premium membership, so that you can get lower interest rate and get the approval fast. (Here, I am referring to the LB's RM30k membership)

So when you drive, you only believe in a particular brand's fuel, let's call it UVW. You joined as their member too. And you strongly believe that UVW can give you extra benefit to your car - better performance, higher power output, reduce the engine friction, prolong the engine life, clean your engine etc etc etc - that other fuel cannot provide.

Best of all, at the UVW pump station, you see a lot of 'franchisee' spreading the 'good news' of UVW petrol, that non-other station can provide.


Make sense? Do you want a future like this? Do you wanna join as a member before buying a bread or a condom or something?


2) MLM = Cheat a person to cheat another person

Or we can call it, cheat a victim to cheat another victim.

One thing I will definite feel guilty if I'm an MLM member (or 'franchisee'), is that I am going to ask a non-MLM member to join MLM family, by paying a large amount of hard-earned money.

And what if that person cannot get the benefits (here I mainly refer to $$$) that was promised by the plan? And what if I just ruined this country's future thinker/developer? (for this point you may refer to the next statement #6)

How much can you do with RM30K?

Or I should ask, how many members do you need to get them joining, to get you back that RM30k?

Do the simple maths. You paid a large amount of money, and yet, you need get even larger amount of money (by getting many new members to join) - just to get back your paid amount.

Is that good for this country's economy/development?

Best of all, all your 'hard-earned' money (by getting new members joining) will be partly 'shared' with your uplines - is this communist?


3) MLM, It is all about $$$, after all.

The main 'reason' they asked you to join MLM, is because they 'feel' that you need to earn more money in a short time. (Early retirement, that's what they claim you can do)

In reality, they need you to join, because they wanna earn from your joining fee. Period.
They only use their super-whatever-can-do product, just to cover their real motive - money.

Super-whatever-can-do? Shall we nominate the product inventor to Noble Prize?



4) Wake up, it's GLOBALISATION

Marked up product? Do you know the R-E-A-L trend now? Every company is cutting cost.

For communication, VOIP is da real trend (I am NOT referring to those MLM voip. You can use free VOIP like Skype) I communicate with my family with Skype or MSN Messenger voice when I was in UK.

For goods/products, many of them are Made In China.

Why?

Everybody is trying to make the product cheaper. Everybody is trying to make the product affordable.

That way, is the real way to benefit more people and get real big money.

And do you know there's something called internet shopping?

type 'lampe berger' in Google, you will get the first result of this site:

www.mywood-n-treasures.com/

Do you know what is that? Yes, YOU CAN BUY LAMPE BERGER PRODUCT WITH MUCH LOWER COST!

The essence oil starts from USD19. (around RM70) And yes, it is Lampe Berger.

With this fast changing century (thanks to technology), you will never know if there is a new competitor tomorrow, with much cheaper and better product.

Your whatever-can-do product will be a-lot-also-cannot-do product tomorrow.



5) MLM's Questionable Mentality

Notice what you always hear from MLM? 'Early retirement, 'Earn RMxxK in x months', 'one of our member xxx is driving BMW in just few months', 'XXX is giving up his/her permanent job just to join this company'

And with all those statement - prepare to embrace the endless bad cycle - to show off how successful you are, you have to follow their trend - buy BMW, buy luxury stuff to show off - or we can say, to prove how successful you are.

Don't forget, rat racing is never ending - your collegue (another 'franchisee') will buy new + even better luxury stuff, after you.

Do they care to give the success rate statistic - of how many people did they help to achieve the company's promise?

Yes, you may help them to have a down payment for a BMW, what about the rest of the days?

What I heard was, a lot of people sold off their luxuries in the end because it has become their burden, when their sales decreases....

Maybe you should calculate how many new members you need to find, to fully pay for your BMW. Then, see the amount of money involved - I guess you will by then feel frustrated that your effort/profit is sort of communist-ly 'shared'.

Also, MLM companies like LB DOES NOT PROVIDE YOU EPF.

How are you gonna survive in the old age (from 50 years old onwards), if you don't have EPF?

Yah you may have saving... but with the mentality of MLM - do you think you'll have much saving left?


6) You Are the one who DECIDES YOUR OWN FUTURE, NOT THE MONEY

Yes, money can do a lot of things.

But on the other side, do you want your friends to avoid you? All your MLM friends only care about hunting the new members. Care to talk about life?

Life is all about money?

What for we study?

Ok, cut the crap, the reason why we study, is to learn, and to understand our own interest, and develop from there.

Can you imagine Albert Einstein, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, Larry Page and Sergey Brin all went for MLM marketing?

Who's gonna advance in physics? (Albert Einstein)
Who's gonna invent the car? (Mercedes Benz, invented by Daimler + Benz)
Who's gonna invent Google search? (invented by Larry Page and Sergey Brin)

Think again. This country/world needs you in a lot of other fields for development, not only in sales.


7) The Best Way to Say No - Don't even Entertain

The best way to destruct the MLM concept, is stop joining it. Stop campaigning it.

Without your membership fees, they will have no income.

No income, they'll destruct. It's simple isn't it?

MLM is worse than vampire.

And yes, I don't want MLM to be the future trend. Neither one of us would like it to be.

YES, it all depends on you. You don't join, they can't survive. Simple as that.


8) There's No ShortCut in this World

Fast money? Dream on. That's Ponzi scheme.

At least, we know that we never learn about people getting famous with fast money in our history. Ponzi may have done it, though.

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I hope i've done my best to express. It's a long + boring post, I know. But well, this is the last post about anti-MLM post. It's in my bone already.

Feel free to criticise.


P/S: Although I had only been to France twice, I can tell you, I've never heard or seen Lampe Berger selling there.

Not even in Champs-Elysées, Paris, where all the branded stuff gather together. All I know is, I saw LV, Chanel etc. There's no so called France's National Treasure, Lampe Berger.

And why took it 100 years (it has 109 years of history already) to let us know that this actually French National Treasure? I don't think we heard Lampe Berger before 2000.

But we certainly heard about LV or Chanel etc, way before LB.

Therefore, French National Treasure is only their excuse to mark up the price. The price in the rest of the (non-MLM) world is cheap.

Not convinced? You can try to imagine that the beauty product like Nivea, being sold here with MLM marketing strategy. They will tell you it's German's National Treasure, with 95 years of history. It has unique anti-ageing formula......

It'll be the bloody same.