Is MLM where I really want to be?
Business, defined as 1. The ability to satisfy a person’s or entity’s need and 2. The ability to make a profit while satisfying that need.
We will start by making a general comparison of a standard business and MLM. Let’s take a generic item like freeze-dried foods to begin our discussion. Looking around the web on the first page I found PatriotFood.com; nitro-pak.com; shelfreliance.com; Gropaymlm.com; food-healing.com; survivalfoodkit.com and SundanceGlobalFood.com. I also found related searches in: Freeze Dried Foods; freeze-dried meat; freeze-dried fruit; freeze-dried food manufacturers; Wholesale of freeze-dried foods; Oregon Freeze Dried Foods and Freeze Dried Emergency Foods.
Since I’ve spent a good portion of my life in the Northwest, we’ll use Oregon Freeze Dry, Inc. for our test. Let’s say we will build our new company around a variety of freeze-dried foods. Our customer base will be people who love the outdoors. The need, which prompted us to form our business, began after spending three years from one or two weeks to three months during the summer in the mountains, far from civilization. We had ridden a lot of the trails on most of the ranges from the west coast to the east coast. During that time we found food for those trips to be extremely difficult. Food that we normally would have eaten at home was simply too bulky and we had no way of refrigerating it to keep it safe to eat. Also, finding food for yourself and others in the wild, so to speak, is not an easy thing to do. Another thing we noticed was that the products available for extended outdoor use were not very tasty at best. I had been in the military and had eaten “extended deployment rations” and they were edible, but that’s about all I would say about them. Gradually an idea formed around the possibility of processing nutritious and tasty foods in ways that maintain their food value while taking up much less space and weight. After taking out a second mortgage on our home and finding financial backers, we began the startup. Three years later and after $1.3 million invested to rent a building, find our research team, purchase equipment, and countless weeks and weekends, we are beginning to see the fruits of our labor. We had our first product line and it was even better than we expected. Now began the task of gaining much-needed exposure to start selling them. We hired an ad agency with a respectable niche clientele who were outdoor folks and they brought in another million for the campaign. Over the next two years we not only broke even but made our first profit of $173,000,000. We were elated, not only for our first win, but repeat business was more than enough for continued growth. Established in 1963, through advice, careful planning and experienced execution of our ever-evolving business plan, we have locations in the UK and Denmark with brokers in the US, Europe, Canada and Asia. I guess you could say we’ve become a respected industry leader.
Sounds great, right? A multi-million dollar company, fame, fortune and wealth! But what did it take to get there? Approximately 47 years, an investment that includes his house and any other capital he can raise, partners, and years with few weekends to call his own. In essence, you owned the “dream” of a successful business.
Both standard and MLM business models provide opportunities for financial freedom that includes all the good things in life, including more time with family and friends; as you continue to grow, the ability to help others in their growth; the opportunity to be philanthropic and the opportunity to travel.
But let’s look at an MLM view of the same scenario. What I see as a main difference between the two is that you don’t have to be involved in the painful, financially stressful, time-consuming, and mentally energy consuming part of starting a business. Will that imply a loss for us in the potential earnings to which a person involved in a successful start-up is entitled? Absolutely, but personally, I would never trade the money they make for what they have to go through to get it. In essence, we will become an extension of the marketing arm of that MLM opportunity. And over time, we will be rewarded for our efforts as we help advance that opportunity. Our success will largely depend on a product or service and how confident we are in one or both, the opportunity and those leading the charge.
An overview of the need and benefit in our example above reveals the following:
The “Necessity:” Compact and light, yet nutritious food for millions of outdoor enthusiasts around the world.
The “Profit:” After skimming through the 168-page 2010/2011 City of Albany, Oregon budget, I found the following: Total Assessed Property Value of Oregon Freeze Dried Food, Inc. (note that the name registered on the report is different from your current business name), shows that the taxable assessed value of your property is $28,967,490.00 and the % of total taxable assessed value is 0.94%. Not being an account and after getting “red eyes” while looking at the 167 pages that contained no information about our example company, I’d say they’ve done pretty well over the years considering US Interest only represents one broker . Also, as far as I could determine, they are a private company and didn’t have a lot of financially valuable information.
Keep up your research and know that if your heart and mind are in the right place, only good can come of it.