Adventures In Multi-Level Marketing

mona-vie is not kosher

2008-04-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

i was shocked to read the back of my mona-vie bottle and discover that mona-vie contains shrimp products.

i don't know about you, but the idea of drinking fruit & shrimp juice leaves me feeling like i had a bad sunday brunch!

shrimp? seriously?

i don't know why they add it in there but it's on the label.

so how did it taste?

a little bit like prune juice. not bad really. not sure if it's worth $37 a bottle but a fair contender in terms of taste.

however with the shrimp - mona-vie will never be kosher.

how to know if they are lying to you

2008-03-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

i just found out about the alliance for ethical network marketing (www.aenm.org) and one of their main ethics points is that distributors should list the average earnings when they talk about making money.

this made me think about mike dillards carbon copy program - the one he implies will earn you six figures the first year. of course it will cost you a few grand to join but let's not talk about that.

i wonder how well mike dillard would actually do if he disclosed the average earnings of distributors in his companies? and i'm not talking about money he made from selling his courses but from the actual mlm part (like xango for example).

doing a little digging with google i found that the average earning for distributors from companies like usana, melaleuca and amway was around $50 a month.

aenm.org is on to something - post average earnings or shut up - because if you're not willing to do that you are probably lying.

hey spend some more money... please

2008-03-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

is anyone offering a marketing strategy that doesn't involve me having to spend a lot of money to make it work?

$30 or $70 for an eBook or course that promises to solve all my problems is not hard to find.

it's what's inside that disappoints.

the strategies i have found from mike dillard and even ann sieg (they advertise like crazy) seem to require thousands of dollars to setup a website and thousands more into online advertising. they say you can advertise for free posting articles, blogs and even youtube videos. but those require a bit of creativity and skill - not to mention that there are millions of youtube videos - what will make mine worth watching?

for some reason these these guys just keep on selling courses. it's almost like stupidity is the new sex - because it used to be that 'sex sells.'

noni or xango - taste for yourself

2008-03-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

juice is in.

tahitian noni came out with noni juice years ago. today we have as many as you can count. xango is probably on of the biggest in recent history.

do they cure cancer (the fda is currently investigating xango for making claims)? no probably not. and come on, don't be dumb, go to a doctor if you have problems, don't just buy juice! and how cares anyway? both of these products are good for you in the end.

so which one tastes better?

xango - hands down.

i was never a fan of noni. it reminded me of feet with parmesan. don't get me wrong, you can down an ounce and rinse it with something else. but it was never a pleasant experience.

xango on the other hand may not be a pleasure drink, but at least it tastes like actual fruit. a little tangy and sweet. it has that healthy vitamin like aftertaste - but you don't need to have a glass of water waiting beside your shot!

so the next question is... what about the others. and should you rotate what you take? i'll figure that out.

mike dillard's mlm traffic formula isn't

2008-03-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

so i bought mike dillards mlm traffic formula - a course that supposedly tells you how to get an endless flood of top notch leads using web strategies like google, blogs, etc.

now i got to hand it to mike. he has a pretty brilliant marketing strategy. well maybe not brilliant - but at least well executed.

mike leverages the following...

mike knows his customer know little or nothing about marketing.
mike knows that his customer wants to believe they can be successful without any effort or brain power.
mike understands the connection between basic human greed and ignorance.

based on this, mike is counting that you will believe what he says in his marketing to buy his course and think it will work.

but let's look at this for just one second...

if 10% of the people in mlm put up a web page... that equals 1.5 million web pages, blogs, facebook pages, etc.

and if each of these people offer say mikes magnetic sponsoring... mike wins but you won't.

having watched some of the people promoting mikes stuff i find they don't stick around long. and you would figure with the price of admission that there would be a little more than 'if you build it they will come.'

so kudos mike - your good at hooking suckers. and maybe what you teach even works for a handful of people - but do the math - then you know why there are so many that have gotten burned.

sharing my mlm adventure

2008-03-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

ok, this is it.

i finally have my own BLOG!

i'll be posting some of the stories from my adventure in mlm - both good and bad - past, present and future.

let me know what you think and please share your own!