7/21/09

MLM & Social Networks - Why That Ish Irritates Me!

As a lot of readers already know, The FireMarshall and I have built a moderately successful MLM in the past. We spent 12 years at it. I will not rehash any of that here, so if you want to get some history then click in the topic cloud under Network Marketing and you will find our view point on this subject there.

What I want to vent about today is about how MLM & Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs ect) have collided and how some of the status updates & tweets just get on my everlasting nerves with the rhetoric & invitations.

I completely understand how Social Networks can help in a tremendous (and very fast) way with sharing information on your business, promoting your business and prospecting (aka - contacting & inviting) for new "business partners" and customers. I get it.

What I don't get...what pisses me off are my alleged FB, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter friends & associates that take that mess so damn far...it is outrageous and annoying as hell.

Consider This:
  • The ONLY things you EVER post on your wall is about some MLM meeting you went to and how you met so & so and so & so and that if YOU really wanted to make a difference in someones life you would have been there and/or you would be checking out this opportunity. REALLY. The only way I can make a difference in the world is if I do your business? SERIOUSLY. Whatever.
  • And do you have ANYTHING else going on in your life besides that MLM? Do you do ANYTHING else besides go to meetings and work this business of yours? Must not cause that is all you ever talk about. What kind of life is that. Perhaps that is why The FireMarshall and I often got the side eye from our upline because we would have the audacity to go on vacation to South Africa and miss Dream Weekend. BITE ME. We were busy living our dreams along the way of building them.
  • I'm sick of reading the taunts that these alleged friends post, like "If you already have plenty of money & time, then don't check this opportunity out. If this is you, then please share how you are doing it. Enlighten us." DA HELL!!!! I’m so sick of that MLM psychobabble mumbo jumbo. If you don’t do, read, attend all their stuff, essentially you are a loser. You couldn't possibly be happy, content, well off, financially secure if you not doing their particular brand of MLM.
  • Poke me in my fuggin eye & miss with with that bullshyt.
  • I'm grown sick and tired of being friended by HS & college alumni under the pretense of staying in touch and at the first sign of me showing absolutely NO interest in joining your business, they ain't got ish to say to you anymore. EVER. Yet they continue to invite you to "opportunity meetings" and every once in a blue moon they IM you wanting to tell you about the latest sale and could you refer some people to them. STOP THE MADNESS.
  • Those of you in the above category about to be on my list of de-friending. What is the point? We have nothing in common but a diploma.
  • And while I'm on the subject of "Friends"...you wanna yank my chain for sure with that LIE about when you get into "business" with whoever, you will have friends/family for life. That is the biggest crock of tomfoolery ever! When we walked away after 12 years to pursue much more lucrative opportunities, all those so called friends - GONE. I'm still saddened over the loss of so many people I thought were friends. The only propaganda that I bought over the 12 years was the "friends for life" stuff. What was always left off and I never saw it coming was that what they really meant was "friends for life...ONLY if you are actively building the business." There were some people that I thought I got really close to...one was the daughter of my upline and she pretty much spat me out and said "screw you" (her husband seems to still be a decent person). The only people we are still on a speaking basis with is our immediate upline and a few of the people we personally sponsored. That part of the business...the relationships you "think" you've built...it's all a lie and I've still haven't gotten over it yet. As long as your productive...you've got "friends" after that, they have to move their attention onto the rest of the organization and since you are not a part of that anymore - you can't be friends or hang cause you are just getting in the way of building their empire. HUMPH!
  • I'm gonna tazer the next person on FB who, offline, asks me "Don't you want to be free?" to my negative response to wanting to build a business with them. BULLSHYAT again. Free to do what? Nothing? You are never Free or Retired as MLM’rs are wont to tell you all the time. With the money comes more and more responsibility to your organization. You actually will have to spend MORE & MORE time with your team, developing and training them, attending each and every meeting known to man. My idea of freedom is the ability to do absolutely nothing whenever the heck I please. I would only consider it freedom if I could rise to the top level of that said business and then just walk away without so much as a by your leave. If I can’t (cause you always have to keep your group growing & motivated) then I’m not FREE. I will be forever working to keep that money and so called TIME. My time would not be my own as it would belong to the people I brought into the business and I ain’t into all that kind of obligation & babysitting anymore…EVER
MLM does work for some. It is a way for a lot of people who have no other means of starting their own business to do so. It is a great training ground for learning a certain business acumen. However, there are a lot of people in MLM that are straight up drinking the Koolaid. They are almost tantamount to a religious zealot. You can build a successful business/company or rise in ranks in Corporate America without losing yourself. You can have a life & friends...you can socialize outside of your MLM circle and still be a success. Everybody is not a failure cause they don't want to do "YOUR" thing. Seriously.

Jack out of the Matrix every once and a while...you just might see the forest for the trees.