re you obvious-impaired? That is, do you have trouble
seeing the straight forward,
simple, "nose-on-your-face"
aspects of life?
Thousands of sophisticated
business types-consultants,
economists, executives, and
business journalists-do suffer
from this syndrome. So they
still don't get why network
marketing works.
You and I are on the trend to
the trend of the 21st Century:
we know that people today
basically don't want to leave
the house, and no longer see
why they should.
Oh, sure, they want to go out
for lunch and to the beach.
They want to play golf, surf
marlin fish, and hunt for
grouse in Scotland and buy
antiques in Italy. But they
don't want to commute two
hours (or more) every day to
work in a gray, ventilated
cubicle for Dilbert's boss.
They want to work from
home, for themselves. Each
week, according to Link
Resource in New York City,
8,000 more Americans put an
office in their house. Around
60 million of us already earn
some money from home.
You'd think a movement that
mighty would intrigue and
obsess American business.
Sixty million people - that's
nearly the size of the entire
Baby Boom generation. You
would expect -if you aren't
obvious-impaired-to see
expensive billboards,
magazine ads, and TV
campaigns aimed at this
explosive new market.
I don't know about you, but
all I see are rain-spattered
hand-bills that read "WORK
FROM HOME, "stapled to
telephone poles by network
marketers-the only group that
has learned to exploit this
trend.
Why is it? Most enterprises
large enough to sponsor major
advertising are too big and
bloated to deal with change.
When the small company that
later became Xerox
Corporation was formed in
1955, marketing experts all
agreed that there was no
future in making copy
machines. After all, there
already existed a good system
for making copies, sold by
some of the richest
corporations of the day, with
two percent market
penetration. It was called
carbon paper. (Remember
carbon paper?)
You might think this suggests
that when companies get big,
they and the experts who
follow them get stupid
together. Unfortunately, you'd
be right. Xerox proved the
experts wrong and made paper
airplanes out of the carbon
paper industry. The guys at
Xerox even went onto invent
the technology for the mouseand-
icon-driven personal
computer. Unfortunately,
Xerox was a big company by
then, so it, too, had become
stupid. It let the PC project
languish, finally "handing" it to
Steven Jobs, who founded
Apple Computer and made
billions. pretty soon, though,
Apple got the big-and-bloated
problem, too, and started
thinking that no one but Apple
would ever be able to build a
user-friendly PC-so it refused to
license the Pac operating
system to anyone else.
Shockingly other companies
built their own operating
systems and computers, and
Microsoft became the big fish
in the
computer market. The editors
and the designers at NML and
about 10,000 graphics geeks
across the country have Macs.
We 10,012 people are good
customers, but it probably
would have made more business
sense for Apple to license their
stuff and get a check every time
a computer is made anywhere in
the world.
Why does "big" so often equal
"stupid?" In the Innovator's
Dilemma, Clayton M
Christensen explains that most
companies stop learning after
they reach a certain size. They
get so heavily invested in the
marketing opportunity for
which they were founded that
they lose interest in spotting the
next one. Internal intrigues
drown out the voices of
customers. Customers
become the people out there,
some where whose job it is to
"buy or stuff." Now you know
why one third of the Fortune
500 vanishes from the list every
five years.
A conventional company
commits its brand identity to
blue jeans and hope jeans will
always be in fashion. Network
marketing companies are built
smarter; they answer trends
instantly. They may, sell jeans,
but its real identity is a network
of leaders, distributors, and
customers. Their relationships
create the marketing power of
the company, a power that
potentially can drive any sort of
product or service and easily
adapt to any new market
opportunity. It's a form of
business where you can get big
without getting stupid.
You could even picture a
network marketing company
selling carbon paper while
introducing copiers in the same
catalog. It could happen as fast
as you can say, "Did you hear all
about the new promotion?"
You, who are not obviousimpaired,
have a mission-not to
just sign people up, but to wake
them up. At least, you'll
encourage more people to think
of working at home and having a
healthy family life as ...normal.
Remember, to many people,
network marketing sounds too
good to be true. Show them the
possibility of reading about
Dilbert instead of living like
him-while making more Money
in a month than they now do in a
year. What a concept.
