A university lecturer once explained to the class that a business can sell one of four things:
Tangible goods (manufactured or raw);
Information;
Services;and
Property.
I thought it was a pretty clever statement at the time. The point I’d like to get at is that we now enjoy the liberty of buying things in any of the above categories with little difficulty. I buy most of my possessions through stores and only some online.
Because of this, I don’t need to be sold anything. infomercials provide no value to me. Whether it’s a home gym or a food blender, I’m not interested. Nor am I interested in pyramid schemes that sell vitamins or supplements. I’m not just talking about Herbalife here, Amway falls under the same category. Sure, it is true that goods are transferred in these ventures but the real money making aspect involves commissions attained through a hierarchy or pyramid structure where members beneath your level will make money for you.
Multi level marketing (MLM) systems are as useful to me as the informercials. It’s not something I’m looking for, I have no interest in the product and even if I were interested, it wouldn’t be feasible for me to invest my money, time and effort into a system that will offer little return, far less return than what is implied.
MLM schemes are not business models in my opinion. They are employee contracts with the illusion of being self employed business ventures. These contracts carry with them constraints that contradict the idea of you being your own boss.
That’s all I’m going to say on the matter. One thing I will do from now on is to be more vigilant when someone tries to invite me to enter these schemes. I’d like to be able to predict when someone is about to sell me a pyramid scheme so that I can politely decline and avoid wasting the time of both parties.
I don’t need to be sold anything as most things I can buy in a store. I don’t need to be invited to the idea of a business if it involves a pyramid structure where I make commissions off selling the dream to other individuals whom are less astute than me.