Sering kita dengar dalam berbagai presentasi pembicara yang dengan penuh semangat menjelaskan keunggulan-keunggulan multilevel marketing. Beberapa hal yang seringkali kita dengar adalah:

1. Bahwa, harian terkemuka di Amerika Serikat The Wall Street Journal mengatakan sampai dengan tahun 2000, akan ada 60 – 70% dari seluruh barang dan jasa di dunia yang dijual melalui sistem MLM.


2. Bahwa, Network Marketing diajarkan di sekolah bisnis Harvard dan Stanford, sebagaimana juga di beberapa sekolah dan universitas terkemuka di seluruh Amerika Serikat.

3. Bahwa, lebih dari 20% dari orang terkaya di Amerika mendapatkan kekayaannya melalui Network Marketing.

4. Bahwa, John Naisbitt dalam bukunya yang laris Megatrends, mengatakan bahwa Network Marketing adalah gelombang atau trend di masa depan.


Dan, berikut di bawah ini adalah beberapa fakta yang menyertainya, yaitu bahwa:

1. The Wall Street Journal tidak pernah membuat pernyataan ataupun ‘hanya’ menulis atau memberitakan tentang network marketing atau metode-metode network marketing.

2. Harvard maupun Stanford tidak mengajarkan apapun tentang MLM. Demikian juga Sekolah-sekolah dan universitas-universitas lain di Amerika Serikat. Professor Thomas Bonora dari Harvard Business School menjelaskan, sebagaimana dimuat di dalam jurnal Marketing News, sebagai berikut: “We do not teach such methods [MLM] at the Harvard Business School; they are not part of the curriculum; to my knowledge, they are not taught at this or any other reputable business school in the country… Multi-Level Marketing schemes, like chain letters and other devices, sometimes are at the borderline of what is legal –and over the borderline of what is ethical . . .”

3. Fakta menunjukkan bahwa sebanyak kurang lebih 90% milyuner di Amerika mendapatkan kekayaannya melalui real estate, kemudian berturut-turut dari manufaktur atau distribusi, Hightech, franchising, dan dunia hiburan. Kita tahu ada Donald Trump di real estate, ada keluarga Ford di industri mobil, juga Sam Walton dengan Wallmart-nya di distribusi, ada Bill Gates dan Steve Jobs dengan komputer dan perangkat lunaknya. Ada Ray Kroc dengan McDonald’s, dan juga Oprah Winfrey di dunia hiburan. Jadi angka 20 % untuk MLM adalah kebohongan. Memang ada beberapa orang menjadi kaya dengan bergerak di bidang MLM, namun tidak atau belum mencapai angka sekian itu.

4. Terakhir adalah bahwa John Naisbitt tidak pernah menyebut Network Marketing baik di dalam bukunya Megatrends, Megatrends 2000, Megatrends for Women, atau di buku-bukunya yang lain. Bahkan John menekankan bahwa tidak ada network marketing atau MLM di dalam index buku-bukunya.


Semua informasi tersebut di atas digali dan didapat oleh John Milton Fogg (2002), penulis buku-buku tentang network marketing, pencipta dan pendiri dua buah majalah MLM, juga seorang trainer bagi pembangun jaringan. Bahkan mendapat julukan The Greatest Networker in the World.

Jelas bahwa Mr. Fogg tidak ingin para distributor MLM membangun jaringannya dengan kebohongan-kebohongan. Sarannya yang luar biasa adalah,

“Please –Do not say false and misleading things about network marketing to anyone. If you are insecure about the legitimacy of this business and feel the need to bolster up your courage and confidence– please shut up ’till you bone up and grow up…”

Karena, bagaimanapun masih banyak hal-hal positif tentang network marketing yang bisa disampaikan atau didiskusikan.>

Then, how about Tiens?
Ini semua gak ada hubungannya dengan bisnis kita di Tianshi. Kenapa? Karena kita tidak perlu berbohong untuk membangun jaringan di Tianshi. Apabila ada downline anda, ada orang-orang di jaringan kita yang menyampaikan kebohongan-kebohongan tersebut di atas. Segera ingatkan mereka.
Sumber: Total Wellness

READ MORE - 4 KEBOHONGAN MULTI LEVEL MARKETING >

Managing Risk: The Disaster Plan That You Will Need!


A very important factor in any business is how you manage risk – yet it is a factor that is often ignored by home businesses.

You have to realise that any time you start a business, you are taking the risk that the business might fail. What experienced people do is shield themselves from risk at every opportunity, to make sure that they can keep a business going for months on the brink of disaster, and wind it down gracefully if it really has to go under.

You need to have a plan for what you're going to do if your business looks like it's going bankrupt. Are you going to borrow more money, if you can? Sell your car? Raise prices? Get rid of staff? Done right, you should have a good package of 'rescue measures' that really do have a chance of rescuing the business.

Borrowing.

If you need to borrow more to keep your business afloat, take great pains to avoid looking desperate. Act like your business is moderately successful but needs more investment, and you're far more likely to succeed in getting more funding.

Bye-Bye Staff.

This is a bad idea, but not always a terrible one. In a home business, you presumably only take on staff because you have enough business to cover it, don't you? So it makes perfect sense to get rid of the staff when things start to go wrong and go back to doing it all yourself.

Price Hike.

When your business is in trouble, there are few things guaranteed to destroy it faster than a price rise. Just don't do it, however tempting it might be – cut costs instead. If you absolutely must raise prices, do it by scaling back what you get for your money in each of your price ranges, without actually raising the prices.

I know of a struggling bus company that kept its fares the same for years but gradually started to run fewer buses and send them all over town, making journeys take longer. People reacted a little badly to the longer journeys, but it was nowhere near the scandal that there would have been if prices had risen.

Keep Staff Pay Aside.

Whatever you do, make sure to keep staff pay separate from the other business finances, and pay it out immediately if the business looks to be heading for trouble with its creditors. It is far better to be paying your staff on the last day than to be giving all that money to the creditors. Leaving staff unpaid will destroy your reputation, not to mention hurting a lot of innocent people.

The 'Closing Down' Sale.

If you plan it well, your last day in business might not be so bad. Just make sure everyone knows that you're closing down for real, but still price everything ever-so-slightly above cost. In this way, you can avoid the drastic loss-making 'Everything Must Go!' mentality, and come out of your business the same way as you would if you'd decided to shut it down that day for some other reason.

Selling Your Business On.

If you're shrewd about it, you might be able to keep your business going long enough to sell it to someone who could turn it around. There's nothing dishonest about this route – it's the one most big companies take if things start to go wrong. You might even find that one of your competitors is willing to buy, even if only for your established customer base.

It's Up to You.

Disaster plans are very personal, and they depend a lot on how much risk you're willing to put on yourself. If you do things the sensible way, then you'll go as far as you can to avoid selling or borrowing against any of your own assets just to keep a business afloat. On the other hand, if you're really determined and a bit of a risk-taker, putting some things of your own at stake might buy you enough time to recover from whatever hit your business.

It's a little like playing poker: are you going to be the guy who walks away and leaves his money on the table, or are you going to throw your car or house keys onto the table and raise the stakes? That's risk management for you.

READ MORE - Managing Risk: The Disaster Plan That You Will Need! >