How far back do you go?
How old are you?
I remember back when I was in college, back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. There was no modern Internet back then. Of course the Internet existed but it was mainly for academics and military people, not so much for regular civilians. Corporation hadn’t discovered it yet, in any modern sense, and forget about regular people doing business online in any real capacity.
There was definitely no World Wide Web.
What did regular people do for the whole making money niche?
They did old school network marketing ala Amway or something similar, or they got involved in some kind of mail order deal.
That’s what I did.
My memory is fuzzy, but one of the things I did was that I came across some ad in some kind of periodical advertising this thing. You got this book really cheap from them and resold it. I ordered a box of these things. It was a cheap paperback bound book on success or something. I remember that I even created a “corporation” name for myself to use.
It was, “Horizon Publishing”.
I had visions of Corvettes dancing in my head. I was gonna be rich.
The problem was that I had no idea about advertising, and any job that I had at that time didn’t provide me with anything but spending money so where was I going to advertise this thing in order to turn a profit? Had I had that part figured out I could have made some serious cash. If I would have been able to advertise that little book in the proper places, at that time in history, I may have been able to sell many of them.
Anyway, I was in college (university) at the time, and I had studies to tend to.
I had girlfriends, weight lifting, and a part time job in a liquor store too.
So there went that dream.
It planted a seed though…
Later on my brother got involved with an old school network marketing system called A.L. Williams, now known as Primerica Financial Services. I tried that too but face to face direct selling just isn’t my forte. I take personal rejection to heart and I am not a face to face kind of salesman. My brother, on the other hand, can sell ice to Eskimos, so he was well suited to it. He still uses that as his primary income today. He finished school, but he stayed with it and makes a living with Primerica to this day.
Now what that did for me was cement in my mind that there are people who work outside of the regular corporate office 9-5 grind and that there is REAL money to be made in many of these companies where you recruit people and sell product. They really do pay and they aren’t “scams”.
When you talk to many people out there, they immediately express some belief that all of these network marketing and MLM companies are nothing but scams, and that is a VERY misguided belief. It’s not for everyone, but there are many real companies out there where ANYONE can sign up with them and start working, without need for job interviews, a real resume, or any real job experience. Of course there is no salary and you are working solely for whatever commissions that you can earn, usually in an independent contractor benefits free situation, but if you take them seriously, have the right attitude and work ethic, and can “do that”, you can make serious money and turn it into a real residual income.
I guess that I have the benefit of knowing.
Many people only have the non benefit of knowing someone who failed at network marketing or MLM, or they themselves have, or they and the people they know have failed, so I guess I can at least understand why many people end up thinking that there is NO WAY that ANYONE makes a great living in that sector.
But they are wrong because I have seen otherwise.
I even have a friend who he and his wife both make a living working with Arbonne International doing, you guessed it, direct selling and team building through that network marketing opportunity.
So you see it’s all real, but not everyone is geared up for every method of that.
Case in point, Dave Wood.
Ever hear of Dave Wood? What about Dave Sharpe?
These guys are the founders of Empower Network, an internet based business that uses blogging and internet marketing learning products, which also taps into the whole team building type of business model, but it’s all Internet using online tools to reach a MUCH wider audience of potential customers and business partners, without having to bother your family or friends. This is basically Internet Marketing meets network marketing and MLM but totally in an Internet context.
These guys are today filthy rich, and they have created several millionaires and many more who are making greaet livings on their own way to becoming millionaires using Empower Network as their vehicle to a better life. They created it to make the likelihood of others actually being able to have the success that they had with this. You see, not everyone can make it everywhere.
Dave Wood and Dave Sharpe made money in old school network marketing, but they failed many times with many companies on there way. Sometimes the company failed them and sometimes they themselves failed. Dave Wood used to be in Amway and several others along his way. DAve Sharpe failed at some cellphone service company that went belly up and who knows what else.
They knew what it was like to fail, and they saw the massive success of others and got a taste for it. They also saw that even when they themselves found Internet success that not everyone could duplicate, so they set out to find a model they could found that would increase the chances for others to just follow certain core principles and use the tools to find some measure of success online where they would do the actual selling for people through videos and the tools.
It worked for lots of people and of course you always get people who get in then quit too soon or who just assume they don’t have to do anything and then wonder why they fail.
Anyway, the whole point here is that I go WAY back and in s strange way I feel a kinship with these guys because I have seen a lot of what they have. I’m older than both of them so I remember the days before the Internet and I WISH I could have hooked up with them much earlier in their Internet days, but the great news is that the Internet is SO huge and there are so many new people coming online who have yet to discover any of this that the market is almost inexhaustible.
It’s been a LONG time since I ordered those cheap success books and had to no idea how to sell them.
Today I’d just put them on a website or on Ebay.
Man, how times have changed.
To all those who find this article, you have NO IDEA how lucky you are that you have the Internet NOW, at your disposal.
So stop complaining and get to work. The tools that you have at your disposal are truly world class and THEY WORK.
All you have to do is get in, follow the training, take action, and never give up.
The rest will be taken care of by the sheer inertia of the global Internet and so many people’s desire to create a better life for themselves and their families.
In that, nothing has or ever will change.
It’s a new day.
Be happy.
Feel the sun on your face, have faith, work hard, and enjoy your success!
