MLMFacts

My first encounter with the world of MLM, though I didn’t know it at the time, was nearly 30 years ago in my native Australia. At the time I was about 12 or 13 years old and my mother used to buy numerous products from a company called Amway. To this day I remember how good Amway products were, even back then. One of the products my mother bought was a small spray can of glass cleaner, called Crystal Clear. It was small and designed to be able to be carried in a pocket or purse and used to clean eye glasses. I wore glasses and I found the product literally changed my view of the world! In fact I loved it so much I showed it to some of my school mates. They asked me to get some, so I did and then sold it to them. I don’t recall if I charged them a markup and earned a profit from the sale, but I’d just become a direct seller.

About 8 years later, my older brother was going to be in town and called me up and told me he had a business idea to show me. I met up with he and a friend of his (his upline) and they showed me a business plan – Amway. The business model made perfect logical sense to me – buy products at wholesale price, use them yourself, resell to customers at a markup, and find and train others to do the same and increase your sales volume. At the time I was employed as a Health Researcher and PC Support person for a University, and living as caretaker at a sports club. I figured if nothing else I could sell the products to the club, then use them for the cleaning I had to do as my rent! It happened that the club chairman, a very successful businessman, knew Amway products and their quality well, and there was no problem getting the approval of the club committee to buy Amway products from me. I was an Amway distributor.

My brother, who actually lived about 1000km away, regularly sent me audio tapes to teach me more about the business, and encouraged me to attend some local seminars. Without even listening to a single tape I assumed it was just American motivational “crap” and I didn’t need it. I thought the same of the seminars – again without attending a single one. A few years later I’d moved out of the club, life happened, and despite loving the products, I never renewed my business.