My story is probably no different from those of you who have families that came from a foreign country to America looking for hope and a new way of life. My family had hopes of reaching the American dream like many foreigners have read about or watch how American life is so grand. How different it is when you think the grass is greener from the other side.
I grew up in Boston believing in the educational path that my mother had set for me. Go to school, get good grades and find a safe secure job with benefits. Fortunate for me, I did go to school even to college and had the good grades. But when it came time to graduate and find that safe secure job with benefits, the world had changed. It was Y2K. That philosophy was no longer working any more. I was watching the struggles of my parents trying to make ends meet growing up. I was also paying attention to the real world from the walls of academia and what was going on but more importantly I was watching my upper classmates share their stories once they got out in the real world. I was not impressed.
Meanwhile America had just entered a new era of economic growth at the turn of the century with technology and the birth of the internet at our finger tips. It was those last two years after 1998 that I realized my degree had nothing to do with my success in the workforce. It had everything to do with the timing of my graduation and field of study. I may have studied astronomy and Philosophy during my four years in school but I was very much involved in IT. And timing could not have been planned perfectly for the growth of financial success I experienced and saw in the IT world.
Soon after the tech bubble ended did I begin to experience a drastic change in the industry. Like many of you, you never expect to be laid off or see it coming. It’s what happens to us, we say. Just find a new job. Well after several jobs and three to four layoffs due to the instability of the IT industry, I knew it was time to find a way to create some additional income for myself and my family one day….
I remember the day when I got involved in network marketing very well. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in the mid-1990s and I was working two summer jobs to save up for college when a gentleman approached me about a business opportunity. And as a young man, being in business for myself was already on my mind. So the idea of having my own business was right up my alley. However I did not have a clue what network marketing was at the time. I had never heard of it mentioned before. So like many of you newbies to the industry, I was shown a presentation and I signed up not knowing anything about business or what it was I was signing up for really. Just that it was business or at least I thought I was going into business for myself.
So I signed up and off to Virginia I went to a convention a few weeks later. Traveling to Virginia I found myself in a coach bus with a large group of strangers all in their early 40s heading to what would be a stadium filled with enthusiastic business men and women. People cheering on stage like it was a sporting event. Others being awarding billboard size checks. I just did not get it.
I was a naïve young Haitian man new to America who had never left Boston Massachusetts until that day on my own to see any part of the United States. So I was excited and overwhelmed with all that I had seen and experienced during that three day trip.
The following week I was off to college to start my freshman year. My so called sponsor came up to visit me the following weekend with a box of Amway products and that was the last time I saw him. To this day I have those same starter products in my mother’s house and I open them from time to time when I come across them while searching for something else in my pile of junk around the house.
Does that sound familiar to your story? Well for many of us that was our horror story of how we first got involved in network marketing. To tell you the truth, I still did not know what the word network marketing / MLM was until 2001 when I made the decision to sign up for my first successful business venture. (Prior to that I was exposed to Nikken but I did not get involve in that one but just purchased the product.) I said “decision” because I was educated and mature to know what I was getting involved in. And I was serious about doing that business. I was not conned or persuaded by a center of influence to get involved. You know what I am talking about. Your friends invites you to a business opportunity, they signed up, you got excited too and just signed up with them. “We’ll do it together as a team and get rich.” Remember those days? Maybe some of you are still doing that today.
This story is part of the reason for why I am writing this book after twenty plus years of doing MLM in Massachusetts. I have matured in the industry over those twenty years. I have gone through the ups and downs like many of you have. What I think separates me from many of you is that I have a passion for traditional business outside of network marketing. I believe in both, if anything the collaboration of both traditional business and MLM together. I see the value and the need for it. I also have a keen eye for business trends, the timing of innovation, and a vision for where business is moving towards. I bring to the industry my intellect, educational and academic approach to a system that is old and missing some fundamental principles of how a business should operate. I am a big believer in multiple streams of income and I share my reasons why that is so important in the 21st century in my three part book series, Why Entrepreneurship? What is IT All About? I will dive into that topic in later chapters. So I just don’t just do network marketing. I am involved in the stock market, business ventures of my own, mentorship, online web shows, affiliate marketing, poetry, writing, etc. I even have business interest in real estate and media broadcasting as well. So I am a very diverse person who brings a lot of insight to this industry. But nevertheless I have also been involved in many sectors of network marketing such as the wellness industry, service, social networking, social media, that I can speak on many aspects of MLM business models while others are attracted to on one or two aspect of the industry. I should also note that all of these sectors that I just mentioned, I got involved in the innovation or before the 2 percent market penetration stage of their development. Not after it was self-evident or trendy. That’s a clue!
By 2015 many of you who are reading this book would have either gotten involved in this industry or maybe starting to have a different outlook of what network marketing is truly about. Possibly because you have run out of options and you probably have had a defining moment which I talk about in Why Entrepreneurship? For many of you, this will be your second or third attempt at network marketing. Let me guide you on some of your pitfalls as to why you failed the first go around.
No matter what your reason is for wanting to educate yourself, I thank you for reading this book. How to Do MLM in Massachusetts & the Rest of New England is not a bash of the industry. My plan is to address the problems of those who come in looking for a quick get rich scheme and tarnish the industry as a whole. I will address some of the issues that has labeled MLM as a four letter cuss word and what we need to do to change people’s perception of those doing good business.
I have read many articles online on how network marketing is bad. But no one talks about why millions of people each year have flocked to this industry. What do people really get out of it? This book is a resource for how to do MLM right and become a professional network marketer one day. It is a guide that I believe was long overdue for all who desire to get involved in the network marketing / Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) industry. I simply have seen too much and have gotten fed-up of seeing my friends and good people get suckered into some bad MLMs that will never make them any money. I compare it to many of our dead end jobs we thought were career potentials when we first got hired.
I hope to help you avoid the many pitfalls I went through. I know for a fact that millions of hard working Americans like you and I will be flocking to our industry to get involved in MLM for the very first time. This is especially true as the economy continues to get worse and more people find themselves being downsize for cheaper labor or outsourced labor. And many of you will fall into the same traps and false expectation of success I went through. Many of you will be conned out of your hard earned money. Many will buy endless products or services in hopes of finding the right one. Many of you will waste countless hours away from your family and years in dead end business models that no longer work or are outdated. I will help you learn the ins and outs of how to do network marketing properly. You will understand how to evaluate a good business from a bad one. You will learn to stop wasting your time getting involved with companies that people bring to your lap like a so call “good stock tip.” You will learn how to sort out bad compensation plans from good ones.
I will give you a true business blueprint for success that I follow today. I follow the same success principles of traditional business men and women who have done it for ages. I will share all of these information with you so you can learn how to do network marketing in one of the hardest states in the country and in the rest of New England.
In closing, I hope this short book will enlightened you with my 20 plus years of doing network marketing with ethics and integrity but most importantly, what I have learned about myself and the industry as a whole. I can honestly say that network marketing has changed my life; if nothing else it had a tremendous impact in my development as a man, as a businessman, and as a leader. Many people do not stick around long enough like I have to understand how is that possible. I will go into details towards the end of the book in chapter 12, “Is This Worth My Time?” For now let me share with you my story for why I chose network marketing.