Where Is The Company's Loyalty?

In my previous post "Location, Location, Location" I shared a simple way to tell if the leaders of a MLM company have experience with integrity in the network marketing industry. Greed and ego are intoxicating forces which can spell serious trouble for you.

The most vulnerable time in your network marketing career is when you are considering where to make your home. So here's another field sobriety check to see if the leaders are competent to be in the driver's seat.

The Loyalty Test

Some people get all excited when they learn a company is publicly traded. Why?

1. Qualification for publicly held status is very rigorous.
2. "There's financial power in investor backing".
3. #1 and #2 offers the company leaders bragging rights.

The Fall From Grace

A friend of mine who I'll call Rick had an experience with a MLM company that went from privately held to publicly traded. The company owners and executive officers were great at what they did.

They used their leadership and skills to help that company become a booming success. Rick and everyone else really liked these people. Since Rick was their top income earner these people really liked him too.

Theirs was a perfect match. Then one day that company became publicly traded.

The owners and executive officers were still nice, good people. And they really thought this move was right … until the new board of directors that came with becoming publicly held started making demands.

The investors didn't know the distributors and they didn't care to. The board's sole interest was the investors' profits.

Simply stated, assuring long-term residual income for the distributors was not in the board members' job description.

This conflict of interest caused the owners and corporate officers to lose control of the company. It didn't stop there. The distributors were eventually kicked to the curb when the board and the investors they represented summarily "discontinued" the compensation plan.

Many distributors, including Rick, lost everything they'd built. As if to add insult to injury, the thirty-day written notice to Rick and his comrades told them this action was called an "enhancement". I'm sure a few investors got a couple of chuckles out of that.

So what's the point here?

People build network marketing companies, not investors. MLM is a relationship business and long-term relationships are built on trust, integrity, and concern for others.

Publicly traded companies are controled by people with but one goal. That one goal is profit. They cannot afford to know or care about you the distributor.

I asked Rick if he would ever build with a publicly traded company again. He very quickly said, "NO", and I don't suggest you should either.

I appreciate you,

Bill Tessore