On money – the root of all evil?

It is interesting the things you find out about your friends when you join an MLM. According to me and my partner-in-crime’s observations, there are broadly three views on money:

1) People who feel that money is not important and they will learn to make do with whatever they have
2) People who feel that they will just be successful somehow someday and be rich
3) People who want to be rich and believe they have the best business plan and they do not want to hear or believe that anything besides their plan will work.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with any of the above views and I had also held the same views at different points of my life. However today, I think that money is definitely important, and if I do not have a plan, I plan to fail, and therefore I am open to any ideas that my friends have which will potentially help me to be financially secure. Which is why I joined an MLM.

Actually if you look at the history of retailing, this is the sequence:

1) Mum and dad shops. Where you buy stuff from neighbor hood stores and each store specialize in a certain type of goods.
2) Superstores. Where all kinds of goods are sold in the same place
3) Franchises. Where people pay royalties to market products under the same name.
4) Network marketing. Where word of mouth is king.

At various stages of retailing, there was huge resistance as people were reluctant to change. Network marketing is simply the next trend in marketing as it is cost effective and has more benefits to both the company and the users as compared to traditional ways of retailing. Even traditional companies like Gillette have a MLM subsidiary company, and Coca Cola has even distributed their drinks in Amway, the largest MLM Company in the world.

Of course, I might be completely off tangent here, and if that is the case, I welcome debates of alternative views. What surprises and disturbs me however, is how quickly people dismiss network marketing without even understanding what it is all about. We may be an educated bunch, but we are still looking to conform and to be as unobtrusive as possible, both in our thinking and in our behaviors. And we are still holding on to the adage old advice of working hard and climbing up the corporate ladder for money, which I feel was the golden rule of another generation, not ours.

Of course, I am not saying that MLM is the best and only way to become rich. There are many many ways and this is just one of them. It might not even be the one for you. But I am disappointed by friends who close their minds to new ideas, because this is a rapidly changing world, where the slow to change will be left behind. I am also slightly injured and insulted that some of my friends might even have the conception that I want them in so I can make money off them. Actually networking marketing is a team sport, where we can help each other to achieve health and wealth, and if I do not feel that it will benefit you, I would never had approached you. It is sad how people always choose to believe in the worst of others. Whatever happened to Enid Blyton world?