MLM'S AND LIFE!

Bon Voyage!

2005-05-14T16:33:00.000-04:00

When I began this blog I had a lot of interest in MLM because of my involvement in Quixtar. Well It's been well over a year since I was involved in Quixtar and since I began this blog. To be honest MLM doesn't interest me in the slightest anymore.

This is just funny!

2005-05-09T23:50:00.000-04:00

When I was searching around google doing some research on mlm's I came across this google ad for www.mlmforrednecks.com. There truly is a mlm for everybody.

The Truth?

2005-05-08T01:32:00.000-04:00

I ran across a great article titled The Truth about Network Marketing by Crystal Tein. In it she talks about what network marketing is, how it works, and why it is here to say. She makes a great many points, many that I agree with. One that stood out to me is something that I have written about before.

"Many distributors have argued that in network marketing, this is avoided as the product goes directly from distributor to consumer, making the product less expensive and relatively cheaper. The argument that it is cheaper is the point that I seek to discount.

Although the products in network marketing do not need to go through the multiple channels of distribution, the incentives offered to distributors far exceed those of the salaries of the typical retail assistant in traditional business models. In the company that I was working for, for instance, top distributors are given a car and a fund for car maintenance. In addition, normal profit margins of the typical distributor are higher, high enough to add on to the cost of the product. In addition, in some network marketing companies, top distributors also get to have a cut of their companies profits.

Thus, it is not true that the products of network marketing companies are cheaper. If one really breaks down the budget, the prices as compared to traditional business companies are comparable."

When I was in Quixtar they never really claimed that since their products didn't have to go through a normal distribution chain that there products would be cheaper. What they said is that extra money would go to us the distributors. Which is if you think of it means basically the same thing. The members of the MLM or Network marketing company are the distribution chain. Hence why they are called distributors.

Be careful who you invest with!

2005-05-07T10:56:00.000-04:00

This story I found happened not to far away from where I live. A man is on trial for basically taking peoples money and saying he was investing it. This is what the man supposedly had to say when one of his clients tried to get there money back.

"He said, 'You're so stupid for giving us the money. I've been doing this for 20 years. You can't catch me, the police can't catch me, the FBI can't catch me and the SEC couldn't catch me."

I just had to laugh after reading that.

Interesting

2005-04-15T02:12:00.000-04:00

I found this through blogger when I was trying to see who all in my same small town had blogs of there own.

It appears to be a blog of a guy from TEAM. When I was in TOD now called TEAM, when you reached platinum you would choose a name for your team. In this case it seems his is called Team Simplicity. To bad he only wrote one post back in February. I was really looking forward to seeing what else he would talk about.

Can you spot the lies on it? Here is a hint it's in the title.

Cutco product reviews.

2005-04-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

Found this nice little site where people can write there own review on various Cutco products. As I suspected they are filled with glowing reviews of the products and why shouldn't they. They are some of the best knives I've ever used myself. But what did catch my eye was the most said negative part, which was that they were pricey.

Simple.

2005-04-11T01:31:00.000-04:00

Just want a short and to the point explanation on the differences between multi-level marketing and pyramid scams. Then check this out.

Free PSP! Scam or Legit? part 2

2005-04-07T22:19:00.000-04:00

Most people are very scepticle about this free iPod and PSP offer out there. Well I've been looking all around the net looking proof that its real or proof that its a scam. So far I've only been able to find sites that back this offer up that it is legit.

Here is an article from Wired news about the free iPod craze. It even mentions Amway.

And here is some video excerpts from TechTv and NBC about the free iPod.

For those that don't know what the PSP is it stands for Playstation Portable. It looks like this.

It's the hottest new gaming device. Only problem is that it costs 250 big ones. So if you wanna get one for free sign up with me and together we can help each other get one.

Update : Finally got all the links in the post. Blogger seems to be having some major issues latley but I guess you get what you pay for.

Free PSP, Scam or Legit.

2005-04-05T01:46:00.000-04:00

Remember the free iPod craze that hit about a year or so ago. Well supposedly it was legit as far as I heard. Well the same company is giving away free PSP's now and to be perfectly honest I really, really want one. So I thought it was time I gave this thing a try and see if it actually works. And of course I need your guys help to do so. I need 5 people to sign up under me in true MLM fashion and sign up for one of the many advertised offers. I signed up for the blockbuster deal which was only $10 and I've got a couple of movies on there way to watch. So sign up for something your actually going to at least want to use.

If I do actually get a free PSP and those that signed up under me really want one to I will help those that help me get it by adding banners on my web pages with there referral link and anything else I can think of to help. So sign up and help me find the truth.

Recent news headlines concerning MLM.

2005-04-04T21:18:00.000-04:00

Multi-level Marketing Firm Pleads Guilty to Misleading Participants

This Canadian MLM mislead its participants on the amount of money the average person makes with there MLM. Sound familiar? This is one of the biggest issues I believe with most MLM's. I wish this kind of thing could be enforced more in the US, but we don't have the same laws in place as the Canadians do for MLM's.

Multi-level marketing executives convicted of tax evasion charges

This article makes me wonder how many other top MLM people hide the amount of income they make from other countries.

Saturday Quote.

2005-04-02T19:28:00.000-05:00

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

Introducing

2005-04-02T19:24:00.000-05:00

My new blog DailyRanting.com

Tell me what you think.

Long time no see & the fate of the blog.

2005-03-29T00:25:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while but I've been busy working on the new blog for the past two weeks. Mainly that has been in the form of learning html, css, php, database's, and other server technologies. I'm happy to say that work on it is almost complete and will let you guys know the address to it very soon.

Now on to this blog. I'm unsure as to weather or not to continue with this or not. I've enjoyed my time with this blog and have been doing this one for almost a year now. So I would like to put it up to my readers. Do you guys like reading this blog and would like me to continue or do you think this is a horrible abomination and would like it to just die? If you do enjoy this blog tell me what you like about it and what you don't. If I am to continue, what on MLM would you like me to cover?

Thanks,
Brian

Saturday Quote

2005-03-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
Abraham Lincoln
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Experiencing Technical Difficulties!

2005-03-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

Ok please tell me if you can see any images on my blog at all. I've been using my free yahoo geocities account to host all my picture files because I didn't have a whole lot of them but I've been using it more and more and it may look like I've finally gone over the bandwidth limit. I'm going to try and get everything hosted else where as soon as possible.

Update : Hmmm.. it seems like everything is working again and I didnt change anything. Looks like maybe it was just a problem with geocities.

Sin City

2005-03-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

I'm Really looking forward to seeing this movie!

If you haven't seen the trailer for it click on poster. The style of the movie looks incredible its got that dark comic book feel to it.

By the way if your wondering who sings that music in the background to the preview there name is The Servant and the song is called Cells. I've been listening to some of there other songs and I think they are really good. They sound a lot different from everybody else out there. Which is something I have been searching for.

Is Multi-Level Marketing that bad?

2005-03-10T00:57:00.000-05:00

When I first started out in Quixtar I had no real idea what MLM really was. Since then I have read hundreds of articles on it and participated in one. Most people as soon as they here multi-level marketing often automatically think scam or pyramid scheme. While this is untrue, there thinking in all honesty is not far off from being wrong. When you compare the number of legitimate MLM’s to the number of scams and pyramid schemes that pose as legitimate ones, one understand why people think this way. MLM is just a form of business and is not illegal, but it is easy for unscrupulous people to take this form of business and tweak it so that it benefits them and sucks the money from those that get involved. MLM can be a very good form of business if it is run correctly and be a good source of income for someone participating in it. But I don’t think the general public will ever come view MLM as good form of business due to the fact that it just to easy for someone to start an illegal one that will con thousands of people out of millions of dollars.

Saturday Quote

2005-03-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

Saturday's are a hard day to write a post because all my friends like to come over to my house and use my computer. So what I'm going to do is just post my favorite quotes on saturday's. Hope you all enjoy them.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.
- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President 1803-1809, writer of The Declaration Of Independence, Anti-Federalist

A Quixtar IBO's many struggles.

2005-03-04T02:10:00.000-05:00

An IBO pulls up in a 1980's or 90's something rust bucket. Gets out in his hand me down, worn suit and greets prospect.

IBO - "How are you doing (so and so)"
Prospect - "Good and you?"
IBO - "I'm great, lets go in and let me show you something that will change your life!"
Prospect - "Um ok"
IBO - "What would you say if I had a way you could retire with immense wealth in 2 -5 years?"

The prospect sits there and thinks for a moment. In his mind "Didn't he just pull up in something almost resembling a vehicle, in a badly worn suit? And now he is going to tell me how to make tons of money and retire in just a few years?"

Prospect - "Come back to me in 2 - 5 years when you can prove this to me."

And many IBO's wonder why they get turned down a lot.

Vector/Cutco Article

2005-03-02T22:57:00.000-05:00

Came across this article tonight about Vector/Cutco.

To recap what Vector/Cutco is, Vector is a company that signs up college kids to sell there Cutco knives in a Multi Level Marketing style. The problem with this is that these knives are extremely expensive and thus there is a really really small market for these knives. Thus selling these knives is almost impossible.

I've written about this company before and I can't stress enough to any college student to stay away from this company.

Isn't this Sexy!

2005-02-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

I want one!

Only $250! Eeek! But this thing like does everything plays games, movies, mp3's. Now where to come up with the money.

Amusing Pictures!

2005-02-22T23:12:00.000-05:00

I came across these at Despair, Inc.

Now try using some of those as a comeback to what IBO's try to tell you! These are guaranteed to scare the IBO off for a while.

Nearing the end of one journey and starting a new one.

2005-02-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

Coming up with something to post in this blog about MLM or Quixtar lately has been excruciatingly tuff as of late. I've noticed it's not just me either as other blogs about MLM and Quixtar seem to be really struggling also. Most have resorted to posting about topics having nothing to do with MLM or Quixtar and others just haven't posted in weeks. Due to this continuing struggle my interests have grown in other areas and have decided to start learning about website development and hosting. My plan is to purchase a .com domain name in order to publish a more professional blog about these other interests. With this new blog I feel I will have more room to write about these with more consistency and passion. I also want a blog that I have a lot more control over and having my own .com site has been kind of a dream of mine. Since starting this blog I have come to enjoy writing and putting my ideas out there for others to read and discuss. I thought why not put the two together.

So until I get that up and running I plan to keep this blog going but after that this blog will most likely disappear. Mainly to get ride of any evidence that shows how badly I used to write and how badly I still do.

New Music Video!

2005-02-11T01:25:00.000-05:00

Ok I ran across this one browsing the World of Warcraft forums. Check it out.

here's the link.

Also if I have any readers that also play WOW. Let me know what server your on and what kind of character you have.

My Char:
server : Lightbringer
name : Breander
Level: 27
class : hunter
pet name : Thunder

Congratulations to Ty and Dave!

2005-02-10T01:42:00.000-05:00

Passport has been a business that I have watched with great interest over the last year or so since I started researching Quixtar and MLM in general. I really like what I see happening with Passport they are trying to do things right. There goal is to truly help you reach your goals and dreams, not just saying there going to do that. I admire that a lot. And today congratulations are in order for Ty Tribble on his new role as President of Passport and Dave Stone as Vice President. I've been and avid reader of Ty's blog and I would like to consider Dave a blogging friend. I wish them nothing but the best.

Go to MLMBLOG to read the full story.

MLM Lead Generation Blog

2005-02-04T01:20:00.000-05:00

The writer of MLM Lead Generation Blog recently left a good comment on my site so I thought I would hop over and view his blog. Wow! I was amazed at how good of a blog this was. If you are involved with a MLM you need to check out this blog. It's very informative and from what I have read so far, he seems to really know what he is talking about. What I really like best about it is that he has real tips on building a true MLM business. Nothing like the crap you would hear on a Amway/Quixtar tape. So if you havn't already check it out now!

I think I got it!

2005-02-02T01:14:00.000-05:00

Ok I think I got my blog set up right. Please let me know if something isn't displaying correctly. If so tell me what screen resolution you are using and also what Internet Browser.

Also I'm starting to think that I might like get off blogger and go to paid service and maybe get my own domain name. If anybody has any recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it.

Request for some help!

2005-01-28T01:31:00.000-05:00

Ok I need to get some help from someone who really knows HTML well, so that I can get my current blog template to work correctly. My blog looks exactly like I want it to when IM looking at it through FireFox at 1024x768 but when I look at it through IE things don't line up right. Also if someone looks at my blog with a screen resolution of 800x600 or lower my sidebar ends up underneath all my posts not on the side. I've been tinkering with it for a long time to get things to work properly but its beyond my knowledge of HTML. I really like my set up and I don't want to change it. I just want the sidebar to be on the side and it not be in the side graphic I have. So if someone out there could help me out or point me in a direction where I could get some help I would be most appreciative.

Update : Ok here is a link to a picture of how my blog looks to me. CLICKY!

Update : Ok I see how my sidebar and my main are determined by percentages. Is there any way that I can change them so that they are a specific width? So that they take up the same amount of space regardless of what a persons screen res is.

Scary!

2005-01-26T02:20:00.000-05:00

Ok this terrifies me. Click on this link. This site will tell you where you live and your latitude and longitude. It was very close on for me. It came to within a few miles of me. That just terrifies me that in like 3 seconds a website was able to pinpoint my location within a few miles just by visiting it. How accurate was it for you guys?

Taxes!

2005-01-26T01:53:00.000-05:00

Well I got my taxes done already. This is a record for me, I normally procrastinate all the way up to the deadline. It feels good to have them already done and out of the way. Plus I have a decent size refund check coming my way in a few weeks. YAY! I hope I never end up having to owe the IRS because they are never going to get the money from me. I'll build a underground bunker and hide in it and when they come for there money I'll yell at them "Didn't you take enough money from me? Why do you want more?" and then hide in my bunker until they give up. I'm just joking I'd pay them there money....... Eventually.

Amway/Quixtar is run like a MAFIA!

2005-01-25T01:14:00.000-05:00

Came across another great article about Quixtar except this one isn't as positive as my last post. According to a crime expert Amway/Quixtar is run like a Mafia. Gee who would have thought? Actually this is just a new story written about the now famous Blakey report. But one thing caught my eye about Mr. Britt.

However, it should be noted that Bill Britt has since been booted out of Amway and is under investigation for a host of scams. According to an August 12, 2004, letter from Robert FitzPatrick, President of Pyramid Scheme Alert, to North Carolina's Attorney General, requesting an investigation of the Bill Britt organization, "Last year, it was reported that Bill Britt was involved in what authorities consider perhaps the largest single financial fraud case in North Carolina history in terms of the amount of dollars that disappeared," the letter stated.

I knew about the scam Bill Britt got caught in but I thought Britt just retired. But according to the article he was kicked out. Maybe I just missed one of QBlogs posts. Anyways check out the full article here. Its a good read.

Quixtar donates vitamin's to head start programs.

2005-01-24T19:44:00.000-05:00

I found this article today on yahoo.

ADA, Mich., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Quixtar Inc. (http://www.Quixtar.com ) has donated $228,000 worth of Nutrilite® Kids Chewable Multivitamin/Multimineral tablets to The Healthy Foundation's Vitamin Relief USA program. These supplements -- some 720,000 tablets in 8,000 bottles -- will aid the foundation's ongoing campaign to provide vitamins to school-aged children at risk for malnutrition and nutrient deficiency.

Read the full story here.

I always like to read stories about the good things companies do. Sometimes we get a little to caught up in all the bad things. Not saying that we should ignore the bad things but that its nice to see a company like Quixtar doing some good.

Now I wonder if a copy of the plan comes with each bottle of vitamin's?

Movie Review : Elecktra!

2005-01-24T01:53:00.000-05:00

I actually saw this movie a week ago I just havn't much time to blog recently. To start things off, I went into this movie with really low expectations and it surprised me it was actually decent. Much better than Daredevil was. But no where near as good as spiderman and Xmen. If your having a guys night out with your friends and you would like to watch a women in skin tight leather suit kick some ass then go see this movie.

Issues!

2005-01-20T18:26:00.000-05:00

I'm currently having some problems with my internet service provider. I will be back to posting more regularly when I get this all sorted out.

Update:
Well it looks like things are back to working again. I go through Charter communications and I had to get a new modem the other day because my old one would reset every time it would get bumped. That was very annoying. Well when I got a new one it worked for like a day then wouldn't work at all the day after. My roommate asked around and he found out that charter was handing out modem's that were not compatible with there system. With this news I was going to go and trade my modem again the next day, but before I got to it I checked one last time to see if it was working and low and behold it was. So we shall see if this keeps up.

WARNING NEW MLM ALERT!

2005-01-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

*Warning* You will probably only get this post if you have ever been in a MLM!

While browsing some Blogs I came across quite a few posts calling BlogExplosion and BlogClicker the MLM's of the blogging world. Because you can build a dowline of people that sign up through your referral link and earn credits from them.

Well after much thought I've decided to start my own Motivational tool business to grow my blogging business. This business will include:

4 tapes a week costing $8 a piece, that have absolutely no blog business building value.
1 meeting every Friday night at various locations across the country to ruin your weekend. These meetings will be 5 hours long, telling you how worthless your blogging life is and that is will suck until you join my group.
1 seminar every month on a Saturday to further ruin your weekends. Seminars will be an all day event for how great my group is.
1 major seminar every 3 months on a weekend to make you give up any hope of having a fun and relaxing weekend.
1 book of the month to further distance yourself from having any sort of of life outside of my group and blogging.

Now click on the links below and become a member of my downline and Motivational tool business.

*Warning* Through my tool business I will make far more money off you than you could ever hope to make by joining my business.

*Disclaimer* This is just a joke people don't take it that serious sheash!

Resident Evil 4!

2005-01-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I purchased a great new game called Resident Evil 4!

If you have a GameCube and like action games then you need to own this game its one of the best games ever made. The control's are perfect and the graphics are awesome. I played it for like 5 hours straight yesterday and I can't wait to put in some more time with it.

Political Leaning!

2005-01-13T11:09:00.000-05:00

While browsing some blogs I came a cross a test to take that shows your political and social leanings. While I normally don't take tests like these because most of them are kind of pointless, I really wanted to know where I stood. Well here is how I came out.

At first I thought that didn't come out like I thought then after a minute I thought actually that came out about right. If you want to take it click here.

BlogClicker!

2005-01-13T03:37:00.000-05:00

While surfing tonight I found a great new way for promoting your blog its called BLOGCLICKER. I like sights like this because you have to read other peoples blogs in order to get traffic to yours. I love reading other peoples blogs, because you get a real sense of what people are really thinking, instead of just relying on what the big media corporations are telling you what people are thinking. I find it great that there seems to be a blog about just about everything. Just think of some of the wall subject and I bet you can find a blog devoted to just that. So what are you waiting for sign up for BLOGCLICKER.

The 7 Mistakes you can make doing MLM.

2005-01-10T01:07:00.000-05:00

I found another great article on Entrepreneur.com today. Its titled Watch Your Step. It talks about the 7 worst mistakes you can make in network marketing.

Clicking on each one will bring you to a page talking about each one.

1. Falling For MLM Imposters

2. Expecting Instant Wealth

3. Signing On In The Heat Of The Moment

4. Choosing The Wrong Product

5. Joining A Start-Up Company

6. Selecting The Wrong Sponsor

7. Neglecting To Assess If MLM Is Right For You

These 7 mistakes are a great guide to go by if you are thinking of starting a MLM or Network Marketing business.

One of these that stand out to me is the 2nd one Expecting Instant wealth. I think the reason most people think this is because this is what you were lead to believe when you first get started in a MLM. When I was in Quixtar I was told that with 10-15 hours per week for 3-5 years I could be earning a 6 figure income. I don't know about you, but I or someone else might consider that a instant wealth statement. Let me see for a few hours a week for a few years I'll be making 100k plus a year. Yeah! JACK POT BABY! NOT!

Deals you should never say yes to.

2005-01-08T01:48:00.000-05:00

I found a great article the other day on Entrepreneur Magazines Website. Its titled Just Say No. The article talks about deals you shouldn't agree to.

Any deal you don't fully understand.

Any deal requiring lots of money upfront.

Any deal you're asked to do in a hurry.

Those are just a few listed in the article. I wish I had read it before I had gotten involved with Quixtar. It would have kept me from getting involved. I encourage anybody about to get started with any business opportunity to check this article out. It just might help save you some money and some embarrassment.

Another good one listed is.

Any deal that sounds too good to be true.

Isn't funny how we keep falling for that one time after time, even though we should know better?

eStarNetwork cont'd.

2004-12-29T13:40:00.000-05:00

A while back I wrote a post about a MLM company called eStarNetwork. They are a company that sells services such as phone,internet, satellite, and others. Then you earn commission on selling those services. Well when I was browsing Dogpile for results on Quixtar I came across a page about eStarNetworks views on Quixtar. Its in audio form, which I can only assume is the founder of eStarNetworks. Mostly he talks about quixtar's biggest problem is that they were Amway and that is going to be to big for them to overcome because the Amway name has such a bad aura following it. He also talks about how many people don't realize quixtar's relationship with amway until a long time after there involved.

When I was in Quixtar I was under the assumption that Quixtar was just similar to Amway and that's why people were calling it Amway or comparing it to Amway. It wasn't until later that I learned that Quixtar wasn't just similar to Amway it was Amway. Now to be truthful I really didn't know anything about Amway at the time other than that it wasn't a highly respected company. I like many people thought Amway no longer existed. That it was deemed a pyramid scheme many years ago and shut down. This I know now to be untrue. Amway was proven to be a legitimate MLM, but was criticized on a few things and was ordered to some minor changes. That was it.

2004-12-25T01:21:00.000-05:00

May everybody have a wonderful Christmas!

Want to know what MLM is? Or a pyramid Scheme?

2004-12-17T17:10:00.000-05:00

I found a great article for those that are confused about what MLM is and why pyramid schemes are so similar.

"MLM (multilevel marketing) is an attractive business proposition to many people. MLM offers the opportunity to become involved in a system for distributing products to consumers. Unlike the person starting a business from scratch, the MLM participant has the support of a MLM company that supplies the products and sometimes offers training as well."

Check it out the full article here.

Misleading information told by amway/quixtar!

2004-12-17T16:58:00.000-05:00

I found this great website today its a list of all the things distributors will tell you when trying to recruit you and why this is misleading.

check it out here.

What I find interesting is that this site seems to have been made long before quixtar. Yet so many things are still the same.

I would also like to point out that this is also good information for anybody getting started in any MLM. Because a lot of them use the same tactics and information.

EA has exclusive rights for the NFL!

2004-12-16T01:32:00.000-05:00

For anybody that keeps on video game news. Then you know this little story has rocked the video game this week. EA has bought the exclusive rights to the NFL license. What this means is that EA is the only video game company allowed to make a game using, well basically anything to do with the NFL. What this means is there is no more Sega ESPN Football (My personal Favorite), NFL Blitz, or GameDay by 989 sports. EA had a lot of competition from sega last year, so what do they do they just buy up the rights so no one can compete with them. This is so wrong, on so many levels. EA already has exclusive rights to NASCAR, PGA, and FIFA. I wouldn't doubt it if they go for MLB and NBA next.

Pretty soon EA is going to become a monopoly. They already own like half the video game companies. They already have a claims against them for not paying there workers and making them work ungodly hours. I don't think I'm going to buy another product from them until they start playing right. By that I mean they try besting other companies by making a better product, instead of either buying that company or making it so they cant make a certain game. This is starting to remind me of Microsoft.

Anyways you can read the full story here.

Now say your sorry!

2004-12-15T01:20:00.000-05:00

Have you said your sorry yet?

If Your Business Is So Great?

2004-12-14T01:26:00.000-05:00

One thing that bothered me during my time in Quixtar, was there use of psychology to get people to do almost anything. They and many other people have this down to a science. This is one reason that salesman are so unpopular anymore. No one wants to talk to a salesman, because they know that they will be able to get them to do or buy something they wouldn't normally. This is why retailers like Wal-mart do so well these days. There is no one there pressuring them to buy something.

In MLM, psychology is used at great length to get people to join up. With a few good questions they have you convinced that life is horrible and that you need to change it, and that the only way you can do that is through there business.

During my brief time in Quixtar I was disgusted by all the ways I was taught how to manipulate a person. This came mostly from the book of the months. If you say this you can get them talking. But if they say this you counter with this to draw them away from that concern without really answering there question. The only thing I was doing was tricking them into doing something I knew they did not want to do or thought wasn't right. Since there business cant sell itself by what it offers, they have to resort to cheap psychology tactics and hype.

I think it comes down to if your business is so great why do you have to trick people to get them to do it? If it was truly that good, there shouldnt be any need to. People have been told over and over again if it sounds too good to be true, than it probably is. So the heads of these MLMs have to constantly come up with ways to convince you otherwise.

Don't Trust Everything You Read on the Net!

2004-12-12T23:17:00.000-05:00

This was a familiar saying while I was in Quixtar to defend against all the websites against them. Now any web savvy person knows that you can't trust everything you read on the net. Hell you can't trust even half the things. But that doesn't mean every website is all lies.

Well today while I was doing my routine check of cnn.com. I came across an article about how students are increasingly using nothing but the net for there research. For the full article click here.

Many teachers are worried that students aren't getting factually true information. Because they only look to the Internet. Like the students in the article I don't want to comb a library for 2 hours only to find one good source. When in like 10 seconds you could probably find at least 10 or 20 through google. While it is very difficult to figure out what is true and what is not. You just have to be careful and figure out what the authors intentions are.

I try to be as accurate as possible on my blog but I too fall victim to bad information like everyone else. But the great thing about blogs is that they are more about your opinions.

My Blade Trinity Review

2004-12-12T23:09:00.000-05:00

Went and saw Blade Trinity on wensday night. Very fun movie to watch. I think I still like Blade 2 better but it was fun to spend the night out with friends and to ogle at Jessica Biel for 2 hours. What really surprised me was how Ryan Reynold's stole the show from Wesley Snipes. Reynold's is hilarious. Here is a quote from the movie by Reynold's when he is explaining to Blade about one of the vampires he just encountered.

"Unlike other vampires, this women's fang's are in her vagina."

He has tons of witty lines like that in the movie that will make you double over laughing. Other than Reynold's lines everybody else's lines and acting is very stiff. Even comparied to the previous Blade movies. But you don't go to see a movie like this for the acting. You go for the action and there is plenty of it.

If your a fan of the Blade movies go see it in the theatres. If not at least check it out once by renting it when it comes out on DVD and Video.

Cutco

2004-12-10T01:22:00.000-05:00

I first learned of Cutco when my friend called about there ad in the paper for a job. On the phone he set up a time for an interview in a city about an hour from where we live. When he got back from his interview he was so happy about how he got the job, especially since he was competing with a bunch of other people for a limited number of positions. He then in the following weeks drove back to that city for a series of training sessions.

Well what is Cutco? Cutco is company that sells fine Cutlery. Other wise known as knives. These knives are very expensive but good.

Why am I talking about this company? Well I'm not quite sure that Cutco is an MLM. Since it mainly teaches its reps to sell and not recruit. Though it is possible to recruit other people into Cutco. Cutco is known for using a lot of deception in its hiring practices and sales pitches. One such deception this company uses is when you call the number in the ad, you think you are getting interviewed for a job. In actuality you are not. You are being signed up as an independent contractor or salesman. You also think you are competing with others for only a few available positions. Also not true, the company will sign up almost everybody that comes for an interview. These new reps are then given lots of misinformation about the product they are selling and the competitors products. Also there is a big misinformation on the amount of money you can earn. Or you can have my friends misfortune and not get paid at all for most of the products he sold. For more on Cutco's misinformation, visit this site or do a quick search for Cutco on google.

According to the site mentioned above, not all branches of this company are bad. And I'm sure you can at least make some alright side cash from it. If you can find someone that can afford to buy there products from you. Be sure to research the information you are told by them.

Now on to the knives themselves. I've used them many times and they are very good, but they are way over priced. These knives will more than likely last your entire lifetime and maybe your children's. But when these knives sell between $500 - $1500 for the different sets available. (You can also buy them individually.) While they are of very high quality, they are not the best quality of knives you can buy like you are told by a sales rep. Something to do with the difference between stamped and forged steel. The average person does not need a set of knives like these in there kitchen. Why do I need a knife in my kitchen that can cut through a thick piece of rope or a penny? What am I possibly going to be cutting in my kitchen that is that tuff? Most people will do just find with decent set of knives from a local retailer. You really cant go wrong buying them, they will just cost you an arm and a leg. It also should be noted that you can only purchase Cutco's products through sales reps.

Jay Van Andel passes away at 80.

2004-12-08T01:20:00.000-05:00

You can read the full story here at The Detroit Free Press.

I feel that Van Andel set out to create a good wholesome company in Amway/Quixtar, built on strong family values and way to help the average guy improve there life and get ahead in this world. But do its high success and a few bad apples. It was turned into something they never intended it to be.

What I'm going to find interesting in the next few days is if any of the so called Diamond blogs make any mention of this. I'm going to be very disappointed if they cant even find the time to post a tribute to the founder of there great company.

Primerica

2004-12-07T01:49:00.000-05:00

Recently I was contacted by a guy who was doing some research on Quixtar. In our chats he informed me of another MLM that he was a part of. It was called Primerica. What is Primerica? Well it seems Primerica is a marketing arm of Citigroup. From what I've read Primerica deals in the Service of credit counseling and the selling of Life Insurance. How they do this is they recruit people into a MLM structure and then sell there Life Insurance policies to the people that join. Then the people that join promote the insurance and MLM structure to the people they now. Basic multi-level marketing. From just a quick bit of research, which consisted of just searching for the company on google. I turned up whole bunch of information and lets just say most of it wasn't very positive. A lot of the information sounded like another company I know of. Over stated Income possibilities, cult like atmosphere, and etc. Mmmm! Sounds like Quixtar. Here is a quote from a guys first experience with Primerica.

"We watched a video of 2 top Primerica entrepeuners. When I started to hear "Amen" and "Yes" chanted in the background of both the video and from the people in the room with me, I felt as if I was in a cult."

Here is another good one.

"After the video, I asked Larry if this organization had any similar qualities to Amway. "Oh NO, we help people.""

Those come from a guys post on a Rip Off Report for Primerica.

OUCH!! I wonder what the people from Amway and Quixtar have to say about that last one there.

Here is a link to a site by a guy that seems to know a lot about Primerica. So What's up with Primerica?

Tired of scratched CD's and DVD's?

2004-12-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

I know I sure am getting tired of renting DVD's from the video store and having them scratched to hell and not working. It's getting so bad that movies older that a year or two they don't even carry anymore because they ran out of working copies. Well it seems there will soon be hope. Check out this article over at ign.

Let's just hope they get this out soon.

A website MLM?

2004-12-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

So I was searching around the net for ways to improve my blog here and check out what I came across Website.ws

It seems to be a MLM based off of selling website service. As far as I can figure out, you sign up for there website service. Then you refer others to join up with them and you make money for referring them to there service. But I'm not quite sure, the site isn't very clear and honestly I didn't look at it for to long. Just thought someone would find that interesting. I remember when I showed my first plan in Quixtar. The guy I was showing told me about another MLM that sold bottle water and kept asking if that was what Quixtar was like. It seems there's a MLM for just about any product or service you can think of. If anybody finds any other intersting ones let me know.

Changes and that new guy on the left!

2004-12-04T23:33:00.000-05:00

You've probably noticed by now I've been making some changes to the blog. I got bored with the old look and blogger didn't really offer any templates that I liked so I'm making my own. Recently I've been in contact with a guy who Is going to allow me to basically interview him about another MLM company that he says wasn't what it appeared to be, and I'm going to write a post about his story. I think its going to be interesting. I've also gatta couple of other things I'm planning on doing. So this should be an interesting month.

Oh and do you guys like the new graphic on the left? I think it looks like an IBO right before he's about to show the plan. What do you think he looks like? Maybe we can have a naming contest or something.

FireFox

2004-12-03T01:14:00.000-05:00

If your ready to try a different web browser than internet explorer or netscape I highly recomend Mozilla FireFox wich you can get here.

Ive found this to be an awsome web browser that I think is better the Internet Explorer. Its been more stable for me. For some reason my Internet Explorer has been having alot issues and it's crashing alot. So far FireFox hasnt crashed on me once. One of my favorite features it lets you have multiple pages open in one window using tabs. Whats really cool is that it lets you open all the pages you have saved in your favorites folders with one click. So Rediscover the web and tell me what you think of it.

Blog is the Number 1 Word of the year!

2004-12-01T01:57:00.000-05:00

Merriam-Webster Inc today said that the number 1 word looked up on there site for the year of 2004. Its been amazing to me just to witness and participate in the blog explosion. I heard about blogs a few years ago but it didn't really interest me until I started looking up information on Quixtar. So I decided hey why not start my own and talk about my experiences in the biz. Now I have two blogs this and another called gamers blog http://blogginggamer.blogspot.com/. This one I just started it a week back. In it I talk about being a video game junkie and the games I play. I'm still very new at bloging but I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. It's to much fun and I get to have my voice heard.

To read the full article about blogs number 1 on www.cnn.com go here http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/11/30/words.of.the.year.reut/index.html.

Also on a side not I think its funny if you use the spell check with blogger it doesn't recognize the word blog or any of the variants as valid words.

The Movies!!

2004-11-30T01:16:00.000-05:00

The last couple of nights have been cool. Last night my room mate his girl and me went to see The Incredibles. Awesome movie people and a great family movie if some of you have yet to go see it go go go go. Pixar has just got a great talent in making movies that anybody can go see. I mean I'm 21 and I went with friends that are the same age as me and we loved it and its supposed to be like a kid/family movie. Pixar shows how you can make a movie anybody can love and have it not use sex or profanity. Something you cant say about Shrek 2. While I loved that movie, there were parts of it that I sat there think OMG kids are watching this. Did we really need to have pinochio wearing a thong. But Pixar did it with out such moments and did an awesome job. So if I haven't said this yet go see it.

And tonight the same three of us and another good friend went and saw National Treasure. It was a good fun movie to watch with your friends. It wasn't no where near as bad as the critics were saying it was. Ok the story wasn't even close to believable but it wasn't like they twisted the history books or anything. They just crafted a story around what we know of Americas history. It took a lot of creativity and research to make this flick. So if you wanna just go and have a good time with friends go see National Treasure.

Also what do you guys think of movie critics. Personally I cant stand them most of the time. It seems unless the movie is deep and emotionally moves you or something that it isn't a good movie. Unless memory servers me wrong but wasn't movies created to entertain. There's nothing wrong with movies that are deep and move you but seriously I watch movies to have fun. If I had fun watching the movie I say it was a good movie. It did what it set out to do, it entertained someone. But that's just my thoughts.

Thanks Mother Nature! NOT!

2004-11-25T01:44:00.000-05:00

So I leave my house earlier today to go down state to my mom's house for Thanksgiving a three hour drive. So I hop on the freeway and I notice the pavement is awfully shiny and up ahead I see cop lights flashing and as I get closer I see a truck flipped over on the road and another in the ditch. So I slow down and my car starts to swerve a little bit. I get my car under control and I slow way the hell down to like 25 mph. And I realize the hole free way is icy or commonly referred to as black ice. So I decided to keep going for a while, that this was probably just a small patch of the freeway that is like this. So I'm going along and I notice car after car in the ditch with people standing outside of them and other motorists stopped to help them. So I finally decided after hearing a weather report to turn around and head back home. So on my way back home this large truck goes flying past me. Then a little bit later I notice some red tail lights swerve to the left then sharply to the right and right off the road. As I drive by I notice it was the same truck that went flying by me. Luckily a few other cars had already stopped to help the driver and it really didn't look to bad the guy just got stuck down in the ditch. Luckily I made it back home in one piece. Damn you mother nature for keeping me from my family on thanksgiving and my mom's cooking. Oh well I've got like 3 local thanksgiving feast offers to choose from.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY may yours be better than mine.

MORAL OF THIS BLOG POST :
1. When its snowy and rainy out slow the hell down when your driving.
2. Don't live in the northern part of the country where you get this kind of weather.
3. Live closer to family.
4. Enjoy the holiday with your family.

Merchants of Deception!

2004-11-22T01:41:00.000-05:00

The other day I received an email from a Eric Scheibeler about his new book and website www.merchantsofdeception.com . I spent the good part of one night reading his book, which you can download for free from his site. Its stories like his that we speak out about Quixtar and Amway.

Something that stood out to me in his story was about what he discovered was being told at women's meetings. That they are to never refuse there husbands sex. Wow! My girl friend made a comment to me about this when I told her about this. She said it seems there trying to return women to the status of property. If you have ever been in the business you know that women are not to show the plan or anything there really only to support there husbands and stay home and take care of the kids. Now I'm all for it if a women wants to stay home and take care of the kids full time, but if she wants to go out and work and do something she really loves to do I'm not going to tell her no. Taking care of the kids is supposed to be a joint effort not just the women's job. Reading that in his book I also thought of something, when I was in the business it seemed that all the wives of the leaders were always pregnant. I guess if that is what is being taught at the women's meetings that would certainly explain why.

Anyways even if you are not in, was in, or are being prospected by an IBO I would definitely recommend reading Eric Scheibeler's book at www.merchantsofdeception.com. It definitely raises some questions about the various groups in Quixtar/Amway.

Where's The Money?

2004-11-16T01:54:00.000-05:00

I work at a grocery store as a cashier and a few weeks back, I had an unexpected person come through my line. It was the wife of one of my platinum uplines. She was purchasing some groceries obviously. It wasn't a whole lot, just a few of items. It looked like stuff for dinner that night. Ok so not a big deal. Quixtar can't delivering things that fast if you need something for that night. But what did make me take notice was that she had to use her credit card to pay for some pumpkins for Halloween. This wasn't a situation like oh I forgot can I get a couple of pumpkins. No she had all her groceries and the pumpkins on the belt and had the pumpkins be a separate order. Now her first order she paid with a check. So the only logical assumption I could come up with is that she did not have enough money in her account to pay for everything. And she and her husband are supposed to be platinum's. Also last I heard her husband was still working at his job. So with the combined income of a job and Quixtar platinum. They couldn't afford to pay for maybe 20-30 dollars worth of stuff. Makes you wonder don't it. But hey I could be wrong and it was just some odd circumstance where they had to do that.

Star Wars

2004-11-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

For those that don't know me, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. And like all other Star Wars fans we eagerly await the next movie, Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of The Sith. For those of you interested here I have a picture of one of the key bad guys. His name is General Grevious and he hunts jedis for sport and wears the jedi's he's killed lightsabers on his belt.

For those further interested there is a teaser trailer up for episode 3 at www.starwars.com.

Being Creative.

2004-11-08T01:55:00.000-05:00

Anybody who has read my blog here knows that one of my biggest beefs with quixtar was the lack of creativity. Don't be creative just do what we tell you to do and you will succeed. Well I absolutely hated not being able to try my own things. I used to lay in my bed every night thinking of ways I could improve the way we did things in quixtar. I love being creative. It all started when I was a kid and my best friend Randy and I would play with our legos all day long. I'm serious ALL DAY. Randy's parents were my babysitters. So my mom would drop me and my sis off and randy and I would go into his room and build things with are legos up till the time my mom came to pick me up. We would create all kinds of things, it was great.

Now stop and think about this for a second. Look at the richest people in America, you will find they all got there through creativity. They all created a product or service or something that lots of people liked.

Personally I get a lot more satisfaction from from something I created then something I just copied. Now to tie this in with what's going on with my life now. In the last few months or so I have started a host of new things. I've been learning to write novels and short stories, I have started learning alot about making video games and have created a few levels for Doom 3. And as of yesterday I have begun to learn how to play the guitar. Where am I going with all this, well to put it plainly I feel so much better when I'm doing these things. I'm getting to express my creativity. I would highly recommend it to everybody to start learning new things and start expressing your creativity.

Just do something new and creative you will feel so much happier because of it trust me.

There Were Positives

2004-10-18T01:09:00.000-04:00

I am often critical of my time in quixtar and I must say that not everything about it was bad. Actually I will admit that most of it wasn't. Quixtar actually got me to thinking more about the future and do I really want to be doing what I am doing now 5 years down the road. Also it got me to start reading books that were not fiction. I used to hate reading non-fiction books they used to all ways remind me of text books from school. But Quixtar showed me that not all of them were bad. John Maxwell's books had to be my favorite. Quixtar also got me to actually get out of my house and talk to people. Something I hadn't really done since school. Just plan getting to hang out with friends all the time and hanging out at Wal-mart in the middle of the night because they were the only place open, even though we shouldn't go there as we were told by are upline. Though we like never bought anything we there just because we wanted to go somewhere other than home. And there were many other positives of the business.

Mainly my biggest beef is with the systems. I just don't think that I need to buy 3 tapes a week and go to like half a dozen meetings and seminars every month in order to be successful. The reason I believe this is because I cant think of anytime coming from a meeting or a seminar where I felt I learned something that could take my business further or helped my business in any way shape or form. I felt that they were just stringing me along to keep me in the business just a little bit longer. And with that I had a few so called leaders or uplines that had hit certain pin levels that just left me with a bad view of the business. They seemed to talk the talk but not walk the walk.

Dilbert

2004-10-13T02:10:00.000-04:00

I just love the Dilbert comic strip. I came across this one today that just seemed to strike a cord with me. Maybe it will with some of you also.

.

Being Thankful

2004-10-11T23:35:00.000-04:00

When I used to go to meetings, it used to really bother me how the speaker would bash our lives. Like they were so horrible and we should be ashamed of them. I'm not ashamed of my life I'm thankful for it. When I would look around at the meeting and see all these people agreeing with the speaker I thought to my self, don't you people realize that 3/4 of the population of the world would kill to have a life like ours. We enjoy so many things that a lot of people in this world don't get to. We have clean water, cars, houses, electricity, food, schools. That just names a small few of the things we have. And here is this guy speaking about our horrible lives. I thank god every day for the wonderful life I have. Is it perfect, no. But it could be a whole lot worse. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't strive to make our lives even better. But lets stop bashing this wonderful life we were granted. I feel lucky that I get to go to work every day. Hey we get to choose where we work for the most part. In a lot of places in the world you don't get a choice. I have a job, a car with payments, a small apartment, lots of bills, good friends, wonderful family members, and a girl friend I love, and I'm thankful everyday that I get to have all those things and I don't have to live some place where I don't know where my next meal is coming from or if I'm going to get murdered by someone because I don't agree with them.

eStar Network?

2004-10-05T11:20:00.000-04:00

Ok so every once in a while I throw quixtar into a search engine and see what pops up. This time I came across this website off the first page list of results. It was 2 down from good ole quixtar. This looks like a new MLM called eStar Network. http://www.globalxl.addr.com/michelmanuel.htm?OVRAW=quixtar&OVKEY=quixtar&OVMTC=standard They seem to be comparing them selves to quixtar and other MLM's on this page saying that they have eliminated this and that. They also say it is free to join but if you find there main page which is here http://www.groupestar.com/ The free part seems to be just a lure to get you in then to get you signed up for there quick start program. From the looks of things I would never join this thing but I don't think I will ever join another MLM again. Anybody out there got any info on these guys or are a part of this group? Id be interested to learn a little more about them.

Reality at the SEC and MLM

2004-09-19T01:23:00.000-04:00

I don't know if anybody knows about this site. Its by a guy who used to work for SEC and specifically what caught my interest was he has a section about the SEC and MLM. Its an interesting read yet a little confusing at times. Oh yeah here's the link http://www.realityatthesec.com/

Why Do We Speak Out?

2004-09-10T02:58:00.000-04:00

Quixtar advocates often frown upon us that speak out against there business. They wonder why we spend so much of our time speaking out and think we should just move on. They believe we are just trying to steal there dreams. Well this is just not the case. We aren't the crab in the bucket trying to pull the other one down. The reason we speak out is when after you've seen so many people, friends, and family mentally and financially hurt because of the business that we feel we need to do something to stop this. Could you honestly sit back and do nothing when you see your best friends life get tore down as I have watched happen to my best friend. The group we were in didn't teach him to only spend what he could. No they taught him to spend everything he had, to not pay his bills to get to that next seminar. They told him not to worry that he wasn't getting any results yet that they will come. And what happened is that eventually he had no money left. This brought his self esteem and everything to rock bottom. Then I look around and see that my friend isn't the only one that this is happening to. Its happening to a majority of the people I knew in the business. Now can you honestly say that I should just turn my head and pretend that there is nothing wrong and just move on? The founding fathers of the United States gave us the right of free speaks for situations like this. That way even the little guy can have a way to stand up for himself.

A Favorite Quote

2004-09-03T01:47:00.000-04:00

I don't remember where I got this but I think its a good one to ponder.

"Do we have the power to shape our lives, or are we predestined to be who we are? If our Fate is but one amongst many, then whose life, if anyone's, is real? If our lives are indeed the sum-total of the choices we've made, then we cannot change who we are. But with every new choice we're given, we can change who we're going to be. "

Training? What's that?

2004-09-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

Things have changes a lot around here at my place. My room mate no longer really does anything with quixtar. He had to stop because he ran out of money. The business ran him into the ground financially. But he still thinks its the greatest business in the world. In all the tapes and books and seminars he went to and bought, they never taught him how to manage money with his business. How can he get so much training material and go to so many seminars and not learn one of the most basic things about business. Oh wait there is no training its all motivation. So why not motivate people to learn how to run a proper business? I can learn more about running a business through searching on the internet for a few hours then I can being on the system for a year. You know I would like the business a lot better if I felt I was actually getting some training on how to run a business. But hey maybe I'm missing something.

Enemy of the Systems

2004-08-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

I'm sure many of you have seen the movie called Enemy Of The State. It stars Will Smith and Gene Hackman. When I was watching it the other day something one of the characters said caught my ear. "Credibility its the only thing that matters in this world." Basically in the movie the bad congressman ruins Will Smith characters credibility so that even if he is telling the truth no one will believe him. Now this sounds allot like some of the things quixtar has been doing to try and combat Bo Short and the Dateline investigation. Ok so dateline made a really big mistake along time ago but does that mean everything they did is fake and a lie. I highly doubt it. Also quixtar is discrediting Bo because he is running a business that's in competition with them. Give me a break only those in quixtar are using the competition thing the wrong way by telling lies about the other business. This is so low and was one of the things that got me to really start questioning quixtar and the leadership of the line of sponsorship. I remember thinking how could these people stoop so low. That's when I realized many of these people never really had that high of integrity to begin with. Now I'm not saying that's everybody in the business just those that know what's going on but choose to continue there ways or are turning the other check.

Blogging wars!

2004-08-27T01:45:00.000-04:00

Holy cow has this thing exploded. Everybody now has a blog. From the highest diamonds to the guy that was just shown the plan. No longer does the little guy not have a voice. The internet has brought around this change. And I believe that scares a lot of people especially those in power because they controlled the flow of information. No longer can they create lies or hide the truth and get away with it. Now everybody has access to the same information as those at the top. Its so funny that those in the business will tell you not to trust any information you get from the web but then say they have the best business in world and its an internet based business. Now they themselves have a blog. So if I cant trust information I get from the internet then I cant trust anything they say on there blog correct. Anyways its now become a war of opinions. Every side is trying to prove why they are right. I can only see positive things coming from this. Now everybody is getting there views out there and those at the top can no longer deny the problems of there business. With some luck maybe this will cause some needed change in the business. So blog on everybody and let slip the dogs of war.

Business experience

2004-08-17T11:45:00.000-04:00

First things first sorry I have not updated in a while I was on vacation for a week. I went to the dells in Wisconsin. Its like this giant tourist trap with nothing but theme parks and motels even so it was still a lot of fun. Then when I got back my work schedule got all wacky but its starting to get back to normal so I can update again. YAY!!!

My room mate made an interesting comment to me the other day. He said he was going to engage in the 95% world for a little while. Being surprised I asked him why? He said that if he cant even do the 95% world how is he going to be able to do the 5% world. This brings me to one of the biggest problems with quixtar, Amway and many other such businesses. Most of the people that get into them have absolutely no experience with business other than maybe the customer service aspect of it "would you like to super size that?". From my experience with the business and from what I have read from others they don't even try to teach you any of the basic principles. Its like giving a credit card to someone who was never taught to not spend more than they can pay off in a month. There going to get them selves in trouble and cause them a lot of grief.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

2004-07-20T01:44:00.000-04:00

Anybody in quixtar will immediately recognize the title to this post. This book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki is supposedly like the basis for every thing they do in the business. While searching the web I came across this web site by John T. Reed. Basically this site is an analysis on Kiyosaki's book. On his site I came across this quote that I think accurately describes most of the business as I know it. This quote comes from another book that Reed has read and compares it to Kiyosaki's book.

"Law 27 - PLAY ON PEOPLE'S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULTLIKE FOLLOWING. Judgment - People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power."

I would definitely check this website out he seems to blow allot of holes in the info that kiyosaki gives in his book. http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html

Shopping Habits

2004-07-17T01:49:00.000-04:00

Just the other day I went to Wal-mart to purchase a new computer chair. Before doing so in an effort to try and purchase items from the quixtar website I checked out the prices of office chairs on it and couldn't find anything in a reasonable price range for me, hence why I went to Wal-mart and purchased a descent leather chair for about $50 which was about half the price of the cheapest chair I could find on the site. Later that evening a team member on my roommates second leg came over and noticed my new chair and inquired as to where I purchased it. My roommate immediately replied Wal-mart not from quixtar and kind of gave me a stern look and then so did the team member. He was trying to make me feel guilty for purchasing a damn chair from a store. This seems to be pretty standard fair for people on the team to do. Your taught to frown upon other people for buying anything unless its from quixtar/your own business. Now I have absolutely no problem buying anything online but the prices on quixtar are ridiculous on most things. I remember being told why this was and the reasons they used(this being on the household good such as soap and that) were that the products were concentrated and you get more uses out of them. Well working at a grocery store for almost 6 yrs now come November, I can tell you that all your household cleaning solutions and soaps in the grocery store are concentrated. The true reason for the ridiculous prices on quixtar I believe is there distribution model.

When I was first introduced to the business they showed me the distribution models of Kmart and there long line of distribution. Then they showed me Wal-Marts and how they cut out a few things in there distribution model and were able to become the biggest company in the world. Then there was our model/Quixtars. Our just had 3 parts Manufacture-Internet/Quixtar website-Consumer. I believe the way they explain the Quixtar model to be untrue. This because if that were true they would be able to have the cheapest prices on just about everything. But instead what they don't tell you is that all the IBO's in the chain need to get paid and that I believe is what makes the products so expensive. Everybody has got to get paid. So the True Distribution model would look like this Man. - Internet - IBO's-IBO's-IBO's- etc. -etc.- consumer.

Quixtar

2004-07-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

If you have been reading this blog its probably not hard to tell what MLM im apart of. Its quixtar if you havnt already guessed by the title. I wont say what group in quixtar im apart of but im sure that would be to hard for someone to guess either. They say they are the fastest growing team in quixtar. But from what ive read every team says that but i guess someone in quixtar has said that we are but have the lowest pv per ibo or something like that. Thats probably a big enough clue. I have to say I do somewhat like the idea of MLM and network marketing. My problem is that with the team im involved in and it seems all the other teams in quixtar most do not seem to build the buisness in they way the law states they should. These laws being in place to protect the consumer. It seems that most of the teams in quixtar just want to build this as fast as possible and doing so have to do some pretty dishonest things. The beautiful part about it is that they got everybody convinced that this is ok and right. They even have themselfes convinced. If they would build the buisness the correct way i would love to be apart of it. But as it stands now I feel used and hurt by these people.

General Ranting

2004-07-09T22:46:00.000-04:00

Ok so I havnt posted in a while life has kept me a little busy lately. Im not even sure if there is anybody out there reading this. So if there is anybody please leave a comment once in a while.

When I started this blog I intended to write about my on going experiences in my MLM but due to my realization of certain aspects of it i have not participated in it in months. My room mate is still heavilly involved and I do pick up little bits of information on things that are going on every now and then. Im still on the system of tapes and books. Which reminds me I havnt reaceved a book in a while. I dont really listen to all the tapes anymore. I get like 3 a week. I listen to one here and there but I dont get any new information than what I already know. When I was really involved in it I remeber being told that the people who say they know how to build the buisness but dont do anything dont really know how. In my case this is the oposite. Because I know what it takes to do the buisness is why i dont do it. Seeing they way you have to act and be a walking one linner turns me off of it. Ive seen so many people in the buisness push and badger people into doing things they dont want to do. Like one time i was told to pay my bills late in order to afford tickets to a major seminar. Which I did and it ended up costing allot of money in late charge fees on them. One of the biggest things ive also noticed is the arrogance and how people start to believe them selves as supperior to others. I started to act this way when I was involved and one day I took a step back and looked at myself and I said who the hell do I think I am. I couldnt beleive the way I was acting and thinking. I was ashamed of myself. Thats when I stopped going to meetings and listening to the tapes. After a while my actions and thinking got much better I believe and thats when I noticed this behavior in just about everybody in the buisness. I dont believe myself to be better than anyone else. We all just have different opinions about life and thats cool. I know this is probably incoherent bable but i find writting this really helps me. Thanks to anybody that reads this.

Wall Street

2004-06-23T23:35:00.000-04:00

I just got done watching the movie Wall Street. Most likely youve at least heard of it. Its an older movie made in the eighties. It stars Charlie Sheen and Micheal Douglas, big stars for the time. Even though the movie is like almost like 20 yrs old, most of the themes in it still ring true today. The movie is basically about greed. People will do anything to make more and more money. Even when they dont need anymore. I liked the quote in the movie. "Money makes you do things you dont want to do". And Lastly I think the most important thing said in the movie is when the father says to his son "you need to stop living off the buying and selling of other peoples money and create something". I personally feel alot more satisfied when ive created something then when ive just copied something. If you get the chance and have never seen this movie I highly recomend it.

Tapes! Tapes! Tapes!

2004-06-20T05:14:00.000-04:00

The other day my friend was going through his tape collection to find a couple of tapes to give to a downline. So I decided I should look at my collection. I hadnt really looked at in a while. Holly cow was i surprised. I have like hundreds of tapes. Thats ridiculas. Do I really need that many tapes. I get three of the damn things every week. I really wouldnt mind them to much if i was learning something new on each of them or something but im not. Its the same damn thing practically on every tape. Somehow i dont think Bill Gates or Sam Walton listened to this many tapes to create there fortune. But i could be wrong. I guess im just ranting. Its just disturbing to me to realize how much money i wasted on buying the same information.

Wanting To Belong.

2004-06-13T20:20:00.000-04:00

I really think the reason why so many people at least give MLM a try is because it makes them feel like they belong to something again. Just like people felt about there old High Schools and Colleges. Once we all join the work force most of us really dont feel that same connection with are jobs and our coworkers as we did at school. Most people want to belong to something they can be proud of again. And most MLM's provide this again. I have to admit that was a big draw for me to my MLM company. Since i graduated I didnt have to many friends left and i really just wanted to belong to something again. And when my friend presented it to me i couldnt resist. Not that there anything wrong with this and i believe it to be a requirement. But i have found in my MLM that most of the relationships and comrodary i thought existed to be mostly superficial. Its all just for show for the new person. In reality everybody is bickering about this person or that team. It doesnt feel like were one big team that we can be proud of.

Information Control!

2004-05-28T02:49:00.000-04:00

Lately it has dawned on me how much control my MLM company has on its members. The last few days my room mate and I have been having some discussions about MLM in general. Comparing other MLM's to ours. In those discussions I would bring up some of the things that had been problems for other MLM's and then my room mate would admediatly tell me that all the problems that other MLM companies have ours dosnt have that problem. How our MLM is as close to perfect as you can get. That everybody in the company has the upmost integrity. He would then try to explain to my why that was but could never come up with a explanation that made any plausible sense. He was mostly sprouting the one liners that we were taught to say from the tapes and the meetings. These sayings might sound good on the surfice but when you try to examine them you realize they really dont make any sense at all. What really bothers me is why do we trust these people on the tapes and on the stages so easily. Looking back on things now Ive realized how they never did anything that said they were trust worthy, they just made me a lot of promises that if i worked hard for so long and kept on system success was all but guarentied. But anyways I let my room mate make his points and I really tried not to disagree with him. I know there is no way I can change his thinking Ive got to let him discover some of the truths himself. I just really hope he doesnt find himself burned in a couple of years.

It's the journy not the destination.

2004-05-20T02:43:00.000-04:00

Through my expierences with the MLM buisness. I've always been told to remeber the Destination. Remeber where i could be in 5yrs if i stick with it. I find something wrong with this. Ive always believed that in life its not how succsessfull you become but its how you get there that matters. With MLM theres no real creativity in it. Your told to follow a set plan on how to get there. In the end if you make it you havent really created anything, youve just copied something. Its like plagurizing someones work. The reason why your not allowed do that in school is because you havnt really learned anything from it. Youve just taken the easy way out. Ive been told by my upline and the leaders in my MLM that this buisness is the easiest and fastest way to get my dreams. Life isnt always about finding easiest and fastest way to do things. The journey through life is about all the stumblings we have getting through it. I personally would rather start my own buisness something i could build from the ground up using my own creativity and those that i work with. Because in the end yes i will stumble allot. I will most undoubtly fall on my face but in the end I will have something i can be proud of I can say yes i created this. I can leave behind a legacy. Not a carbon copy of someone elses legacy.

Can everyone really succeed in MLM.

2004-05-12T13:28:00.000-04:00

Thanks J.O. for that story.(To read the story click on the comments of the last post.) This is most deffinetly not the first story like that, that i have read. Something I believe to be an issue with most MLM programs and the one I am involved with tell you that anybody can have success in the buisness if you put in 100% effort. I believe these to be false statments. I have an upline in my buisness that is a great wonderfull person and puts in like 120% into the buisness every day. But in like the 4/5 yrs he has been involved he has yet to even qualify at the lowest reconizable level. I mean he does every little thing that our buisness system tells him he should do and he has seen very little in return for his effort. Because of this I believe that MLM works for some people with certain kinds of personalities. It just meshes with some people. But for others its like trying to force two strong magnets together. No matter how much you try you cant keep them together they just cant stick. I remeber reading an article by Bo Short and his Amyway/Quixtar buisness, which he was a qualified diamond at one point. Diamond being the holy grail level that every one strives to reach. He said he was tired of seeing so many people work so much harder than he ever did and never achieve anything in the buisness. I believe there is also many other things that factor in to your being able to achieve success in the buisness. Such as your location. If you live in a very low population area and you dont know that many people getting your MLM buisness going is like pulling teeth. But if you live in say a big city there are so many people that finding people who want to build a MLM buisness is not that difficult. I remeber the marketing class i took in college and all the things i learned about what multi million/billion dollar companies do when marketing there product or service. What gets me is how those in my MLM think that no matter where you are or who you are is that there system is a one size fits all. Most company's i recall from my class will tailor there efforts to fit the needs of those in a specific area. But lets not listen to that, i mean these companies only spend millions of dollars on reaserch every year to figure that out!

To Quit or Not to Quit!

2004-05-11T13:32:00.000-04:00

To reply to a comment made on my last post, Yes i do want out of this MLM but the things holding me back is all the good friends i have made from it. Ive noticed those that quit the buisness tend to be shuned when they do. Also I cant help but wonder whether or not im wrong about all the things ive learned about the company. That maybe im just looking for an easy way out of having to actually do something thats different to me. I guess i just dont want to make the wrong choice. But I cant turn my head away from all the facts and information that i have learned about the company and all the deception i see on a daily basis. Truthfully i just dont want to pass up an opportunity like this. But I also dont like being lied to either.

Buisness and Life!

2004-05-10T19:45:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been really questioning what life is really all about. What are we really supposed to do with the life we were given. According to the MLM company I was involved with, the business is the best thing we could do with it. I’ve heard this many of times, at all the seminars and the tapes that I listened to. The business seems to be god approved. I have a hard time buying into this. I have to say some of my biggest complaints about the business were all the secrecy and half truths that were told to me and everybody else in it. I was always told to fight to get into the smaller meetings in order to get the good information. The information I’m going to need to take my business to the next level. Now I have never actually qualified for one of them but I’ve been told what is said at them and they eventually put some of these talks on tape a few weeks later. I remember one such time I was told by my up line that they said in the talk that there were some groups of people that were telling lies about us. Apparently there was more than that said about it but that is all my up line would tell me because they were told not to discuss this with anybody. Now this makes me wonder why something like that would be restricted information. I think I have an idea why it would be because if they let everybody know many people in the business would look into it and they might actually believe what was being said. I believe I know what prompted this speech and I actually figured that I would hear something about it in the business at some point. It amazes me how badly they want to restrict the flow of information to us. I remember actually being told at a meeting one night that we should not read newspapers, watch the news or TV in general, don’t use the internet for anything other than to go to our business web page. The only place we should get our information from is them.

Continuation of my story

2004-04-29T22:57:00.000-04:00

I went with my best friend to a meeting and would say after being many of them that meeting is not a good name for it. It is more like a recruitment presentation and a general bashing of yours and everybody else’s life. Apparently were all just a bunch of idiots. At this meeting the speaker went into some of the same things I was shown at the restaurant by my soon to be up line. The speaker then went more in depth about distribution models and the internet and how it was going to make everybody a millionaire. He also began talking about dreams, dreams of owning a big boat, driving a fast car and going on vacations in the tropics. All this got me very excited; I started seeing in my mind of me living like a rock star. Having anything I desired and having like tons of beautiful women hanging all around. Not until later did I realize how materialistic and not quite right this was and how much greed this brought out in me. But it got my juices pumped and I was ready to sign up right then and there but didn’t until several weeks later due to lack of funds. I was quite poor at the time. I remembered thinking that everybody would want to do this. Man was I wrong! I had never experienced such a whiplash in the way people treated me before.

Welcome, To my first attempt at a Blog!

2004-04-27T00:57:00.000-04:00

I would like to start off with saying a little bit about myself. Im a 22 year old male living in Petoskey, Michigan and work for a grocery store as a cashier. I began working there when I was fifteen as a bag boy then moved right on up from there. Outside of work I have wonderful and beautiful girlfriend who is going to college to become a teacher. My interests are Computers, video games, Star Wars, and Star Trek (Yes Im a geek) and Nascar.

The reason I began this blog(Web journal) was to talk about MLM (Multilevel Marketing) and describe my experiences in a company called Quixtar in which I feel has been causing more hurt then good.

Back in the spring of 2003 I was approached by a friend whom I hadn't seen in a while to join a new business he was starting out in. He came wearing a black/dark blue suit which I was surprised to see him in because I had never seen him in a suit before and he was the last person I had ever expected to see in a suit. He told me he wanted to discuss an opportunity that could change my life forever. Being that he was a good friend I said sure why not and because I wanted to know what in the world could have possible got him into a suit short of judgment day. So later on that day we met at a restaurant where he had another person was with him. We ordered some food and my friends associate proceeded to turn over a napkin and started asking me what I wanted out of life. What kind of house and car etc. Most were very materialistic items. Which I am sure is supposed to appeal to my greed. But unfortunately at the time these things did appeal to me. He then proceeded to show me some figures about how people make money and how the government says how long the average person works and when they retire with how much money. It was a very bleak outlook on life. He then told me that they had a business that could change all that and allow me to realize all my dreams. He then asked me to attend a meeting that they hold every week with my friend if I was at all interested. Well after that presentation I was indeed interested; I wanted to do anything to avoid my supposed bleak future.