I have a confession. I completely abandoned what Investools was teaching me from the very start. At the very first workshop I went to, Andrew Scott talked about financial security. He said that the more legs we have on our financial table, the more “secure” that table would be... A leg could break, fall off and it wouldn’t matter because with many legs, the table could still stand. There would be our career legs (our jobs that provided income), our trading legs, our real estate investment legs, our savings legs. There are many places that we can derive income, and each of them provide us with a sense of security because it is our “plan b” or “c”. But I’d abandoned that concept. I became completely focused on my trading. When my husband was laid off, we had our unemployment, and our savings. I was doing some workshops for IT so that was a little extra coming in too. But our legs were weakening until finally, we only had one leg to stand on. Our trading. This year, we spent a lot of time traveling, so that cut into our trading time and as a result, we depleted much of our savings. In July, I saw the writing on the wall. Our lives were dependent on us trading. If we didn’t trade, we didn’t have an income. It was time to start looking at other forms of income... I’d heard about passive income and knew that rental properties were a great way to get that, but having taken some losses over the years, and depleted our savings this year, we didn’t have the capital to invest in real estate. During our class on Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, I shared with the group that one of my affirmations was that I was open to money flowing to me in expected and unexpected ways. However, I realized that I was very focused on it flowing to me in one way; from my trading. What other ways were there?
Wouldn’t you know? As soon as I asked the question, I got an answer. And it came from Investools - a most unlikely source! I got calls from two former workshop directors inviting me to hear about new opportunities that they were getting involved with. Long story short, it was network marketing. Now this seriously was testing my “openness”... I’ve been to plenty of “parties” had been given the “pitch” by the best of them, but I didn’t like the idea of “hawking” products to my friends. Then I heard Donald Trump had purchased a network marketing company. This was a game changer. The single most successful self-promoter and internationally known businessman was putting his name on a network marketing company... I could see that books would be written about this. This could be the start of the next “revolution.” We had the Industrial Revolution led by Carnegie, JP Morgan, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. The Retail Revolution was born through the vision of men like Sam Walton which brought us “big box” stores and led to the consolidation of all the independent department store chains. Then came the technology revolution pioneered by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell. Their vision was to see computers in every home. The Internet revolution greeted us with Google and Yahoo. These visionaries became multi-b/millionaires. They made their products commonplace when no one thought it could be done. And it’s taken less and less time for these “revolutions” to occur, hasn’t it? It took a several decades to convince the country that everyone should have a car, maybe only a couple of decades to popularize computers, so much so that now 3 year olds are proficient! And who doesn’t Google these days?
Recently I’ve heard a lot about how much people are angered by the bonuses that CEOs are receiving. The news media is spending a lot of time talking about it, and I think the more they do that, the more people are getting pissed off! But I’ve witnessed another shift as well. There is a lot of interest again in farmer’s markets, and “shopping locally.” CSAs and CSFs are popping up all over the place. These are Community Supported (Agriculture and Fisheries)... People buy “shares” of a harvest or “catch”, and pick up their veggies and fish weekly for a period of time, 8 - 12 weeks or so. People are moving back to their neighborhoods and communities to shop. 15 years ago I was the President of the Board of Directors for a local food coop, a health food store that was the only source of organic products and fresh produce. Now, I can walk into any grocery store and find the same products. A demand grew over time. Our farmers market had 2 farms represented 2 years ago, now there’s a waiting list for people to participate. It made me think about how I’m spending my dollars, and whether I wanted to support my local farmer or the corporation that owned the grocery chain. The produce might be slightly more expensive, but the money is going back into my community, to my neighbors. Well, this is where I think the future of network marketing comes into play.
Everyone knows someone who sells Mary Kay or Avon or Pampered Chef products, right? We’ve been to parties, we’ve purchased the products, and in almost every case, become loyal customers. The companies that survive the longest have high quality, often long warranted products. We are supporting our neighbors, and keeping our dollars circulating in our communities. It’s taken years for these companies to become name brands, but they have. And the system through which they are sold (face to face or “party marketing”) may just be the future of consumerism. With the founders of Tupperware, Mary Kay and Pampered Chef (now owned by Warren Buffett) as the visionaries and Donald Trump at the forefront of establishing this as a new distribution system and making network marketing an acceptable means to distribute products, he’s empowering people suffering through this recession with job layoffs and home foreclosures, to take on their futures and become self employed via network marketing... We could very well be on the cusp of something “huge.”
Donald Trump was a paid spokesperson for several companies. Over the past few years, he’d been looking at several network marketing models (and companies) and then finally found one that he thought had potential to be a billion dollar company. The key for him was that it sold consumable products that people would order over and over again resulting in residual income for its marketers. His goal is to have the largest network marketing distribution system in the country. If anyone can do it, he certainly can. Imagine if you will, a few years from now... every home in America will have at least one or two products that they bought from a friend or neighbor through network marketing. They might even be a distributor themselves. Neighbors will be buying goods from each other and circulating their dollars in their own towns, building the economy back up one neighborhood at a time. We will be creating a “distribution revolution.” I was only looking for another income source. I was open to “anything,” but resistant to network marketing until I saw the possibilities. Of course my trading is affected by this revelation and new excitement for this venture. I have something I can do (build my Trump Network business) and still leave me plenty of time to trade. I know that when I’m not trading, I am still providing income for my family. I have a friend, a trader, who did Melaleuka for 8 years, and hasn’t touched it for 6 years. She still receives a commission check every month from folks who continue to purchase the products. Now, that’s what I call residual income.
Don’t make the same mistake I did. Look out for other opportunities... maybe it’s tax liens, maybe it’s real estate... it could still be a job. Build your table with lots of legs. While I’m grateful for this lesson and for my new view of the economy and the power of my dollars, I will not allow myself to become too focused on one thing again. I love trading, don’t ever expect to stop, but I want the financial security of a many tabled leg. Don’t you? It all started with Investools, didn’t it?
And as it happens, it was Dave McCoy, the founder of Investools that introduced us to the opportunity. Go figure...
