The MLM Story of 2 Rocket Scientists
By · CommentsThe frustration in the MLM/Network Marketing industry has been mounting and you are probably in the thick of it.
No, we are NOT talking about the awkward home meetings, the fights with negative friends and family, or even exposing yourself to ridicule from your so called “loved ones”. But that definitely sucks too.
What I’m talking about is a little beyond that…
You see, before the internet, network marketers operated in our little worlds, isolated from the existence of “other multi-level deals” – the competition, the BS company wars and distractions now plaguing the industry.
We ignorantly followed our upline leaders, doing whatever they told us – they were the ones who “made it”. Who were we to argue?
Even then, few of us made it doing it the “traditional” way, while most of us drowned in debt and watched our life savings get sucked up by our new business venture. We were told that our dream wasn’t big enough and to go prospect more people.
Then the internet phenomenon happened and new companies emerged, while old ones redefined themselves (even changing their names), in hopes of shedding their tainted past and taking this industry into the modern era…
What a Stinkin’ Pile of *#(@!
It was the same old BS with a new look and spin.
Instead of using the internet to find prospects to expose our business to, we were told to download the phone numbers from our cell phone onto our computers. That was our list of “hot prospects”.
And when we exhausted that list, we could either buy crappy leads or camp out at Starbucks or Malls to replenish our list.
Instead of having online videos and presentations, we were told to use email, MySpace and cryptic text messages to lure people into a hotel meetings or home meetings so they can see the plan – never mind that they had no idea what they were walking into.
The only difference was that the circles on the notepad, were replaced by the circles on your laptop and flashy powerpoint presentation, which caused your computer to crash.
Instead of teaching our newly sponsored team members how to market and grow a real business online, we perpetuated the same crap that had been taught in this industry for the past 50 years.
The fact of the matter is that the rich dinosaurs we cheered at functions and conventions, were scared like never before – they had no idea how to use the internet and their downlines were shrinking rapidly, as their organization was being depleted by the hyped-up launches of a new “miracle juice” competitors every month.
Even though they called your opportunity an “internet business”, they were threatened by the “Wild Wild Web” and forbade you from marketing and promoting it on the internet.
They cloaked their ancient ways by saying it was a “High Tech, High Touch” approach.
From Extraordinary Beginnings to…
What we’ve described above is our story as Average Frustrated Networkers. But before we were networkers, we were considered by many to be among the world’s elite – poster children for the American Dream.
Our names are Raymond Fong and Ferny Ceballos. Only 4 years ago, we were Aerospace Engineers, highly educated, working on projects we are forbidden to speak about until the day we die. (Sounds cool, but not really.)
Ferny was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the world’s Mecca of science & technology, in the field of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, had a graduate degree from USC and was working as an engineer on high classified government programs. Considering that Ferny is a 2nd generation Mexican-American, born right in East Los Angeles and son of poor Mexican immigrants… well, you can’t write a better story.
Unless of course, you meet his business partner: Raymond Fong. Ray was born in Taiwan and was dirt poor as a child and moved to the United States when he was only 9 years old. His dream of becoming successful as an engineer, earning a cushy salary and retire his hardworking parents had just about become a reality – well almost.
Like Ferny, Ray had also graduated from a prestigious technical institute, Harvey Mudd College and had also earned a graduate degree from USC. He too worked on high classified programs for the government, but we both fell well short of being able to retire our parents.
With the cost of living in Los Angeles and the 40+% income taxes as a young single guy, we barely had enough to send a couple hundred bucks to our parents and pay the bills.
We felt so deceived by the promise of the American Dream. We worked hard, got good grades, went to a good school, and got a safe secure job to justify the sacrifice of our parents. We followed that formula to the extreme and we were miserable.
Whether you are living on a $20,000 per year job or a $80,000 per year job, the ‘rat race’ is still the ‘rat race’ – the only difference is the size of the cheese.
There had to be more to life than herding ourselves like cattle down the freeway for 3 hours every day, and spending another 8+ hours stuck in the Dilbert-Cube, feeding the governments hunger for the meaningless paper work, while working on bloated billion dollar defense programs (few of which are ever finished… Maybe cause of the flippin’ paper work!) Our over-educated brains were rotting and we needed a way out.
… Becoming Average Frustrated Networkers
We got started in this industry like many others – at a time when we were desperate, lost and frustrated with the routine of our daily lives and with the promise of the dream lifestyle, being lived by our new upline diamonds.
Here we are, 2 highly educated engineers with $80,000+ salaries, inviting our friends and family to meetings at our homes to sample energy drinks, cleaning products, vitamins and protein bars – while we transform their lives with the “greatest internet business opportunity in the world”… ::barf!::
The truth is, we hated every minute of it, but we were willing to get over our over-educated egos and do what we had to do to ‘live the dream’.
Well, needless to say, the home meetings, hotel meetings and hype-laced functions got old fast and we went searching for answers.
“How Do I Get My Opportunity Exposed to Millions on the Internet?”
We were tired of pretending to run an internet business (remember ‘High Tech, High Touch’) and started seeking real answers to our questions.
“How do a I generate my own free leads with the internet, without going broke in the process?”
And with those words began our journey into internet marketing & SEO…
Stay tuned for the rest of the story, including:
- How we blew $1000 in Google Adwords
- What finally allowed us to quit our jobs
- How we went from MLM failures to being the lead instructors for the only LIVE event Mike Dillard & Magnetic Sponsoring has ever hosted.
- And our story as SEO consults for RichDad.com and Robert Kiyosaki
25 comments Click to reply »
Great story. Been there myself.
Casey
Well done you Guys. Please your expertise on Leads Generation
Well done Guys. Can you please educate on generating good quality traffic on the internet?
Congratulations Raymond and Ferny
kindly educate on generating good quality leads for Internet busines.
How do I get the traffic i need to build my biz ?
What do you know? It’s a cliffhanger. We need to tune into part 2, to see how they did it. Forunately, I liked part 1, so I stop back for part 2.
Bravo!
It’s gratifying to know that real people understand that the “old ways” of belly-to-belly marketing are so dated and yield such painfully slow growth.
It’s actually FUN marketing via the internet, using tips from the likes of Mike Dillard and learning actual methods that can protect them FROM corporate challenges while getting their message out to the curiosity seekers… and having those people come to ME for answers!
I look forward to reading “the rest of your story!”
David
Don’t worry guys. The rest of the story and how we did it is coming…
It got late last night and was falling asleep in front of my computer so I opted for a cliff hanger type thing.
Sorry.
Great story so far guys. I have been following you guys for a while. My favorite message in the autoresponder series so far has been the one about Ray going to China and buying the pearls. Perfect sales examples there.
I’m just getting started in IM, but I’m 23, living in Dallas, and I have a real drive. So far this year I’ve traveled across the US numerous times and Met Yanik Silver, Mike Filsaime, and others. In Austin, I briefly ran into Mike DIllard and saw his brand spankin’ new Audi R8 sitting outside one of my favorite spots.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that I’ve seen your frustration and been there, and I am working on bringing myself into a higher playing field. I look forward to the rest of the story!
P.S. You guys have a message inviting people to join you at MD’s event in May of 2008… you might want to remove it. I think it’s the only non-evergreen message in your autoresponder.
P.S.S Hurry up with the next part!!
Well, guys, you have described my own experience in MLM. I don´t doubt Amway must have been profitable, perhaps 50 years ago when founded. Yet a few years ago we were told that the business was being done “through the Internet”, and since we knew zilch about it, at least I left Amway, having spent too much money, drained too much of my energy and left dangling, frustrated, angry and awed at the amount of time spent. Yes, I am now in another MLM company, hoping the story will not repeat itself, yet I am starting to sense the same disturbing and ugly sensation. OMG, not again, not at my age, not at this point in time when I really MUST find another business for myself and for the rest of the lives of my loved ones, and hopefully others I can truly help build a profitable organization. I am freelance, and you know what that means, UNCERTAINTY at best. Thank you very much for your testimony, I will continue following your growth and learning from you.
Best regards,
Raúl from Chile.
Hey, guys this is the juiciest story I have read in a long time. I suppose there are thousands upon thousands that can relate to it. It so perfectly describes the MLM scenario. I am looking forward to here the rest of it. Wow …
Can’t wait to hear the rest of the story. I may need your lessons learned too. Aloha
Been there done that..the 1st part. Writing the 2nd part with much better results now. Great story!!
Excellent content for the stuck-in-the-rut MLM marketer. I love what you share. Very informative. I can’t wait to hear what you guys are going to talk about next.
Hi guys, I too have been there, done that and am highly anticipating the rest of the story. Amway got me started on thinking of the many possibilities available as dreams that are achievable. However for most of us thru Amway they are mere unachievable fantisies. Amway is one of the worst possible ways for a person of low self esterem to feel better about themselves.
One other truth, much more money is made outside of the sales of the products than with the products themselves. This is not Amways fault, but the fault of some of the large distributor networks who actually control what the Amway corporation does. These networks have become so large and powerful, that the tail literally does wag the dog.
Rob J.
I think you guys are awesome! I know exactly how it feels in regards to your experience with MLM. That’s why I made the same decision you guys have recently made and I’m looking to learn from the best, you guys! Looking forward to seeing you guys in Vegas!
Wow, what a great story guys. Very inspirational and I can certainly relate to what you went through. I’m currently transitioning from the old methods to the new and I’m loving it! Is there a schedule of your events/training?
Hi Guys, and thanks for being so honest with your story. Surprising how so many people have the same experience with the “old” methods of mlm – except you’d never know because people didn’t want to talk about it. So thank you again. Do you have a training materials course for purchase?
Great story. I want to hear the rest. I have been in that boat except when I did start to really make money in my company I myself let it go. Now years later trying to figure out the internet and how I can make money without losing any more money. Would love to hear what you have to say and how you did what you did.
Enjoyed your story, finally someone is telling it like it is, I too have been where you are , and I knew that there was a better way to get more leads than the traditional way that we were being told by our uplines, No one took the time that you guys have and shared it with the untrained people like us, I belive that this knowledge have been in our midst for along time but no one was bold enough to share it . So now you guys get the GLORY and the others must feel stupid now that your program is getting such a huge following. Thanks Guys, keep it coming. Henry Cooper Sr
Looking forward to hearing the rest of this “Juicy” story. Thanks for bringing the goods to the table.
I love your stories. They are inspiring and give me hope, that I to can accomplish my dreams and goals. Your training on SEO was great and I look forward to learning much more from you guys. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insights!
I literally JUST got the notice from Amway to “stop marketing online to promote their biz opp”.. it was about my ‘amwayreview’ youtube channel.
I haven’t promoted the business for the last 3 years really, but kept my IBO # to buy the dog food, xs energy drinks, and other products we regularly buy..
I replied to the email saying “change my status from IBO to client”.. I deleted the part of the email that told them to go (blank) themselves. I didn’t have the heart to send that part.. haha
All the best,
Adam Holland
PS – thanks to SEO Networker I’ve made more this month online than I did 4 years in Amway.. haha you guys rock.
Great story guys…like a new reality show!
Looking forward to next week’s episode
The principles of Network Marketing remain the same, as evidenced by your story — that’s what gets people to relate to you — no matter what the venue, online or offline.
I signed up for your newsletter and am looking forward to learning from you guys. Congratulations on all your success!