In the first of our Future of Business Series - Multilevel Marketing Today, an alternative to jobs, or false hope?

Listen Now to Future of Business, MLMs?

Besides the heralding of Mayan Prophecies, 2012 has brought several new network marketing companies into our local social sphere of influence, here in Santa Cruz.. Curious as to whether such business ventures are a viable alternative to jobs in our current economic climate, we decided to do a show on the topic..

As defined by Wikipedia, 

Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation. 

MLM’s have been around since 1945, the first being the California Vitamin Company (shortly afterwards to become Nutrilite).  The plan allowed Nutrilite distributors with at least 25 regular customers to recruit new distributors and draw a 3 percent commission from their sales. Unlike traditional direct selling, this was an ongoing payment whenever the customer re-ordered, allowing direct sellers to build a sales organization that could generate a residual-like income.

But are MLM’s a good approach for the future of marketing and distribution of goods and services today?  Does our internet savvy world still need a system originally designed in a time when America was a series of relatively small, isolated towns and rural areas not easily accessible to small companies,  and MLM was a useful way to let people know of and buy products or services?  And just what is the difference between an MLM an a classic pyramid scheme?

To answer these questions and others, we have invited several local entrepreneurs to the station, to see what convinced them to buy into their MLMs, and what kind of results they are achieving.

Our panel features local entrepreneurs Halle Blessing, who has been working with American Communications Network, a Donald Trump endorsed MLM selling telecommunications services, Michael Moore, with Ampegy, an alt energy-oriented MLM, and Michael Zwerling, station owner of KSCO and supporter of Youngevity, a health and supplement-oriented MLM.  

The Future of Business - with Guest Ayman Sawaf, co-author of Sacred Commerce

Listen Now to Ayman Sawaf on Sacred Commerce

Sacred Commerce, The Rise of the Global Citizen Sacred Commerce is a groundbreaking book which explores the past and the future of commerce. It tells of the Merchant Priests of ancient Egypt who practiced it and the skill of emotional alchemy they mastered in their pursuit of beauty goodness and truth. This book completes Ayman’s work on the map of Emotional Intelligence and its four cornerstone models as explored in his international best seller “Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations”, co-authored with Dr. Robert Cooper. The central principle and ‘engine’ of culture is no longer religion, nor politics as was the case in the past. Like it or not, commerce has become the primary force propelling our species and human society forward. We are witnessing a commerce-centric (r)evolution, a whole new form of ‘conscious capitalism’, wherein business transactions the world over will become the main conduit of social and cultural evolution. Sacred Commerce reverses the common assumption that business and spirituality are mutually opposed, and instead looks at business as a path of destiny. The notion of capitalism infused with the sacred expands the notion of profit with the concept and the reality of the fourth bottom line: spirituality. Commerce, that intrinsic and basic function of exchanging goods and services, can ‘within this context’ raise human culture to a level of sacredness that otherwise might not be attained while placing those who practice it on a trajectory of accelerated growth. Sacred Commerce advances the idea that commerce can be a vehicle to raise consciousness as well as a path towards Self-realization: a spiritual current. Imagine a global economy that empowers local economies around the world—from the largest to the smallest—to prosper and flourish with dignity and equality. A global marketplace where the spirit of partnership and responsibility transforms emotions of anger, fear and jealousy into passion, compassion and empathy. Where the natural flow of information, ideas and resources between different segments of society and across cultures transcends the unconscious exchange of baseless commodities—uniting and exalting, rather than dividing, people around the world.