SPECIAL REPORT from Upline

Why Is Network Marketing The Wave Of The Future?

Success Magazine, December 1995, page 30

We Create Millionaires - How Network Marketing's Entrepreneurial Elite Are Building Fortunes at Breakneck Speed.

"There is a new class of entrepreneur breaking into what used to be considered a working class industry. White-collar pioneers are bringing established professional and social networks, new technologies, and new credibility to network marketing. These people who already have career options and adequate incomes. The attraction here is the promise of becoming both financially independent and achieving control over their lives."

Working at Home Magazine (from the Editors of Success Magazine) winter 1995-1996, page 9 Editor's Note.

"Speaking of most Americans, we think we're on to something big with this working-at-home trend. No longer do home based workers have to be artists, or inventors, or misfits. We can feel the paradigm shifts taking place around us as once- docile corpatchiks buy up personal computers and cast off their Industrial Age straitjackets. To paraphrase, nothing is more than an old idea whose time has returned. And working at home is a very old lifestyle indeed, rudely interrupted by progress, which now making it possible once again. What's more, the livelihoods you can pursue from home today, including network Marketing, which we highlight in this issue, seem a lot more desirable than the drudgery of days past ."

· The Ultimate Achievement: Doing what you want, where you want

· Chase Your Passion Not your Pension

· People with home based businesses are 'the CEO's of their own business and lives. You're autonomous.

Newsweek, January 2, 1996, page 123

Woman And Work Will It Be Real Life-Or Corporate Life

"Women Executives are Fed Up, Fortune declared in a recent cover story. An astounding 87% of the women they polled with Yankelovich Partners said they had or were considering making a significant change in their lives."

Working Women - Get A Life, December 1995, page 6 From the Editor.

"It seems that almost every conversation I have in these days revolves around carving out more time or money or both to live the life we want." Women have had it with "the rat-race mentality; we want to reorder our priorities."

Newsweek, March 6, 1995, page 58 Breaking Point.

Fatigue is now among the top five reasons people call the doctor. People are frayed by the inescapable pressure of technology, frazzled by the lack of time for themselves, their families. They feel caged by their jobs, even as they put in more overtime. "People are stretched financially, stretched in terms of time and stretched emotionally, "says Leah Potts Fisher, co-director of the Center for Work and Family in Berkeley, California.

UPLINE's Special Report

Reprinted from June 1992

The Concept of "The People's Franchise"

The Next Step in the Evolution of Free Enterprise

By the Editors of Upline

It's probably bad form to begin with a quiz - but just for fun, let's do it anyway. Don’t worry, it's really easy, and it's multiple choice too.

Read the following statement, then choose the correct answer from the list below:

"In most Americans' minds its scam and a scheme - questionable or unethical at best, immoral and illegal at worst. Many own-your-own entrepreneurial hopefuls have been hyped into turning over their life savings only to see the company go out of business, taking their dreams down with them.

"Politicians, regulators and the media (especially the media) cry 'foul' whenever its name comes up. Newspapers, magazines, and television news and talks shows regularly expose it for the 'flimflam rip off it really is.' Major corporations who get involved go out of their way to avoid any appearance of doing so. There is even a move in the congress to outlaw it altogether!"

Now, guess: which is the right answer?

a. Some TV ministries

b. The Savings & Loan scandal

c. Multi-Level/Network Marketing

d. None of the above

Did you pick a, b, or c? Well, there's some truth to all those choices - but none of them is the right answer.

The truth is, it’s a trick question. The right answer, "d. None of the above", WAS correct - 25 years ago! Back then, that's exactly what people were saying about a revolutionary new business concept called franchising.

In the late 1960s before Ray Kroc and McDonalds, before Dunkin' Donuts, Century 21, ServiceMaster, the Gap, Mrs. Field's Cookies, and all the other successful franchise companies established franchising as a legitimate industry - all of those negative things were being said and done about franchising.

And today…?

Today the franchising industry is responsible for mare than one third of all goods and services we buy and sell in the United States - US$775.8 Billion worth! Not bad for what just a few years ago was labeled "a scam and a scheme".

The Franchise Concept

Franchising truly was a revolutionary business concept. It is still.

Look at the alternative. 80% of all small business fail in their first year. 80% of those that make it don't survive to see year five - and those that do, even fewer will last another five. Think about it: how many businesses do you know that has been around 10 years or more?

Not very many.

Franchising is a way for the small business person to boost the odds of success. A franchise takes the guesswork out of building a business from scratch. The franchise company creates a "turn key opportunity" - a ready made small business, complete with products or services, training, vendors, policies and procedures. Virtually anyone with the desire and start-up capital can climb into this vehicle, turn the key, and drive off into the sunset of entrepreneurial success.

It's truly brilliant!

You don't need to know all there is to know about creating a franchise to own one. The Franchise Company has done all that work

for you. You simply pay your franchise fee, build or rent your location and furnish it with the equipment the company has already designed and successfully tested for you, hire your people, and then pay the company a % of your profits.

Question: How well do franchisees do?

About one third of all franchises fail. Another one third break even, and one third make a profit. That's much better average then the 80/20 failure/success rate of conventional small businesses.

Question: How much does it cost to own a franchise today?

That's the rub. The average fee is $85,000. You can get a Taco Bell franchise for $35,000 in fees. Century 21 is close to $20,000. The big guys, like McDonalds, run over $600,000.

And that's only the fee. You've still got to pay for the building, equipment, initial inventory, etc. - all of which can run as high as $1 million or more.

It's tough to start a franchise today. It's not like it was back when the industry was young and unknown. As in real estate, the stock market or most other opportunities, those who get in early make the real money. Higher risk, higher reward. Once it's a sure thing, it seems everybody's doing it.

Today franchises are proven profit centers. That's one reason why they're so expensive. You pay for having less risk than a conventional business start-up - and for being Johnny come lately, as well.

But there is a way to have the low to no risk benefits of a proven, duplicable business system like franchising, and still enjoy the rich rewards of a ground floor opportunity.

The Next Step in the Evolution of Free Enterprise

Frankly, most Americans don't have the extra $25,000, $100,000, $1 million or more that it takes to own their own franchise business. But almost every one of us can afford to have the next best thing. And that's exactly what we're telling you about here: the NEXT…BEST…THING…

…and that's Network Marketing.

Network Marketing has taken the concept of franchising - providing independent entrepreneurs with a ready made, low risk, turn key business opportunity, and made some remarkable improvements on it.

· Low Capital Investment - Little or No Risk

How much capital investment do you need to become an independent Network Marketer? There is no fee required to start your networking business. You'll typically commit up to a few hundred dollars for your sales kit, training and sales materials, and initial product inventory.

· No Employees - You Are In Control

As a Network Marketer, you are an independent distributor - the CEO of your own personal businesses. You have no "employees". The men and women with whom you'll work are also CEOs, running their own independent Networking businesses. In Network Marketing, you don’t simply "own your own job", you own your own business. You are in control of your work and your life.

· More Choices - Part-time, Full time, Travel, National and International

Every Network Marketer is a volunteer: you don't "have to" do anything. You're free to work the days and hours you want, where you want, doing what you want - and perhaps the most important of all, you're free to choose the people with whom you work.

Although the majority of Distributors work their business part time, more and more men and women are pursuing Network Marketing as a full time career. Some Network Marketers work exclusively from their home: others enjoy travelling to other cities and even to other countries, building their businesses on a global scale.

· Complete Professional Support

In Network Marketing, you're in business for yourself - but not by yourself. Your Network Marketing corporation's success depends on your success - so they give you all the support possible, every step of the way.

As a good franchise company would do, a good Network Marketing company provides you with the product or service to sell, plus a R & D department and new product development, field training, sales and marketing literature, a distributor service department, and more. You and your company are truly partners in a win-win opportunity.

That's incredible? It is - but there's more. There's another very special reason Network Marketing is the next step beyond franchising. Which is why it's sometimes called…

· Franchising 2

When you buy a franchise, you acquire the right to market the product or service provided by your company. It's much the same in Network Marketing, except that you don't have to pay a franchise fee nor the same huge startup and overhead costs, have retail location and/or elaborate equipment and hire and manage employees. You also don’t have to pay a percentage of your profits back to the Network Marketing Company as you do in franchising. What's more, you are an independent contractor - you work for you -not for the "company".

And as if all of what were not remarkable enough, a Network Marketing company does one more truly revolutionary thing for you. It gives you the ability to offer the business opportunity to build a successful business to others too!

In Network Marketing, you not only get to earn income from marketing your company's products or services (like a franchisee), you also earn income from sales generated by people whom you enroll into your Network organization - people who, just like you, own their own independent Network Marketing businesses.

"That's why we call it Franchising".

And that's what create one of Network Marketing's most powerful and attractive features: it allows you to leverage your time, talent, and energy to earn commissions from the sales made by all the people you bring into the business.

Andrew Carnegie once said, "I would rather have 1% of 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own."

And that's just what Network Marketing enables you to do.

This explains why so many "ordinary" people can achieve extraordinary success in Network Marketing business.

Conventional sales and distribution methods depend on a few, select high-performance sales superstars, who each sell a huge amount of product volume. Network Marketing is the opposite: it's based on a lot of people -doing a little bit each.

"The People's Franchise"

Network Marketing powerfully combines all income-building benefits of being both a "franchisee" and a "franchise company" at the same time - while cutting out major stumbling blocks of both.

· There's no costly "franchise fee" because you're an independent Network Marketing Distributor.

· You don't pay royalties from your profits back to the company.

· There's no hiring, firing or managing employees.

· There is none of the all-consuming demands of a seven-day workweek and 14-hour a day retail operation.

· There's the marketplace advantage of offering superior quality, one of a kind specialty products and unique services that meet high consumer demand with exceptional value through person to person marketing.

· There's the independence of choice: choosing with whom you work, when, where and how you work.

· There's the flexibility of part-time involvement, as your unique situation allows.

· There's the ability to leverage your time and energy to earn income from the efforts of others.

· There's the limited risk of a startup that requires only a few hundred dollars.

· There's the proven potential reward of both earned income and residue income - which can range from an extra $500 or $1,000 per month up to $10,000, $20,000 and more.

· And there is still the opportunity to be one of the first to enter an industry - an industry that has just begun its dramatic growth curve..an industry that is

creating a revolution in the way the world buys and sells everything!

There has never been a better time than now to take a serious look at Network Marketing. "The People's Franchise" is an extraordinary concept whose time has come today!

Now is the time of best investment for greatest returns in Network Marketing. It's like having the chance to buy gold again at $50 an ounce!

Make the time today to check out the benefits of building your own Network Marketing business. It's a straightforward and simple, low-risk investment - and it promises to return the most remarkable rewards you can imagine.

"The People's Franchise" -

Then and Now

Network Marketing is travelling up the same road as franchising has, with a similar sequence of phases in its development: growing from a revolutionary and poorly accepted experiment to become a legitimate industry, and finally a significant economic force.

Franchising: Then and Now

            Franchising has actually been around for over a 100 years. Franchising first began back in 1863 with the Singer Sewing machine Company, which opened its own franchised retail stores throughout the United States. Other early examples of franchising includes: Coca Cola, which began offering independent bottling distributorships in 1899; and limited franchise automobile dealerships and service, which first appeared around 1910. Today there are approximately 5000 companies offering franchise opportunities throughout the world.

            The franchise concept really began to take hold in the U.S. only in the 1950s. At that time, it was not well known, much misunderstood and often abused. In the 1960s, a law making franchising illegal fell just 11 votes short of passing in the U.S. House of Representatives.

            There followed a period of both state and federal business opportunity regulation which "cleaned up" the industry, paving the way for the many different elements of franchising to come together to form an industry.

            Franchising then exploded in the 1960s and 70s. In 1992, the industry was responsible for more than 34% of all goods and services exchanged in the U.S and NOW account for more than $750 Billion in annual retail sales.

Network Marketing: Then and Now

Network Marketing started in the early 1940s when California Vitamin Co. applied a multi-level compensation plan to its direct sales structure, encouraging distributors to recruit, train and manage their own marketing organizations and earn commissions on their groups sales volume productivity.

                Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s only a limited number of companies operated with a Network Marketing structure., including one called Amway Corporation, founded in 1950. It was Amway's successful lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission, lasting from 1975 to 1979, that established the industry's legitimacy.

            From roughly 30 U.S. companies operating in the 1970's, Network Marketing in the 90's has grown to include more than 1,200 companies operating internationally in North America, South America, Mexico, Europe (including former Eastern Bloc countries), Australia, New Zealand and the Far East.

            At present, Network Marketing and direct sales companies employing Networking Methods account for approximately US$100 Billion in annual sales world wide. The companies involved in marketing goods and services via Network Marketing include: Gillette, Colgate -Palmolive, US Sprint, MCI, At & T, Fuller Brush, Firestone, Gerber, Rexall, Avon, Primerica, IBM, GM, Toyota and others. There are about 5 million independent Network Marketing distributors in the United States.

WOMEN CAN MAKE GREAT MONEY

IN A HOME BUSINESS

The conflict between a career and taking care of a family has motivated women to begin home based businesses, which can lead to a $50,000 or more a year income for most.

According to the Wall Street Journal, women are the "New American Heroes". Out of the 7.7 million women owned businesses in the U.S. 1.6 million have been started out of the home.

For a woman, a home based business breaks through the "glass ceiling". It removes the limits on income experience by women on the corporate world, who still earn only 77% for every dollar a man does.

At age 40, Marion Hills was a secretary in a dead-end job. She started a home business from her kitchen table, and now earns over $8,000 a MONTH!, sharing the extra ordinary impact and the vision of the products and the opportunities which her business represents.

The model used since the 50's working for someone else, for a wage, away from home simply does not meet the needs and desires of today's woman. There is no reason anymore to earn a limited income, in a limited job.

3C'S TAKE THEM HOME

People are working from home for a quality of life which is not available in the corporate world, states Marilyn Ross, co-author of the book Country bound! Trade your Business Suit Blues for Blue Jean Dreams. Co-author with her husband, Tom, Ross states that the "3C's" of working in a city include crime, congestion, and corporate stagnation, which cause so many people to go home to work. Once in a home based business, Ross claimed that 3 out of 4 of these self-employed would never go back to work for someone else.

Another author predicted 15 years ago people would start working out of their homes. Alvin Toffler, author of The Third Wave, wrote "The most striking change in the Third Wave civilization will probably be the shift to work from office and factory to home".

Those making the switch are very successful. In her Entrepreneur magazine article entitled "The Quiet Revolution", Janean Huber states, "A new breed of home based entrepreneurs is emerging".

WHAT'S THE QUICKEST WAY TO CONVINCE SOMEONE making a good living that he needs to earn more? Ask him what his life and his standard of living will be like if he wants to retire.

If you’re 35 years old today, making $60,000 a year and you want to maintain that level of income in retirement at age 65, I've got scary news. Any retirement plan you've got now probably won't cover it. At current rates of inflation (3%), it will cost you $150,000 per year to maintain your way of life in the year 2023. If you get 5% interest, that will require a nest egg of $3million. To build it, allowing for compounding interest and taxes along the way, you need to save $43,915.66 a year, starting now. If you're pulling down a salary of $60,000, that's probably your entire current after tax income - or even a bit more.

No one should feel too foolish if he's not on track. Most of the baby boomers I meet have made little or no provision or retirement. That may be due in part to their pervasive, entrepreneurial confidence. They assume that wealth and success will be the natural by product of their lives. But let's look at some of the retirement options that have been part of our thinking since World War 2.

· Social Security: if current trends continue, it will virtually cease to exist by 2023.

· Company pension plans: Since the average American changes jobs every 3.7 years, his income from company plans will probably be minimal.

· IRAs, 401-Ks: as Forbes magazines point out, IRA's may become obsolete very soon. President Clinton's economic plan stands to force retirees into higher tax brackets, nullifying the effect of deferring their taxes and slashing their income.

So the real question, which should be asked at every MLM presentation, is, "How can you create nearly $100,000 in disposable annual income every year for the next 3 decades?"

After searching every investment strategy imaginable, I've only been able to find one realistic answer: build a sizable network marketing organization and work diligently to sell consumable products through it. The investment it requires is mostly sweat. 3 to 5 years of hard work.

When I saw an MLM presentation in Austin, Texas in April of 1986, there were 3 benefits that drove me to sign up. I loved the idea of unlimited income; I was overwhelmed at the prospect of owning my own time; but it was when the presenter brought up "retirement" that I really heard him singing my tune.

I thought of my father back in Missouri. He'd worked so hard to provide for our family, and I'll always love and respect him for that. The problem was that he had to keep right on working until at age 78, he had a stress induced stroke. There he sat, with little chance of recovery, languishing and sick, with no chance to enjoy the rest and leisure he richly deserved. And here I was at 36, with even worse prospects for retirement freedom than my father. My old Chevy was being repossessed, and I was thousands of dollars in debt.

From $179 to Millions

I started with $179 of borrowed capital, no college education, and a financial emergency on my hands. I worked longer and harder hours than I would imagined possible, but it paid off: in 1990, 4 years later, my net worth was in the millions. And I was not alone. The top 50 distributors at my company had a median income of $74,000 per month in 1991, according to the company records. These earners were the elite, but the point is that the opportunity is there. I was privileged to donate $150,000 to the Reno United Way without putting a hitch in my annual retirement savings, which that year totaled more then $250,000.

I believe, along with many noted economists, that unless the 76 million baby boomers begin to plan seriously for retirement immediately, we could become a nation of impoverished old people by 2020.

As MLM leaders, we have the opportunity of immunizing our country and ourselves against disaster simply by educating as many Americans as possible to build their futures now.

By Mark Yarnell.

Annual Income

Monthly Savings at 8%

Total Assets at 5% Necessary by Age 85

Equivalent Income At Age 85

If Age 45 Now

$60,000

$35,000

$25,000

$3,678

$2,146

$1,533

$2,167,320

$1,264,260

$903,040

$108,366

$63,213

$45,152

If Age 35 Now

$60,000

$35,000

$25,000

$1,954

$1,140

$814

$2,812,700

$1,699,080

$1,213,620

$145,635

$84,954

$60,681

If Age 25 Now

$60,000

$35,000

$25,000

$1,121

$654

$467

$3,914,440

$2,283,420

$1,631,000

$195,172

$114,171

$81,550