Have you read the policies and procedures of “your” company? If you did, did you understand what it said? Did you know what to look for…and look out for?
What I am about to tell you is going to come as a shock to some people. My intent is to explain why I am making some of the choices I am making. I may say some things that many won’t like. I am not in any way trying to deter you from your dreams, in fact I want to see everyone of you realize your Dreams…I want nothing more than Success for us All!
I am also not asking you to take my word. I would ask that you please read this through, even if you think its total BS. Do your Due Diligence. Contact your attorney. Speak to someone outside of the industry, look at the laws, research what has gotten companies closed down in the past and its effects on the people. Please.
Just because people actually make money in a company does not make it legitimate.
Ahhh…the joys of moving a blog…again LOL Unfortunately, I moved my blog to a platform that I thought was going to give me more ownership when in fact it was taking complete ownership of MY content.
Did you read the P&P’s “before” you signed up? Or did you know someone who knew someone, so you figured they did and its all good…or that all that legal speak is just “standard” policy?
You know….that 60 page document that you read about two paragraphs of, started fast forwarding through for about 10 pages, then went back and clicked, yes…I understand and agree to these terms?
Unfortunately, especially in this internet space…many companies rely on just that behavior. They get you all hyped up…maybe even show you some “BIG checks”…tell you their stories of rags to riches and the next thing you know, you are pulling out your credit card!
** That’s called “Enticement” by the Feds…by the way…and is a blatant violation, which Will lead to being completely shut down eventually **
But back to policies…if you didn’t read them (legal speak scrambles my brain too) and you didn’t thoroughly evaluate the business, investigating its owners and calculating to see if its comp plan and business plan are even viable or legal, not based on what “they” tell you but by consulting YOUR Attorney and financial adviser…you just might want to set aside some time to do that.
You might find that “your” company isn’t what you thought…and it’s most certainly not “yours”. Thankfully, after months of concerns and not knowing how to proceed, I started educating myself. I found that some businesses put in things like, “Non-Renewal” clauses, which say that on your yearly anniversary, they can decide not to renew your contract.
Think about that…you could build your business for 12 years and decide to retire and as soon as you stop recruiting for them they can close you down overnight. Take away ALL that residual income…you could go from 20k a month to ZERO.
Proud to be in a publicly traded company? Oh Snap!…Shareholders not happy? Lets just shave some costs off a little bit…we can drop 20k right here! Who do you think the company is going to be more loyal to? Its distributors…. or its investors when they teach that people are numbers.
I am so Thankful that I got some education when I did because when I went to blog and these “New Policies & Procedures’s” popped up, I had the sense to read them…
I would post it here but I’m sure I would get sued for plagiarism LOL but essentially, it says that anything I post on that platform is now theirs to do whatever they wish. Alter, amend, copy, package, SELL through multiple lines of distribution completely Royalty free, no compensation will be paid for sale of my material, images, text, systems, themes, audio, video, graphics, animations…etc etc for about 20 lines.
I have to say, when I read this, I was fascinated at the copyright skills. They really covered themselves there! WOW!
I did not want to sign it. I did not want to convince anyone else to sign it either.
It is not losing money or content that I fear, it is losing my Freedom. In fact, I am not a lawyer but I would venture to say that policies like the above that allow someone to repackage your content royalty free into anything they want and sell it however they want (with your name attached) is nothing more than spreading the liability around.
After all, YOU are the one making money off of these products, when things go south, you are as liable as they are…oh wait, its 100% commission…that’s right, YOU are liable, they didn’t make a dime!
Personally, knowing what I know now, I am making some different choices. Whatever you choose is up to you, just make sure it is an educated one.
Thankfully, there are truly legitimate MLM’s and home-based businesses out there. You just have to educate yourself on what to look for and do your due diligence to find them.
I know some will say that I am just bitter…I’m a quitter, wanting to blame someone for my lack of success but to be honest, I am SO THANKFUL I never made one sale, I never recruited one person into something that the deeper I got, the slimier it felt. When people are becoming homeless and the response is, “You have to be OK with taking their money” That’s not the business for me.
There is a difference between quitting and running like hell. Speaking of which, when I did decide to “cancel” I was gifted with a 20 minute video of non-blinking, NLP, groundhog day, hypnotic Ninja Super Jedi mind script even going so far as to tell me that if I cancelled I would “dream” of him for the next 5 nights…and then come back…
Dream On Buddy LOL 🙂
Katherine
There are a lot of Free resources available to teach you how to evaluate your business, let me know if you need some help 🙂