Carl Eric Johnson

I have become an active social networker, participating in group discussions on LinkedIn and Facebook. Just now I replied to a post in one of my network marketing (MLM) threads, and I felt it would make for a good blog post. Here is the original discussion post:

Is representing more than one MLM company (at the same time) hurtful or helpful to your home-based business?

I’ve been involved in MLM for a bit over three years now and have already experienced the fact that I have found myself representing more than one company at the same time. Much of this is due to the shifting around of my immediate upline and their upline leadership. I have gotten to know many other network marketers, who say, with pride, how many other companies they’ve been involved with. I met one guy who say’s he is currently with 12 different companies—all at the same time! How is this possible? Or, more importantly, how is this profitable?

I am perplexed how I could even commit my time and energy to promoting only two “opportunities” with success.

Am I alone here? Does anyone else out there have suggestions on how to best succeed with presenting more than one opportunity?

Thanks,
Guy

Hi Guy:

Here’s my experience, and I look forward to hearing others’ experiences, as well.

I joined my first network marketing company in 2002 and immediately started seeing other opportunities all over the place. I joined a few, and most fell by the wayside, but over time I found myself juggling multiple opportunities at once, and none of them profitably.

By January of 2008 I was actively trying to promote four opportunities. Then I got the great idea of writing a book about network marketing, figuring I must be an expert by now. I outlined my book and started writing the chapter on how to evaluate a network marketing opportunity.

It occurred to me that I should plug my four opportunities in to my own criteria and see how they measured up against one another. Guy, it wasn’t even close: my first opportunity, the one I joined way back in 2002, was head and shoulders better than all the others combined.

I could have kicked myself. If only I had stuck to my guns with the first one instead of letting myself get sidetracked by “greener pastures” elsewhere, I would have found myself in a much better financial position. I stopped promoting the other three opportunities and focused on my first love. It was definitely the right thing to do.

I strongly encourage you to focus on one opportunity at a time. I have developed great relationships with my colleagues in other companies, and when I speak with a prospect who I think would do better in one of their opportunities, I am more than happy to refer him or her on to my counterpart. Over time, I’m sure my counterparts will start passing me their prospects whom they think would be a better fit in my company. In my opinion, this is a better way to juggle multiple opportunities—with multiple people!

I’m still plugging away at my book. I invite you to sign up for email alerts at demystifyingprosperity.com and I’ll keep you posted as to my progress.

Best wishes to you for massive success in 2010! The more of us who make network marketing work for us, the better off we’ll all be.

This is the text of a speech I gave earlier this week at my Toastmasters club. I spoke from an outline, and I did not have my digital voice recorder with me, so this is not verbatim. However, I believe I captured the gist of what I said.

I just recently joined Toastmasters, although it had been first recommended to me probably 25 years ago. Although I am very comfortable speaking in front of an audience, I have already learned so much. I wonder what took me so long to join? Don’t you make the same mistake I made. Find a Toastmasters club near you and join!

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my speech.

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My professional life has been a series of fortuitous accidents. I received an M.B.A. in International Management, so it’s only natural that my first job out of college would be in … information technology? Actually, we called it data processing back then.

When I graduated from college in 1978, the Northeast was in the middle of a recession, and I was unable to find a job. My brother was working for Boeing in Seattle at the time, and he said they were hiring. He invited me to come out there and look for work. So I bought myself a one-way plane ticket on United and started my first post-college adventure. Within a week I had a job. I had the one quality they were looking for: I was breathing.

The first thing Boeing had me do was attend five weeks of bootcamp to get up to speed in the computer technologies they were using. I distinctly remember thinking to myself as I observed the instructors at the front of the classroom, I could do that. In fact, I would enjoy teaching technical subjects. Nevertheless, when the five weeks were up, I was a programmer/analyst, and I went from contract to contract and ultimately company to company over the next nine years.

One of my contracts was a 16-month gig teaching computer technologies to a group of Saudi Arabians. That was when I realized that I had both an aptitude and a desire for teaching. When I saw a teaching job in the classified ads, I applied and got it. So in 1987 my career officially switched to technical training, which I still do to a certain extent to this day.

In 1989 I accepted a job offer with Platinum Technology and moved to Illinois. Of all the jobs I’ve had over the years, this was my dream job. Sadly, after six years’ time, it had become The Job From Hell due to regime changes and policy changes. It was so bad that I ultimately had to quit. I formed my own corporation and then contracted myself back to Platinum.

This contract lasted a year, at the end of which time I had formed a new business relationship with a company in New Jersey, and they had a lot of work for me. At the same time, I was dissatisfied with the quality of their courseware, so I wrote my own series of SQL courses. I spent the bulk of 1996 writing my courses and working a reduced workload, but I then discovered the joys of royalty income. To this day I earn royalty checks on the courses I wrote back in 1996. I like this idea, I thought to myself: work once, get paid multiple times. It was my first experience of true residual income.

From 1999 to 2001 I was directly employed by this same New Jersey company, then they downsized me. I had a chunk of change to live on, so I was in no hurry to find a new job. Instead, I looked into investments as a source of income. I studied stock investing, commodities, and real estate. I bought a CD series from Robert Allen, a famous real estate investor, titled “Multiple Streams of Income.” He spoke mostly about various ways to earn money with real estate, but his last CD in the series dealt entirely with network marketing as another source of income to pursue.

Immediately the defenses went up. I had had a bad experience with multilevel marketing some twenty-odd years before, so it took someone with Robert Allen’s reputation for me even to take a look. But I liked what he had to say. He explained what network marketing was all about, and then he outlined how to evaluate a network marketing opportunity.

I was intrigued, but I didn’t know where to begin to find a network marketing company for me. Lo and behold, at the very end he said, “And if you’d like to learn about the one network marketing opportunity I endorse, call this 800 number and we’ll send you out an info packet.” I thought to myself, What do I have to lose? So I called the number, found out the company was USANA Health Sciences, got the info packet a few days later, liked what I read, and at the end of a week’s time I had signed up at the highest level.

I am fond of saying that I got into network marketing through real estate … and then watching people’s quizzical looks on their faces.

So you see, my professional life has been a series of fortuitous accidents. I originally got into information technology because it was the only industry hiring at the time. Then I got into technical training when I discovered that I had a knack for it. Then I got into network marketing via real estate investing. Even as I seek employment back in information technology, I plan to stay with USANA for life. The products are exceptional, and I am proud to be associated with such an ethical company. I now see why USANA is the one company Robert Allen endorses.

Thank God for accidents.

Lately I have adopted the discipline of reading 10–20 pages of a technical or inspirational book each day. I’ve enjoyed several current titles since the beginning of the year, and everything I’ve read is sure to serve me well. Some of the books are quick reads and others drag along ploddingly. Still, I force myself to read each day.

Right now, however, I am absolutely devouring a book that has been on my To Read list for years. I can’t remember how long ago I bought the book, but it had been gathering dust on my bookshelf ever since. In retrospect, I can’t imagine what took me so long to pick it up and start reading. It is absolutely magnificent.

As the title of this post suggests, I am talking about Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. It is geared mainly towards a sales audience, but its hints and tips apply to much of day-to-day living. Just yesterday I put some of its tactics to the test while dealing with an especially rude and negative person. If you haven’t yet treated yourself to this book, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Don’t do what I did and wait years and years before finally picking it up.

Of course, if you’re not in sales, you might think it will be of limited benefit to you. Well, think again. As I’ve always been quick to point out, we are all in sales whether we like it or not. If you’re married, then you successfully sold yourself to your spouse. If you’re employed, then you clearly sold yourself to your interviewers. So if you think you’re not in sales, think again.

My book, Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing, is directed primarily towards an audience that is leery of network marketing, multilevel marketing, MLM, or whatever term is used to describe this part of the direct sales industry. One of the statements I hear all the time is, “I’m not interested in sales,” or, “I’m bad at sales.” Well, if you’re bad at sales, get good at it whether or not you become a network marketer.

How to Win Friends and Influence People can play a key role in improving your sales skills, however you end up using them. Go out and get this book today! Then add your Comment below and let me know what you think.

Just this morning I read an article in the June 2009 issue of Consumer Reports magazine, and I knew that it would be the subject of my next blog entry. On page 15 I read the title “Beware of work-at-home stings.” The article dealt with three common schemes:

1. “Stuff envelopes! Get Paid!”
2. “Assemble products at home”
3. “Start an Internet business”

The article was fair, informative, and factual.

Below it, though, was a sidebar (bottombar?) titled “Real vs. bogus homework” in which it gave further advice in the form of four admonitions. It is the second admonition to which I take exception. Here it is in its entirety:

Be wary of network building. Stay away from multilevel marketing schemes that make earnings contingent on your ability to sign up an ever-growing pyramid of “distributors” who are supposed to do the same and pass sales commissions up the line.

Now, to be fair, I agree 100% with this statement. It is the topic of one of the chapters in my upcoming book, Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing. What separates legitimate network marketing companies from pyramid schemes, though, is that the former reward their distributors on the movement of product or services while the latter reward their distributors simply for signing up more distributors underneath them.

So what is my gripe with this one paragraph in Consumer Reports? Simple. To the casual reader it appears to be condemning network marketing as an industry. The author could have more clearly stated that there are plenty of legitimate network marketing opportunities out there—and the number is growing practically daily as more and more companies realize that word-of-mouth advertising is the best way to move their products and services.

It saddens me to think that this article might keep someone who really needs it from investigating MLM. To be sure, there are shady operations to avoid, and my book will help the reader separate the wheat from the chaff. The two companies that I personally endorse are both beyond reproach, with compensation plans that are entirely product- or service-driven.

So shame on you, Consumer Reports, for not being clearer in your condemnation of only certain “multilevel marketing schemes.” There are plenty of good apples to choose from; don’t let the rotten apples spoil the whole bunch.

I have had the most amazing few days. Out of the blue I received an e-mail describing a job posting. As I read the specs, I got an eerie feeling of déjà vu. I was reading technical requirements that I haven’t seen in a job posting in years: IMS and COBOL, to be precise.

Now, in addition to being a Web 2.0 social networking guru <grin>, I’m really an old mainframe dinosaur at heart. Furthermore, it so happens that I have been pondering lately the benefits of regular employment. So I took a chance and applied for the position. The recruiter called me back almost immediately, and we had a lovely chat (the first lovely chat I’ve ever had with a recruiter, I might add). This guy asked me for a résumé, and I had to admit that I hadn’t updated my résumé in well over ten years—I haven’t had to, being self-employed.

So I spent all yesterday afternoon updating my résumé, and I had a blast doing so. I found myself daydreaming from time to time about past assignments that were the most enjoyable, from teaching a group of Saudi Arabians the fundamentals of COBOL and CICS, to working in a QA capacity where I was paid to try to break systems—cool. I’ve been blessed with an extraordinarily varied career history.

In network marketing circles it is not uncommon to hear people refer to jobs with contempt and disdain. “You’ll never get rich working for someone else.” “Don’t you know that JOB stands for Just Over Broke?” In fact, in my own case, I recall a conversation I had with a friend, we’ll call him Jeremy, where I was trying to convince him of the merits of joining my opportunity. Jeremy has a great job with a high-tech firm, and he was having as much difficulty explaining to me that he was content where he was and wasn’t looking for anything else. I remember being flabbergasted. Why would anyone willingly work for someone else?

I had forgotten my own history.

This is, perhaps, understandable. That last “real” job I had was a dream job that, over time, metamorphosed into THE JOB FROM HELL. I had the world’s most incompetent boss, who reminded me of the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert comics. To this day, I can’t watch The Office on TV because it hits far too close to home. In fact, it was this bad experience that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, leading me to form my own corporation and go independent. But I had let this bad experience (and a few others) negate all the positive experiences in my thirty-year career.

Applying for this job position reminded me of the good times. As it turns out, I am not the right person for this particular position, but I spent a few hours earlier today applying for several other jobs online. We shall see. I am open to re-entering the workforce. I am also open to remaining independent and working my network marketing businesses full-time. The beauty of network marketing is that, once you are established, your businesses can run on autopilot, freeing you up to pursue other activities, whether full-time employment, charity work, or being a stay-at-home mom or dad.

So, for anyone in a traditional job whom I may have offended over the years with comments of derision, please accept my most humble apology. If you enjoy your work, if you believe in your company, if you share your president’s vision, then consider yourself truly blessed. Network marketing may not be right for you. Then again, it’s up to you what you do in your spare time, and I work with many happily employed people who nonetheless see the benefit of building an additional income stream. I may convince Jeremy yet.

Whatever you decide, my wish for you is that you can find work that is meaningful for you and rewarding on many levels.

You’ll notice that the subtitle of this blog is Demystifying Prosperity™ by Demystifying Technology®. Perhaps you’re wondering where these two trademarks come from. To explain I shall have to provide a brief history of my professional life.

Although I did not major in computer science in college—indeed, I went to college before such programs were widespread!—my first job out of college was with Boeing Computer Services, and I remained in IT for many years. I enjoyed working as a programmer and systems analyst, then as a consultant on various assignments. Recognizing that I enjoy teaching, I switched careers in 1987 and took a position as a technical trainer.

I ended up working for a company called Platinum Technology in Illinois. This started out as a dream job and ended up as The Job From Hell under a particularly incompetent manager. (I can’t watch The Office on TV, because it hits too close to home.) So in 1995 I quit and formed my own corporation with the incredibly clever name of Carl Eric Johnson & Company.

I did some contract training for Platinum and other companies but was dissatisfied with the quality of the courseware I was working with. So I spent the bulk of 1996 writing my own series of SQL courses. It was at this time that the catch phrase Demystifying Technology® caught on, so I registered it. My ability to demystify technology was proved time and again in the classroom, as I reduced complex topics around IBM’s database DB2 to concepts that my students could easily master.

I partnered with a company in New Jersey to market my courses, earning royalties every time they were taught. Sweet. Unfortunately, that partnership pretty much dissolved in 2001. They still sell my SQL courses, but not nearly as frequently as they once did.

I had enough money set aside to take the summer of 2001 off—my first summer off in decades. It was wonderful. But summer became fall became winter became spring, and before I knew it a whole year had passed. Now I needed to start looking around to see what I might do to make a living. Although I enjoy teaching, I was fairly burned out on DB2 and SQL. So I looked into passive ways to make money: stock investing, commodities futures, and real estate. I took various courses in all of the above and had some modest successes.

One of the courses I took was a CD series by Robert Allen, New York Times best-selling author of Nothing Down, Creating Wealth, and other books. The CD series was titled Multiple Streams of Income. It was a 6-CD set with a bonus 7^th CD dedicated to network marketing. I was skeptical, having had a bad experience in the late ’70’s with a multilevel marketing company. But I respected Robert Allen and listened to what he had to say. I was intrigued. He explained what network marketing was all about and how to evaluate a network marketing opportunity. At the end he invited his listeners to call an 800 number to learn about the one network marketing company he endorsed. I did so, found out it was USANA Health Sciences, got an information packet in the mail several days later, and joined at the highest level within the week.

Wanting to share what I had learned about network marketing with others, I soon transitioned into Demystifying Prosperity™. I have several blogs and e-mail autoresponder series on the topic, and I am currently writing a book titled Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing.

In recent years I have used more and more Internet technologies to promote my network marketing ventures, and so this is where the two (Demystifying Technology® and Demystifying Prosperity™) overlap. Rather than waste a lot of money on telephone leads any more, I am now learning how to use social networking (a k a Web 2.0) technologies to attract free leads to my businesses—so-called attraction marketing.

And just what are my businesses? Well, I am certainly still with USANA Health Sciences and will be for the rest of my life. I am also in Global Resorts Network, a direct sales company marketing memberships in luxury timeshare rentals. It is from my team at Global that I have learned all of my attraction marketing techniques. And I am sure that my book will open doors for me.

I am available for speaking gigs of anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours. If you have an audience who would like me to demystify prosperity for them, let me know. I love helping people realize that they do have options, especially in our current economy. Actually, there has never been a better time to get into network marketing.