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October 15, 1996
New York City
Dear Budding Web Entrepreneurs:
New York, New York, what a workshop. I grew up in the Metropolitan area and one thing about people from this region of the country, they aren't afraid to speak their minds.
In teaching how to build your business online, I ran into a familiar objection. Isn't a Web site just a big MLM (multi-level marketing for those who haven't listened to the enormous amount of marketing pitches echoing throughout our economy), with levels of information and agents leading people to become part of the sale?
Yes and no. You can use your Web site as the center for you MLM, and frankly you'd probably do quite well judging by most MLMs' efforts online. MLMs are built on creating agents to work both for and with you; a Web site could be an incredible information resource center, a place to coordinate agents, give them a home page, put your products and services up, provide customer service, develop more leads, increase your mailing list, and build long term relationships with your customers.
So why do most MLM's just put up another ad trying only to make sales? Because they don't get the power of the World Wide Web, not in direct sales currently (that's coming, but we are in the early stages) but in developing strategic partnerships with related customers and distributors of your product. Who's more likely to use the information an MLM provides, those selling off-line or those trying to buy online.
When I got hit by this question, being just before the election, I noticed that the tone was sort of a put down to MLMs. I suggested that we all have the leader of a giant MLM, one that penetrates every facet of our lives, and we don't even look at it;
Bill Clinton heads the biggest MLM on this planet: our federal government.
You accept that a network of people, lobbyists and politicians and insider's and businesses and assorted other influences, all conjure up the rules and budgets for this country. They pass this down to the state level, their downline, who find their own way to profit from federal and state funding. The bill is paid by the consumer, you and me, taxpayers and consumers. We feed this incredible MLM; we are the bottom of the pyramid.
Like it or not, that's our structure. Why hold it contempt when you can emulate it at a smaller level and maybe do even a better job of keeping yourself out of debt. The problem isn't that a Web site can be an MLM: it's that people treat it only like another form of advertising to put their dumb ad on.
Remember, the Web is based on action, not on staring. Make them act, don't push your ad out. We can't all be Bill Clinton, after all. ;-)
Peace,
Declan