Warp Speed Ahead

Just recently, I've started looking around again. And what has amazed me this time, is how much the thing has grown in such a short period.

The real kicker came the other day. I had uploaded some new material to my Web site, and was checking it out. I decided to look around a little. What I ended up finding was a home page for my old Boy Scout troop. I couldn't believe it! I hadn't even thought of Boy Scouts for decades, and there, staring me in the face, were all the facts and figures from old Troop 778. They even had a list of all the Eagle Scouts from the 30-year history of the troop -- many names I recognized, people I had not thought about for years.

Finding something as obscure and personal as my old Boy Scout troop on the World Wide Web, was, for me, one of those moments that jolts one into accepting a new version of reality. At that moment, I knew -- I didn't think, I didn't suppose, I didn't hypothesize -- I KNEW that the world had changed in a fundamental and dramatic way.

When written language was developed, it caused a fundamental change in human society. It allowed the widespread dissemenation of the "technology" and concepts of the time -- dissemenation through physical space and through time. No longer would ideas and techniques die along with the person who developed them. They could be passed far and wide and into the future through written language.

The printing press was another key advance which permitted written communication to be duplicated far more quickly and inexpensively. A democratization of the written language, if you will. The printing press led the way to the industrial revolution.

Now we have computers, and we're connecting them all together. It represents another fundamental change in society. Information can now be accessed with pinpoint accuracy. Just think about all the information on the Internet. The fact that I was able to, in the space of a few moments, pick my old Boy Scout troop out of all that information is truly astonishing. Finding the proverbial needle in a haystack pales by comparison.

We often get so caught up in wondering "what's in it for me" that we fail to see the big picture. To really progress, we must step back from what we think we know and try to look at things from a larger perspective.

George Gilder uses a "car-in-the-jungle" paradigm to make a point about the networking of computers. He says that if you were to come across a car in the middle of the jungle, even if you had not ever seen a car before, you'd find it to be a very useful technology. You'd have a radio, heater, air conditioner, a comfortable place to sit. You'd even have a loud horn that would frighten away fierce animals. You could use all these great benefits of the automobile for a long time and find the whole thing very useful. And you might never even think that the really big benefit of automobiles comes in conjunction with roads. Since the beginning of the computer revolution, we've used computers more or less as cars in the jungle.

Now, with the explosive emergence of Cyberspace, we're starting to see the magic of putting our computers "on the road".

I remember when I was a kid how I used to sit in my parents car in the garage, and play with all the buttons and knobs -- pretending it was a spaceship or a submarine or something. Then on my sixteenth birthday I got my driver's license, and that opened up a whole new world to me. I no longer cared about the car and all the buttons and knobs -- suddenly I was interested in places to go. The car itself became secondary -- necessary, but not the main issue.

We're all getting connected now. And the technology is no longer the issue. The connections, the directions -- those are the issues.

Network marketing has great promise as we enter this brave new world. As a marketing and distribution method, nothing can match the new social and economic realities better than network marketing. Network marketing's focus on individual responsibility is a value that is very much in line with current trends.

But the network marketing business, as much ahead of its time as it has been, cannot afford to be complacent. As much as any other business, network marketing must change with the times in order to take advantage of the new world of opportunity.

And you can bet that it will. Because network marketing is driven from the bottom up. Innovative distributors in a network marketing company are quickly identified by their success, and their innovations are adopted on a large scale. The business rewards and recognizes success and achievement like no other. Ideas that work are quickly copied and put to use.

So it will happen.

I hear a lot that there is no room for creativity in network marketing. That the most successful distributors are the ones who commit to "working the system." While it is true that "working the system" consistently and with commitment will almost always assure success, I disagree on the issue of creativity.

I believe that there is definitely room for creativity and innovation, as long as innovations are set up to be duplicatible. Particularly now that the world has changed. Many of the underlying assumptions upon which network marketing "systems" were based are no longer true. While the fundamental concept of network marketing is more valid than ever, perhaps we should examine some of the assumptions we make when developing our systems and techniques.

Here are a few of the assumptions which have changed:

OLD ASSUMPTION #1: It takes a lot of capital to get started in a traditional (non-network marketing) business.

While this remains true in many cases, it is becoming less and less the case. With the computer and communications revolution, anyone with a computer and a modem and a little know-how can start a viable part time business out of their home with very little money. I think we network marketers should stop making such a big deal out of the "start your own home-based business" aspect. In its place we should stress "leverage the power of high-tech distribution technology to create a lifetime residual income."

OLD ASSUMPTION #2: People will come to meetings to hear about your opportunity.

As a recruiting tool, nothing beats large meetings with a lot of excitement. They're great. But I believe that it is no longer realistic to expect to build your business with meetings. The world has changed. People are cocooning -- telecommuting, shopping from catalogs, banking over the phone. And when people do get out, there are so many other things to do -- kids' soccer games, eating out, working out at the gym. People are travelling more for pleasure, attending cultural events -- the list goes on and on. Opportunity meetings and trainings are low on the list of priorities. I know a distributor who recently talked to 63 people in a two day period and invited every one of them to an opportunity meeting. Not a single one showed up.

Yet network marketing companies and downline organizations continue to put large portions of their resources into meetings. Meetings are important, and they should continue. But we need to be willing to utilize the alternatives. Many companies are doing this with audiotapes, videotapes, conference calls, satellite broadcasts, fax-on-demand, etc. Unfortunately, much of this is collateral material that was developed to supplement meetings. We're fast approaching the time when the "alternative" techniques will need to stand on their own.

OLD ASSUMPTION #3: Forget the facts -- excitement builds a business.

This is true to a large degree. However, the public is becoming more sophisticated and demanding more facts. Typically, in network marketing, it's all or nothing. We get people into the business on raw excitement, saying we'll fill in the details later. Then when they sign up, we hand them a 200 page distributor manual with every little detail, poorly organized. Or, we put little 2-line ads online, and then when someone responds we send out 10 pages of information.

We need to get a little better handle on the information side of the business. We need to make all the facts available to anyone who wants them, and we need to organize them in an easily accessible way. If someone wants to know about the compensation plan, they shouldn't have to wade through a 10-page, hype-filled fax-on-demand document to find it. Technology gives us the ability to provide facts to people on their terms. We should strive to do that.

Excitement is great. And it should be backed up by the facts -- substance, not hype.

We all need to make a habit of pulling back from our traditional way of doing things, and looking to see if new circumstances mandate a new way. The world is changing so fast now, we don't want to be left behind -- there are too many opportunities to miss.