Labor Day

On Monday in the United States we celebrate Labor Day. Most of us will be enjoying the extra day off from work at the lake, the beach, the backyard or wherever we go to relax. It's really just become another "day off", when the bank and the post office are closed and the kids are home from school. We often don't stop and think about the meaning behind the holiday.

Labor Day was originally concieved to honor working men and women, and the organized labor unions which were formed to protect their rights and ostensibly better their lives. It was a different world back during the times when labor unions came into being. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Capital was king, because material resources were the fuel for industry. Fortunes were made in mining, transporting, manufacturing and financing, and in building the workplaces to house all this activity. And to be a player in the game, you had to have capital. It took a lot of capital to find, extract, transport and process raw materials into the mass-produced products of the Industrial Revolution.

The best the average person could hope for was a job, working long hours under harsh conditions, for very little pay, to make some rich capitalist even richer.

It was this environment in which labor unions were created. Industry could not function without labor in those days, and that gave the unions real power. Under threat of a strike, employers would make all kinds of concessions. Over the years, labor unions weilded their power to significantly improve the lot of working men and women.

More recently, as the Information Revolution began to take shape, organized labor fought the early productivity enhancements made possible by computer technology. Computers were seen as a major threat to jobs. In hindsight, this was a very accurate assessment. But even organized labor eventually realized that computer automation was inevitable and that it was useless to fight against it.

Now we live in a completely different world. Labor is needed less and less to produce goods and services. In many industries, labor is simply not a major factor. Companies are downsizing, not just in response to economic downturns, but routinely, as a way of doing business and gaining competitive advantages. Not only are blue collar workers being replaced by computers, but managers and professionals are as well.

It would seem that the "common man" has finally lost the battle. That the rich will get richer, using sophisticated computers, while everyone else will be scratching for crumbs.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Because the fact is, while we've automated and computerized production, there's still one very important area where everyday people are a big factor -- marketing and distribution.

On August 29th, in an article titled "Improved Distribution, Not Better Production, Is Key Goal in Mergers", the Wall Street Journal quotes Dwight Gertz, a vice president of Mercer management Consulting. According to Gertz, "More and more of the consumer's dollar is ending up in the hands of the company that controls the sales channel; less and less is ending up back at the factory."

All these products and services that are being produced in automated factories and shops -- who is going to buy them? That is the key question. There is an increasing glut of high quality, high value products in the marketplace, just at a time when markets are becoming highly fragmented and difficult to reach on a mass scale.

Where people once organized themselves into labor unions to weild their collective power, today we have an opportunity to organize as consumers in order to assert collective power over distribution. It is from this very situation that network marketing draws its power.

The best way to market products always has been word of mouth. Now, word-of-mouth takes on a critical importance because it is increasingly the only way to reach some people. We've all become hardened and cynical when it comes to billboards, TV ads, magazine ads, radio, direct mail and all the rest. We get so much of it, so much of the time, that we've just learned to ignore it.

So how are you going to reach people? What's the best way? Through other people, of course! In some cases, it may be the only way. It is surely the fastest way, especially when you put a little incentive into the mix.

That's what network marketing is. It is power to the people. It is to the Information Revolution what labor unions were to the Industrial Revolution. A way for working people to better themselves. That is not to say that network marketing is only for blue collar workers. No one is immune to the downsizing and restructuring in the corporate world. Everyone and anyone can benefit from network marketing.

On this national holiday when we honor working men and women, let's remember that we not only need to work hard. We also need to work smart. That's what network marketing gives us an opportunity to do.