Several years ago, while looking for ways to make some extra
money, I came across an opportunity with a company that uses tea tree oil and/or
it’s derivatives as its key ingredient in its products. I had actually heard about this company years
ago while working at the local mental health department on the island. The then
director’s husband had invited me to a presentation at their home. At the time
I was young and didn't see the value in the investment. So when I saw it again almost
10 years later, I jumped at the opportunity to join. After all the company has
been around for a long time and I couldn't help but think how well off I would
have been had I gotten in years before.
As a member I was offered discounts on everyday items I purchased and if
I got others to join, I would get a percentage of their purchases every month.
I was also required to spend a certain amount of money per month to ensure paid
compensation, thus I enrolled in their auto shipment program. As promising as the opportunity was it was
short lived as it was difficult to find clients to sign up for the program as
most people I knew preferred walking into a store to pick up their items. That
and the fact that the cost of the items were a little more than the items in
the store.
Not deterred, I continued to seek out other opportunities to
supplement my income. A few years after the previously shared opportunity fell
through I heard about an opportunity to gain residual income by switching my
power company. This was just after the deregulation of electricity. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) issued an order which required utility providers to open their transmission
lines to competitors. There was a mad frenzy here in Georgia to sign up clients
by newly formed vendors. My husband at the time and I thought it was a great
opportunity to make some extra money. Once again the requirements were to join
by paying a registration fee, get at least five (5) of our friends and/or
family members to switch their utility provider to the new vendor and if we also
switched our service over, it would count as one of the five required accounts.
Since my ex-husband wanted to have his own shares we decided to join up
separately. As a result of our efforts, we would receive monthly payments which
was a small percentage of everyone’s bill once they paid their bills including
our own, thus generating residual income.
Seems simple enough right? Well not so much. 
In both scenarios I reached out to some of my family members
and friends in the Atlanta area and presented my sales pitch. In the tea tree
oil case I was successful in signing up about four people, but after a month or
so they resigned claiming it was “too expensive” and they could not find anyone
to join to make it profitable for them to stay a member. In the utility case I was not successful in
getting anyone to switch their utility to the new vendor even though there was
no cost associated in the switch, they would have no interruption in service,
and the cost of their BTU/Watts would actually decrease in some cases if not
remain the same. My pleas to help me
seemingly fell on deaf ear. Thinking it
would help if they knew, as a part of my presentation I shared that by
switching their utility provider they would actually be helping me as I would
get a small percentage of their payment monthly. It was money they were already
spending anyway. Why not help me out in the process? I also shared that they too could join the
company and recruit their own customers and thus be able to get a percentage of
those sales. The answer was a resounding
“no”. I had one family member promise she would switch but never did. When I
finally caught up with her she indicated that she was “just real busy but would
eventually get around to it.” She never
did. Maybe I should have omitted that
little bit of information about me benefiting from them, but I am a full
disclosure kind of person. Besides, they would find that out should they decide
to work the business end of the deal.
In looking at the presentation of both networking or
multi-level marketing opportunities, which appeared to be a pyramid
scheme/structure – meaning you advance by recruiting others and built your
financial portfolio on the backs of everyone else they brought in – if you
recruited someone who was inactive you pretty much were stuck and could not
advance. From what I could tell looking
at the top performers all the way up to the president and founder of the company,
who by the way were making big bucks, the demographic make-up was predominantly
the same – Caucasian. Now I’m not
playing the race card, I’m just trying to make a point. From what I can tell, from my personal
experience, every other race in the world support their own individually as
well as collectively except black people. Other races/nationalities that migrate
to America stick together - they promote and support each other both
individually and collectively. They open businesses and bring their family
members over to help run the business. You know I’m telling the truth. Who owns
and operates the majority of gas stations here in America? Who has the dry
cleaning businesses, who has the hair and nail shops, and who has the
landscaping businesses? Take a moment to really thinking about what I just said
and I guarantee you a certain race flashed before your mind’s eyes. 
What do
black people own? Sure there are a few “Mom and Pop” establishments but you
would be hard pressed to find any of those businesses I just mentioned that are
black owned. Why is that? Again from my experience it is because black don’t knowingly
support black. It’s more convenient for
them to go to work for someone else just to make enough to get by. When faced
with an opportunity to own their own or support one of their own, for some
strange reason they fall short. Why is that? I don’t know the real true answer to
that question because everyone has their own agenda and there could be a number
of reasons why that is, i.e., service, product, location, etc. However, I can
offer one reason why I believe that is. To me, the most obvious reason is they
don’t like to see their own people come up.
They say they do, but their
actions are not where their mouth is. When given the opportunity to show or
give support to their own individually and/or collectively they miss the mark.
Okay, you still don’t agree with me? Then tell me this. Why
would anyone turn down an opportunity to help a friend especially when they are
going to spend the money on that very service anyway? Not only that, add the
fact that the people that benefits from their payment don’t even know them and they
don’t know them. Every time you pay your utilities, whether it is a light bill,
a gas bill or a phone bill, someone they don’t know is collecting residual
income from that payment. Who do you
think are the shareholders in the utility company? They got their start-up
money from someone, not necessarily a bank. So every time you pay the utility
company, their shareholders get paid. Over time, that money adds up. I don’t know about you but I don’t have any
shares in the utility company and neither does any of my friends or family
members.
Just the other day a friend approached me about joining his
multi-level marketing opportunity. Sadly I had to decline. Not because I didn't want to help him out but because it requires me to recruit others in order to
be successful. Taking into consideration
my previous experience I already know that there is no one in my circle that I can
count on to support my efforts. But that could very well be because they too
don’t have anyone who will commit to supporting them and so on and so
forth. Until we as a race commit to
supporting our own individually/collectively and more of us start owing some
stuff instead of settling for just holding a job, we may very well never see
the level of success that we as a people have the potential to achieve. It’s
more than just me. It’s more than just you. It’s about all of us. I’m just
saying - I got issues.
What about you?)i(
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