Ever wonder who writes those books about MLMs? Or "how to become a millionaire" type books?
Probably nobody you ever heard of.
G.K. Chesterton once wrote in his essay The Fallacy of Success, "...On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey."
Don't get me started on Robert "Rich Dad" Kiyosaki... As I've written about his bargain with MLM, and how his success is due to selling to MLM, not due to his own success. He had f***ed over at least two of his partners. His advice on MLM doesn't even fit his own quadrant system. And he doesn't understand what Ponzi is but managed to write about it any way for Yahoo Finance.
Yet people seem to regard him as some sort of financial genius. Why?
Frankly, Kiyosaki, and many of these so-called business advice writers, write "business porn".
Do you know what is business porn? No? Do you know what regular porn is? It's sex, with the boring parts edited out and dressed up to look the most exciting that few if any sane people would f*** that way.
Porn is fake. It's a SIMULATION of sex. Business porn is the same... books that explain to you the bloody obvious: making money is good. Stock photos that you wish your office look like, and so on. It's NOT REAL.
People who buy these books think there's "that one thing" they will "realize / get" to suddenly turn failure into "success". Often it's something about "attitude" (or mindset), or "gadget" or tool or system, or certain behavioral gimmicks that somehow symbolizes "leadership". They put up the stock photos that their business would never look like, or sprout cliche slogans like "you have to fake it to make it".
But just as porn is not real sex, business porn is not real business advice, even though they sure sound like real advice.
Business porn doesn't have to be books. Network marketing LOVES business porn, but they call it "mentoring" or "upline training" or some such, and can be live or video or audio or seminar or even video conferencing. Remember, "Rich Dad Poor Dad" was business porn adopted by Yager Group, an Amway Motivational Organization. Before its adoption, Kiyosaki was a no-name seminar speaker who went bankrupt (remember his 'surfer wallet' biz?) and resorted to talking about success he never had. Media was also fond of business porn when they ran out of news and started doing "feel good" pieces instead.
In business porn, the advisors are fond of giving examples, like "I did A, then B happened. (So I caused B)" Tom Peters are pretty famous for his "randomly hug an underling" advice (somewhat taken out of context).
In fact, I'd go as far as repeating a different saying: "Self-help is basically porn for wannabe entrepreneurs."
Porn addict lacks the social skills to interact with the members of the gender of his/her preference, but s/he has the desire (and the hormones)... thus, porn. Most of the fun, none of the responsibility. Put them in a target rich environment, like a night club, and the porn addict would not even know what to do.
Business porn addicts (i.e. a wannabe entrepreneur, the average MLM prospect) get a rush from listening and/or reading all the success stories from his or her uplines, from the books and videos, etc. etc. But they don't actually *do* anything with that knowledge. Why do you think "attraction marketing" which is "Laws of Attraction" (i.e. do nothing, just think positive thoughts) mixed with MLM, was so popular? Give them a room of prospects and they can't sell anything.
The really sad ones are the people who not only read business porn, but BAD business porn (such as Kiyosaki, who accused all sorts of things, such as stock market, of being a Ponzi). And then they go around thinking they know more than you do. Often they've been subjected to reality inversion (i.e. "promote = buy")
It's as if they learned sex from reading... Fifty Shades, and think it's normal. That good sex is supposed to hurt.
That they believe they deserved to fail because they think recruiting is the key to success in selling.
Pathetic, ain't it?
Kiyosaki and other MLM and wealth gurus give dangerous advice that is more likely to get you in trouble than help you make a buck. But what they did discover is that a closed MLM audience can be lucrative to sell to because they have a common (but misguided) goal of being financially free. So you sell them advice and if they succeed, you place them on a pedestal saying they have achieved and "anyone" can do the same. Then at a the same time, blame those who failed as quitters, losers, or they didn't wok hard enough or they didn't learn and apply the advice correctly.
ReplyDeleteBecause people come and go so fast in MLM, they don't see the cycling in and out of new recruits that churn through the system. Thanks for writing articles like this to expose the hucksters.
I almost wish on of these wealth gurus would go bankrupt or have something happen (like Greg Duncan) so their actual finances get exposed. Then we would see that their income is from selling books and bot from doing what they are teaching.
DeleteThis is exactly why a "friend" or family member introduces people into the MLM "opportunity" and why any success 99% ever have if they do sign up is selling to friends and family. You'd have to be sociopathic to screw over enough people to be succeed.
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