Why 98% Fail: Facebook Farmville financial interdependence Varney & Co. virtual business
by Tony Lauria
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Paying For Virtual Pigs
Last week on the FOX Business Station’s morning show Varney & Company, a peculiar business model was presented and then roundly criticized by most. It very vividly reminded me of the MLM model gone wrong and the human behavior common to both.
One business analyst just “loves the model” that the online game called FARMVILLE is based on. Just go to Facebook and after enrolling you can pay real money to get the fullest experience of the game.
Pay REAL money to buy VIRTUAL feed for your VIRTUAL cattle and VIRTUAL pigs that live in the VIRTUAL barn that you only VIRTUALLY have to upkeep. (Thank goodness for that task being virtual!)
When challenged by the more level-headed and pragmatic host of the show Stuart Varney, the analyst responded, “What’s not to like? It’s a money maker! Don’t underestimate Americans’ need for escape – like when movies shot up in popularity.”
Later in the show another commentator described and dismissed it as “selling distraction in a hard economy.”
Distraction is one thing. Delusion another. Broken down to its barest bones here’s what I see going on:
- A vendor has made available the online illusion of owning a farm along with the necessary animals and chores that go along with such a real world enterprise.
- The owner pays REAL money for this virtual business and all it entails.
- The owner never has to get down and dirty with the beasties, or drive the necessary vehicles, etc. Just click away from the comfort of a keyboard.
- The costs are REAL, the rewards virtual, i.e., NOT REAL.
- Some make money, most lose money. (Hey, THAT’S not what MLM stand for!)
Can’t begin to tell you how many people I have run across, asking for real help for a MLM business run very much as described above – virtual.
Hard economy. Virtual business. Delusional satisfaction.
Happy New Year.
When the real world comes a’knocking on the door of your virtual reality and you need help, just ask. I and my team have real world solutions for any MLM – provided you don’t ask us to feed the pigs.
Manifesting is Intention & Attention Successful Networking What It Takes To Win: financial interdependence language creates reality leadership hunger leadership vacuum relationship building work and play
by Tony Lauria
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The Trap of Social Media Noise
‘I quote others to better express myself.’
So the saying goes. And since I couldn’t say any better what Seth Godin has to say about the noise of social media, I’ll borrow his words. Enjoy it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Trap Of Social Media Noise
If we put a number on it, people will try to make the number go up.
Now that everyone is a marketer, many people are looking for a louder megaphone, a chance to talk about their work, their career, their product… and social media looks like the ideal soapbox, a free opportunity to shout to the masses.
But first, we’re told to make that number go up. Increase the number of fans, friends and followers, so your shouts will be heard. The problem of course is that more noise is not better noise.
In Corey’s words, the conventional, broken wisdom is:
Follow a ton of people to get people to follow back
Focus on the # of followers, not the interests of followers or your relationship with them.
Pump links through the social platform (take your pick, or do them all!)
Offer nothing of value, and no context. This is a megaphone, not a telephone.
Think you’re winning, because you’re playing video games (highest follower count wins!)
This looks like winning (the numbers are going up!), but it’s actually a double-edged form of losing. First, you’re polluting a powerful space, turning signals into noise and bringing down the level of discourse for everyone. And second, you’re wasting your time when you could be building a tribe instead, could be earning permission, could be creating a channel where your voice is actually welcomed.
Leadership (even idea leadership) scares many people, because it requires you to own your words, to do work that matters. The alternative is to be a junk dealer.
The game theory pushes us into one of two directions: either be better at pump and dump than anyone else, get your numbers into the millions, outmass those that choose to use mass and always dance at the edge of spam (in which the number of those you offend or turn off forever keep increasing), or
Relentlessly focus. Prune your message and your list and build a reputation that’s worth owning and an audience that cares.
Only one of these strategies builds an asset of value.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The noisy chatter of a cocktail party or the one-on-one conversation of focused individuals? You choose.
Spirit and Money What It Takes To Win: financial interdependence how to attract more money in networking mindset of success MLM mindset
by Tony Lauria
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Building Wealth With Network Marketing
To have health is to be or live healed. To have wealth is to be or live well.
Doug Casey is a man who knows a thing or two about wealth and he was recently quoted in Dr. Steve Sjuggerud’s newsletter DailyWealth Premium.
There are some radical thoughts there but as Doug writes, “these ideas weren’t radical 200 years ago… But they are considered radical now. That’s why it’s important to keep them in mind. In the financial crisis I see coming, the right ideas might mean your life.”
From that newsletter I would like to share some points from both Doug and Steve.
First Doug:
1. “First, recognize that wealth is a high moral good.
Don’t feel guilty about having it or about wanting more. I do believe that productive people – people who work hard to provide goods and services for others – definitely tend to be wealthier than unproductive people. They deserve to be. And since we don’t live in a malevolent universe, people generally get what they deserve. So, yes, wealth is definitely one indicator of moral excellence.”
2. “Second, figure out your purpose in having money.
Sure, money makes life easier. And it’s nice how it enables you to assist people you like with material things. But I strongly suggest that you not take too short a view on this matter.”
3. Steve Sjuggerud enumerates Doug’s 3-step plan to building wealth. As the focus of this blog is wealth and Network Marketing, please pay special attention to these three steps and see if what I have boldfaced below doesn’t make the case for Network Marketing.
“Step 1: Liquidate. Chances are high that you have too much “stuff.” That stuff is costing you money in storage cost, in depreciation and in the weight of psychological baggage. It’s weighing you down. Get rid of it.
“Step 2: Consolidate. Take stock of your assets. After Step 1, that should be a lot easier.
“Your main asset is knowledge, skills and connections you possess. Take stock of them. What do you know? What can you do? Whom do you know? Make lists and think about these things, with an eye to maximizing their value.
“Step3 is the most important… the ability to create. Working for yourself is the easiest way to create.
“Think like an entrepreneur at all times. Remember that there is an infinite desire for goods and services on the part of the 6 billion other people on the planet. Find out how you can give them what they want, and the money will roll in.”
If you are thinking of getting started in a home-based business but don’t know what to do first, download this free report and start creating some wealth.
Successful Networking What It Takes To Win: creating your life on purpose financial interdependence relationship building
by Tony Lauria
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MLM Success: Your 1st Step – DO NOT ISOLATE YOURSELF
A successful Network Marketing business cannot be done alone: The very first step you must take toward MLM success is to get connected – DO NOT ISOLATE YOURSELF.
This may seem apparent, after all it IS Network Marketing. However, you might be surprised at how enticing it is to so many to work alone and think “I can figure this out for and by myself” – provided there is enough information available.
Sorry but this a very wrong assumption for a Network Marketer, an ssumption that leads to the careless spending of great amounts of time and finally, in the worst case, to the death of dreams.
This is also one of the greatest differences between INTERNET marketing and NETWORK marketing.
When NETWORK marketers behave like INTERNET marketers they have greatly misinformed themselves. This behavior of working alone is in direct contradiction to what NETWORKING is.
Call me guilty of “profiling” if you must but Internet marketers are in love with their computers and all the software that they have installed. They believe that all that information is going to deliver them to the Promised Land, turning their PCs into ATMs.
THEN, and only then, will they emerge from their solitary cocoons and spread their wings!
Maybe. But this model does not and cannot work for NETWORK marketers.
NETWORK MARKETERS HAVE TO NETWORK!
By definition Networkers have to meet, talk to, mingle with, and share ideas with other people. At the initial stages of a Network Marketer’s life this ideally should be done with a team and a mentor. The best setting for accomplishing this is with a Mastermind group.
If you find yourself in an MLM company without such a Mastermind group, you are at a grave disadvantage. It is something you must correct if you do not want to see your dream shrivel up and blow away in the wind.
You can learn more about Mastermind groups and how to find one in this free report.
Don’t be shy. Take Action. NOW.
What are you waiting for? You need support. You need to bond with income partners who will turn into lifelong friends. You need a Mastermind group.
Here is how you can get all that for free.
Successful Networking What It Takes To Win: creating your life on purpose financial interdependence how to attract more money in networking mentoring help mentorship mindset of success MLM mindset money and energy seeking a mentor in MLM seeking mentorship Steps to success
by Tony Lauria
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Playing The Time Leverage Game
Funny how each of us really has the same dream: time, money, great relationships, and a meaningful, fulfilling life. But none of us will ever achieve our dream by trading time for money in a job.
There is only one way and that is to learn to Leverage Our Time; make Time and Others work for us.
Here are the Rules as outlined in a great, short, impactful book by Bill Quain Overcoming Time Poverty: How To Achieve more By Working Less.
1. Learn To Multiply. Time for Money is linear and to increase the money you have to increase the Time. It is simple addition. Instead learn to Multiply, using the Time of Others whom you have taught and mentored and the Time of the Others whom they have found in turn. And so on and so on.
2. Increase the value of your time, don’t increase your time. When you create more without working more, you have automatically made your time more valuable.
3. Use your time to Build not Buy. Build equity that will work for you forever. Don’t spend money on things but on more income-producing assets.
4. Build a Toll Booth, not a Toil Booth. Be more interested in collecting than working. Find a massive and dynamic trend and take part in it. Even just a small part of each transaction will accumulate quickly.
5. Get a Mentor, be a Mentor. In this Time Leverage Game, build a network of winners. We all need help and it is our responsibility to pass on that help to those who earnestly seek it.
Spirit and Money Uncategorized: creating your life on purpose financial interdependence how to attract more money mindset of success money = energy money and energy
by Tony Lauria
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“See, all that money can’t save you.”
Carmine DeSalvo died this morning at 3am.
He was a friend of my father’s, my 89-year old father.
I remember Mr. DeSalvo vividly. He was brash but generous. He gave me one of those model airplane kits when I was about 10 years old and he was the owner of a small neighborhood deli shop – one of his many businesses on the way to becoming a fairly successful small business owner.
My father when he broke the news: “See, all that money can’t save you.”
Now behind that belief and sentiment is this:
some people believe money CAN save their life and since it obviously can’t – we all DO die, don’t we – then why should one ever pursue money?
The payoff, pardon my pun, of such a rationale is to get one’s self off the hook of making money, of being industrious, of being productive TO ONE’S FULLEST CAPACITY.
It gives one a rationale and excuse for being poor and lazy at the very worst.
“Make just enough to get by because if you ever DO overreach, your hand will be slapped by the big phantom in the sky and you’ll be rewarded with death.”
Obviously, rationally, WE ARE ALL GOING TO MEET DEATH, regardless of how much money we create in life. There simply is no correlation, no real connection between how much money one makes and how long one has on the planet.
So why not make all you can while you ARE here?
Just don’t lie, cheat or steal anyone’s labor or ideas in the process of maximizing your earning potential.
Simply pursuing money should NEVER be the object.
Rather doing what gives you joy AND provides and contributes to others, where you CAN BE and while you ARE compensated to the greatest extent, should be.
“See, all that money can’t save you.” Who ever believed that it would?
Spirit and Money: financial interdependence money = energy money and energy the nature of money
by Tony Lauria
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The Nature of Money on Independence Day
On the Better Networker site I received an email from a woman who has recently become interested in money and the Federal Reserve System.
Here is part of my reply to her:
I have been fascinated with just exactly ‘what money is’ for over twenty years. There is a very ‘real’ spiritual side to it and I don’t mean religious. I mean there is a spiritual animation behind it, both good and evil, which is to be expected since money is a creation of human beings and we carry the potential for both in each of us.
The Fed system confirms this, if not consciously and purposefully then accidentally. A system that controls money controls the people who create the money – and I don’t mean PRINT the money, I mean CREATE the money.
The only honest way to CREATE money is to expend ENERGY, that is, to WORK. So a system that controls money is controlling human work, human energy or human lives. Isn’t it?
Happy Independence Day!
Successful Networking: creating your life on purpose financial interdependence mentoring help mindset of success relationship building seeking mentorship
by Tony Lauria
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There is Only You & Your Relationship With Others
“So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you – your relationship with others and with the world – there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else are responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.”
How does that make you feel? Do you find yourself blaming others for your lack of success?
Spirit and Money: attraction of money financial interdependence how to attract more money how to attract more money in networking metaphysics of money money = energy money and energy relationship building the nature of money
by Tony Lauria
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Money-When It Is Profane Part 4
In business, in a relationship, in any aspect of life, when someone focuses ONLY on money – removing all Life & Energy from their Intent and focus of Attention – they are committing an act of profanity.
Money = Energy = Life
This equation, and more importantly the understanding of it, is what makes Money sacred.
Abrogate the implicit wisdom of it, break the equation, and Money becomes profane.
We are each of us born with specific talents that we are each responsible for discovering, developing and using to solve problems for ourselves and others. In other words, TO SERVE.
And in return for your service to yourself and others, in return for loving others as you love yourself, you receive more Life or Energy – in the form of Money.
Isolate anything too much and it becomes profane.
Commit any act to acquire Money only, without regard to replenishment, and it is a Crime.
Want more Money? Serve more people. Solve more problems.
Want millions? Serve millions. Solve the problems of millions.
Take their Money without serving and you’re a Criminal.
Too simplistic? Go back & read it again . . .
. . . in return for your service to yourself and others, in return for loving others as you love yourself, you receive more Life or Energy – in the form of Money.
How do you feel about that?
Spirit and Money: attraction of money financial interdependence how to attract more money metaphysics of money mind set money = energy money and energy the nature of money
by Tony Lauria
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Money – What’s It Worth To You?-Part 2
In the 1948 classic film, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, about gold and greed and what it does to men, directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart and the director’s father Walter Huston, this question is asked: Why is gold worth whatever it is an ounce?
Howard, played by Walter Huston, explains: “A thousand men, say, go searching for gold. After six months, one of ‘em is lucky – one out of the thousand. His find represents not only his own labor but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That’s uh, six thousand months or five hundred years scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it. . . . Gold itself ain’t good for nothin’ except makin’ jewelry with and gold teeth.”
Gold is “good for nothin’ ” but Gold in those days WAS money. All paper currency used to be backed by a precious metal, usually gold or silver, and was printed only under the conditions that the metal be on hand physically in a vault somewhere in the country. The currency had printed on it GOLD or SILVER CERTIFICATE and was able to be exchanged for the equivalent amount of metal at any bank. This lasted until President Roosevelt closed the “gold window”. Much later President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. It’s open to debate which was the bigger crime.
But I don’t mean to dwell on the economics or the politics of the situation. I wish to remain on the symbology and metaphysics of money, using this bit of film dialogue to illustrate this point:
Gold has been money for thousands of years and its value has always been determined by its scarcity which translates into the amount of human energy (labor) expended into its discovery, recovery and the physical work done to or on it.
Money is a symbol for human work-energy-life. It doesn’t take much of a stretch to understand that one’s attitude towards life in general is pretty equivalent to one’s attitude towards money. And vice versa.
More next time.
