Multi-Level Marketing Realities - Part 14

At the end of part 13, I said I would talk about the telephone server I installed in my home and a product launch by the MLM company.  Right away after we moved I had Ameritech install four business lines in my home, as well as our home phone and fax line, so that I could install a telephone server I had just bought.  The telephone server was to replace our off-site telephone service that we had been using for so long.  With the telephone server, which looked like a computer server, we could do the same general things as the telephone service but I would have more control over what it sounded like and how it worked.  The telephone server was one of my early projects after I quit my job.

I had several web site changes I needed to make and I also worked on them.  I answered the telephone, filled orders, and got out information requests.  I was able to talk to many of our customers and had a good working relationship with Wayne so he, myself, and Chris could trade off telephone duties.  I was able to play some golf while the weather was warm and bowled some.  I got out to the store for walks or walked around the neighborhood.  Back then there were very few people my age off during the day.  When I played golf, other sales people would be golfing so I got a chance to socialize then, but the day was typically pretty quiet.  As the weather turned colder, there was nobody to socialize with and no reason to leave the house during the day, except for maybe a walk at the mall or something.

I realized after about six weeks that this was something I wasn't going to be able to do long term.  I loved my family and being around them, but I also needed more adult interaction.  So I decided that I would try to take on consulting projects.  Unfortunately, I had no clue how to do this really.  So I went several months trying with no success.

In September, Chris and I went to a product rollout for the MLM company in San Diego.  I got to meet with the other distributors Chris had been talking about and we had a good time.  The new products seemed good and hopefully we would be able to cross sell them to our existing customers for more dollars in sales.  The company also talked about an upcoming 20/20 interview that they were going to do.  I got to meet the owners of the company and several executives.

In part 14 I will talk about how the 20/20 interview turned into a disaster and how the MLM company raised the price of their product at about the same time.

...to be continued...