I was having a conversation with one of my CarbonCopyPro applicants via Facebook last night, and he asked me a very interesting question after having read the Coffee House Letter.

He asked, “Ferny, do you really believe that the MLM is dead? Do you really believe that the internet killed it?  Cause I’ll tell ya’, it’s alive and well here in Malaysia”.

Before I get to my answer, I want to first say that I don’t believe MLM is ever going away, unless of course, it is outlawed or severely restricted by the FTC – not likely to happen.

Here’s my position and my answer to him, MLM is NOT a business and it never was.  All the internet did was magnify the truth and for all intents and purposes, killed the potential for a longterm sustainable income for 99.999% of the people in the industry, when they rely on solely the training and guidance of their company & upline.

Once upon a time, it was a great money making opportunity, (not a business), because for the most part, organizations in the industry were insulated from negative feedback, news and advertising, outside of their friends and family.

Once the internet came into the picture, all of a sudden distributors within organizations and their prospects were bombarded with online ads, online editorials, rumors and negative websites attacking specific companies and the industry at large.

The company and the upline leaders were no longer able to control the conversation.  In fact, if you chart the growth and eventually decline of most big industry giants over the 90’s (like Amway), you’ll see a very interesting trend.

In the early 90’s, Amway was on top of the world and greatly benefiting from the recession, but as the internet started gaining market penetration, you’ll notice the size of organizations, and company sales take a nose dive.  The internet nearly killed off some of the biggest companies in the industry.  Diamond distributorships literally disappeared and once successful 6 & 7-figure networkers, were forced to get jobs and start all over again.

These companies have yet to recover and the money they now spend in the United States on commercials and new ideas to survive in the US market are heavily subsidized by the revenues generated in foreign markets where the job markets are no where near as good as in the US (even when compared to our current recession) and where sales is a common means of making a living, (i.e. no difference between a job and a distributorship).

Which brings me to another point – when you join an company, you are a sales rep (no matter what they tell you) and you are not in business for yourself.

Real business is reliant on systems, which you control and have developed. In a real business, you make 100% of the decisions on how to advertise and market your business.  This is not the case when you are a networker.  And your company may at anytime, end your distributorship without notice or justification – leaving you without any legal recourse.

So if we’ve established that MLM isn’t a business and that the internet is accelerating attrition rates throughout the industry, what is a networker to do?

Well, I know what I did.

I left the MLM compensation model behind and adopted the model, which top industry earners from across the world are now adopting. In marketing pieces it is referred to as GPT, which is cloaked way of referring to Top Tier Direct Sales programs like WMI which is powered by Carbon Copy Pro.

But here’s why this is my model of choice for building a networking business over the MLM comp model.

- 100% of the marketing and advertising is controlled by me – primarily free traffic sources like SEO & Social Media.

- People join my team because they trust me as a trainer, mentor and coach.  Not because of hyped up pre-launches bulls**t. My brand is what attracts, not the company’s.

- The company I’ve chosen to partner with, pays huge commissions upfront for your efforts and the majority of your income does not rely on how big your downline is or the activity of your team members (but it does help a lot if that happens!)  I have the control in my business and I simply choose to represent a product and opportunity as part of it.

- Most Important: I can spend quality time mentoring and coaching my team members, because I can make 4 times the income of a full-time aerospace enginner, by sponsoring only 4 people per month.

So the simple truth is that if you want to build a serious business for yourself, create a multiple six-figure income (or more) and are tired of the hype and tiny checks of your MLM distributorship, read the Coffee House Letter.

Hope this was helpful.

peace,
Ferny

P.S. If this has provided value to you, I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment.

If you guy knew me personally, you’d know that I’m not a confrontational person at all. In fact, I avoid conflict whenever possible and have always been able to use my diplomatic skills to diffuse a situation.

In fact, a few years ago at about 1am on a Saturday, I came out of a restaurant bar after being at a friend’s birthday bash and I saw some random dude, staggering and talking to himself. He suddenly turned to me and said something. I couldn’t understand what he said, so I said, “What?” At which point he walked towards me and punched me right in the forehead.

Fortunately for me, I can take a punch.

He got himself ready and was ready to throw down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some police cruisers about a block away and immediately knew that if I engaged, we were both going to spend the night in jail.

So I simply turned to him and said, “What’d you do that for?!?!”

What followed was a masterful use of my “Mental Jiu Jitsu” skills. (As you can see I’m very proud of this)

Two minutes later, the guy was crying and apologizing for what he had done. He was genuinely sorry. He gave me a big drunken hug, at which point his friends showed up. I guess they had lost him and were looking for him.

I told them what had happened and one of his friends told me, “Dude! I can’t believe you didn’t beat the shit out of him. I can’t believe this fucking idiot.”

I was just like, “it’s cool, man. He’s drunk and he’s chill now, so no worries.”

I left that situation with a huge smile and even impressed myself. At the time I wasn’t training in the martial arts like I am now, so maybe things would have been different. I definitely have more of a killer instinct now, as you can see…

The Powerbomb and DDT I Gave to Raymond, During Our Black Belt Test

So fast forwarding, this past February I got a cease and desist letter from Ann Sieg, one of the biggest network marketing online trainers in the world. Ann’s company and I already had some history of “legal letters” being tossed around, so I’ll admit that there were some hard feelings which still lingered.

This most recent one however, asked me to take down a Google Adwords ad, which was triggered everytime someone searched her name. The ad also used her name in the copy.

My reaction was pretty simple, “WTF?”

I didn’t respond to the letter right away and wanted to think about what to do, before I did anything. A few days before the deadline they gave me in the letter to comply, I remembered that Ann and Renegade had made a big splash in the industry by using very prolific ad copy and using MLM company names as triggers and copy for their Adwords campaign.

I quickly did some research and dug up, archives upon archives of ads, and keywords her company had used. Guess what? All of them were trademarked terms and used those terms in their own ad.

I was like, “What a hypocrite?”

I showed the letter and the research I had done to a few friends, one of whom was an attorney. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything here. They agreed with my assessment, and I decided to fire back.

I complied with the request from the letter (to avoid any legal problems with a very big and wealthy opponent).

Growing up poor, I always viewed legal disputes as a channel, which was only available to the wealthy. There were times when great injustices were done to members of my family and we always wanted to make them pay for the wrong they had committed.

However, my father always had a moral objection to any legal action, which was geared towards trying to take money from someone else, without you having earned it. He viewed it in the same light as stealing.

I interpreted the letter Ann’s lawyer sent me as an attempt to intimidate me and flexing her legal muscle, and I flashed back to the times as a kid, when we were wronged and didn’t have the resources to fight back. This lit a fire under me…

Oddly enough (remember that I hate conflict), at the time I kinda lament that dueling is not longer a viable option for settling disputes, because at least then you have to be willing to fight and die for what you think is right. And while dueling is not an option, I thought of the next best thing…

I wrote up a scathing account of everything that happened, complete with the incriminating archived data of her Google Ads and published it on BetterNetworker.com. I titled it, The Hypocrisy of Ann Sieg

This post let off an insane shitstorm of buzz, controversy and all out war. You can say that the ‘cease and desist’ letter was the declaration of war and my very public response was my ‘bring it on!’.

That article quickly became one of the most viewed and highest rated articles in the history of Better Networker, (#2 actually). I felt like a General, after his troops had defeated their enemies in battle with a smile on my face, having struck a devastating blow to my nemesis but I knew that there would be a response which I needed to prepare for… I was ready.

The response never came… no lawyers… no comment… nothing. Meanwhile, the folks on BN were really making Ann pay and laying into her big time… almost mercilessly. Pitchforks anyone?

And more and more, I started to empathize with Ann and her point of view. Through our mutual friend, Mike Klingler I learned more about the real reason, why she had sent me the letter, (and it had nothing to do with what the ‘cease & desist’ letter was accusing me of). And the more I learned, the more I had to admit that I no longer felt as righteous as I once did.

I now knew the real reason and I had to say, she had a point. I asked Mike Klingler if he could arrange a time for us to speak. I wanted a resolution. (A peace conference of sorts.)

Ann, her son Isaiah and I spoke a week after I had published the article on BetterNetworker, and we immediately felt a connection with each other. I lowered myself and apologized if I hurt anyone through this process, and we both took responsibility for the contributions to the conflict.

In fact, recently, Isaiah Sieg published a letter where he very humbly and publicly accepted responsibility some of the things that led to this conflict. (This is bigger than you think!)

Out of this conflict, Ann and I have become truly great friends, and have had many conversations over the phone with topics of discussion ranging from politics, world events, personal development, martial arts and much more. (Not the type of friends, where you buy their course and now claim in your emails “my good friend Mike Dillard”… But real friends.)

We both agreed that we needed to do something big to let the world know, that not only have we buried the hatchet, but that we are now great friends and allies. So last month, Ann, Raymond and I recorded a 2-hour training call where we took all the lessons we learned from this experience and give them away at no cost.

More than any other training I’ve done, I’m especially proud of this one, because there is nothing like it anywhere! These 2 hours contain the lessons and teaching, which have been the most impactful in my career and life.

It is titled, “War, Peace and Marketing with Ann Sieg, Ferny Ceballos & Raymond Fong”

I’m sure it will offer amazing breakthroughs for you as well.

Three years ago from today, I read and listened to the original Traffic Formula for the first time and was brought to tears after I finished listening to my first CD of the course.

The tears at the time I could not explain, other than the emotional response to powerful education in the hands of a frustrated and bruised networker.

For some reason I knew that the information I was soaking in was going to be a turning point in my life. I literally went to bed feeling like a new person…

Two years after initially making the investment in Traffic Formula, my business partner (Raymond Fong) and I were financially independent, walking away from very “secure” and comfortable aerospace engineering jobs.

Then literally 1 month after quitting our jobs, we were onstage in Austin, TX. as the lead instructors for the MLM Traffic Formula LIVE event, alongside Mike Dillard – our mentor and friend.

Traffic Formula LIVE - Onstage with Mike Dillard

This week marks the re-birth of the course which changed an entire industry, in its new form: Traffic Formula 2.0.

Once again we are honored to be instructors as part of the Traffic Formula franchise, on the topic of SEO & Social Media, and we are giving back to the company, man and industry which has given so much to us.

I think you should also know that as instructors of Traffic Formula, we are NOT getting paid (another reason for the low price). We don’t mention this to seem ‘holier than though’ in any way, but to demonstrate to you just how much we believe in what you will be receiving and in the potential it holds for your business.

It is our commitment to give you 10 times the value you paid, in just the SEO & Social Media modules we’ll be teaching on. And I assure you that the other instructors, including Mike Dillard, have also made the same commitment.

So whether you buy MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 from the link we are providing below or any other link, BUY IT, STUDY IT, IMPLEMENT!

We hope to see you within the TF2 members area and look forward to helping create a new generation of millionaires.

To learn more about getting your **unreleased** copy of SEO Rush when you get Traffic Formula 2.0, click here:

Click Here To Get SEO Rush & TF2!