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Multi Level Marketing and Enterprise Development

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I went to a fascinating workshop last night organised by a multi level marketer and hosted at Shine in Harehills.

The evening kicked off with a series of presentations from the Business Link Yorkshire Ideas Team, Job Centre Plus and HMRC.  Three competent, wide ranging presentations.  For me, just too many talking heads.  Still I suspect all three were able to put ticks in boxes and they certainly gave the evening a solid air of credibility and professionalism.

After a short break things got really interesting.

We were presented with an introduction to Multi Level Marketing and how it differs from pyramid selling (pyramid selling is illegal and only those in at the beginning can get to the top, MLM is much more meritocratic in that if YOU do the work YOU get the rewards was the message I picked up).  The person making the presentation was a Multi Level Marketer for one of the largest MLM oufits in the world, Herbalife.  A little web research on Herbalife leads to some very mixed messages.  Clearly for many people it works well; they make money and enjoy good health.  The internet suggests that this is not everyone’s experience.

http://www.mlmwatch.org/04C/Herbalife/herbalife00.html

http://herbal-nutrition.net/st

http://www.club40.net/sales%20site/shop.htm

http://herbal-nutrition.net/goodfoodguide

After the presentation one of the current herbal life distributors told us how it had transformed her life and it could transform ours too.  We could make money while we are on holiday, get repeat business, never have to talk with strangers, enjoy low start up costs etc.  It all sounded too good to be true.

This was not enterprise education – this was recruitment.  This was not impartial and independent advice.  It was MLMers doing their stuff, recruiting more MLMers and piggy backing on the credibility of Business Link, HMRC and the Job Centre.

Finally we had a very brief and very credible presentation from Robert Looker.  He provided a balanced and professional introduction to the concept of the franchise.  Robert was open about the fact that he worked for Exemplas.  He did not point out that Exemplas were one of the partners behind Business Link Yorkshire.

I think Business Support organisations have to engage with MLM schemes.  They are in our communities.  The vast majority of those ‘Need an extra income’ signs fixed to lamp posts lead to MLM organisations.  We have to find ways of making sure that they add value in our communities and do no harm. MLM works for some people not all.  Its reputation is mixed.  Typically it requires you to have a network of friends with disposable income (not massively common in super output areas).

I don’t beleive the public purse should be used to provide a platform for any single MLM organisation – although it should be used to educate about MLM.  If the workshop had been an impartial ‘All you need to know about MLM’ then I for one would have been much more relaxed.  I was pretty shocked that one MLM outfit had established this platform of credibility to promote themselves directly into the community.  This was neither independent nor impartial.

I have been involved in the development of the Business Link brand for over 15 years.  I understand independence and impartiality.  I also understand how easily these brand values are compromised – and I think they were last night.

Developing more enterprising cultures in ‘areas of deprivation’ is difficult  and fragile work.  There are always ‘get rich quick and easy’ schemes looking to part people from their cash and we need to be very careful to help people make good choices as we prompt them to flex their enterprise muscles.  We bear a burden of responsibility as we encourage people to be more enterprising.

I  doubt that our responsibilities are best discharged by wrapping advocates for one direct MLM organisation in the shrouds of publicly funded  business support.  I am sure it is the herbalife agents who will be following up interest. I am also sure that it was the public purse that picked up the tab for the refreshments.

I am distictly uncomfortable.

Am I the only one?

New Measures and New Approaches to Development

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Just recently I have been thinking about what we measure and why we measure it in various development programmes.  In economic development, measures are based on productivity, a measure usually derived from Gross National Product or Gross Domestic Product.  Anything likely to increase the productivity of the economy is deemed to be a good thing and pursued wholeheartedly.

This has led to a long term and persistent bias towards the pursuit of productivity gains – rather than to investing in establishing a context from which productivity will emerge.

Consider this from Bobby Kennedy from almost 50 years ago:

‘Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product … counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.’

Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968

Seems pretty close to the mark even 50 years later.

  • Why did this voice of reason not prevail?
  • Could it prevail now?
  • Should it?

Call for Papers – Anyone Up for It?

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International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research Special Issue on Developing Enterprising Individuals

In 1993 Gustafson suggested that entrepreneurship education would be an ideal context for students to address “their identity, objectives, hopes, relation to society, and the tension between thought and action”.

In 1995 Kourilsky commented on the over-focus of much of entrepreneurship education on business management rather than other aspects such as recognition of opportunities.

…the traditional focus on business and new venture management provides an inadequate basis for responding to societal needs and proposes the wider notion of ‘enterprise’ (Gibb, 2002).

HALLELUJAH!  We say it – but we don’t do it!

Anyone interested in helping me put together a paper?

My only question is that if academics have been onto this for almost 20 years – how come they have had little or no impact on enterprise education  or business support?

Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

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It seems like I am being taken seriously, by some at least, when I say that enterprise and entrepreneurship are not the same.  If we want a more enterprising culture we need to start with enterprise and (in most cases) not entrepreneurship.

Enterprising individuals and communities understand their current position and have a good idea of what ‘better’ looks like.

They also have the courage, confidence, skills, organisation and support to take action to narrow the gap.

If we want to encourage communities to be more enterprising our starting point should not be:

  • Have you got a great business idea? but,
  • What does better look like to you? and
  • What is stopping you making things better? and
  • How can I help?

This way we might get a much larger stock of constructively enterprising people, some of whom might just go on to entrepreneurship.