Donald Trump wants me. An acquaintance at church gave me a DVD from a group selling telecommunications business opportunities. On the cover of the DVD holder is a picture of Donald Trump with a video phone. I’m reserving judgment and not getting invol…

Having Donald Trump on the DVD cover is a nice selling point and makes it easier to get DVDs into people’s hands to watch at a later point. I bet things pick up for the MLM folks when the “Apprentice” comes on later this year.

That’s probably the number one obstacle to success is the stigma that is attached with MLM selling. I remember relatives trying to sign up other relatives for various MLM programs. When I was in college, other students would invite people to “business opportunity meetings” that ended up being for a big MLM program. A lot of people bought the start up kits, but got rejected by their friends/family/neighbors and gave up.

I took the DVD from the acquaintance because I was curious to see what it was about, but I know other people were trying to get away without being seen because they knew they might receive a MLM sales pitch.

You’re right that owning and running a business is a lot harder than it seems looking in from the outside. You’re also right that a lot of people have had experiences with other MLM programs that haven’t worked out as expected.

The thing that always concerns me about MLM programs is that they rely so much on recruiting other people into the network, rather than focusing on selling quality goods or services. If someone has a gift for selling and they have something to sell that people want, I wonder if it is better for that person to have an exclusive territory they can dominate, rather than armies of people wandering around trying to sell/recruit other people.