Jim Rivas Weblog

I admit it, when I got in the Direct Sales Network Marketing Industry, and experienced HUGE results, I was intoxicated by it. Surely if I could do it, so could everyone else, right? Right and Wrong!

Everyone who works like I do, has an extreme passion for learning and delivering value can, once you have acquired the skills. How long did it take me? 20 years, and tens of thousands of hours, hundreds of 100 hour work weeks to be more precise.

HUGE success is not easy, it’s not simple, and yet it is worth it, at least in my opinion. And yes, once you experience newfound heights of success, you will probably go through a period of being intoxicated by it. It’s a rush, especially when you have entered and dominated a new marketplace by being a game changer.

Regardless of the business, network marketing business, mlm business, or business opportunity you engage, success will be yours when you take the time to learn what is required to be successful. Are there shortcuts available? Absolutely, and here is what in my belief will be the shortcut to home business success for thousands of people.

My Revelation
After 2 years with Emerald Passport, and after being told to discontinue providing the level of support that I was providing because it made the company look bad, I decided to make a change. There were other reasons; however, I’m not going in to them here, and when you follow this blog over time, those reasons will become apparent to you. I was raised a Roman Catholic, and believe and practice to the day (and to the best of my ability) to NOT say bad things about others. If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.

In the case of a company and/or opportunity, it’s very existence is a shield to people, for the purposes of protecting them from the consequences of their actions. If you don’t understand this, do some research on the very nature of corporations, LLC’s, etc., paying particular attention to the protection of the owners language.

Back to my revelation. For 18 years before getting into the Network Marketing industry, I experienced some great success; by focusing on excellent customer service. Because of the constant and never ending pursuit of service excellence, my customer retention rate in any business I owned was no less than 80% and as much as 98% per year.

So when I realized in this industry that I was experiencing 80% customer ATTRITION it bothered me. My numbers were substantially better than the industry norms of 98% annual attrition; however, to me that meant that customers were not satisfied. Why weren’t they satisfied? It was and is real easy.

People sign up for home business opportunities for 1 reason only; and it is NOT the products and services by and large. Sure there are exceptions; however, when you look particularly at the high price point direct sales companies, show me a company where you are actually receiving value associated with the price. I mean come on, $1,300 - $2,000 for some CD’s, DVD’s, and or some courses? In every case you could find the same material for much less, and I mean ten cents on the dollar less than buying at those obscene prices.

To my amazement no company has got it right, at least no direct sales company. Sure, a few have some value; however, none of them provide anything worth the price for the money. And it only get’s far far worse as you start going up the product line and buying their event tickets.

Take a $9,000 personal development conference. You can attend the very best offered by companies like Peak Potentials for $2K - $3K for a 4 day event. Having been to event offered by Peak Potentials and several of the Direct Sales companies, I can say with certainty that no one in Direct sales delivers the value, even at the wholesale level, that Peak Potentials or Landmark does. Face it, a $9,000 and of course the $15,000 event ticket is a CASH GRAB.

And yes I’ve sold many of them. They are not CASH GRABS because of the price, they are CASH GRABS because of the lack of associated value. And really, when you start a new business, a $9,000 emotional enema, hype-ium, hope-ium, and dream-ium laced event is NOT what you require to make money. It’s totally a fantasy.

Here’s the funny part. For most of the last year, especially the last 8 month, I have been recovering from the cool aid fountain. I was booted out of the “club” because I was not “compliant”. Which simply means, I was no longer drinking their cool-aid, and propagating their bull shit.

After spending months looking for an opportunity I could get behind, and not finding one, I was left with a dilemma. I love the industry. I love the fact that dozens of people have learned at my feet and gone on to be top earners and leaders in their companies. I love the idea of working from home and making a 6 or 7 figure income.

I also know that with the current opportunities in the marketplace, I would be creating a lot of damage by ramping another one to a 7 figure income.

So what am I doing about it? There are those that probably wish I would go back to corporate America. Sorry that’s not going to happen.

What is going to happen is ….

You’ll have to subscribe to my mail list at Jim Rivas dot com to get the announcements, at least if you want to have them before everyone else.

This project is a game changer, and industry changer, and you can be part of it.

“OMG the email blasted at me. How could you so frivolously use a term that historically associated with such a dark day in history to describe the nonsense dribble being spouted by so many network marketing companies.” This woman CLEARLY had been drinking too much (company ommitted) blue cool aid as she was so sure that she would “one day” make money if she just believed enough. I asked her what was stopping her from believing enough right now to which she replied that she didn’t have enough money to market effectively because she had spent so much on buying event tickets (at $9K a pop). 

So she believed enough to borrow money against her house but not enough to sell the idea of doing the same thing to someone else. What a shame I thought. She was definitely drunk on the blue cool aid alright.  I had tried to help her, but she was belligerent. That cool aid can be pretty strong stuff. She believed that the only reason she wasn’t succeeding was because she did not have enough $$$ to buy the $15,000 ticket. Jim Jones would have been proud for sure. But then again, this lady is drinking cool aid laced with (DIRECT SALES COMPANY of YOUR Choice)’s non-sense. 

Having drank that cool aid my self for a while (albeit while it was a bit weaker), I can see why so many people end up damaged in the high price point direct sales industry. It’s your fault that you can’t market. It’s you fault that you aren’t taking enough personal responsibility, and it’s your fault that you aren’t drinking enough cool aid.  A classic case of a process draped in BS, hype-ium, hope-ium, and dream-ium gone wild. What a shame!   Jim Rivas

When I got started in the home business industry, in the high price point model (LIO) Emerald Passport, I assumed people were decent and honest and conducted business as I was accustomed to with Fortune 500 America.
Was I in for a rude Awakening.

First let me make this perfectly clear, most of the people in Home Business are first class, and do operate their businesses with integrity. It’s the primary reason they struggle too (more on this in another article) Read the Home Business 2.0 FREE Report.

For the first 4 months I was in EPI, I was flying under the radar. No one knew who I was, and I was quietly building a serious business. By my 4rth month in fact, I made 38 Phase 1 sales ($1,000 a pop commission), placing me first globally in the global competition.

After that, the secret was out. I must have received no less that 50 offers to get high positions in other companies … free, and many other NOT so cool offers.

It seemed that kickbacks was the mode of the day. Everyone wanted me to endorse their system, their leads, their whatever, and I would get a check for doing it.

I said no, and started my own lead co-opt, and start generating mass quantities of organic and PPC internet lead that I re-sold to my team at cost ()and showed them my Google bills so they could see what they really costs).

I didn’t expect people to trust me, I expected to EARN their trust; which I did for the most part through a tireless schedule of support and training in a program that came to be known Team Falcon.

We were kicking but, we had our own proprietary marketing movie, and calls, and everything. Times were good.
As they say, nothing really good lasts for every. After a while people expected that they would make money by proxy, like there would be just spill over from me into their bank accounts. That never happens, and it has nothing to do with me.
In January 2006 though I was approached by an associate that asked me to break one of my cardinal rules. He asked me to lie about his income. JT (AKA Jack) Stevens (AKA Kaiser SoAe on blogs) called me to tell me he had a 3 way coming and that he needed me to lie to his prospect and tell his prospect that he was making $10,000 a week or a month I don’t remember exactly.

I told Jack no because it was against my core principles, and then I also told Him that I could handle it for him on the 3 way. Jack grew very angry with me, claiming that I had lied to him before and promised to lie for him.
Either way I couldn’t recall making such a commitment, and I seriously doubt that I did because I learned something a long time ago in business.

When you tell lies, you have to remember all of the different versions of the lies you’ve told and that gets way out of had very fast.

Besides, my first associates knew that I had not made a dime yet, and that in fact their sales were the first dollars I was going to make, and they knew it. So I didn’t understand it the need to lie to someone about your income.

I mean after all, every body starts somewhere. So how did I answer the question when asked … I answered it very simply … ” at the rate my business is building I will be making over $20K a month within a month or 2 and I am certain that will happened because I’ve sold millions of dollars in products before. And THEN I set the hook. You see at this point in time I had taken the time to learn how to generate my own le3ads, so I had something else to sell that proved to by like flypaper in the summer”.

So what did the JT Stevenson of New Hampshire  (AKA JACK, AKA Kaiser Soze) go out a do? He went and blogged me on every blog he could find telling everyone how rotten a guy I was, and he even threatened me through the AKA Kaiser Soze).
So if you find a post about me initiated around February 12-13, 2006, it is this JT Stevenson guy. I know he is still in the industry, in fact the last I heard he was selling iBUzz. Great system, but I would be very weary of doing business with a guy like that.
I have had others go out there and make false claims on blogs about me who later came back an issued written apologies, which I do appreciate.
And to this JT Stevenson Guy, and the other “Old Old Pro” (Berly Morton in Wisconsin), what you have demonstrated is the exact reason why people are repelled by you. Get your energy right and you will start attracting customers. You don’t need to lie to anyone. Just do what I did for both of you (and thousands of others), I over-delivered service.
More in this later. I’m just getting warmed up. This rant and raves blog is run.
Jim (James) Rivas
HomeBusiness2.0.com 
Mach1Relationships.com
JimRivas.com