Great comment and actually very enlightening I’m sure for a lot of readers because it was truly enlightening for me! I even had to do some research on my own and look up what a ‘Ponzi Scheme’ was. For those who are interested, here is where you can find the wikipedia definition of ponzi scheme:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

I thank you for your contribution as an experienced MLM’er (is that a word?) to the blog. I agree wholly with your comment in terms of starting your own MLM with a product and affiliates. I say I agree wholly because I currently have that:

http://www.theroboformreport.com/indexa.html

I would also say that another form of a personal MLM would be a membership site that charges a monthly fee. I have a membership site myself but at this time it is completely free of charge:

http://www.booksbonkers.com/CMSI

These are great ideas for streams of income. Me myself, I just got started in my first MLM opportunity. Why, you might ask, would I do that if I already have some forms of my own MLM? Well, very simply stated, the economy.

In today’s economy if you don’t have multiple streams of income coming in you could find yourself up S*@#’s Creek without a paddle, very fast I might add also. So I wanted another source of income and I believe I found it with 5LINX. I have been promoting this MLM to everyone I know because it’s not a company that sells ‘potion lotion’ or vitamins. They market products that people use day in and day out. Even people in forecloseure, having their car impounded or even getting layed off!

They market telecommunications. Even the hard pressed still have their cell phones on! And when comparing them to all of the factors that you mentioned would kill most MLM’s, they even pass that test with flying colors. The link is in the post for any interested in what 5LINX is or what they do.

Thanks for your contribution Tom!

May All Your Ventures Be Met With Success,

Omarra Byrd

I’ve had a few years experience with MLM and here are my thoughts. I don’t believe there is anything inherently bad or unethical about the business model. The only problem is: it’s been so badly abused by unethical people, and so had gotten an unjustified bad reputation IMO.

Like any heirarchical system, the people at the top make the most money. That’s true even in Wall Street. Look at the “insider profits” lawsuits for a great example. The people at lower levels can also make money with good effort and marketing skills, and here’s the clincher, as long as the program is ethically run and the market niche being targeted doesn’t get saturated.

Sure, I’ve made money with MLM, and I think anybody that’s put a little effort into it will be able to honestly say that they have too. However, in the long run it seems never enough of a return to justify the expense of capital and labor involved.

It’s important to realize that any system that has too many levels (say past 2 or 3) can really never make money for those at the lower levels unless it’s a ponzi scheme. That is, where the money is made from the “recruiting” and not from product sales. This is clearly illegal in the USA. Check out the current “Madoff Scandal” for more details as to how this happens at even the highest levels of society, even on Wall Street.

This occurs because in a typical system over 3 levels deep the matrix gets so wide and full so fast that “market saturation” occurs. This is no myth, it really does happen, which is why most MLM systems fail in just a few years as members lose all faith in the system to generate income.

Now, to really make money… it’s best to start your own MLM. And, the best way to do that today is to sell your own products using your own affiliate program, say up to 2-tiers deep. Now, you have everyone else spending money for the marketing to sell your product. You can do this by exploiting http://www.clickbank.com or http://www.click2sell.eu to find affiliates. Both work well. Of course, you’ll still have to have a great product to sell, and have an automated system to handle everything. But… it’s doable, and can make a lot of money.

Love your post, and there really isn’t enough discussion on this topic anymore. I think people have thought MLM has somehow “died”. In fact, as far as I can tell, the opposite is the truth. I just think that better, more ethical systems are now being put into place.

That can only be good for everyone.

Tom

Thanks very much for visiting my http://AlanNeath.com blog and leaving a comment, naturally i have added you to my blog roll.

Looking around all the students including your own pages it is amazing to see the rich diversity and knowledge being shared.
Have a great Christmas.
Alan

Sorry that my response took so long, This video is only a little over 3 minutes long (3:17). Being such a small file I did not expect for you to have any problems with this file. That is, of course, if you have a broadband connection. I don’t know exactly how long it would take dial – up to perform the very same function.

Here is what I will do, I’ll send you the quicktime version of the video and you can watch the video on your computer at your leisure. So look out for the email. Thank’s for your comment Ruth. talk to ya soon.

May All Your Ventures Be Met With Success,

Omarra Byrd

Your video did not come on. I waired and waited and waited and it never came on.

RUTH

The best response would be from those who have already downloaded the software and have had no issues with it to date. I welcome your replies here as well!

The only thing not adressed in the email I will reply to now. I have not altered the executable in any way and yes I have the permissions of Siber Systems. Now here is the email:

“I ran across your site during the course of searching for RoboForm for BlackBerry. You had posted a comment here promoting your RoboForm Report. Out of curiosity I tried to download your free version of RoboForm which set off my anti virus alert. You should take the Adware trojan Win32Adware-gen out of your software. People don’t need that crap on their system, or your bogus RoboForm Report.

Regards,”

The email was just as is shown here without a signature but his name is Robert Reid. Here is my response:

“Dear Robert,

I thank you for your email and the attention that you put into warning others on the blog that I posted to, my blog and anywhere else that you could post a warning about my site.

Some may have taken this as a personal attack on them, I did not. There ARE instances where you can become a victim to someone hacking onto your server and setting up an iframe or even leaving some sort of adware on your domain.

Even Google recognizes this. If that happens to you, they give you a malware warning but they tell you that they realise that it may be happening unbeknownst to you the site owner. I use the Google Webmaster Tools (see this reference: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017527.html), so I would have been alerted right away.

I’m sure that Google knows adware when they see it and you would have also saw a warning similar to this one in this example: (http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-News/Google-Malware-Warning-Big-Help-or-Big-Brother/) Yet I still exercised some due diligence on my part by simply taking the following steps.

I immediately began to run some internal checks to make sure that this was not the case. I carry many protections on my own hardware to make sure that my business computers are not affected since that can be a financial risk, to say the least.

I use AVG 8.0, Zone Alarm, Ad Adware 2007 and SpyBot. I ran a check of the download by first downloading the exe. file to my desktop and then scanning it with AVG. No problems. Then I scanned my computer with all four softwares and once again there was no problems.

I don’t know what you use on your computer but my software would have alerted me to any problems upon download and would have told me what the exact problem was right away. This did not happen.

Many scam artists in this industry use adware on sites in an attempt to do many things, all of them unethical. I do not practice business this way. Here are some sure signs that I am ethical in my busines practices:

1. My picture and my name are in plain view on my site

2. I am a legitimate business entity, verified by PayPal for two years now.

3. My business address is also on my web site.

4. My business phone# is also in plain site on my web site.

None of these are the practices of someone who is knowingly distributing adware on a web site. It is normally a site that has none of the above. In most instances they are using free smiley’s, free ringtones or any other web page that carries no vendor information at all.

With all of this being said, I still can not tell you why you are the first person to get this warning out of the 175 people that have already downloaded my report and the software.

As an act of good faith I am including my report with this email for you to read. If you believe that the software is adware then please DO NOT download it from the report, just utilize the content.

I will be posting this email and my reply to my blog and the other blog that you posted on expressing your concerns that my software carries a trojan. I feel it is only right that my side of the story be told as well. I sincerely thank you for your concern and being a person of such deep ethics who deemed it ethical to warn others. In any instance…

May All Your Ventures Be Met With Success,

Omarra Byrd

Mandatory Minimum Marketing, LLC
P.O. Box 576
Pottstown, PA 19464
(610) 504-7495″

Well, it used to be on that site. Since reporting it, your post has been removed. Bad business Mr. Byrd. Do you have permission to be changing that executable and using Siber Systems icons?

As always, thanks for your participation Hermas!

I thought your first RoboForm video was very easy to follow and understand. It certainly enlightened me to the scope of the software and its ability to simplify many redundant procedures. There is a certain freedom and comfort that comes from not having to memorize a slew of passwords and login information, and just allow the software to do the heavy lifting. Looking forward to the entire video series. Well done!

Just email me at omarrabyrd@booksbonkers.com and I will make sure you receive a gift as well. You surely deserve one for all of your honest participation!

Another informative video for a product that can transform a sluggish PC into a lightning fast turbocharged system. I’m sure many people will appreciate your sharing it.

Now even though we have played email tag on a regular basis, this is still your very first time posting to the blog also, so I have somethig special for you as well. You know the email address, I’ll get that to you right away! And because you and Alan were the first two to reply I’ll see if I can get something special together for the both of you!

Now, beyond that Ken, you have already purchased the PC Secret Formula. This I know because you sent me an email as soon as you did to let me know. Have you implemented it on your computer yet? If so, I would be honored if you could give an honest review of the product right here in a comment to this post. Your insights would be welcome here on the blog!

Keep the comments coming. As you well know already, I answer each and every email or comment that I get. I think that this is the best part of this business, interacting with new people each and every day!

As I said in the video each and every one of you have to determine, first of all, if it’s even in your budget. Then your next determination should be whether or not you feel that it works with your own personal plans.

What do I mean by that? In my case, I do a lot of work on my computer. Just last night I was up to 6:30 AM this morning creating this video and the post for you to view today or whenever most of you get around to it! Life is hectic, believe me I understand!

If I’m up an extra two – three hours just because my computer does not want to function properly then that is an extremely counterproductive night for me. I need my computer to function at it’s optimum so that I can have more time for my wife, 12 year old son (my little man) and my four month old son (my littlest man!). PC Secret Formula allows for me to do that.

So the cost of that formula is insignificant in relation to my time that I need to spend with my loved ones, friends and family included. Yet, even beyond that I think that this cost is a small percentage that would be paid to so-called professionals in the computer stores.

Yet, in the end, we all know what is best for us within the scope of our own circumstances!