What I Re-Learned About MLM In The Philippines
by David Ledoux
Good morning! It's 6:13 AM and I can't sleep. I just got back yesterday from a week in the Philippines. I guess I'm a little jetlagged. It's a 13-hour time difference and a 25-hour flight. No worries. I'd like to share with you what I learned, (actually RELEARNED) about MLM from my week over there.
Philippines is an incredible place. Over 80 million people jammed into 500+ islands. Manilla, the capital, is over 11 million people. To say traffic is brutal is an understatement. My leaders and I did many meetings when I was there. One meeting was 262 kilometers away (about 164 miles). It took 8.5 hours of driving. I kid you not. Consequently, the MLM business is built around the car. Everyone has a cell phone. And nearly everyone uses text messaging.
I am a little slow with the text messaging, but I have adopted their strategy whole-heartedly. Picture this. No one uses email. No one is ever home to use email. Everyone is out and about with their cell phone. You type in a short message about a Leader's Meeting that night at the local McDonalds. You scroll through your address book, press a few buttons, and PRESTO! All your leaders know about the meeting instantly. And they can answer you back in mere minutes. I predict it becomes a hot tool in America to communicate with your team.
All restaurants in Philippines have private function rooms. Even McDonalds. You can book them for free if people eat. Almost all meetings are built around food. I did a meeting for 61 nurses over lunch while they ate a cheeseburger and fries. It was wild. Philippines is a very social environment.
My team in Philippines is about 2500 people and growing by hundreds weekly. Why? Duplication. They all use the same presentation for 1 on 1 meetings, small group presentations, and large meetings. Everyone is singing from the same songbook. And everyone leads with product, and 90% of the presentation is about the product. And NO ONE uses the web.
It was a throwback to my humble beginnings in the industry. In 1995, I went to my first company convention. I had been working my butt off for 8 months and had reached a mid-rank with the company I was with. We built strictly through home parties, coffee shops and hotel events. I was averaging about 200 people every Saturday to my trainings.
A leader from Kentucky, who was 1 pin rank higher than me, told me at the convention, "Meetings Dave, are you a dinosaur? No one goes to meetings anymore!"
Luckily, I didn't listen to him. Within a year I had passed him in the comp plan, and by early 2001 we were getting 1200 people to our little Saturday events.
I'm going to make a little prediction. Within 36 months in North America, retailing of product will be cool again. Meetings will be in vogue again. Hiding in your basement behind a computer screen pretending to build downlines will be out. And building people will re-emerge as the only thing that truly works in MLM.
I am truly inspired from my trip to the Philippines. I did a meeting for 300 excited people in a city of 200,000. It's been years since I've done that. Felt pretty good!
I am back for 3 days, then over to Europe for 3 weeks. I am doing meetings in London, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. If you dream of travelling the world, MLM sure is the business for you. I'll bring you some updates from across the pond!
I appreciate you!
David Ledoux
Author: The Ultimate MLM Blueprint
http://www.ilovemlm.com/