That’s what Seth Godin called them in his Permission Marketing book.
Godin put the ‘dreaded opportunity seekers’ in a class by themselves, separate from the regular and respected entrepreneurs. Then just today, I heard this:
“The lowest of the low – I mean the biz opp seekers.” That’s how entrepreneur Frank Kern talked about the first kinds of people he went after a few years ago, to sell his initial ‘how to make money online’ program.
“I went after them, but I didn’t really like any of them. I really dreaded thinking one of my own customer might call me or come over if they knew where I lived…Now I don’t do that anymore. I find people I like.”
Two questions:
1. What is it about opportunity seekers – aka biz opp seekers, that makes so many people loathe them and hide from them socially, even when those folks are earning them income?
2. Why do so many mlm-ers continue to go after the opp seekers with such a vengeance? Nearly all the ‘proven systems’ – that cost the new recruit a pretty penny – force the opportunity/biz opp seeker leads onto the new people. And even though they have almost no success with those leads, the same folks push them on to the next round of folks.
What’s the story?
Dear Kim,
#1 Lotto (something for nothing) mentality. The attitude that desire or a dream is all that is required for success. The idea that lots of hard work can be replaced with just a positive mental attitude. The metaphysical attitude that I deserve success, its my birth right, its my entitlement, my destiny; I’ll just push this button and everything I have always wanted in life will just flow to me. You can waste your life dreaming about a big bank account. Those working hard daily toward success resent the oversimplification of its attainment brought around by the attitudes of the biz opp seekers. Many haven’t got two one hundred dollar bills to rub together but they want to tell the conventional business person that they are making mistakes.
#2 It’s the tune they were taught, so it is the tune that they sing to the newbies. Birds of a feather flock together and NMers tend to sponsor down instead of up.
I believe in the power of belief. But believing without work is nothing but a wish.
NetWORKing not wishboning,
Tom Doiron
http://www.TomDoiron.com
Kim wrote: force the opportunity/biz opp seeker leads onto the new people. And even though they have almost no success with those leads, the same folks push them on to the next round of folks.
Albert Einstein would call this insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This is why I so appreciate and respect you and your work, Kim. You dare to be different, you pull it off brilliantly because you are brilliant, and you help MLMers see that they must do things differently to get a different (successful) result.
Many thanks,
Tracy
About Me
My Business Blog
Yahoo! IM: tracyaustin30
Some of the opportunity seekers don’t really understand how to operate a business or market a product effectively, and the budget isn’t large for advertising.
They are trusting the people already involved in the opportunity to help them learn. It would make sense to a new person that their upline wants them to succeed after all.
As far as the upline….
a) It either truly worked for their personality and they are helping the only way they know how
OR
b) Sometimes I think they may be keeping their downline “busy” with activity so that they hold out hope of success.
All businesses take time, so it is hard to determine how much time a person should put into a marketing avenue when they are new.
Brenda
http://mlmsuccessbunney.com