Company Ethics – The Pillar of Your Relationship With Your Company

Does Your Company Pride Itself On Integrity, Credibility, And Ethics?
…And Why Should You Really Care?

It’s certainly a great question.  And one worth devoting time and thought into answering.  The CEO or owner of the company needs to have experience in the field.  You wouldn’t want to put a person who just started working today on the phone servicing your customers would you?   Of course not, and it’s no different with MLM or network marketing.  The person who is leading you needs to have built a dowline in order to show you how to successfully build your business. Look at the company management and see if they have any experience.

The simple truth is that if you are a distributor you are at mercy of not necessarily the whim of the company, but at the whim of the Policies & Procedures (P&P’s) that guide the company’s relationship with it’s reps.  That’s in essence your contract between you and the company.

————————–

THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

Why would you devote countless hours of time and investments of your hard-earned dollars into building a business without examining the contract that governs your relationship with your company?

THE TWO MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

Once you’ve built your business and are enjoying the fruits of your success, can it be taken away?

————————–

Don’t make the mistake that I did and assume that the company will CERTAINLY place the welfare of it’s sales force ahead of anything.  Let me tell you the truth about corporations in America.  The welfare of the corporation is the primary concern of most corporations.  Assume that yours if no different.  Assume that to be true until you take the time to read the P&P’s.

Now most company P&P’s are dozens of pages filled with paragraphs of technical legal language that is confusing to the average person.  It’s designed that way!  Here’s a good measure — The more pages, the more wary you need to be.

Red Flags To Watch Out For

Here’s a simple litmus test you can use to scan your P&P’s.  If you see any of these RED FLAGS, turn and run the other way.

RED FLAG #1 – Look for any kind of statement that says the company can end the relationships at any time.  This means that without cause and without explanation the company can say to you, “We’re done.”  There are countless stories about major companies in this industry who have let long-term reps go simply because they didn’t want to keep paying them.  And because of the language of the P&P’s, there wasn’t a thing the rep could do.

This can be disguised as any kind of annual renewal option that says that you have to renew your agreement with the company annually and that either party can choose not to renew.  That’s another opportunity for the company so say, “Goodbye”. Here’s a couple of examples from actual P&P’s of large, well-known companies.

“11.6 – Non-renewal A Marketer may also voluntarily cancel his or her Marketer Agreement by failing to renew the Agreement on its anniversary date. The Company may also elect not to renew a Marketer’s Agreement upon its anniversary date.“

“…(name of the company) reserves the right to terminate all Marketer Agreements upon 30 days notice if the Company elects to: (1) cease business operations; (2) dissolve as a business entity; or (3) terminate distribution of its products and/or services via direct selling channels. Marketer may cancel this Agreement at any time, and for any reason, upon written notice to iLG at its principal business address. (name of the company) may cancel this Agreement for any reason upon 30 days advance written notice to the Marketer.

1.7.2 We may elect not to renew the Agreement upon its anniversary date. “

Your upline or company may tell you, “The company would never do that.  You don’t have to worry about such a thing.”  If that’s the case, then why does the language even need to be there?  If it’s there, they can AND WILL use it. Don’t take my word for it, research the industry yourself and see.

RED FLAG #2 – Look for any kind of statement that ongoing CONTACT or PERFORMANCE language.  Why is this important.  Well, it’s probably not unless you someday want to “retire”.  Isn’t that one of the most appealing aspects of building a residual income –  The ability to walk away and keep getting paid?  Of course it is!  With any kind of ongoing contact or performance language, you can never effectively do that.  You might be able to pay someone to take care of these items, but would you really want to depend on someone else to guarantee your $10,000, $15,000 or more monthly income.

10.2 Cancellation Due to Inactivity
Distributors who fail to: (a) personally produce at least 50 Personal Sales Volume in any month; or (b) maintain at least one personally sponsored Downline in each of their legs for any pay period, shall be “inactive” for that period and will not receive a commission for the sales generated through their marketing organization for that pay period. If a Distributor is inactive for a period of 12 consecutive months his/her Distributor Agreement shall be canceled for inactivity. The cancellation will become effective on the day following the last day of the 12th month of inactivity. Written confirmation of the cancellation will be provided by (name of company) via e-mail

From these examples, it’s obvious that you can never really retire.  You risk your entire “residual income” for inactivity.

Is Your Contract A Deal Killer?

Based on some extensive research into over 100 companies, the odds are nearly 100% that your company has one of these key DEAL KILLERS written into the contract.  Be careful not to commit to the tremendous amount of time, money, and effort it takes to get to the point of enjoying a truly walk-away residual income only to find that company can take it away from you for virtually no reason at all.

This Essential if by far the most important.  Without this one you have nothing. By law, you should have the policies & procedures available to you prior to joining the company in order to make an educated decision on whether or not you can make an income working part-time from home. Most policies & procedures average between 20-40 pages. My company contract consists of 3 pages.  You should read them as a business owner of a million dollar company not as an employee. Remember, company success has nothing to do with your success. Are the policies beneficial to both you and the company?  Whatever else you may do this week, please take the time to READ YOUR CONTRACT….  The longer the contract the more important it is that you read it.

Remember, the attorneys write these contracts to protect the company not you.

Dennis Volz is the owner of The Red Hot Millionaire Marketing Alliance and the author for The MLM Resource Center .com.
www.TheMLMResourceCenter.com
www.MLM-Toolkit.com

Tweet This Post

Related posts:

1. Company Compensation Plan – Your Ticket to Financial Freedom Compensation -- One of my favorite subjects. While it's a...
2. The 15 Essentials-Overview Five each Personal, Business and Company Essentials necessary for your...
3. Trump Network Review & 4 Ways To Make Money With The Trump Network Now you’ve taken a look, bought the starter kit,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.