Understanding Multi-Level Marketing Business

A few months ago, I joined an MLM (multi-level marketing) group that focuses its business on cosmetics and daily care. The company is known worldwide as Oriflame – Natural Swedish Cosmetics. The MLM system that runs it is called the d’BC Network. I’ve been inviting people to join the network ever since.

It doesn’t always receive favorable response, though. Many friends, neighbors, and acquaintances have stated their refusal on joining the MLM business, due to several reasons:

• They don’t really understand what an MLM is.
• They cannot see the future prospect of an MLM business.
• They are already satisfied with the present job or business they’re running and won’t bother to venture or invest their time/money/energy/concentration on something wholly new to them.
• They’re afraid of taking a risk and failing.
• They don’t think they’ve got enough resources to succeed in the business.

Alright, before I continue with refuting the above-stated reasons of refusal, please let me give you a simple illustration.

Once upon a time, in a small village, lived two brothers. Their daily task was to fetch water from the river for the villagers’ water supply. At first, both work diligently so as to run their job. But, as time went on, the younger brother began thinking that the work they’re doing wasn’t really effective. He certainly didn’t want to go on fetching water for the rest of his life! So, this is what he did: he stopped fetching water for a few days in order to make a plumb-line. He concentrated thoroughly on this effort. When the plumb-line was finally ready and he connected it to the river – voila! – there went the water rushing from the river into the village’s water tank! The younger brother then no longer needed to fetch water everyday. He simply retired young – and retired rich!

Now, this illustration in business strategy is popularly known as the Parable of the Plumb-line. The ultimate goal of a Plumb-line Strategy is to gain passive income, in other words: do the work once and get paid forever!

MLM business is basically a plumb-line type of business. You might need to pour quite some effort into it during the early phase, but later on – after the network you’ve built has grown stable and firm – it is simply the matter of earning a continuously rising income for the rest of your life!

One of my uplines, Meuthia Rizki, said, “I didn’t actually plan to work all my life. I choose Oriflame MLM business because I want to retire young – retire rich, enjoy the rest of my life living in prosperity, and go to heaven in the afterlife!”

Well, she’s a very outspoken person and she has stated her mind quite matter-of-factly. At present, she earns 8-digits monthly income, lives in a luxurious house with fancy cars, and travels all around the globe to attend Oriflame Top Leaders Meetings.

Okay, so that’s one very successful example. But, the underlying point is that Meuthia Rizki (who used to be an ordinary person as the rest of us) once started her amazing career from the very basic, too: joining the network, recruiting members, and building her team. She becomes what she is today because she dared to make a decision to take the step forward in the past – and it had changed her entire life forever!

Joining an MLM business is really an opportunity not worth missing!

• Financially speaking, you’ve got the prospect of a bright future.
• It’s got very low registration fee: with simply 40,000 IDR you can already start a business of your own. So it can be said that this business is risk-free!
• It can be handed-down to your children. Oh, yes! It really can! That is the main reason I join and set my ambition in this business!
• You don’t need to think about creating, packaging, storing, and transporting the goods. Oriflame already takes care of that – together with all costs.
• You’ve got a huge chance of expanding your relations, finding new friends, visiting great places, learning new things, broadening your horizon, improving your outlook, and having loads of fun!

Now, the d’BC Network is a group that runs Oriflame MLM business through online marketing. The members of this network promote, recruit, and distribute both the products and the business via internet connection – as well as building a solid teamwork among its members. So, it’s a good opportunity for us, web-surfers.

What’s more: every member of this group is facilitated with a personal website, support system, mail-list, forum, and free online-training. I personally call this a brand-new approach in MLM strategy.

Are you still feeling anxious and doubting to make the decision and take a new step today? A wise man once said that success stems from the courage to make the first step. Without taking the initial action, it’s likely that we’ll never get anywhere!

Shall we let our dreams evaporate at the end of the day, or are we willing to start to make money today and fulfill our dreams tomorrow?

The decision is in our hands.

How the Name of the Drink Lost Its Meaning

“I’d like a cup of Java.”

When we, Indonesians, hear such expression coming from a foreigner in a coffee shop, some of us would certainly raise an eyebrow.

Well, what the tourist is actually trying to say is, “I’d like a cup of Arabica coffee.”

What has a cup of coffee got to do with our island?

Ah, most of us don’t fully know that far back in the past, some time in the 18^th – 19^th century, during the Dutch colonization, Indonesia was well-known as the world’s most prominent coffee exporter.

The Dutch government set up coffee plantations in our island of Java, and in those days they performed an exhibition in USA to introduce the Java-grown Arabica coffee beans to the Americans. The introduction was warmly welcome and gained positive response. The Americans loved the drink and named it according to the place where it was grown. That was how the drink was later on known worldwide as “Java”.

Unfortunately, a wide-spread plant disease destroyed the coffee plantations in Java, some time after its rise to popularity. Eventually, importers shifted to Brazil in search of coffee beans, and up to this day Brazil has replaced Indonesia as the world’s icon in coffee business. But the name “Java” remains, even when its origin has been forgotten, even when we never realize what significance it held in the past, even when one of the prides of our nation has been robbed from our hands.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Raising Two Toddlers at the Same Time

One of the bright sides of having two children consecutively is that it saves more time and money in raising them both. With the rates of school fee and daily needs tend to inflate from time to time, it is definitely more economical to send them to school and provide for their needs (clothes, food, milk, diapers, etc) at the same time, compared to having another child several years apart from the first one – when everything has inflated in monetary value.

Aside from that, there’s incomparable satisfaction and joy in watching them grow together. Our children, Dharma and Sarah, are only 15½-months apart. By now, they have looked like twins! They befriend each other and do everything together. Since the two are only a little over a year apart, they learn good teamwork – and they amaze us every single day with the progress and creativity they come up with.

What about the down-side?

Oh, of course there’s a downside!

Children between 12 to 36-months old are in their exploration phase. They want to know everything and find out how stuffs work. Every day I find my wardrobe plundered, our bookshelves emptied, magazines torn into pieces, journals, papers, booklets, pens, pencils, soaps and hair-combs get scattered all over the house, plates, bowls, and cutleries end up as toys on bed, and so on.

Yes, raising two toddlers at the same time does save more time and money.

But, it costs us double the amount of energy!

Whew!

Be a Friend!

How many friends have you got?

I’ve got an ex-campus mate who’s got nearly 5,000 friends on his Facebook friend list. I doubt if he knows all of them. He might well call them acquaintances instead of friends. Just a few days ago, Paulo Coelho, Brazilian author of The Alchemist, wrote on his wall about a complaint he heard. A friend of his told him, “I feel so lonely and surreal; I’ve got 20,000 friends on Facebook, 2,000 on Twitter, but my phone never rings during weekends!”

What irony!

For me, personally, friendship is something very precious and valuable, something extremely serious. It’s nearly as serious as marital bond and, on some points, even more serious than a relationship. It comprises a great deal of commitment, loyalty, trust, and interdependence. It’s tested through hardship, sorrow, and sacrifices – as much as there are joy, laughter, and fun within it.

Jesus Himself laid out the ultimate standard of friendship in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this: that he lays down his life for his friends.”

How amazing! What a challenge it is to become a true friend through and through!

If we measure ourselves with the above-mentioned standard, we will realize (and be embarrassed) that our commitment to friendship really is far from adequacy. There are yet so many flaws we need to fix in order to be a good friend.

Let’s introspect ourselves – and start learning to be a true friend, today!

Chrysantemum: Flower of the Month

Is anyone of you celebrating birthday this month? Then, you should know that your birth flower is the chrysanthemum.

Chrysanthemum is a fall-blooming flower, and can only be found in four-seasons countries. For centuries, it's been cultivated and the flower extracted into herbal ingredient for making chrysanthemum tea. The fragrant, soothing chrysanthemum tea is an effective medicine to ease sore throat.

When you've got chrysanthemum as your birth-flower, then know for certain that your presence, companionship and influence bring a sense of healing and comfort to those around you.

My Mom was born on November. I always remember her as my best-friend of all seasons, my comfort in times of trouble, and my most-beloved mother till death did us part in August 2008.

Though Mom's no longer here to celebrate her 67th birthday, her memory lives on - as the chrysanthemum blooms every late-Autumn.

The Way of Eagles in the Sky

Have you ever noticed the way eagles fly in the sky? If you live in a big city, I doubt if you ever see one soar above the hills and mountains.

We’ve seen eagles in our village. They fly so high among the clouds that, many times as I gaze at them, my heart is filled with wonder and praise.

There are only two of them. Sometimes there’s only one.

Why, you ask?

It is because eagles do not fly in packs!

Unlike other birds, eagles are solitary creatures. They’re the rulers of the sky, and as the nature of all sovereigns, these monarchs of birds stand alone.

One marvelous thing about eagles is that – despite their solitariness – they are faithful to their mates to the very end. An eagle can only have one mate. That’s why sometimes I find them fly in couple. It is usually during mating season. The male eagle would fly off to find his female every mating season and they would stay together until it’s over, then returns to his own dominion. He would come back to her the next mating season. Neither of the male or female would search for another mate.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Is it a wonder, then, if God compares the walk of His followers with that of the eagles?

Is it for naught that the wise man of Proverbs said, “There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake of a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden?” (Proverbs 30:18-19).

In another text, it is said, “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles: they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

In our walk with God, it is important to bear the mind the example of the eagles. God has set these magnificent creatures as a paragon in our discipleship to Him. The eagles represent both strength and faithfulness. If we are depending upon God, He will strengthen us in every tribulation that we eventually may soar above all troubles, like the eagles. The only thing He demands from us is our faithfulness to Him.

Will we commit ourselves to be faithful to the Lord and have none other beside Him? If we do, strength and power from on high will be granted into our lives, and we will soar on wings like eagles!