eFusjon Corporate Officers stated that
This was a very difficult decision for the Company and not one we had hoped to make. When the owners started eFusjon in 2008, we envisioned a unique and successful MLM business with healthy and unparalleled beverage products. The goal was to market these products through independent distributors via the MLM direct sales business model. Distributor performance, however, has been steadily declining for over a year now, and as a result, so has the Company’s revenues. The Company can no longer maintain a marketing model that is not generating the funds needed to grow a viable business. In short, the Company’s MLM business model is no longer a sustainable marketing strategy.
You can read the entire eFusjon Corporate "Dear John" letter right here.
How Does Something Like This Happen …???
eFusjon's Corporate Directors specifically cite steadily declining "distributor performance" for over a year and consequent declining company revenues as the main reason for their decision.
An interesting fact that is not mentioned in this communication is that within a year of launch eFusjon was involved in serious litigation, and sued by MLM Attorney Kevin Thomson. The lawsuit was filed against eFusjon in an effort to get the company to change its business model to protect its distributors from promoting an illegal pyramid scheme. eFusjon was found guilty. And interestingly enough, Attorney Thomson was ridiculed by MANY people for his efforts.
eFusjon also had a host of problems with Master Distributor Derek Broes – a lawsuit filed against him and a counter suit that he won as well as an unsuccessful attempt at a Facebook Marketing partnership that never came to fruition but created more Facebook SPAM and bad publicity for the company than you can imagine.
LOT's of bridges were burned when eFusjon reps were totally hyping up income claims on Facebook and using the "Facebook marketing partnership" promise to get more people to join the opportunity because of the massive exposure it would get. The overly aggressive marketing so annoyed Facebook users that eFusjon was no longer permitted to market on Facebook.
When Broes decided to open up his own Network Marketing company, Revolucion, after being terminated by eFusjon, eFusjon lost alot of their distributor base … Coincidence … who knows for sure …??? But, what I I do know as fact, is that a change in the size of the distributor base of ANY company will have a direct impact on overall sales volume.
What Will All Of These Homeless Distributors Do?
Building any network marketing business takes alot of time and effort. And to watch YOUR BUSINESS turn into NOTHING before your eyes is one of the most heart breaking things I know of. Been there … done that. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this sad turn of events and to their families.
I am praying that you, if you were a distributor with eFusjon, were actually building a real business rather than just building eFusjon. If you were doing that, kudos to you. You have prepared well and are in a position to find a strong company, with a leadership team in place that will SERVE YOU and YOUR TEAM well.
If you did not build a real business, I want you to take a deep breath and take the time to THINK about what you are going to do for yourself and your family .. and what you are going to do to help your team move forward during this transition period.
This is a time for out-reach, support, and level headed decision making. It is NOT a time for finger pointing and assigning blame. It is a time to take a good hard look at whose business you are willing to build going forward. Companies, brick and mortar as well as network marketing companies, come and go all the time for a variety of different reasons – product issues, management issues, legal issues, financial issues, morality and ethics issues. Business is business regardless of what sector it is in and every business involves risk of some sort. Everyone needs to understand and accept that from the get go. I know … easier said than done at this moment. I have gone through this a few times personally – both in brick and mortarville and with a couple of network marketing companies.
What do I mean by building a REAL BUSINESS?
Choosing the right company (or employer for that matter), with the right product or service can help you reach your goals faster just as a super sharp knife will out perform a dull one, but it will not determine your end result.
Quick story …
I took on a culinary consulting gig in 2007 because I needed to earn a living after I separated from the direct sales company that I was marketing because of serious product fulfillment issues. The gal that I was consulting with had EVERYTHING going for her at that gourmet food shop. It was a very well established business (16 years at that location) with a great customer base (built on tremendous personal relationships that her brother had built while he was alive) and food that everyone LOVED to buy (excellent quality and top notch service). However, the business had suffered some serious upheaval during the last year of operation because this lady's brother became very ill and turned all of the business operations over to a very smart, albeit unscrupulous catering manager.
The first thing that this woman did when she took ownership of the store was evaluate the profit and loss statement. She felt that the store was not being profitable enough so she cut staff, cut wages, commissions and salaries, rewrote the menus and recipes, changed purveyors and increased her prices. She also decided that she needed to change the way in which the store was being managed. So, she rewrote everyone's job description (more responsibility for less pay) and their schedule (less hours with an increased workload). She also decided to start charging the employees for their meals (a hot meal had always been one of the gifts that her brother gave to his employees as a daily "thank you"). The catering manager along with the rest of the staff decided that enough was enough and they took matters into their own hands.
The catering manager started giving away food and products to the employees at the end of their shifts (the employees thought this guy was a hero for giving them free food). He also found another gourmet shop owner that was willing to give him whatever he wanted as long as he brought all of his clients with him (he had documented sales of OVER $4 million a year and hundreds of private clients who bought anything he recommended). So this guy made the woman that I was working for an offer – either you give me back all of my staff, all of my salary, all of my commissions and make me a 25% partner in this business or I quit, take the staff that's here and all of my clients with me.
The woman told him to go pound salt … she fired him and told him to never darken her doorstep again. Within ONE WEEK the store turned into a GHOST TOWN. Only a handful of employees remained … foot traffic dropped from an average of 1500 customers a day to maybe 200 … a month's worth of catering orders ($300,000) were CANCELED virtually overnight … purveyors stopped delivering food orders because they were afraid of not getting paid … the Department of Health came in because of reported vermin sightings and the store was closed for three days by the DOH until some serious code violations were fixed (more lost revenue and more importantly a total loss of public confidence and credibility in a VERY demanding neighborhood).
This woman almost lost her mind while all of this was going on. She scrambled like mad to get everything back to normal. She got the violations fixed and the store reopened with a clean bill of health (but being closed by the DOH for three days had done irreparable damage…foot traffic was down even more). She found new food vendors and along the way learned that her former catering manager had "put the word out about her". She called the clients that had canceled their catering orders and found out that they were very happy with the new caterer that their "personal catering advisor" recommended and that if they needed her they would call her back (something that never happened).
And, she could never find the names and phone numbers of any of her brother's old clientele to call them, because she had never taken the time to create her own customer data base. The client list had been developed by her former catering manger and he took it with him when he left, which is how he was able to create a position for himself, on his own terms, with someone that was willing to work with him in exchange for all of the new business he would be able to bring.
The store closed and filed for bankruptcy 18 months after this happened. 60 people found themselves unemployed at 8:30 am on a bright, beautiful Sunday morning.
The Moral of The Story
What you don't control … WILL control you.
(Joe Schroeder and Diane Hochman will be forever blessed for beating that INTO my head)
If YOU don't control your list … the continued growth of your list and the quality of the relationship that you have with the people on your list …
YOU ARE BIG TIME … S C R E W E D
Just think about that little kitchen story I shared with you …
Exactly whose business did that catering manager really build …???
The gal that he was working for LOST EVERYTHING …
The guy that he went to work for GAINED ALOT ….
BUT ….
If the catering manger HAS to start from scratch all over again …
HE will be able to take care of himself forever because of the relationship he has built over time with the people on the list he owns by being a trusted, high-value service provider (problem solver) to them.
That catering manager made sure that he built HIS BUSINESS FIRST …
Everything else after that is just … details ….
Who owns the gourmet shop that he works at IS NOT IMPORTANT (Your Network Marketing Company IS NOT IMPORTANT)
Where the food is purchased from IS NOT IMPORTANT (Your product's ORAC Values and patents ARE NOT IMPORTANT)
How much the food costs IS NOT IMPORTANT ( Your MLM's product price point IS NOT IMPORTANT)
What IS IMPORTANT is that the products and services have real value and provide a solution for his customers (and yours).
Your BUSINESS Has Nothing To Do With Your Company …
Products Don't Build Downlines …
They SUSTAIN Downlines
The ONLY THINGS that SELL products and BUILD downlines are LEADERSHIP and MARKETING … P E R I O D
I truly hope this is making sense to you. Because when you really understand this …
You will NEVER, EVER build someone else's business FIRST.
That catering manager understood this principle …
The LEADERS in eFusjon understand this too …
I know that many of them are looking at all of the different options that are open to them and their teams right now …
When they find the right ones … they will reach out to their teams and say ….
"Here is what I have found. This is where I am going. Are you IN or are you OUT…???"
The entire point of building a network marketing business (in my opinion) is to create a TEAM of well-educated distributors who can market and acquire a nice big base of happy product users who have nothing to do with the business building side of things (most successful network marketing businesses report a PRODUCT USER BASE of at least 80%). These people simply LOVE and USE the products, creating a monthly residual income for the distributor and their family.
The LEADERS will also get in contact with each one of their eFusjon product users and tell them exactly what has happened with eFusjon. And, if they have businesses that have been built correctly, many of those product users will switch companies because they KNOW, LIKE and TRUST the distributor and can't imagine buying a product from a company that doesn't support their friend and trusted advisor.
This is EXACTLY how some people in the network marketing industry can come into a new company with NOTHING and within 90 days have replaced EVERYTHING that looked like it was lost when their old company stopped doing MLM.
This is EXACTLY what the former leaders of eFusjon are doing RIGHT NOW and they will be just fine. LEADERS are always fine. Stuff like this is just part of doing business. They expect the best and are prepared to deal with whatever happens along the way.
What if you are someone that was just beginning to step into a leadership role or just beginning to build a customer base with eFusjon?
You have two choices.
Either stay in the game and find a new company to move yourself, your team and customers to or QUIT.
Since QUITTING isn't really an option in my world … I am not even going to talk about it.
So let's talk about the first option.
I am reaching out to any former eFusjon reps that need to have some help getting started all over again.
As you may know, I have connections to some of the best online and offline network marketers in the world. You may have heard me interviewing some of them or read what I have written about some of them on my blog. I also have access to some of the best trainers, online and offline, on the planet. There are alot of FREE resources that are available to people that want to get really serious but are strapped for cash right now. There are also many paid training resources out there. Some are fairly inexpensive and deliver HUGE value. Others are more expensive, but you will get PERSONALIZED training that will set you head and shoulders above everyone else out there and that is PRICELESS.
If you are looking for a new network marketing company we can talk about that as well. I go against the current norm of building multiple network marketing businesses at the same time. I honestly believe that you need to FOCUS on building one business until you have it grown to the point that you have a walkaway passive income that allows you to be free before you start building another network marketing business. So I am personally recommending, promoting and building only one network marketing company. If you are interested in taking a look … let me know. I will share what I have with you. Because of my connections in the industry, I have no problem in connecting you with another leader in another company if you tell which company you are interested in and what you are looking for in a leader.
Since you are staying in the game, you have got to treat Network Marketing like a real business. And I really want to help you stay in this game and prosper. I also want you to do it right this time, so that you never have to worry about what you are going to do if another network marketing company stops paying its distributors. If you build this like a real business, you are focusing on building YOUR business so that you can weather any financial crisis.
eFusjon Closes Doors On MLM Distribution Channel – Final Distributor Checks To Be Issued September 10 http://bit.ly/c0n6gE
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
eFusjon Closes Doors On MLM Distribution Channel – Final Distributor Checks To Be Issued September 10 http://bit.ly/c0n6gE
RT @Rose_Mis eFusjon Closes Doors On MLM Distribution Channel – Final Distributor Checks To Be Issued … http://bit.ly/dhv4Y1 #thatMLMbeat
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @Rose_Mis eFusjon Closes Doors On MLM Distribution Channel – Final Distributor Checks To Be Issued … http://bit.ly/dhv4Y1 #thatMLMbeat