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January 25, 2007
Tax Time again
By Truth in Miscellaneous
Yes it is that time of year again and everyone I am sure is excited to do their taxes. The wonderful task of figuring out how much you are going to get or how much you are going to give is always enough to put a smile on your face.
I remember doing taxes while I was in Quixtar and the excitement that many IBOs would have about all the deductions they were going to take and how that was going to amount to a big payday for them. My wife and I however were never excited about this. Now don't get me wrong deductions are always nice in taxes, but having a big payday pretty much meant our business had a bad year. Bad year meaning we most likely spent much more then we made.
This is an area every IBO needs to deal with and they should do so with great care. The IRS has many rules and restrictions on the deductions many IBOs take and even has some rules about the difference between a hobby and a business, and yes some IBOs qualify under the hobby. I think (actually more like hope) everyone understands the serious potential consequences of taking deductions you were not allowed and later being audited.
My suggestion is to not take any advice from your upline on this one unless they are certified when it comes to taxes. I would recommend either studying for yourself the rules on the deductions you plan on taking, or solicit the help of a tax professional who can assist you. Hopefully you kept good records for your planned deductions.
I am no tax professional by any stretch of the imagination but I did a podcast last year on this subject and passed on some of the information I learned after doing my own research. You can listen to that below to get an idea of some of the things you may want to watch for this year when doing your taxes.
Good luck everyone and may your tax liability be as small as you can make it.
January 22, 2007
MLM Documentary: "The Downline"
By Truth in Miscellaneous
As far as I know never before has a documentary been done on the MLM industry. Well until now that is. Eric Martinis is the director/producer of a new documentary titled "The Downline". In this documentary Eric follows four distributors for a fairly new MLM called Agel. This documentary will make it's premiere at the Park City Film Music Festival on January 25th. Recently, I had the chance to talk with Eric about his documentary and MLM in general. You can listen to that interview below.
As of right now there is no way to purchase a copy of this documentary but Eric has said they are looking into multiple options of distribution. For updates you can visit the MySpace page for the movie
Here is the trailer clip that was posted on YouTube:
January 21, 2007
Buy from yourself
By Truth in A/QMOs
Every time I showed the Quixtar Plan to a prospect there was always that one page which showed how simple the plan was. We would always tell the prospect that there were two simple parts to this plan and they were:
1. Buy from yourself
2. Teach others to do the same.
Now the legality and the flaws with this concept have been debated over many, many times and I am not going to get into any of that in this article. What I am going to get into however is something I find hypocritical in the "buy from yourself" concept.
Buy from yourself was always promoted by my group and pretty much at every single BWW (Britt World Wide) event that I was at (I was at every single one until I decided to quit). Sheets would get handed out showing us how easy it was to do 300 points just by eating meal replacement bars and drinking XS energy drinks, or simply by buying vitamins and proteins shakes, etc. Time and again it was stressed to never have a product in your house from Wal-Mart when you could buy it from your own business. We would be told to stop making Wal-Mart and Target rich and instead buy from yourself.
Even partner stores were included in this concept. Just because you couldn't find a product on the Quixtar website was no excuse to not buy from yourself because most likely what you were looking for was available from one of Quixtar's partner stores. Basically, anything less then 100% product use from your own store was unacceptable.
Well….almost unacceptable. You see at every function I attended there was this large display that would be right outside the hall the was holding the function. There were suits, nice shirts, polos, ties, pens, etc, etc. The company was Diamond Clothiers and Bill Britt from what I understand had a stake in that little business. At every function there would be several IBOs buying suits, shirts, and everything else that they happened to be selling. The problem is they were buying items that were available through their own businesses and yet somehow this was not only acceptable but encouraged. What happened to 100% product use?
So why is it acceptable to buy clothing and other products from a business that is part-owned by the founder of BWW, but it is unacceptable to buy from anywhere else? Isn't it a bit hypocritical to on one hand to preach 100% product use and then sell clothing and other products to your downline, and on top of that encourage the purchase of those items, even though your downline can purchase those products from their own business?
January 20, 2007
QBS - It only Takes 2-5
By Truth in Bumper Stickers
Welcome to "Quixtar Bumper Stickers," a Quixtar BLOG series featuring bumper stickers of our favorite quotes from the Quixtar Motivational Organizations. Each bumper sticker will be posted without comment though your comments are welcomed.
This series does not have a regular publication schedule but all posts are available under the Bumper Sticker category. We encourage you to leave us some of your favorite quotes and slogans, and we might just turn them into a Quixtar Bumper Sticker.
January 15, 2007
The IBO Echo Chamber
By Truth in A/QMOs
Do you know what the Echo Chamber is? Well besides a hollow chamber used to make echoing sounds, which would be literally what an echo chamber is. But, that is not the echo chamber I am referring to. The echo chamber I am referring to is metaphorically speaking where one person either says or writes an idea and that idea gets repeated by like-minded individuals till eventually it is accepted as truth. Many times becoming more exaggerated each time it is told.
One particular anonymous (well at least for now) Quixtar supporter wrote an article on his site detailing this very phenomenon as it pertains to what he considers myths about the Quixtar business being repeated by critics on the Internet. He writes that "in the world of logic it is a logical fallacy", and that "the Internet provides an almost perfect arena for these phenomena to act in concert". I think however I may have come up with "the perfect" arena for these phenomena to act in concert, and that is the "IBO Echo Chamber".
There are many examples of this taking place among IBOs. Several claims all ranging from the undocumented "Quixtar is the second largest producer of millionares" to the outright crazy "Quixtar's website got so much traffic on it's first day, the servers melted." At first glance one might think these claims are just made by some new IBOs who are just so excited about their business they get their facts mixed up. First of all I don't understand who could even begin to believe site traffic would cause servers to actually melt, but in any case the reality is that many times these rumors are echoed by Platinum IBOs and above. Where do you think the new IBOs get this stuff? Let's take a look at a couple more detailed examples:
Microsoft and Quixtar
One myth that has certainly made it's way around the IBO Echo Chamber a few times is the relationship between Quixtar and Microsoft. The truth is that Microsoft provided a technical platform, development tools, consulting, and direct support for the web-based components of Quixtar. The IBO Echo Chamber however ends up telling some very different stories. Some of those stories include saying that Bill Gates went on the David Letterman show and when asked what was new and exciting he said "Quixtar". Not only that but he apparently then went over to Jay Leno and told him that Quixtar was the wave of the future and that they will control the Internet in the future. Of course just Bill Gates endorsement on national television wasn't enough and then the IBO Echo Chamber told us that Microsoft had invested money into Quixtar, some rumors going as high as $250 million.
Ray Kroc and McDonalds
This one is my favorite because I heard it every single week being repeated again and again by IBOs as high as Emerald while showing the plan to "guests" at our weekly open meeting. The story from the IBO Echo Chamber goes as follows. Ray Kroc while selling milkshake machines ran across the McDonald brothers and their new concept of a speedy service restaurant. He right away saw the potential and offered to buy the operation from the McDonald brothers for $10,000. The McDonald brothers agreed and of course Ray Kroc went on to franchise the restaurant and made a ton of money. This version which was repeated time and time again by several hundred if not thousands of IBOs is lacking in one very important thing….FACTS!
The real story is that Ray Kroc was a milkshake machine salesman and did in fact run into the McDonald brothers who had started this new restaurant with what they called the "Speedee Service System". Ray Kroc did see the potential but did not offer to buy the restaurants from them. Instead he became a partner with the McDonald brothers. The McDonald brothers had actually started franchising their restaurant before Kroc came along, but when they decided to put Kroc in charge of franchising, they really began to take off and formed the McDonald's Corporation. Eventually Kroc became frustrated that the brothers were content to only have a handful of stores and did offer to buy the company, but not for $10,000. The deal was for $2.7 million with a royalty of 1% on gross sales.
So as you can see the Echo Chamber exists virtually everywhere, and contrary to what one anonymous IBO would like you to think IBOs are not immune to the echo chamber and in fact are most likely a classic example of an echo chamber out of control. All of this of course is just another reason why I encourage everyone to never believe what you read or hear until you have done enough research and proved it's accuracy to your own satisfaction.
Your favorites
Now I would like you to tell us some of your favorite stories that you have either heard from the IBO Echo Chamber, or maybe even a story that you used to tell yourself when you were an IBO.
No Comment
By QBlog in Blog News
It appears that something has happened to the comments on this blog. They all seem to remain in place but they're missing from my database. Not good.
So, while I track down this issue and look for a solution comments will be disabled.
UPDATE: All fixed now. Thanks Preston.
January 5, 2007
Still Unknown
By QBlog in Quixtar
Just a reality check for everyone out there — unlike Amway, Avon and Mary Kay the Quixtar business is a complete unknown. And the way most people not in "the biz" explain Quixtar to the ignorant is by saying "it used to be Amway."
So, why not change the name back to Amway? Isn't it about time?