ABCIncome.Com :: The Ground Floor Opportunity Myth!
The Ground Floor Opportunity Myth!
Written by Phil Covington
Founder, ABCIncome.com
(c) copyright 2004 GRPMAX, L.L.C. & Phil Covington
Original URL: http://www.abcincome.com/articles/
One of the things that I hear all the time from people evaluating a potential network marketing business is, “shouldn’t I get in now while it’s still a ground floor opportunity?”
The ground floor opportunity myth, and argument, has been around for decades. But, unfortunately, it is simply not true. With rare exception, you are NOT more likely to miss out if you choose not to get involved with some new startup company or opportunity now. There are numerous article on ABCIncome.com that explain why you should avoid brand new opportunities. Just one is the article titled, “Wave Opportunities - Catch The Wave?”
Various articles, like the one above, will explain that precisely because most new companies fail is exactly why you should be wary of getting involved with one!
However, there are two additional points that people constantly make when trying to convince someone that there is such a thing as a ground floor opportunity advantage:
1) That if you are one of the “first” people to sign up it means that many more people will have to sign up after you (and below you).
2) You better jump in now before the market is saturated and everyone already knows about it or has already signed up!
Let’s debunk the first point by tackling the second one. The “market saturation” myth. The claim that after a company has been around for a certain length of time “everyone” will have already signed up either as a customer or a representative. Thus, leaving you with few prospects for success…
The only problem with this claim is that SATURATION HAS NEVER OCCURRED DURING THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF NETWORK MARKETING!
I dare you, name a network marketing company that has “saturated” the market? You won’t be able to find one.
Don’t believe me? You can very easily prove it to yourself. I won’t mention names, but pick any of the biggest, best, and oldest network marketing companies that you can think of. Some have been around for 50 year or more!
If the company has been around that long then surely its market must be saturated by now, right? Wrong!
Simply start polling people you encounter and ask them two simple questions: 1) Have you ever heard of company XYZ? 2) Are you signed up as a representative or a customer with company XYZ? Sure, you might run into a few people who say, “yes,” but most will not only not already be a representative or customer, but many will have never heard of the company before, even though it may be a giant in the industry and may have been around for 10, 20, or 30 years or more.
If these are the kinds of results that you get when asking about the biggest, best established, and oldest companies that you can find, what do you think the chances are that a few years from now you’ll still have plenty of prospects to talk to about this exciting “new” company that someone is trying to convince you to sign up with? If the company is still around in a few years, and that’s a big “if,” then, based on the results above, you’ll still be able to find an endless number of new prospects to sign into that company. And, it will be much easier because by then they will have worked out most of the bugs and will be much better established.
The above test should be more than adequate to convince you that there is now, has always been, and will probably continue to be into the foreseeable future plenty of prospects for you to talk to.
However, there is an even better example that proves the point even more dramatically. It was made by one of the principles of a pioneering network marketing company back in the 1980s when someone in the audience asked him this same age old question, “but what about saturation?” He gave the best answer that I’ve ever heard given in answer to that question.
He happened to be a Christian and used the example of the most famous individual associated with that faith. If you happen to be of another faith then you can just as easily adapt this example a little and it will work just the same. However, he said that that individual, one of the greatest, “salesmen,” who ever lived, started a kind of network marketing operation almost two thousand years ago. And he started with just 12 original representative in his, “downline.” And they’ve been marketing their opportunity ever since, to the entire World, and now there are millions upon millions in his downline. Yet, despite that, there are still many more millions, even billions of, “prospects,” who haven’t yet responded to that marketing campaign.
Again, it doesn’t matter what faith you are for the same example to work. There is virtually no major religion or church on the face of the planet that isn’t looking for new representatives to add to their downlines :)
Different example, same principle, saturation is a myth. It simply doesn’t happen!
Another reason that saturation never happens is because people are constantly changing. People who weren’t interested in an opportunity yesterday might be today. Or maybe a product that they weren’t interested in at age 25 when health issues weren’t a primary concern becomes more appealing as the years go by. People age and pass away and new prospects are born every day. We live in an ever shifting sea of unique and interesting people who are constantly adapting and changing. And they just might decide to be interested in your product or service today, or tomorrow.
And, remember, if you happen to be here in the United States, there are 300,000 million people just in the USA alone! Granted, not all are of age, and some are not qualified prospects. But, just how many of those people do you need in your organization to make it work for you? Relatively speaking, out of 300,000 MILLION, you only need a few!
Oh, and you’ve probably already figured it out by now. Earlier I said that I would debunk the first myth by tackling the second one. Now, after you’ve read this article, do you still think you’ll believe it when someone tells you that if you don’t sign up NOW; if you’re not one of the very first people to get in on the, “ground floor,” that it will be an uphill battle later because, “everyone,” will have already, “gotten in?”
Pick a company and an opportunity based on its merits, and not just on someone’s claim that you have to get in on the ground floor!
