I have not posted about network marketing for a while, but several totally disconnected snippets of information about marketing in general and a few about network marketing in particular showed up on my radar this week.
These have been occupying my mind and have now settled into some questions to which I do not have all the answers, but the questions invite thought and speculation, so here goes – a post of half formed questions without answers.
A video of an interview with Seth Godin in which he makes the comment “This is a forever recession…..The end of the Industrial age ” was the first trigger. It reinforced what I have been thinking for some time, but I do not believe that the Industrial Age is over completely, just moved out of the developed countries into the top tier of the developing (at the moment India, China, Brazil). Sooner or later these countries will find that the factors that are making them competitive now (for example, a rapidly expanding middle class) will make them as uncompetitive as the developed countries and the next tier will become the competitive manufacturers of the day.
Here is Seth Godin’s interview. It’s under 9 minutes and well worth watching.
httpv://youtu.be/JJj_WHCdLtQ
Then more than one network marketer commented that finding customers and distributors for nutritional and wellness products seems to be getting more difficult.
This could be a seasonal problem, most of us have a financial hangover after the Christmas Holidays.
Or is it the wave of change in how we buy things that has converted many of the most wary consumers into ecommerce fans? Is the ease, convenience and security of buying on-line eroding the power of the staple of network marketing, the “autoship”. Is the flood of on-line information making the role of the network marketing distributor obsolete? Is the same medium that is helping some network marketers become highly successful, social media, working against those who do not know how to harness its power? There are still many highly successful network marketers and network marketing companies, but like all businesses, they will have to adapt to the new realities to stay successful.
Another interesting snippet. An article a few days ago (I did not bookmark it and now cannot find it) stated that sales of erotic books were soaring. We are not talking about hard core pornography here, just slightly more descriptive “bodice rippers” than the likes of Barbara Cartland wrote for earlier generations. The growth is in eBooks, they can be discreetly bought on-line by respectable lady readers. No red faces in book stores or sniggers from mail delivery people. One publishing house is desperately looking for more authors because it cannot keep up with the demand for new books.
That is fascinating, technology enabling an old product – juicy novels have been around for generations – to be distributed to a much wider customer base at a lower cost.
Our economies, our societies and our whole way of earning an income are changing, are you riding the wave or about to be swamped by it?
Wishing you success in all your endeavours.
