WHY are some cue makers so valuable and others (better in quality) NOT so valuable?
- Thread starter Bobkitty
- Start date
You described it accurately.
I have been a successful Shaklee distributor for 40 years, this January. It was the first Network Marketing company that made it in the US...before Amway. It was a great company, but I think it has turned. I quit being active 2 years ago because of the change.
Now, I'm trying other things.
Jeff Livingston
middleofnowhere
Registered
My sister in law lost a lot of money in Amway. She has a warehouse full of unsold products. All they seem to do is sell to each other pretending they have sales. Hardly any is sold to an actual consumer. To get rid of your stock you need to find another sucker like yourself to trick into joining.
I can't speak for Amway, but that's called "front-loading" and it is not allowed in legit companies.
Our family made well over a million dollars with Shaklee over the years. Not riches, but a damn fine income for part-timers.
EDIT: The best part of it was the time I had to live a real life, doing what I wanted when I wanted. Hard to buy that.
Jeff Livingston
JC
Coos Cues
I charge 110 per hour for fixing European automobiles. Of course like any well organized business I know my cost of labor, parts, fixed expenses etc and have goals for profit margin that if not met will result in my efforts being a waste of time and energy.
I keep no such records nor set goals when building a pool cue. If I did the rapid result would be ceasing the endeavor immediately. Closing shop and admitting business defeat.
My guess is all small custom builders have the same situation. The niche known as the pool world is very lucky for it too or they would all be playing with cookie cutter factory built cues that were produced with an actual business model in place.
Very few small batch cues would ever sell at a price point needed for them to be a product of a viable business model.
Take southwest cues for instance. I think it's very likely my small auto repair business is more profitable annually than even this model of ten years out and small supply. And southwest is at the top of the food chain for the niche.
MLM is a real biz. Most people just don’t have the discipline or follow through to become successful or STAY successful. That applies to most small biz people and they end up getting jobs where they can be lazy, irresponsible and eek out subsistence.
People with discipline, motivation and those who can stay motivated who can also keep their down line in the same mindset can do very well in a real MLM that’s properly structured. Some are just not structured to afford the most disciplined person any measure of success. Those are the scammy ones. And can be difficult to detect from the real ones upfront to the untrained eye. Thus the bad reputation that MLM’s suffer from. The one bad apple thing-you know ruins the whole basket.
I never did MLM, I have met, known many people who were consistently successful with them for the aforementioned reasons. Honestly I was just to lazy.
I’m a marketer and I know about marketing. It’s been my thing since about 93. I know a lot about many different types of marketing and how they function.
best
Fatboy
People with discipline, motivation and those who can stay motivated who can also keep their down line in the same mindset can do very well in a real MLM that’s properly structured. Some are just not structured to afford the most disciplined person any measure of success. Those are the scammy ones. And can be difficult to detect from the real ones upfront to the untrained eye. Thus the bad reputation that MLM’s suffer from. The one bad apple thing-you know ruins the whole basket.
I never did MLM, I have met, known many people who were consistently successful with them for the aforementioned reasons. Honestly I was just to lazy.
I’m a marketer and I know about marketing. It’s been my thing since about 93. I know a lot about many different types of marketing and how they function.
best
Fatboy
Front-Loading is a tell tail sign that things might not be right. Not always but usually is.
When the pitch about the down line also more important than the product(s) or services your selling, that’s a real big red flag.
You understand the biz, for sure.
One of our bragging points is we held Thursday night in-home meetings (~2-20 people) for over 17 years and NEVER HAD A NO SHOW. That might be a record.
Jeff Livingston
That’s a credit to you and your skills as a leader. It takes solid leadership to run a down line, it’s not automatic as implied in many bad apple MLM’s. Well done!
I hope when the nonsense is over you can pick up the pieces and get it rolling again. So much has been destroyed.
Best
Fatboy
middleofnowhere
Registered
I had a friend commit suicide from joining one of those companies. It was called Dare To Be Great run by some guy named Glenn Turner. He got me to go to one of their meetings. You could see through the scam from a mile away but a lot of people are so full of wishful thinking they are blind to it.
They would have you lie to your friends trying to get then to join. You had to make it look like you were successful to suck others in. My friend bought a new Lincoln, new clothes, borrowed thousands to carry in his pocket to flash. The idea was to make a possable invester think it was all coming from the business.
Of course this had to collapse and he parked the Lincoln in a parking garage and shot himself in the head. He was found a few days later.
GLENN TURNER — OUT OF LUCK FRAUD SENTENCING MAY BE HIS DAY OF RECKONING
Twenty years ago Walt Disney’s decision to sink a huge fortune into the Florida sand just outside Orlando instantly turned the city into a mecca for a procession of daring entrepreneurs and s…
www.orlandosentinel.com
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That’s a credit to you and your skills as a leader. It takes solid leadership to run a down line, it’s not automatic as implied in many bad apple MLM’s. Well done!
I hope when the nonsense is over you can pick up the pieces and get it rolling again. So much has been destroyed.
Best
Fatboy
Thanks, Eric. I appreciate that coming from you. One problem now is most of our group has died...of old age, not the product. I hadn't anticipated that one. Our best distributor just went into Hospice.
As my biz was coming apart, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and run down to the mancave and write down an idea for a better NM structure based on why other plans stopped working. Every time, a new idea would just pop into my head and I had to write it down asap. After a year or two, I now have a great idea in detail for a company but nowhere to use it. I imagine many such plans exist out there.
It eliminates all the bad sides of these businesses and rewards only the good. I was sick and tired of the over-hyping of companies and the showcasing of only the highest earners and the abuse of some folks of the system. I must have had it brewing in my head for years, the way it just came out so easily. Each idea on a piece of paper. I'm looking at 'em now....'bout 30 small pages.
If you know someone trying to start one, you can have it. It's driving me nuts, just sitting here looking at me.
Jeff Livingston
I thought most who accumulate that much wealth in a short time were already asshats.
Well I know wealthy people who treat their employees well. As they understand without these people their companies would be nothing.
They provide good benefit packages, annual bonuses, etc.
Then you got the wealthy like some that treat everyone like second class citizens. Because that is what they do.
They provide good benefit packages, annual bonuses, etc.
Then you got the wealthy like some that treat everyone like second class citizens. Because that is what they do.
Time marches on, like my biz I shuttered in 08, everyone thinks we go shut down by the Feds…..sure. It became obsolete, game over. I understand fully. Move on to a new gig, or relax a bit. I chose the latter.
I missed (forgot?) all that about your biz. Sorry to hear it.
I'm making something in my garage to sell. Retirement hobby/biz.
Jeff Livingston
I always treated my employees very good, everyone wins. I didn’t want my crew looking for another job at lunch break. The lazy ones got cut real fast. I had on average 750-850 employees at any given time. I set it up so I only really had about 15-20 of them I worked with directly on a regular basis, but when I would go to one of the offices or Wearhouse I was always cool with everyone. Being a duck or acting like one gets you nothing in return. Not my style, even like the haters here, I take the high road and they lose.
I miss the money, I don’t miss anything else. I’m building houses with a solid biz partner in LA after taking 10 years off. Life is good.
No, but it can change you. I kept it cool. I went from 300k a year to 8M a year 20 years ago. That’s about like 16/year now. Lots of stuff opens up with that kind of money, have to play it smart. Keeping it is the hardest part. The idiots always go broke.
Custom cues are just like any other custom craft in the US . The makers have to build a name/brand and rep .
You can argue about the prices till your face turns blue .
The market AND the makers , in the end, determine that price .
The makers can price them as they want, if nobody buys them, then they might have to lower the price or production .
When demand far exceeds production like in the case of SW, cue flippers take advantage of it by jacking up the price.
A SW ebony 6-pointer go for around 40K in China now . Let that sit .
We can argue Skip Weston and Fanneli made better and prettier cues than SW but it is not going to change jack.
I can argue a capped plastic collar hits way too soft and it won't change the value of those collectible old cues with capped plastic collar b/c they have history .
You can argue about the prices till your face turns blue .
The market AND the makers , in the end, determine that price .
The makers can price them as they want, if nobody buys them, then they might have to lower the price or production .
When demand far exceeds production like in the case of SW, cue flippers take advantage of it by jacking up the price.
A SW ebony 6-pointer go for around 40K in China now . Let that sit .
We can argue Skip Weston and Fanneli made better and prettier cues than SW but it is not going to change jack.
I can argue a capped plastic collar hits way too soft and it won't change the value of those collectible old cues with capped plastic collar b/c they have history .
When I made the transition from $125K/yr to $300K/yr; I went from the attitude that (down there::$125/yr) I would wear what they wanted me to wear, to ($300K/yr) I will wear what I feel comfortable in.