(from Rich Dad's The Business School for People Who Like Helping
People by Robert Kiyosaki)
The Rich Dad book Business School was written to address questions
about the value of direct selling and how it can be a tool in moving
from the left side of the CASHFLOW® Quadrant to the right side.
If you are a person who loves helping people - the complete title of
the Rich Dad book is Rich Dad's The Business School for People Who
Like Helping People - no other business fulfills this need better
than direct selling. Many companies in the direct selling industry
are offering millions of people the same business education my rich
dad taught me: the importance of building a network, instead of
working for a network. Teaching people to understand the power of
building their own business and own network is not an easy task. Why
is this? People have been taught to be loyal, hard-working employees
rather than to be business owners who build their own networks.
The following are core values that are found in most direct selling (or
networking) companies...
Value #1: True Equal Opportunity
Most direct selling companies are very compassionate. If you are
willing to stick it out and learn and study at your own pace, the
business will continue to stick by your side. Many of these
companies are truly equal opportunity businesses. If you will invest
the time and effort, so will they. I support any business that
values human compassion and true equal opportunity.
Value #2: Life-Changing Business Education
When I speak of life-changing business education, I speak of
education powerful enough to change a caterpillar into a butterfly,
a metamorphosis of sorts. In other words, for true life-changing
education to be effective, it must affect all four points of the
Learning Pyramid - mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual
education.
Value #3: Friends Who Will Pull You Up - Not Push You Down
For many people who are looking at starting a direct selling
business and want to make a change with their financial lives, the
main obstacle that prevents them from taking action is worrying
about what their friends and family are going to say. Some say very
negative and hurtful things that can have a lasting impact on those
looking to make more out of their lives. The simple fact is most
people don't like change. If someone strays away from the normal way
of doing things, they are looked at differently and can be targets
for ridicule or resentment. It's very important to shield oneself
from this type of negative environment. One of the advantages of a
direct selling business is that you're able to meet new people who
have dreams, aspirations, and core values similar to yours.
Value #4: What is the Value of a Network?
In order to harness the power, your job is to essentially duplicate
your actions by teaching someone to do what you do. Building a
network of people is simply looking for friends, new and old, who
want to go in the same direction as you do.
Value #5: Developing Your Most Important Business Skill
To have any type of success in direct selling, you're going to need
to communicate with people. No matter what technique you use to help
share your message, if you are to make any money, a product or
service needs to be sold first. That's what I really like about the
direct selling industry - their commitment to helping others
succeed. It just goes to show that the potential for greatness is in
all of us, and the direct selling industry does a masterful job of
tapping this potential.
Value #6: Leadership
To me, one of the biggest values of direct selling is training that
gives you the education, the time, and the opportunities to develop
one of your most important business skills: leadership.
Direct selling brings out a different type of leader. The military
develops a type of leader that inspires men and women to defend
their country. The world of business develops a type of leader that
builds teams to beat the competition. In the direct selling world,
the type of leader that is developed is a leader that influences
others by being a great teacher - teaching others to fulfill their
dreams. Instead of beating the enemy or beating the competition,
most leaders in direct selling simply inspire and teach others to
find their financial reward without harm to others.
Value #7: Not Working for Money
Thanks to our current educational system, most people have been
trained to work for money when instead they should be working to
build wealth. I've been able to meet some very successful direct
selling business owners. For me, the pleasure was to find that the
formula for success in direct selling is the same formula my rich
dad taught me:
Build a business - it takes up to five years to get a business up
and going before you'll see a good level of success. It can take
less time and it can take longer. A business needs time to grow.
Reinvest in the business - putting money and time back into your
business, not taking it out for monetary items, such as nice clothes
or vacations.
Here's the clincher question to ask yourself: How can you be happy
if you have given control of your financial life away to someone
else? Choose to work for wealth instead of working for money.
Value #8: Living Your Dreams
"Many people don't have dreams," my rich dad said. "Why?" I
asked. "Because dreams cost money," he said.
Direct selling companies stress the importance of going for and
living your dreams. My rich dad explained the importance of dreams
this way, "Being rich and being able to afford a big house are not
important. What's important is striving, learning, doing your best
to develop your personal power to afford the big house. People who
live small dreams continue to live lives as small people." As my
rich dad said, it's not the size of the home that's most important;
it's the size of the dream that matters most. Many poor people are
poor because they have given up on dreaming.
If you are a person with big dreams who would love to support others
in achieving their big dreams, then direct selling is definitely a
business for you. And it doesn't mean you have to quit your job. You
can start part-time and then, as your business grows, you can help
other people start their own part-time business.
This is value worth having - a business and people who help others
make their dreams come true.
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