What do you do when you retire as one of the founders of American Honda Motor Company? Why, you enter the ‘early days’ of Multi Level Marketing of course!
This was my introduction to Ovation Cosmetics. I knew nothing about cosmetics, but when the presenter started drawing circles on the board, and said I could get paid a commission on everyone I sponsored into the business, I knew right away I was going to be rich. I started renting a desk from my sponsor who had his office in the office tower of the Hilton Hotel. He said the way to get people to the meeting was to put an ad in the Los Angeles Times Newspaper, and invite them to come down to the hotel for an interview. The next day I put my first ad in the paper, and the phone was ringing off the hook the very next morning. Ovation Cosmetics was so hot that there was a meeting I could attend every night of the week. The first night I had 6 or 8 people at the meeting, and signed up several of them. It was very hard not to get excited when people were waving around checks they had made because they had signed up a Supervisor for $12,500.00 worth of cosmetics. Of course this was 50 years ago, when we didn’t know any better than to front end load. I had just come from an industry where a motor cycle dealer might order 25 motorcycles at a time. They were selling so well that they needed the inventory. Naturally, some people in the MLM companies got stuck with the products they bought, and that lead to complaints to the various authorities, and eventually brought about the upfront loading laws. But the lessons I learned during those exciting times have been valuable to me over the years. The President of Ovation Cosmetics was the legendary Earl Shoaff the mentor of many of today’s most respected personal development trainers. After only about 6 weeks in Ovation Cosmetics I had the privilege of doing the warm up in one of the evening meetings and introducing Earl Shoaff. Most of you have heard Jim Rohn, one of the world’s most famous motivational speakers, talk about his mentor Earl Shoaff, and how his teachings changed his life and made Jim a millionaire in Nutri-Bio. I can’t remember if Jim was in Ovation or not, but Earl Shoaff suggested that I contact Jim about speaking to my downline. I remember hiring Jim to hold an all day seminar at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills for my downline. I still have the notes from that meeting. And I can truthfully say Jim’s message and council changed my life. And, I still remember how much I paid Jim. $35.00 was what he charged me for this all day seminar. I’ve heard him speak many times since, and I’ve bought many of his CDs and DVDs, and he talks about how he first got started giving talks. I’ve never asked him, but my meeting may have been one of the first he ever gave. I was talking to Rod Cook, of MLM Watchdog fame the other day, and as old MLM’ers usually do we started talking about how we got started. Rod mentioned that his first big money maker was in SWIPE. I said, “Yes I know, they were wearing those big I LIKE SWIPE buttons all over the Hilton Hotel where they were holding meetings the same time we were holding meetings.” In fact the reason I titled this short article MLM Hotel, was because during this time in another room they were holding meetings for Holiday Magic Cosmetics. You never saw so many excited people in your life. Of course there were a lot of sad long faces walking around too. These were the people who had invited their friends to meet them at the hotel and never showed up. It seems like today everyone talks about no meetings, no selling, and no talking to people, but to me those were the good old days and MLM was fun. Another reason the MLM Hilton Hotel was so special in my memories was that I also had the privilege of hearing Napoleon Hill give a half day seminar, and it was where I was first introduced to Earl Nightingale’s recording of The Strangest Secret. The wonderful world of MLM and personal development was opened to me at the MLM Hotel. Over the years I’ve shamelessly taken what I first learned from Jim Rohn, and passed it on to my downlines as words of wisdom from me. I have however been a huge advocate of Jim’s books, recordings, and seminars. I hope he forgives me for stealing his wisdom.
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When you visit his web site at www.oilextreme.com, and see all the racing successes he has had with the motor oil and additives, and are able to read technical papers about the revolutionary anti friction technology used in all the products, it's very hard to not believe him.
Since after 9/11 when racing budgets were cut so drastically, George decided to take his oil directly to the consumer through a franchise program called Oil Extreme Mobile Pit Stop.
In many parts of the country you can see his franchisees driving around in fancy vans doing oil changes at office complexes and large corporate parking lots. These franchised dealers have proven that once a motorist uses the oil one time they usually have a customer for life, because the oil gives better gas and diesel mileage, more horsepower, less emissions, and the oil lasts two or three times longer than normal
- MLM HOTEL by George W. French - August 1, 2009
