FTC asks for more funding from Congress

Where did you see the testimony? C-SPAN? I’d like to see it.

Tips and tricks to help solo practitioners run a law practice for under $100 a month

Tyler, great question. As with all law related questions, the answer is “it depends.” I currently do not have a Westlaw/Lexis subscription. Depending on your niche, I think it’s certainly fine to practice without a Wexis subscription. And Fastcase does offer users the ability to cross-reference cases. I might be in a bubble in the sense that most of my work is transactional and involves contract development and other administrative details for start-up companies. If a lawyer was doing a lot of litigation work (or even a little) and maybe some criminal defense, I would strongly urge them to fork out the cash to get Lexis or Westlaw. I had Lexis at my old employer’s office and we paid near $500 a month. It’s an absolute monopoly on publicly available documents! I think the open source movement will make those companies irrelevant in the near future, though. All the best.

FTC flexes its muscles, Distributors lash out at USANA (again)

The opportunities are with companies with innovative products at marketable prices. If the prices are too jacked up, distributors are forced to focus on recruiting. But if the products are priced right and are not commodities, there’s an opportunity for distributors to tell the product story, make some sales, and change their finances.

Thank you!

Tex, as for profits from the sales of support materials, I agree that disclosure of those profits is important. But the million dollar question: how much of those profits do you disclose? If Bill Britt talks about flying around on a private jet, does he need to disclaim that the plane was purchased with tool income or amway income? Or is a broad disclaimer at the end sufficient? What say you?

Defining the Gray, Part 4

Jared, The Advocate Group is wherever I am:) I’m currently in Michigan but moving to Nashville in early May. If you need to contact me, please feel free to do so at: kevin at theadvocategroup dot net.

Defining the Gray, Part 4

I agree that the price reductions in England were huge. The field cannot sell products if they’re priced out of the market. In my opinion, Amway got away with higher prices because they knew the recruitment engines in the field would overstate the opportunity, thus leading to people buying products at higher prices.

As far as Pokorny, I do think there are some teeth there. The most interesting allegations for me are the RICO allegations. The plaintiffs alleged that the tool companies and Amway knowingly conspired with one another to defraud consumers (by offering an unviable opportunity dependent on recruiting, not selling). If proven true, we might see US Attorneys (federal prosecutors) pursuing both the company (pyramid scheme) and members in the field (promoters).

As for the tool profits leading to distributors focusing on sponsoring instead of selling (because “customers don’t buy tools”), I think the root cause of all field behavior can be traced to the network marketing company’s pay plan. If their pay plan rewards retailing, then the tool companies will educate their folks on how to sell. If the pay plan rewards recruiting, then vice versa.

The most significant change from a legal perspective IS the tiered approach. The tiered approach forces everyone in the field to sell. There’s no work-around. And since a distributor needs to sell before they can sponsor, the downlines develop more slowly.

Customer sales are not a factor in the saturation analysis. If everyone in the country were a customer of XYZ MLM, it’s not saturated. Saturation occurs when the only way to make money is to recruit, and with each successive generation of recruits, there is a diminishing opportunity. Don’t take my word for it, read Koscot. With the tiered approach, I’d be willing to bet that there will only be enough distributors in a particular region to service that particular population.

I don’t understand Accreditation either. I recently received a message via Facebook from a girl I haven’t talked to in 15 years. She thanked me for writing the article and explained her experience with Amway. She didn’t even know she was supposed to sell Amway products. I told her Amway was trying to fix this problem and she probably got hooked up with a bad field leader. But it goes to show that they have a lot of work to do in the U.S.

The DSA has issues.

The pages skip because I’m cutting and pasting the pages from a master document. I release part V next week along with the full ebook.

Pyramid Schemes: Defining the Gray, Part I

Whether a distributor marks the price up for a retail sale or sells it at cost is not entirely relevant. When I say “retail sale” in the ebook, I’m referring to a sale made to a non-participant. If a distributor can earn income by primarily focusing on selling products at distributor cost to non-participants, I’m good with it. And although you say that very few prospects would be interested in selling, that’s exactly the point behind direct sales…individuals representing a brand and selling to people in their network. If it’s positioned as a “nah, you really don’t need to sell, just recruit….” kind of business, the red flag goes up.

Abundance of opportunities in law

Tyler,

You strike me as a Googley law student. You’re going to be just fine, my man! Just don’t follow the traditional map because it leads you off a cliff. Just fyi. If you’re able to work at a large firm, great. Get good experience, get paid, and get gone when you’re able.

10 Best Legal Movies of all time

I haven’t seen it, but it’s now in my netflix queue. Thanks!

What's a Googley lawyer?

Paul, we should chat and figure out how to create a networked platform where lawyers can associate/aggregate to perform services for larger clients. The market rewards efficiency and you can’t get more efficient than a virtual network with low overhead.