Several months ago my Dad asked me to attend a multi-level marketing seminar involving Voice Over Internet Protocol (V.O.I.P) products. He wanted to attend the seminar personally but he asked me to attend the seminar primarily for two reasons first he had another meeting to attend and secondly, he just did not understand what the product is all about. (This also goes for all other “hi-tech” products) So I reluctantly attended the seminar.

An American gave the presentation. He was very eloquent and convincing. The product was equally good as well. But what really intrigued me was the sales pitch he made when asked he people to join the multi-level marketing company.

His theory was that if you are entrepreneur and you want to be wealthy than your business strategy is to find something that would be the next hot thing in the future and spend your resources on it. If you are mainly an investor then consider investing in this company as one of your investment strategies.

He further makes his point by stating that the Microsoft, a $ 200 Billion dollars company which happens to be one of the richest and one of the most successful company in the world, is one of the companies that employs this business strategy. Surely you would invest in Microsoft if they would knock on your door and ask you to invest in their company.

But let’s just pretend for a moment that it is the year 1978. A group of casually dress, long haired, hippie looking geeks came knocking at your door asking you to invest in their company or even work for them. They said their product is something called “computer software” and that it would change the world in the years to come. That skinny little geek at the left side wearing a blue shirt at the bottom of the picture said you would regret it if you wouldn’t invest in their company. Would you be convinced with their investment strategies? Would you have invested your time or your money?

Those who did decide to invest became millionaires and even billionaires later on. Some of those people left after several years and months while those who remained and stayed with the company for a long period of time became very rich.

People did not expect that those casually dressed, long haired, hippie looking geeks change the world years later and would be named as among the world’s riches people. However those who had the foresight and the courage to invest with them eventually reaped the benefits.

The speaker closed by asking the audience if they are willing to take the chance to join in the multi-level marketing scheme of the new VOIP product. The sales pitch was good, and the product is good. But experience tells me that any multi-level marketing based business will only be good for a couple of years, after that the business has to switch to traditional since the market will be so saturated that you will have nobody to recruit. If the speaker was asking people to buy shares of stocks perhaps I might buy some. Investing in companies who has the foresight to know the trend in the future is always part of good investment strategies. Who knows? 20 years from now I might look back and say that I’m glad I invested. By the way the company he was talking about was Microsoft and the skinny little geek wearing the blue shirt was Bill Gates.