The Law of Success

The Profit Clinic

Who is John Counsel?

John is the founder and CEO of The Profit Clinic, a respected management consulting, training and publishing firm specialising in business education for small and medium enterprises and the direct selling profession. He enjoys a world-wide reputation for exposing counterfeits and boobytraps and, just as important, for providing safer, better and smarter solutions. He's a member of the Advisory Board of the MLMTruth Coalition, and is the former Executive Director for Australia of the global Distributor Rights Association.

You can view John's professional profile here.

Here, in his own words, is John's explanation of how and why he became involved in network marketing and why he's so committed to it as the most enlightened, ethical, effective and egalitarian business system ever to evolve.

John Counsel I first got involved in network marketing in the early 1980s. As usual, I did it for different reasons from most people. I was teaching at Australia's largest university at the time, in marketing, organisational behaviour, visual communications, graphic design and advertising.

I'd read about network marketing and thought that if even a fraction of the claims made about it as the future of retail distribution were accurate, we should probably consider including it in our curriculum. I'd had unique insights into the pyramid selling fiascoes of the late 1960s and early 1970s and, although I knew this was different, I wasn't sure why or how. So I figured it was time to find out more.

I began asking colleagues and other sources about network marketing and was surprised by the emotional nature of the responses I received. They were long on opinion and notably short on facts. So I began enquiring internationally and found the same thing. In the end, I decided that the only reliable course was to go to the source, and I called an old friend whose regular invitations to look at his company I'd just as regularly declined. I think it took him all of 15 minutes to travel the 35 km separating us!

By halfway through his impressive presentation bells started ringing in my head. This business model made a lot of sense to me, and I could see the potential it had – if it were handled properly.

So I joined, with him as my sponsor.

Lynne and I won just about every award it was possible to win in our first year. I spent a lot of time researching and testing ideas. especially in areas like merchandising and sponsoring approaches. Our team grew quickly and we achieved outstanding retailing results using the strategies we created, based on our research.

But in 1986 I became ill as a result of severe stress in my advertising business. Instead of our MLM income continuing to grow as expected, we found that our group was being raided by crossline distributors and others. Preoccupied with just surviving my illness, we decided to let it slide. Our business dwindled very rapidly. We weren't particularly impressed, either by the failure of the concept to support us or by the less-than-ethical practices of so many other distributors and upline leaders.

Instead, I decided to set up in business as a management consultant specialising in the direct selling industry, including network marketing and party plan. Over the next few years I built a reputation for excellent results with a variety of companies.

In 1990 I joined another network marketing company and built a successful business. But as demand for my consulting and training services grew, I finally resigned and handed the business over to my wife and (then) business partner, Lynne.

In 1996 I formed a company called Income Security Network. I had a vision of helping ordinary wage and salary earners achieve freedom from money worries using simple, powerful principles and practices for gaining control over spending, eliminating debt and turning household spending into secure, profitable, long term income streams.

I wasn't interested in creating multi-millionaires. I wanted to help people break free from the stress and worry caused by lack of disposable income. I wanted them to be able to...

have money in their pockets or purses whenever they needed it
pay their bills on time
take a holiday every year that would relax them – not stress them!
buy the things they needed and wanted without going into debt
meet financial emergencies whenever they arose.

In 2005 I launched www.FREEcoachingonline.com, a 12-part training and support program for network marketers from any company, any distributor team, anywhere in the world. This is proving to be very popular with people struggling to grow their businesses, especially if they have sponsors and other upline leaders who neglect or ignore them.
Freedom Path
In late 2007 I launched a new, FREE ebook titled "The Fourth Generation™ Path to Freedom — a Business Manifesto for the 21st Century". It explains the eye-opening concept of Fourth Generation™ business principles and practices… the REAL basis of network marketing and WHY it works. You can download your free copy from www.fourthgenerationbusiness.com.

In late 2008 I launched a new blog and forum to show people how to implement those Fourth Generation™ principles and practices at www.REALnetworkmarketing.com.

I look forward to showing you how YOU can succeed using our leading-edge strategies, training and tools. Please feel free to contact me at our Help Desk.

John
John Counsel