The HOWS and the WHYS behind my choice of programs

Back to the roots of network marketing

What originally attracted me to the concept of network marketing back in the 1990’s was the question “what could the average family do with an extra $300-$500 per month?”. Network marketing was not about quitting your job or moving to a new field where the grass was greener. It was about social responsibility. It was about adding value to your life, to your family life, and to the life of the community around you. It was about socialising, about making friends, about helping people build themselves up and improve the quality of their lives, it was about having fun and enjoying your work. It was about being happy knowing that you were actually contributing to people’s personal growth and growing yourself along the way. You were part of a community, you worked and lived in that community, and network marketing was a way to put in some honest extra work for some honest extra pay. And if you were one of the pioneers in any particular business and continued to work your business diligently, you would expect an extra reward for being one of the first movers and for your continued efforts, in the form of a substantial residual income.

The roots are a far cry from much of what we have encountered over the past 5 years. The get rich quick schemes, the matrix and binary and power leg schemes designed to sell hot air… in short, a myriad of programs with no real intrinsic value. It feels as if everyone is out to take advantage of their neighbour in a frenzy to become rich, and the focus is on the $. What a poor and barren cultural heritage that is, and a far cry from the strong social and community spirit and potential enrichment (beyond money) that I still associate with network marketing.

Well, I have a personal mission in life, which is to get network marketing back onto its original tracks. To help people see network marketing the way that I see it. I am not out to convert people into believers, but I would like to lift the fog just enough that people can see the real potential behind network marketing. That people once again recognise the social and community aspects and associated responsibilities. And the great news is that I have now discovered the locomotive that is going to help me do it.

Before I move on, let me stop and reflect on what I have just written. The key themes that I have associated with network marketing are:

- average family

- extra monthly income

- social responsibility

- adding value to life

- socialising

- making friends

- helping people

- contributing to people’s lives

- building people / personal growth

- strong social and community spirit

- enrichment beyond money

- associated responsibilities

- honest extra pay

- pioneer work and residual income

Anyway, back to the locomotive. The business is uVmecasual games and a welcome breath of fresh air in our network marketing industry. Some call it a revolution and others refer to it as an evolution. For me it is both and the next section covers the characteristics that make it such a great match for the themes listed above.

Belief in the uVme business

Due diligence is something that every self respecting business person does. So far I have been more than encouraged by what I have discovered about the casual games market and about VWD, the co-founders and the uVme business vision.

For example, I was given the opportunity to review the draft pay plan before it was finalised. So I am 100% behind the design of the plan. Whether you are a Q1 or a Q9, it encourages you to continue sponsoring and building deep.

The company (VWD) says that it has done its market research. So I queried the company on the Chinese market. They knew as much as I did and they had even visited China to do their research first hand. They take trouble to work out the details up front.

We were concerned about payment problems in countries like India. Already taken care of, including electronic bank transfers, which was great news for our team in India. We queried them on the legalities of the fast start bonus. Once again, they had done their homework.

Different countries require different wording (legalities vary from country to country). For example, the fast start bonus is only released when extra turnover has been generated, i.e. when you help the sponsored member activate his/her position by generating 20 units of game turnover in the first 28 days. This is an essential factor in making a network marketing business legal. But this is not enough in some countries like Germany, where the signup fee of 199,97 will have to be expressed as the price for “purchasing a start-kit” consisting primarily of the uvme.com game platform. Different countries have different legal requirements, and all this is being worked on and finalised as the soft launch day in October comes even closer.

And what about making enough profit. The individual challenges for $1 or even $10 will not generate enough income. And the older generation who is happy to spend 20-30 minutes each day doing a puzzle for free will not generate any money either. By the way, isn’t it great that we are not out to exploit everyone… that we continue to offer entertainment for free as well? The real business lies in the competitions and tournaments that are organised by the company and qualified promoters and associates. The margin will not be fixed at 25%. Guidelines will be issued for flexible and variable margins in competitions and tournaments. Participation will be for individuals and for teams.

Some competitions will be ongoing, e.g. weekly ladders or matches in a pools, other tournaments maybe for a day or a week, e.g. imagine playing against the clock for $1 where the fastest time wins and the tournament runs for 5 days. At the end of day 1, 100 people have played and the prize money is $60 (say $40 for the company). End of day 2, 500 have played and the prize money is now $300. At the end of day 3, 2.000 have played and the prize money is $1200. What do you think people will do on day 4 and day 5. You play a skill game for 2-3 minutes for $1 with a chance of winning $1200. Would you try the game? Would you try again if the prize money rose to $2500, and then to $5000? There are so many creative ways to make the games work for different age groups. And add to that the numbers. Associates should be recruiting game players by the hundreds and by the thousands. And there are so many ways to attract players.

The casual games market is huge. Market surveys show that the game player at sites such as www.pogo.com and www.king.comspend an average of $20 per month participating in matches, competitions and tournaments… for the thrill of the challenge and to have fun. Any moment of the day that you visit these sites you will see around 100.000, 200.000 or more players logged in and playing. Many single people are socialising more and more on the casual games platforms. Just read the press releases over the last couple of days about MTV investing $500 million in casual games, about Van Den Ende investing in the Dutch Spill Group, one of the world leaders in casual games. There is no doubt that the expected growth is huge and that there is plenty of money to be made by offering people entertainment online, which is what uVme casual games is all about.

There is plenty of background information available in the Insiders report, which introduces in detail the three global growth trends of online casual games, social networking and network marketing (to become social marketing). And I have just set up a blog for the recent press releases in Dutch, so that the Dutch people can discover what casual games are all about and just how strongly this market is moving forwards. The news/blog link is now included in the Dutch conference room at:

http://www.uvmementors.com/nl/showmain-nl.php

And I hope to see new blog sites from our international members added to the list for all the different languages, countries and cultures.

Let me take the themes I listed in the previous section and map the uVme business against them, one by one:

- average family

We will coach, train and support everyone who joins as an associate to reach Q3 status in 90 days. The uVme opportunity offers so much growth and long term potential that this is a realistic goal/expectation to have

- extra monthly income

Everyone who reaches Q3 status will be earning a welcome extra monthly income.

Our basic team training is based on getting everyone to Q3 status in 90 days.

In network marketing terms, Q3 is also the level where duplication has set in.

Important uVme mindset at this stage:

o Q1 active

o Q2 monthly costs covered

o Q3 extra monthly & residual income

o Q4-Q9 substantial to huge residual incomes

- social responsibility

Are you aware of what you are doing to people when you invite them to join you in a business venture? Are you aware of the real effects that your products and services have on people? Every time that you work your “list” of followers, are you aware of the impact that your email has on each person? Maybe you never even ask yourself this question and treat it as irrelevant. Well, even if you do not, your social conscience does it for you, and if it does not like the answer and finds that you are not listening, it will take steps to get the message across to you, usually through direct physical means such as ailments, illness, depression etc.

- adding value to life

I have started referring to the uVmecasual games as vitamin G. Games are fun and serve to release stress. There are plenty of studies that show that levels of violence and crimes in communities are reduced when youth start to socialise in a casual games environment. Elderly people in the age group 60-90 who actively exercise their minds daily with puzzles etc. lead a fuller and longer life. My own mother and my wife’s mother are close-to-home proof of this as they are well into the 90s. Now they do not puzzle behind the computer, but the baby boomers that are now in their 60s certainly do.

- socialising

The games are due to soft launch in October, but even in this pre-launch phase we are already having fun and experiencing fulfilment in our daily work. The active members of our team are socialising and working daily through the online communication facilities (the team presentation & training conferences, multi-person skype chats and phone calls) and local offline facilities (our uVme road shows in local towns, people starting to give presentations on the casual games industry at conferences and to student societies and at game centres, and small leadership meetings and prospecting meetings at people’s homes or at convenient locations.

Imagine how this will kick off once the games begin. Game players who participate in teams have first hand experience of how team members socialise both online during competitions as offline when they reflect on performance and discuss strategy.

Notice how this business is stimulating a healthy balance between online and offline socialising.

- making friends & helping people

Our basic training introduces the following mindset “do not use people to build your business, but use your business to build people”. That simple statement is the spirit behind how we are working right now. We are building relationships and making friends. We are working hard on a daily basis and having fun doing it. And sure, tempers fly and there are heated discussions, but that’s all part of building strong relationships. We are learning about each other and about our different cultural backgrounds. We are learning to work with each other, we are building a strong leadership and mentorship team. This is not a something for nothing business.

- contributing to people’s lives

We have talked about the vitamin G side of the business. So if you are into health drinks and wellness products, this is a great one to add to your portfolio. People can try it for free. The extra money, learning to socialise, helping people build their lives up again… the list goes on and on.

- Building people / personal growth

The first step to personal growth is coined in the statement “do not ask yourself what others can do for you, but rather, ask yourself what you can do for others”. This is the mindset behind the leaders and mentors in our group, and it is spreading throughout the team day by day.

- strong social and community spirit

Once again, if your current network activities expose you on a daily basis to strong social and community spirit, then great. But if this is missing from your life, then uVme is an opportunity for you to rekindle the spirit (relight the flame inside you).

- enrichment beyond money

There is nothing wrong with making money. But the way we make our money also contributes to the quality of our life. It either enriches us or it impoverishes us. I believe in and/and rather than either/or, yet this is one of those exceptions to every rule, where either/or applies. If we are earning money from a scam or taking advantage of our team members by involving them in hype or pyramid schemes, we know it, and it impoverishes our lives. But if we are working for our money, contributing to the value of people’s lives, inviting people to use a product or a service that we truly believe in, then our enrichment goes way beyond the money we earn.

- associated responsibilities

How can you enjoy your work or have fun with what you are doing, if you do not recognise the responsibility associated with the actions you take. When you recruit a new member, do you recognise and take action on your implied responsibility as a sponsor. Stop recruiting and start sponsoring! Get back to the roots of network marketing.

- honest extra pay

The average family in the 1980s could do a lot with an extra $300-$500 each month. These days we are probably talking about $600-$900 per month. And the majority of us would like to feel that he or she has earned the money honestly.

- pioneer work and residual income

So far we have not mentioned the prospects of early retirement and earning fortunes. uVme offers the average family a realistic opportunity of earning a welcome extra monthly income in exchange for some honest work. And like in all business, the early birds and the hard workers and the risk takers have an equally realistic opportunity to earn large monthly incomes and to generate substantial residual incomes.

Commitment to your own goals in life

Not everyone has a handicapped son they want to leave a legacy for or set up financial security for. Not everyone is facing an inadequate old age pension scheme and searching desperately for a way to fill the gap. Not everyone is motivated by the idea of more money. Sure, we know as experienced networkers, that when a new member has a strong personal need (their hope, their why, their dream), that member has a strong chance of surviving the emotional roller-coaster during his or her first 12 months in network marketing.

But uVme is such a great business opportunity for so many of the reasons mentioned above, financial and otherwise, that people will become involved and be successful who are currently satisfied with their lives. Purely and simply because uVme and the casual games industry is something that they want to be associated with. And this is the essential difference between hypes and trends. Sooner or later hypes start to deflate like a leaking balloon, but trends tend to grow and evolve. And uVme is evolution in the making.

Which brings us back to Evo project E-Play and Evolution Day. The following section introduces a time line for the uVme business. It started off as Evo project E-Play, and is destined to move into some new and exciting phases during the next couple of years.

Enjoy the timeline and start setting your expectations and dreaming your dreams.

Managing expectations

If the casual games market is going into explosive growth as predicted, what should we expect:

• Evo and project E-Play

- creation of the Insiders’ Report

- pre-pre launch on June 8^th 2007

- Evo website used for pre-registration

- Evolution Day at Cheltenham Race course on July 15^th 2007

• uVme pre-launch phase

- uVme pre-launched on July 15^th 2007

- New and old competitors to join us in this market

- Van Den Ende invests in Spill Group (August 17)

- Microsoft migrates casual games fro Xbox to PC

- MTV invests $500 million in casual games

- Associate programs built around “casual games”

• Between now and soft launch:

- attention focussed on associates (not game players and promoters)

- road shows followed by Super Saturdays

- delays, first signs of exhaustion, rumours, tension

- daily online conference & training calls

- training focus on how to build organisation deep

- active members working both online and offline

• Come the soft launch in Q4 2007:

- some 20 online games and 2-3 new games per month

- an inflow of game players

- our attention switches from associates to game players and promoters

- our first competitors appear on the scene - both the opportunistic start-up companies as well as the established social networking communities such as MySpace that start to expand their product base with casual games

- our training calls / Super Saturdays have more game & tournament content

- the Super Saturdays become Super Game Saturdays

• Come the hard launch in Q1 2008:

- an explosive inflow of game players

- an explosive growth of “game players become associates”

- a whole new breed of associates

- more and more competitors pour into the market which will just serve to grow the market for us - the opportunistic mlm start-up companies will rise and fall as is usually the case, and the established social networking sites will wetten the market appetite for casual games, as their members will be playing for free and not have the opportunity for friendly wagers, participation in tournaments for cash prizes, nor the opportunity to earn money through advertising and promotion

- a proliferation of online & offline “game & tournament” conferencing

- the birth of the Super Game Weekends

• Come Q4 2008:

- the first uVme Super Game Weeks across the world

- as far as our imagination and creativity will take us