Michael Dlouhy
That is the question I asked myself over 8 months ago, and I would like to share with you what Michael Dlouhy’s long time friend Richard Dennis has to say about the man and the team that has forever changed my life and the way I do business!
The White Knight
of Network Marketing?
Good grief. Gag me with a spoon.
I knew the man before he became “St. Michael.”
You need to read THIS story …
By Richard Dennis
I have strong disagreements with Michael, but it’s not personal. I’ve known him since 1997. In person, away from business, he’s a charming, lovable character. Fun, sort of. Almost cartoon-like.
For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, many people are drawn to him. My wife, for instance. Cheryl thinks he’s great.
Me? I’m at my wits’ end. Michael Dlouhy rubs me the wrong way. Before you think I’m petty or nasty or vindictive, let me tell you some things. This guy is going to irritate the snot out of you, too:
1. Michael Dlouhy spends 7-10 hours a week teaching his own network marketing COMPETITORS every secret he knows. He gives them FREE every tool he uses. His phone calls & e-book show them EXACTLY, step-by-step, how to take business away from him (as if they could) … and then he doesn’t even charge them for the training! (You’ll learn his reasoning for this in a couple minutes.)
By all rights, he ought to be standing at some big intersection with his spray bottle, dashing out at red lights, washing your windshield. Heck. He’d probably do THAT for free, too.
Here’s his motto: “Take everything I’ve got. Please.” Michael trains his own people. He trains people from other companies. He trains people in his own company, but not in his group. It’s all free.
It’s all nuts.
But what aggravates me no end is, it works. He spits on the time-tested rules of direct marketing. He makes an absolute fool out of every MLM “Heavy Hitter” on the planet. As incredible as it seems from the way he does business, my suspicion is, next thing he does is fire up his Harley and head off to the bank, saddlebags stuffed with cash.
Life isn’t fair. Why the heck isn’t he bankrupt?
2. Michael’s entire income comes from his MLM business. Yet on his conference calls, he NEVER mentions the company name. He NEVER says a product name. He trains his people to NEVER close a sale. He trains them to NEVER recruit. He tells them to NEVER promote to friends & family. And yet they move a TON of product, and they build like crazy!
Is this any way to run a business?
Listen. I’ve talked to a bunch of his people. I know his motivation. Michael tells them how he was abused as a kid. His Aunt Honey rescued him and loved him. And now he wants to be Aunt Honey to all these abused network marketers.
Oh, brother! Wouldn’t Dr. Phil have a field day with this?
If you liked “The Brady Bunch”, you’ll love Michael. Bright and cheery 99% of the time. Only when the subject turns to MLM “Heavy Hitters” and direct marketers, THAT is when he gets fire in his eyes and nitroglycerin in his veins.
In his e-book, he catalogs every lie they’ve ever told. What drives him is helping all those who’ve dreamed entrepreneurial dreams, and then been fleeced & abused by the evildoers. So when he gives everything away … it’s an “in-your-face” to the Heavy Hitters.
Heck. Nothing wrong with that. Strong motivation. That’s good. But then he should stick to the profit basics.
Instead, off he goes, riding over the countryside. It’s The White Knight of Network Marketing, Sir Michael of MLM.
Gag me with a spoon.
And what’s he doing? Saving the dreamers from … WHAT? Now it’s MLM VAMPIRES!?
The man has gone round the bend.
3. Michael leaves wonderful, wildly profitable MLM marketing systems on the curb if he can’t use them to build others. People instantly relate to him. They trust him. They’re loyal as all get-out. He makes relationship-building look way too easy. And he trains his people to use his e-book do the same thing.
Michael refuses to acknowledge that business is about profit. If there’s one business certainty, it’s the bottom line. Profit or die. Period.
But Michael is totally unreasonable about this. Oh, he’d never be so rude as to “correct” me when I tell him these things. He just politely listens and then continues to do exactly what he was going to do anyway, which is to build people.
Michael has a thing about numbers. So I’ve told him, “It’s great that you care about people, Michael. But the numbers say, most people fail in network marketing. The numbers say, if you bet everything on your people and they fail, then YOU are down the tubes. The problem with people is, they’re VERY unpredictable.
“But product marketing systems are VERY predictable. We can set up a product marketing system, test it, tweak it, and figure out what gets good performance numbers. Then we can just ride that profit train. It’s much more sensible than betting on people. What if your people don’t make it? What if they don’t build?”
And you know what he tells me?
“They will.”
What kind of a Pollyanna answer is that?
4. He comes into MY home, into MY living room, sits in MY chair, and thinks he can outsmart me.
Michael lives 200 miles away. So when he’d call to ask if he could drop by, I knew I was going to get a hard sell. I had my excuse list ready.
Then he’d show up and talk with Cheryl & me. I have to admit, he can be a warm and engaging storyteller.
And no hard sell.
It’s worse.
He just sits there and INTENTIONALLY listens to me.
Very irritating. I’ve heard his Colors training. I know exactly what he’s doing. He doesn’t fool me for a minute. Even so, it’s tough not to blab your head off when someone gets as interested in what you’re saying as Michael does.
So I talk. He listens. He figures me out. Believe me, he LOVES to have that advantage.
5. He doesn’t know when to quit. Michael knew EXACTLY how much he annoyed me, yet he still emailed and called and dropped by from time to time, letting me know that it was perfectly OK if I wanted to work with him … OR NOT!
So it’s OK if I work with him. And it’s OK if I don’t. That’s just wonderful.
I don’t need the aggravation. Really. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about Michael Dlouhy. Why the heck should he care about me?
And right there, THERE is my problem. I’m very curious.
Several people have told me they lost money in MLM for years before connecting with Michael. Now, they’re profitable. Despite his craziness.
How can that be? How can you give everything away and make a profit?
I had to know. I called him up. We had a very long talk.
And I’m glad we did. Because now I understand better why he does what he does in network marketing. There really is a method to his madness.
Let me give you one example.
Remember how he gives everything away to his competitors, free of charge? He does that because he knows this business. MLM companies come, go and change like crazy. Michael knows that when he builds trust with people, he’s sowing the seeds for working together in the future. Just because a person is in love with their company today doesn’t mean they will be a month or a year or 5 years from now.
And whenever they’re ready to make a change, Michael’s door is open. Good plan, actually.
And, as it turns out, he has a lot of good plans. It shocks me to say this. But the conclusion is inescapable.
Simply, Michael Dlouhy is a networking genius. He is to relationship-building and network marketing what Muhammed Ali was to boxing, what Elvis was to rock ‘n roll, what Bill Gates is to the personal computer. These kinds of people don’t do things the way they’re supposed to. Rules just get in the way of their creativity and obsession with their work.
It took me years to realize what I hate most about Michael Dlouhy. It’s EXACTLY what makes him unique. Michael does not follow anyone else’s rules. He’s almost like a Mother Teresa, searching through the network marketing woods, looking for the orphaned, injured baby MLMer. He takes it in, bottle-feeds it and nurses it to health.
In some ways, Michael is still 6 years old. He thinks every network marketer out there is Bambi, and he’s got to protect them from the Hunter.
6. There are days (I swear this is true) he calls me at 9 am to talk about some marketing idea. I can’t reach him in the afternoon, because he’s on the phone for an hour and a half doing a 3-way call with someone on his 74th level, who he just MUST help. At 8 pm, he’s doing his nightly 1-hour training call (or 2 or 3 hours, depending on how much help his people – AND his competitors! – need). And then he emails me at 3 a.m. When the heck does he sleep?
I once asked Linda Dlouhy when her husband sleeps.
Her answer?
“He doesn’t.”
THIS one is personal.
Why should I feel guilty about getting a good night’s sleep?
But in the middle of the night, from the deepest sleep, I suddenly sit bolt upright in bed, eyes wide, sweat dripping, picturing Michael Dlouhy getting ahead of me. He’s already on the phone, or at his computer sending emails, or out somewhere saving baby entrepreneurs.
I do a lot of work. I get a lot done. I work hard. But he never stops. He really pisses me off.
7. Michael Dlouhy couldn’t legitimately “market” his way out of a paper bag.
I know a thing or two about direct marketing. I was in marketing guru Jay Abraham’s “Protégé” group, back in 1989.
In 1990, I worked briefly with direct mail geniuses Gary Halbert & John Carlton, writing sales letters for some of Gary’s clients.
In 1993, I got a call from Dr. Joel Wallach at the old “Eagle Investments” MLM. Doc asked me to help him promote his “colloidal mineral” product. I took one of Doc’s old seminar audiotapes gathering dust in his closet, titled it, “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie,” and began promoting it. Eventually, over 200 million “Dead Doctors” tapes were circulated. It’s still the benchmark against which all other network marketing promotions are measured.
In 1996, I wrote the full-page ad, “I REALLY Expected To Be Dead By Now!” This ad appeared in numerous national magazines and many direct mail packages … along with my book, “The Strangest Nutritional Secret!” These pieces brought us a couple million dollars net over the next few years.
Michael, on the other hand, has never created ANYTHING like these pieces.
All he does is build relationships with people, and then he teaches them to do the same thing.
“Build people. People will build your business.”
Michael must say THAT 20 times a day. So instead of some mile-wide, inch-thick marketing thingy, he now has tight relationships with hundreds of people who would follow him anywhere.
That absolutely is NOT direct marketing. But it sure makes me wonder if he’s back there behind the curtains, the Wizard of Oz, pulling the levers – laughing at ME!
8. Which brings me to why I REALLY hate Michael Dlouhy. Because as I watch what Michael is doing now, and as I talk to many of his people, I have a realization:
EVERYTHING I did back in the ‘90s, ALL the success, WAS A MISTAKE!
I don’t believe I’m saying this.
Trust me – I’m not being humble. I look at me back then, and I look at Michael, now, and it’s the only logical conclusion. I was using Direct Marketing tactics to do Network Marketing. It worked great, right up until it crashed and burned and our income perished.
Listen. I was never arrogant. In many ways, I was stunned by success. But I did think it meant something. I thought it meant I knew what I was doing.
Wrong.
Oh, I could market, all right. But I didn’t build relationships. I would never, ever shoot Bambi. But I’d never give her my phone number, either. Let alone go out in the woods and search for her.
So I had a direct marketing mindset, and I was doing a network marketing business. It was doomed from the start. I made a lot of money. So did many of our people. But then, suddenly, it fell apart.
Had I built people rather than income, that business would still be going strong today.
Live and learn.
So here I am, years later. I find myself working with Michael, learning from him.
It’s not always easy. We have very different viewpoints. I’ve been in this industry, off and on, for almost 30 years. And it’s definitely tough to teach an old dog new tricks.
But Michael has certainly convinced me that to build an MLM that lasts, you MUST build relationships. You MUST build people. I’ve learned that from him, and I appreciate it.
Look. I won’t go into details. But Michael has PROVEN to me that he is 100% committed to my success using his system.
Pretty smart. Astonishing, really. He’s turned me from a skeptic into a raving Michael Dlouhy fan.
After all these years, I now have a mentor. If you’re smart, you’ll let Michael teach you, too. He will train you every inch of the way until you’re successful in MLM.
What else would you expect from the “White Knight of Network Marketing”?
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