Comment Number: 522418-11337
Received: 7/17/2006 10:35:14 AM
Organization: Quixtar
Commenter: Fred Mason
State: VA
Subject: Business Opportunity Rule
Title: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
CFR Citation: 16 CFR Part 437
No Attachments

Comments:

First I'd like to thank you all at that FTC for your continued efforts to keep the direct selling industry a safe and fair industry for all companies involved. However, I feel that some of the proposed rules may do more harm than help. I've been an IBO powered by Quixtar for almost 5 years. In the next year, my Quixtar income will be my primary source of income. When I was first looking at the business, it made since to me immediately and the literature pack that I was given after the seminar gave me time to sit down and go over the information for myself, but my mind was already made up. Everyone takes different amounts of time to make decisions. I made my decision fast and stayed with it. Some people need more time to make quality decisions. But what I've seen over the years from my experience was that the longer someone waited to register, the more their excitement about having a better lifestyle waned and average no longer looked so bad. I personally don't think that mandating a 7 day waiting period would be in the best interest of building momentum in a business. Educated excitement is a catalyst in the building of the Quixtar business. People are glad to have a great opportunity along with the information necessary to know that they're not just making an irrational flip decision. The 7-day rule would make it take extremely long for someone to actually see any substantial sucess in my opinion. Quixtar also has a 100% money back guarantee. So if you get registered and then you change your mind, you can still get all of your money back. I think a better rule to propose would be a 100% money back guarantee for registrations. Mandating a list of references is unncessary. Prospects meet many other IBOs before they register. We have weekly open opportunity meetings for new prospects to see the business opportunity. There they get meet other people that are building the business that have achieved many different levels of success. If I would have received a litigation list when I was first looking the business plan, I probably would not have taken the time to read it. My mind was already made up. I've found that if someone doesn't want to build the business, no amount of positive "proof" that the business is good and that can work for them will make them want to. And on the contrary, if someone wants to build it, they can go on the internet and find all of the ridiculous blogs that may or may not have merit, and they will still want to pursue it. I feel that it would be inappropriate to have to give financial records. How much someone makes is their own personal business...they can disclose that information if they'd like. Whether the IBO is making a lot or a little, I think the choice to disclose financial records should be left up to them. Thanks again for being willing to work with us to make sure that our industry does exactly what it says it should do. I think the Quixtar business has set a high standard. I hope you all at the FTC don't allow the "shaky" practices of other so-called "great business opportunities" to rain on the parade of other genuinely good business opportunities.