It's no secret that President Donald Trump, and members of his Cabinet, have troubling links with 'MLM' rackets.
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| Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (b. Selma Alabama 1946) |
What seems to be not widely-known, is the fact that, in 1968, President Trump's (now elderly) Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was a transient adherent of a 'Prosperity Gospel/ Income Opportunity' cultic racket known as 'Southwestern' (a.k.a. 'Southwestern Advantage'), and that AG Sessions name, and image, still feature prominently in this group's reality-inverting propaganda.
'Southwestern' hides behind children's books/educational products and it can be traced back to the 19th century, but since the 1960s, the company has claimed to offer an 'MLM Income Opportunity' to students. In reality, over the decades, 2 500 per year, ill-informed 'Southwestern' adherents (a significant % of whom have been recruited from outside the USA) have been lured into temporary de facto servitude and controlled with a classic guilt-inducing fictitious 'positive' narrative peddled as fact.
In simple terms, 'Southwestern' adherents have not only been deceived into working long hours without salaries, but also into paying their expenses, in the false-expectation of a future reward. When the majority of 'Southwestern' adherents have inevitably failed to generate a net-profit, the blame-the-victim controlling narrative has told them that failure was entirely their own fault for not trying hard enough.
Due to its well-deserved reputation for exploiting young people, 'Southwestern Advantage,' has been banned from recruiting at many American and British colleges.
https://prezi.com/eugjiwfo4cr4/southwestern-advantage-highlanders-presentation/
'Southwestern' adherents have been told that with the right training and hard work, any 'Dealer' who refuses to quit can earn at least $8000 commission for one summer’s work, but this is effectively impossible to obtain unless the adherent approaches hundreds of people per week and can learn how to identify, and manipulate, vulnerable persons by appearing to be sincere, and not feel guilty.
'Southwestern' adherents have been told that with the right training and hard work, any 'Dealer' who refuses to quit can earn at least $8000 commission for one summer’s work, but this is effectively impossible to obtain unless the adherent approaches hundreds of people per week and can learn how to identify, and manipulate, vulnerable persons by appearing to be sincere, and not feel guilty.
Adherents have to promise that they will not give up following 'Southwestern's' proven positive plan
for success, no matter how tough it gets.
After basic training, new recruits are given areas where they can try to
sell, but they are not told where these areas are, until the last minute..
The first thing adherents have to do when they arrive in their appointed area, is
find somewhere cheap to live. According to the plan, this is achieved by
knocking on doors and asking if the residents have ever offered cheap
accommodation to students, missionaries, etc., or if they know anyone who will
rent/lend rooms to such people?
If the answer is no, adherents are taught to try to sell children’s
books or establish where families with children live.
Despite the so-called 'Dealers'' scripted-claims that they are running their own 'businesses,' the ‘Southwestern’ racket has been largely-built on finding, and training, clean-cut young adherents to find nice people whom they can get to feel sorry for them.
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Recently, I was contacted by a resident of Montgomery (the second largest city in Alabama) who is one a group who have have been trying to stop 'Southwestern's' activities.
Last week, a part-explanation appeared in the Montgomery Advertiser.
In
brief, a local Montgomery city law prohibits door-to-door peddling, but the bosses/attorneys of ‘Southwestern’ have intimidated
the Montgomery City Council with threats of an expensive lawsuit and convinced
some key-officials to propose the introduction of a system of door-to-door
selling (solicitors) permits, but local residents supported by some councillors have
organised a campaign to stop this change.
After
some pretty angry debates, the Council has been obliged to back down and delay
the proposed change, but the whole matter is apparently now going to go to
court.
The
local paper is asking for students to come forward and speak about their
experiences with ‘Southwestern,’ but this will also probably attract
brainwashed adherents.
A few
years back, some disturbing rumours started floating around about
‘Southwestern and child sex-trafficking,’ but apparently this was just because a few worried parents didn’t understand why ‘Southwestern' adherents recite a script
and ask lots of creepy questions.
http://boropulse.com/2013/07/not-the-sharpest-knives-vector-marketing-and-itstactics-of-exploitation/
The 'Southwestern' racket is neither original nor unique and, consequently, it cannot be fully understood in isolation.
David Brear (copyright 2018)
Hi David, Can you please explain the connection between Southwestern and Vector Marketing besides the similar MLM structure?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - For the benefit of new Blog readers who might not be familiar with the term, 'similar MLM structure,' this is thought-stopping jargon and it requires detailed qualification before it can be fully-understood.
DeleteThus, it would be accurate to say that, from the evidence I've examined, these two organisations ('Cutco/Vector' and 'Southwestern Avantage') are examples of the same trap (albeit with different labels) complete with the same (slightly-modified) 'MLM income opportunity' bait, aimed at the same ill-informed young human target-group.
Perhaps it's just an unfortunate coincidence that these two gangs came up with virtually the same racket independently, but I doubt it.
I didn't say in the article that there is any 'connection' between these two 'income opportunity' rackets requiring explanation, other than their virtually identical modus operandi?
Of course, the bosses of 'Cutco/Vector' and 'Southwestern Advantage' rackets are themselves linked to rest of the 'MLM' crime syndicate via the so-called 'Direct Selling Association.'
https://www.dsa.org/forms/uploadFiles/4B94740000002D.filename.AMAttendance_as_of_3-30.pdf
The 'Cutco/Vector,' and 'Southwestern Advantage,' rackets have featured alongside one another in the same reality-inverting propaganda. I would strongly suspect that their respective bosses are well-acquainted.
https://www.directsellingnews.com/young-entrepreneurs-still-working-the-summer-strategies-cutco-and-southwestern-advantage/
Hi David
ReplyDeletebtw I'm not Anonymous above.
Would you say these two companies are cult-like groups like Amway, Herbalife, et al?
Anonymous - From the evidence I've seen, both these intrinsically-deceptive organisations have been exhibiting characteristics which identify them, not as 'cult-like' groups, but as cultic rackets. As such, they are part of a wider, ongoing, criminogenic phenomenon of historic significance.
DeleteMore than half a century of quantifiable evidence, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:
- the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' (a.k.a. 'Network Marketing') is nothing more than an absurd, non-rational, cultic, economic pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons (particularly their friends and family members) into the same trap.
- the impressive-sounding made-up jargon term, 'MLM,' is therefore, the misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as reality, by the instigators, and associates, of various copy-cat, major and minor, ongoing organised crime groups (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a series of blame-the-victim 'Long Cons*' - comprising self-perpetuating rigged-market swindles**, a.k.a. pyramid scams (dressed up as 'legitimate direct selling income opportunites') and related advance-fee frauds (dressed up as 'legitimate: training and motivation, self-betterment, programs, recruitment leads, lead generation systems,' etc.).
-apart from an insignificant minority of shills (whose leading-role in the 'Long Con' has been to pretend that anyone can achieve financial freedom simply by following their unquestioning example and exactly-duplicating a step-by-step-plan of recruitment and self-consumption), the hidden overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in so-called 'MLM income opportunities,' has always been effectively 100%.
https://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?3,59489
DeleteI feel sorry for these brainwashed kids. Most folks think Southwestern sellers are either creeps or students trying to make a buck, but who is actually making the big bucks here? Not the kids! The books are crazy money.
Your article is so one sided and inaccurate I’m not sure where to start. My guess is you’re not a serious writer and certainly don’t know how to find and get credible information, perhaps unwilling. Instead of factually presenting opposing ideas you resort to third grade behavior of “name calling as in “”brainwashed””.
ReplyDeleteSo anyone who disagrees with your accessment is brainwashed? Why can I simply not say the same about those whose statements you accepted?
My parents were poor and I had no way to go to college other than debt or finding a way to make enough to pay my way without debt. I signed up to sell Bible reference books door to door and spent a week in Nashville at the Southwestern company’s sales school. The training, like the young man who recruited me, emphasized over and over how this job would be the hardest job I will have ever done. Even though I had hauled hay 14 hours a day, picked cotton all day, hoed cotton and peanuts, and the other similar temporary jobs, the training could not have been more correct, selling door to door was and to this day is the hardest thing I have ever done. Facing discouragement over and over actually prepared me for life in a way I don’t believe anything else could have.
Why not research all those successful people who started out selling door to door and see what significance they attributed that experience to their ultimate success. I just finished Mark Cuban’s book and perhaps you could start with his.
I got married after my sophomore year in college and ended up going to an expensive private university and finished without one dime of debt and even though our first child was born while in I was in college my wife chose to stay home with our son as I made enough to provide for my family from what I made selling during the summers.
Another of your points about finding someone to feel sorry for us violated Southwestern’s training which they emphasized. In fact to the contrary, we were trained to not failing into the trap of victimizing ourselves in that fashion but to avoid in anyway preying on people’s sympathies. Instead focus on the benefits of the products we were selling. That and the ability to overcome discouragements alone will be the basis of any success we will enjoy.
Perhaps you can find those who were suscesful in the experience as there are so many.
Everyday I’m grateful for that opportunity and actually feel sympathy for those who get out of college and find themselves in bondage to debt.
Unknown - Perhaps you would like to inform my readers exactly what is inaccurate in my article?
DeleteWhilst you are here, could you also inform my readers:
- how many non-salaried sales agents overall have been churned through 'Southwestern Advantage' since the company was first instigated?
- what % these non-salaried persons have actually generated an overall net-income?
- what lawful reason(s) would explain why the key-information contained in truthful answers to the above questions has never been publicly disclosed?
- what quantifiable evidence can you produce to prove that your claims to be a typical 'Southwestern Advantage' adherent who earned a significant sum of money, are truthful?
Wow, this is full of bias and uninformed prejudice. I did Southwestern with several friends while I was at Wheaton College in the 90's. It impacted my life so positively after the confidence and skills built, that I decided to return 17 years later. My son just completed his first of many summers and my nephew his 4th summer. The evidence from the highly respected alumni around the country and now the world is tough to refute, but I see you are trying anyways!
ReplyDeleteUnknown - You are yet another fundamentally-absurd character pretending moral and intellectual authority and speaking of 'evidence,' but actually presenting none whatsoever. Consequently, all you do is recite the same old sugar-coated, but poisonous, fairy story and expect my readers to swallow it.
DeleteNumerous colleges have, in fact, banned 'Southwestern,' because persons responsible for the safety of students have applied common-sense and recognised that the company's real function has been to deceive and exploit vulnerable young people.
Whilst you are here, could you please inform my readers:
- How many non-salaried sales agents overall have been churned through 'Southwestern Advantage' since the company was first instigated?
- What % these non-salaried persons have actually generated an overall net-income?
- What lawful reason(s) would explain why the key-information contained in truthful answers to the above questions has never been publicly disclosed?
Hey guys! I'm not the anonymous from above.
ReplyDeleteI've done quite a bit of sales in my life, and to be honest, no matter what I was selling, I was always starting from zero days, having no sales, and therefore generating zero income. I mean, sales de facto is not a job that anyone can do. While I believe facing rejection grows the thick skin on your body and teaches you to overcome failures. So if you are tough enough, then after a while you get over the failure and start producing income that is much higher that you could possibly earn on a job, especially being a college student.
David Brear, talking about salaries - I believe it is common thing that in sales you only get paid commission. Which from my own experience (being in sales for many-many years) is totally fine, so I don't understand why you are repeatedly linking to non-salaried sales agents.
I know a lot of people who failed in sales. Just as much as people who failed in business, universities, sports, marriages, life. I guess it all depends on a person.
There was also a comparison with Amway, Herbalife, and other MLMs. I believe the biggest scam of those MLM-s is that the earnings of the people within the system come from other people joining the system and making the initial deposit for their entry. Therefore the MLM will be growing as long as people keep coming in and making the deposit.
The Southwestern Advantage on the other hand has no entry fees, and they offer all of their training for free. The profit for the sales people and the company comes from direct sales of the product. Exactly the same way as it does any other direct selling company. If you have ever been on the field, you would have noticed that there are people selling absolutely everything - from solar panels and roofing to fundraisers and cookie girl-scouts. Often times commission based only.
But this article is truly very one sided. Seems like you were trapped into Southwestern and had a bad experience? Tell us more about what exactly happened?
Have a great day!
Anonymous - Contrary to what you pretend in your comment, what I am describing here is a coordinated system for temporarily exploiting, and blaming, vulnerable ill-informed young persons, by means of an unoriginal deception.
DeleteOther than the unoriginal fictitious narratives controlling the thinking, and related behaviour, of the ill-informed de facto slaves of deceptive organizations like 'Southwestern,' what on Earth makes you assume that I have been lured into temporary de facto servitude by a deceptive organization like 'Southwestern?'
Let's get this straight - you seem to be admitting in your comment here that, at one time in your life, you have worked without salary or expenses, for the benefit of other wealthy persons, by attempting to sell goods/services for them, and that your failure must have been entirely your own fault. However, you then want me to believe this was all a valuable learning experience.
Sadly, your only motive in posting the above comment appears to be an attempt to justify your own previous behaviour.
BTW. I always have a great day!
The reason I thought you were lured into Southwestern and failed, is because you have a very critical opinion about something that you have never actually done. I just thought that there is no way somebody can have such a strong negative opinion about a job they never done, that they are willing to spend so much time writing about it on the internet. Sounds a bit insane to me.
DeleteI also wanted to write a few words to clarify my behaviour. I really think that I learned very valuable lessons while doing sales and having zero days. I am currently running a business that generates a million dollar revenue per quarter, but guess what - there was a lot of zero days and failures before it started bringing me some decent money. Just as it used to be when I just started doing sales 10 years ago.
For everybody else reading these words, do your own research and choose who do you listen! Lot of crap on the internet, and a lot of people pretending they know something, while they actually don't :)
Anonymous - Contrary to what you pretend, clearly I am not offering an 'opinion' of a 'job,' I am offering an evidence-based analysis of an unoriginal blame-the-victim racket.
DeleteWith an irony close to exquisite, you would appear to be exactly such a 'crap'-spouting person of whom you warn - i.e. An evangelist of the unoriginal gospel of 'positive thinking' who systematically denigrates anyone applying his/her critical and evaluative factulties to 'income opportunity' rackets, as being 'insane', 'negative' and without experience, whilst childishly boasting of multi-million $ personal success simply because you refused to quit, but offering absolutely no quantifiable evidence to support your puerile claims.