An Automatrix is basically a computerised sponsoring system which places people into fixed positions within a tight, inflexible organisational structure. It is not a true network marketing reward plan and, in fact, it shares many of the least desirable attributes of Pyramid Selling schemes.

A typical Automatrix might be “5 x 5”. That is, the first five people to join your group would be slotted into the first level of your network of agents. From that point, new people would be sponsored into the first five positions in each of their first levels, giving you a fixed second level of 25 people. This would continue on down the matrix to a total of five levels deep, giving you an organisation that looked like this…

It doesn’t matter where those people live, or who they are, they’re simply slotted into the next vacant pigeon-hole in the Automatrix. And that’s part of the real appeal of this system — to fill your mamtrix through “spillover”, so that everyone upline from you helps to fill up any vacant slots in your downline.

Notice how most of the “results” don’t occur until the fifth level has been filled. The problem is that, because the people higher up the matrix rarely know the people further down, and have no way of knowing what’s happening or being able to train or help them, they lose motivation and interest and the whole thing fizzles — so that “magic” fifth level rarely becomes filled.

In other words, the real appeal is to the usual Five FAILURE Factors…

• fear of loss
• greed
• laziness
• ignorance
• gullibility — or, if you keep falling for it, stupidity.

Just the kind of people you need to help you build real, secure, long-lasting financial security.

(Yeah, right.)

The Automatrix has been around long enough to prove itself consistently unreliable as a way to long-term success. It’s a dud. An illusion.

Why does something that seems so promising fail so dismally?

The Automatrix appears to offer a way of approaching and sponsoring people without the risk of face-to-face contact and, therefore, without the risk of rejection, or having to assume responsibility for someone else’s growth and development.

But the real secret of success in Multi-Level Marketing is your ability to establish and foster effective, long-term, personal relationships.

Ask any truly successful MLM leader what’s the most important aspect of the business, once their income exceeds their needs, and the answer is always the same — “the money’s no longer important… it’s the relationships that matter most”. Even people who only got in to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible, say the same thing once they achieve their initial goals.

Your ability to inspire others to duplicate your own achievement is the indispensable key to long-term MLM success and security.

That raises an interesting question.

If the quality and durability of personal relationships is so essential to true MLM success, how can a system or method that relies on the absence of relationships offer any kind of genuine, long-term security?

The cold, hard reality is this, however unpleasant or threatening it may seem: any system that offers a quick way to get rich, without time, effort or discipline, is going to attract people of a similar kind… lazy, gullible, desperate, ignorant and greedy.

Exactly the kind of people YOU need to help you find that elusive pot of gold at the end of the next rainbow! (Not!)

So how can we fix an automatrix to make it work?

That’s easy… if you’re an MLM company owner, just call it something else and re-jig it so that it looks easier and more rewarding!

Let’s face it: nobody wants to work harder than necessary. So why not work smarter? Or, better yet, not work at all? (Hey… nOtwork marketing!) Just get everyone else to do the work for you!

Building wide (where the REAL money is in network marketing) is too much like hard work. YOU have to recruit all those people in your first level. Besides, everyone gets excited over the idea of depth (even though the payout is limited by the proportion of the wholesale price the company can afford to pay out) — so let’s limit the width and focus on depth, so everyone thinks that everyone else will do all the work for them?

Then let’s give it a nifty new name to distract the suckers from reality. How about something fancy to decribe this new structure — two sided. How about “Binary Lateral?”

Brilliant!

So now we fill up those matrixes (matrices for the purists) with ignorant, greedy, lazy, desperate, gullible people (because that’s who we want to attract, right? After all, that’s who we’re appealing to.)

Now we watch and rub our hands with glee as obscene amounts of hidden, windfall profits roll up to the company in the form of breakage — the bonuses that people can’t qualify for because of the out-of-balance legs that “spillover” creates.

Fantastic!

(Sure, it will eventually collapse. But who cares? We’re the company (or heavy hitter cronies). And sheep are there to be fleeced, right? Here… take these tickets to Rio and keep them safe. And don’t lose the access codes to your offshore bank account!)

How on earth did this all happen?

Just as every family has an embarrassing skeleton in its ancestral closet, so does the Automatrix. It’s actually a direct descendant of the infamous Chain Letter.

Chain Letters are a crude form of Automatrix that contravene the anti-Pyramid Selling provisions of most consumer protection and fair trading laws. So the real question you should ask yourself, when considering whether or not to join an Automatrix system, is this:

Would you honestly want to be tarred with the same brush as illegal Pyramid Selling and Chain Letters?

Even though an Automatrix system usually falls within the letter of the law, whether it’s always within the spirit of that law is open to debate.

Bear in mind our constant warning, too… an Automatrix may not identify itself as such.

You must be ready to recognise it when it raises its seductive head.

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Author Profile  Consults to managements of direct selling companies, small business and home business owners. Writes regular columns and feature articles for various business media, online and offline. Author of several best-selling business books. Presents seminars and workshops, webinars and other training programs. Creator of Fourth Generation Thinking, Selling, Business Systems. Read more from this author