The meeting is in a long room in a nondescript North Dallas hotel. There are about 400 people in the room. More people than chairs. Some of the people are sales representatives of WMA, more are potential recruits.
Music. Slides. Then the opportunity is announced: you can help people and profit by being part of WMA. You can guide people out of the prison of consumer debt… and become rich in the process.
What’s WMA?
World Marketing Alliance, Inc., a company founded in Norcross, Georgia in 1991.
It’s mission: to sell insurance and financial products. According to a brochure provided at the meeting, the company sold some $1.75 billion in product to late 1996, distributed over $350 million in income to sales associates, and grew to rank “among the top 20 broker-dealers in terms of registered representatives.”
Goals for the United States in 1997, according to a company publication, included:
- sales of $2 billion in variable universal life insurance;
- $4 billion in variable annuities;
- $1 billion in fixed annuities;
- $1 billion in mutual funds;
- $10 billion in mortgage services;
- $1 billion in assets under management;
- $100 million in term/universal life sales; and
- $300 million in Debt Mastery Commissions.
And that’s just the United States. Nor do those sales goals include the goal of recruiting 250,000 associates, 5,000 stockbrokers and 100,000 mortgage brokers.
What we have here is a multi-level marketing organization, a company built on the same principals of person to person selling that moves Avon, Amway, and dozens of lesser known marketing organizations.
The starting point for WMA? Consumer debt reduction plans. ( That’s what that “$300 million in Debt Mastery Commissions” means.) According to their presentation, associates who sell debt reduction plans will receive a portion of the interest saved.
Is there a message here?
Yes. Just as Citibank, Discover, FirstUSA, and other companies that issue credit cards see a massive business opportunity in the extension of consumer credit, WMA sees an equally massive business opportunity in the elimination of consumer debt.
Why? Because every dollar of debt repaid liberates even more dollars of income available to be saved or invested. With $1.2 trillion of consumer debt outstanding, every consumer who becomes a debt eliminator is a potential customer for mutual funds, variable annuities, and variable universal life insurance.
Nor is WMA alone in seeing opportunity in debt reduction.
The Financial Independence Network Limited, Inc., located in Boscobel, Wisconsin, has a similar, but more limited agenda: FINL is a network marketing company that sells debt reduction education, software, and a newsletter. You can buy their book for $39 or the book and related tapes for $79.
Chequemate International, Inc., a Utah company, sells “The Four Laws of Debt Free Prosperity”, a $14.95 book that explains the principals of debt reduction.
While these three companies are very different, all have chosen direct marketing over the computer and mail drop methods employed by credit providers. In the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, they are the insurgent guerilla army. They recruit, move, and travel light, hitting hard and personal.
Will they do well?
No one knows… and it may not matter. They aren’t alone. What is notable here is that there is a countervailing force to combat the saturation bombing of our mailboxes from credit providers.
One element of the countervailing force is the written word. Anyone interested in reducing their debt, controlling their spending, and creating greater personal security can visit almost any bookstore and find plenty of books to help them on the journey. Here are the titles of just a few:
- Life Without Debt, Bob Hammond, Career Press, $14.99 pb
- The Ultimate Credit Handbook, Gerri Detweiler, Penguin, $12.95 pb
- Surviving Debt, National Consumer Law Center, NCLC, $15.00 pb
- Overcoming Overspending, Olivia Mellan, Walker, $18.95 hb
- Two Incomes and Still Broke?, Linda Kelley, Times Books, $20.00 hb
- Financial Peace, Dave Ramsey, Viking, $21.95 hb
- Money and The Meaning of Life, Jacob Needleman, Doubleday, $15 pb
- Your Money or Your Life, Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Penguin, $11.95 pb
- Voluntary Simplicity, Duane Elgin,Quill,$10 pb
An internet search under “debt reduction” brought thousands listings, including a debt reduction calculator on the Quicken Financial Network. It also brought several offers of debt reduction software from small companies.
Bottom Line: If you are tired of being in debt, plenty of help is available… and most of it costs less than a month or two of credit card interest.
This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska
(c) A.M. Universal, 1997