The LCR staff tracked down pace setting business owner Matt Abraham for lunch today. Matt Abraham owned a very successful private law practice before joining the Team. Matt invested many hours as an attorney studying the Team model before deciding to build his business. Matt and his wife Cheryl are now job optional and enjoy raising there three energetic children and serving their team.
LCR: Matt what do you account for your phenomenal growth in business over the last couple of years?
Matt Abraham: Good mentorship, proper values, a willingness to work and the right opportunity sum it up. Orrin Woodward provided the mentorship, my parents taught me values and work ethic and the book Leading the Consumer Rebellion provided the framework of the opportunity.
LCR: Matt as a practicing lawyer you must of checked out the legal issues with running your own Team business?
Matt Abraham: As a lawyer I was paid money to help people in their business negotiations and contracts. When I studied the Team business and called multiple lawyers with backgrounds in the MLM field I was impressed. With thousand of companies involved and multiple lawyers per company checking out our model it was not too hard to determine it was a legitimate business. Just look at Walt Disney as an example. Do you honestly think Walt Disney would move their products through our MLM model if it wasn’t legitimate? After sitting down with Orrin Woodward, Leading the Consumer Rebellion and reviewing the documentation on MLM I knew this was a closed case.
LCR: Most of the readers are not lawyers or business people before joining the Team. Is there any advice you could give them as they start their own Team business?
Matt Abraham: I am always amazed by how many people without business or law backgrounds will assume to give advice on these subjects. I always say that if you are sick go to a doctor and if you are looking for law advice go to someone with law experience in that field. I have spent over three years doing research and communicating with the best legal minds in the MLM field and the Team business is a model of the free enterprise system. Cheryl and I have made more money through this business than we did as a master degreed teacher and lawyer. Anyone who would state that the MLM field or the Team business model is an illegal pyramid is embarrassing themselves by their ignorance of the facts.
LCR: How do you respond when someone ask if it is an illegal pyramid?
Matt Abraham: An illegal pyramid is characterized by three major points:
- No outside customers
- Inventory loading
- Head hunting fees to sign people up
First, we were taught the value of setting up members and clients early in our business. Beauty clinics with Artistry makeup and XS energy drinks for health & fitness have made it easy to develop satisfied customers. Second, in all my time in the business no one has ever encouraged me or pushed me into buying product I didn’t need. We have a 70% rule to ensure that 70% of products are moved through your team every month and not stocked as inventory. Lastly, there is no headhunter fee associated with signing people up. I tell people all the time I would rather get a sincere no than a false yes. Signing up is not as big as learning to be a business owner. If someone is not interested in doing the business then don’t, but come up with a better excuse than it is an illegal pyramid. The MLM industry has been around since the 1940’s and is a multi-billion dollar industry today with thousands of success stories. I have worked with the Team Policy Council and with numerous other lawyers to help develop a business plan the Team can be proud of. I have also worked with Attorney Generals around the country explaining our Team system with excellent results.
LCR: One last lawyer related question. How do you compare your Team business model to all the businesses you worked with before the Team?
Matt Abraham: I worked with hundreds of business opportunities for entrepreneurs and almost all of them required massive upfront capital and major financial risk. Most business plans I worked with had goals to make money by their fifth year in business. One false move by these entrepreneurs and they were filing for bankruptcy. Cheryl and I replaced our incomes by year three in the Team business without loans or major capital risk. We invested our discretionary time for rewards in faith, family, finance, and friends. I am a blessed man because I ran into Orrin Woodward and decided to follow the plan laid out in Leading the Consumer Rebellion.
LCR: Matt thanks for your time today.
