COFFEE TALK: COMPANY SHOULD NOT COMPETE WITH MEMBERS

After our large meeting in Davao, the sales started to pick up assertively in the Philippines. Before establishing DXN in the Philippines, there was a competitor, more like an impersonator, if I may say, because they used to copy everything we did. They established their company in the Philippines around nine months before us. As such, whoever leads the market first, usually have the upper hand. However, that company fears DXN as we have a better farm management system, a top-notch production line, and a more revolutionary marketing scheme in the name of “One World One Market.”

Our competitor was taking products from various third-party vendors, and their fame and factory was just a façade. They were not producing anything significant. When it came to marketing, they were in a colossal mess as they committed a grave mistake. Their company started to compete with its members. Let me explain it more coherently. In DXN, all the shareholders, including my family and me, the key members of our staff, and other team are not allowed to become members and be active in the market. As shareholders and company staff, we have a lot of resources in our hands. If we become members of DXN, we will have numerous stocks in our hands. All the company's support will be on our side, and other members will not be able to compete with us. This leads to prejudiced competition.

When the company starts competing with the market members, it is just a matter of time till they feel that this is unfair to them. This leads to the establishment of a new company to compete with the parent company or leave in masses to join other companies. DXN always helps members in the market. We never compete with them. Although, many of our competitors do not pay heed to such a policy. They join hands with the local partners in a new country to form a joint venture company. They are “One World too many Markets” and not “One World One Market.”

This leads to the parent company competing with the local company, who, in turn, competes with the local members. This is the perfect recipe for failure and disaster. It is only a matter of time that the local company splits away from the parent company. Due to this reason, our competitors always failed in every country they went to. In Thailand, they failed, and the local partners joined DXN. In Indonesia, they failed three times, which led to their local partners either joining DXN or forming new companies themselves. They did not practice Sunya, and they never learned from their mistakes. They kept committing the same mistake over and over again. For them, personal gain was more important than the overall growth of the company. Due to personal greed, they kept lacking sustainability. When DXN decided to establish themselves in the Philippines, this shook them, and they started to commit fatal mistakes.

Their first mistake was to offer free membership and status to all their new members. The leaders of our company felt threatened by this, and we held a meeting. They requested me to do the same. I asked them, why do we collect a membership fee? It is not for profit but to provide service to all our members, and the membership fee covers the cost of numerous services like these. If you take away the membership fee, the market may collapse. If we keep a membership fee, only those who are interested will join. In this way, the market becomes more sustainable.

Instead of giving free membership, we initiated the “Visit Malaysia” campaign. More than 40 members qualified for the campaign, and we formed a team to visit Malaysia. This was a massive success as the members were delighted. They took many photos of our farm, factories, and many scenic places in Malaysia. I predicted that the competitor wouldn’t survive for more than six months. And true enough, they collapsed in about four months. Due to over expenses and no income from the membership fee, they did not pay bonuses for the last two months and collapsed. Instead, a new company was established with the money that was supposed to be used for paying dividends.

By all means, if they had a proper marketing plan and had minded their own business instead of interfering with DXN, they would have been able to re-establish themselves with ease. But they committed another grave mistake by placing their office right next to ours. This was done to attract our members to their company. On the contrary, it was DXN who attracted their members. Within a few months, they collapsed again.