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Through the Internet a unique opportunity now exists that perhaps has not been seen since the early days of the 20th century when a process known as mass production changed not only the automobile industry, but everything else that touched it-from where we lived to the way we ate, from the way we bought and sold our goods and services to the way we connected to each other and ultimately to the way we lived our lives. The Internet offers us a similar opportunity for fundamental change. The opportunity to move us from our "old economy" which has long been based on survival and need to what many have called a "new economy" which promises to offer fulfillment and growth. However, just as it wasn't the automobile that changed our world, but the process with which we used to produce it, it isn't the Internet that will change our world, but the forms we invent to fully utilize it.
According to a national research firm, healthcare is the single largest segment of the U.S. economy, poised to reach $370 billion in Internet commerce by the year 2004. The Internet's ability to simplify transactions, connect trading partners, and make aggregated content broadly available will reshape this highly fragmented industry. "The healthcare industry will undergo a radical face-lift as consumers become empowered by Internet technology and educated about their own healthcare decisions." But the research analyst also asks the question, "But who is going to cover the additional cost created by lower premiums, lower insurance prices, increasing doctors' fees, and pricey technological advances? The consumer, of course."
With sweeping cost-cutting initiatives and the rise of health maintenance organizations our healthcare industry has already degenerated into a battle to see how many patients a Doctor is able to set eyes on at the lowest average cost per visit. This has given rise to a disturbing dynamic where Doctors as a whole have ceased to be healers and have instead been reduced to a role as sales representatives for the pharmaceutical industry as they dispense drugs at such an alarming pace as to actually endanger our health as a whole. Increasing numbers of studies continue to warn that due to over-medication and the over-prescription of antibiotics, the conventional medical community is threatening to unleash escalating numbers of super-resistant strains of disease while simultaneously creating weaker and weaker immune systems among the general population. And this dynamic is likely to intensify as a significant portion of the U.S. population, the baby-boom generation, continues to age increasing the demand to control costs while ensuring that the pressure to rely on short-term, profit-based decisions will continue to mount.
As the quality of healthcare in the U.S. and around the globe continues to be adversely impacted by these short-term, profit-based decisions an interesting phenomena has begun to become evident. This same huge segment of the population, the "baby-boom" generation, now in their peak buying years (statistically speaking people in their late-thirties through their mid-forties spend more money than any other age group) is becoming increasingly interested not only in healthcare, but in promoting and increasing health itself and living a healthy, vibrant lifestyle as they come to realize a longer life expectancy does not necessarily mean living better.
A shift has begun away from the thinking that healthcare is merely the treatment of disease toward a more holistic approach to health and how it affects and is related to everything in one's life. In fact, according to the American Medical Association, alternative medicine and treatments is already a $27 billion industry in the U.S. alone. And as traditional healthcare continues its focus on cost efficiency rather than patient health and well-being, the real changes the healthcare industry are likely to experience won't be its transition to an internet-based industry, but its transformation into a holistic lifestyle industry.
Historically, people have sought alternative medicines and treatments because these disciplines have offered less invasive procedures with fewer side effects, and are often as effective and in some instances even more effective than traditional treatments typically because these holistic disciplines act to correct the underlying cause of a malady rather than simply treating its symptoms. But because holistic principles are also often more cost-effective than traditional treatments, we will see a renewed focus on these ideals even from the more traditional medical providers and insurers as cost concerns continue to plague the healthcare industry. For example, Medicare currently does not cover the cost of purchasing a $300 treadmill, but will pay $50,000 seven months later when that same person has heart bypass surgery. With our society's obsession over money and what our government does with it, this kind of thinking will soon precipitate a crisis wherein our politicians and the big business they represent will be forced to choose between cutting healthcare coverage for millions or accepting holistic ideals and perhaps gaining the ability to cover millions more. The companies best able to bring these cost-effective alternative ideals to a wider audience will be best positioned to reap the benefits of the potentially explosive growth the online healthcare industry is poised to experience.
Part of the move toward a more holistic healthcare regimen has brought more and more to the realization that we literally are what we eat, and the typical diet for most of us is sorely lacking in all of the nutrients necessary to create a vibrantly healthy body and mind. As such, a trend has developed where an increasing number of people are turning to nutritional supplements to correct this imbalance. This has lead to a sharply growing demand for vitamins, minerals, and nutritional/dietary supplements. In fact according to a national researcher, this market is expected to account for at least 1/3 of the $10.8 billion spent online for food by 2003. But without strict government controls the consumer is left on their own to sort out the variety of health claims and benefits these vitamin marketers make. In fact it should be noted that in one recent survey conducted in the Los Angeles area of off-the-shelf nutritional supplements, 25% of the products sampled were found to NOT contain what their labels claimed. The organization that can sort through all the misinformation and conflicting data will gain inroads and market share from companies that simply sell vitamins.
The trend toward healthier living is also giving rise to the popularity of organic foods, household products free of perfumes, plastics and man-made chemicals, and other household goods that promote rather than degrade the environment. As the online grocery industry grows rapidly to an expected $27.1 billion by 2004 an increasingly important component will be healthier alternatives to traditional household goods especially as women who currently make up 50.4% of those connected online increasingly seek convenient, cost-effective ways to make the world around them safer for themselves and for their children. The enterprise that can offer cost-effective convenience and increased quality and safety will be poised to grow as this market grows.
Much has been said about online retailers and their recent failures after having looked so promising just 12 to 18 months ago, but each of these recently failed, high-profile e-commerce companies operated under one significant misperception-that their traditional "old economy" advertising strategy would gain them enough market share to make them a viable enterprise in the "new economy". Prior to this past holiday season it was estimated that only 2.2% of all holiday sales in the U.S. would occur online. This number represents the innovators and early adopters of the Internet, not the mainstream masses, yet that is who these "e-tailers" targeted with their multi-million dollar television campaigns in prime time. Their over-exuberance blinded them to the reality that e-commerce is still in its infancy, and that they could not hope to change human nature without a foundation for the fundamental leap that they were asking people to make.
This coming year more than $150 billion is expected to be spent on advertising in the U.S. and more than $350 billion globally, but perhaps the most important figure for consumers everywhere is that the amount spent is expected to increase as a percentage of gross domestic product again this year as it has every year since 1994. That means that an increasing percentage of the price we pay for the products and services we use everyday is not for product improvement or increased quality, but for advertising! Advertising that at its BEST can build brand or product awareness, create perceived value, and differentiate a product or company from its competitors. And at its WORST is only temporary in its effect when and if it is effective at all, is imprecise reaching thousands of people who cannot use the product or service while perhaps not even reaching its target market at all, adds no actual value to the product or service it represents, and is increasingly expensive. While in certain limited situations traditional advertising does have its place, the increasing avalanche of advertising from television, radio, billboards and other outdoor sources, the Internet, and soon wireless devices, and more will continue to diminish its value and effectiveness.
As such, a new approach to advertising and marketing or a different approach used in new ways is in order if we are to be able to deliver an effective message at an acceptable cost. For some their idea of accomplishing this goal means resorting to high-tech disciplines that allow the targeting of an ever narrower audience such as data-mining or the development of technologies that extend and hone the ability to target consumers at the point of decision-making regarding a specific purchase, but as privacy concerns create a backlash and the avalanche of advertising begins to desensitize the target market to these efforts, these ideals will begin to lose their luster.
There is, however, a methodology that has long been used to deliver an effective message at a reasonably low cost-it is known as word-of-mouth advertising or network-marketing. It has been known for some time that one of the most effective forms of advertising is enthusiastic word-of-mouth praise from someone you know and trust, but in the past it was typically more difficult than traditional advertising to effectively cultivate and often very slow to develop. With the promise of the Internet this is no longer necessarily so. And in fact can be quite the opposite. For example, utilizing an involuntary word-of-mouth technique dubbed "viral-marketing", the web-based e-mail service, Hotmail, quickly became the largest provider of its kind in the world, out-distancing its traditionally advertised competitors while reaching millions of subscribers in only a matter of months. A model utilizing an efficient and effective word-of-mouth campaign aimed at innovators and early adopters of new technology and new ideas will be increasingly important in the Internet age as companies struggle to gain awareness and acceptance in an increasingly crowded market.
According to Forrester Research online sales will reach $3.2 trillion by 2004, yet that number still represents less than 9% of all transactions! If the Internet and e-commerce is so powerful, how can this be? What is the resistance? The reality is that to date the Internet and e-commerce have offered only marginal gains in knowledge and convenience. These gains, however, have been unable to outstrip privacy fears, fraud concerns and the whole annoyance of changing one's lifestyle to learn a new behavior especially when for most of us that lifestyle is already too full with demands on our time. We are going to need more to move people. Something that will motivate people to see and believe the gains they make by switching to the Internet and e-commerce far outstrip the pains of change they may experience.
At one time in America everyone wanted to get a good paying job so that they could earn enough money to enable them to buy a house. They wanted to be the masters of their own universe-"masters of their own kingdom". They wanted to take control of their lives and their money. They wanted to stop "throwing that money away" on rent, and begin investing in themselves and their families by building equity while gaining important tax advantages. That was the American dream.
As the fits and starts of the "new economy" displace thousands each month, the litany of complaints from ex-dot com workers has made one trend increasingly clear-today people want even more. It isn't enough to have a good paying job. People are tired of pouring their life into an enterprise only to get a pay-check in return. They are tired of trading their hours for dollars. They are tired of having money and being miserable, or suddenly finding themselves out of work and being miserable. They have begun to seek the advantages of ownership, but without the risk. They still want to be "masters of their own kingdom", but they want it to extend outside the home and into their work life as well. And perhaps most of all they are tired of watching their most productive years go by in a seemingly never-ending hurry to create money, to be a success, to get approval, to be loved, and to someday "get ahead". These people are beginning to ask themselves why? What is it that we want to "get ahead" of? Who is it that we are really in competition with? And is it really our goal to trade hard work today for no work at some future retirement age? What if that future never comes? Was the sacrifice made now worth it? Or what if the future does come? But as happens so often, the world has changed, and the amounts we thought we would be comfortable with in retirement aren't nearly enough to live the lifestyle with which we had become accustomed? Or what if we decide we don't want to worry about money once we retire? What if we decide we don't want to live on a fixed retirement income? Was spending our precious youth, our freedom, our time, and even our health and well-being worth it all? Is that the way life really has to be? Do we really have to give up so much to have money, or success, or approval in our lives? Or could it be that the idea of trading hours for dollars is a belief whose time is gone? A belief born out of the beginning of our civilization as a means through which the ones who "had" could control the ones who "had-not"? A belief our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. unwittingly passed down generation to generation without examining its validity, without questioning its value, and without ever asking if It is true?
Currently 80% of women age 25 to 35 work outside the home. And as an increasing number of these women find their lives disrupted, find their lives completely different from what they had once imagined it would be, they are increasingly motivated to ask themselves if It is true. And as they have made greater strides into what was once a male dominated work force, and have come into greater and greater positions of influence, they have begun to believe there could be more. Often driven by child-bearing or other sociological factors, they have become increasingly willing to change their thinking, and to be open to more than they have allowed before. They have begun to ask what they can do to go beyond their current thinking. And some have even gone further. They have begun to look for ways to create the financial freedom to do what they love to do. They have begun to seek their purpose in life, and what they can do to fulfill it and men have increasingly said, "Me too."
The organization that can create and execute a model that provides the advantages of ownership, but without the risk, that is able to empower people to take charge of their own lives, and that helps others help themselves to better health, a greater sense of well-being and increased abundance of money, time and energy, and is able to deliver their message effectively, efficiently and at an acceptable cost shall be able to deliver a compelling value proposition that will move people to the Internet in greater and greater numbers and deliver on the new economy's promise of fulfillment and growth.
Our plan is to create a space for helping people help themselves by empowering them with the unbiased knowledge, leading edge tools, and innovative, effective technologies and disciplines that will allow them to take charge of their own lives. We will initially target innovators and early adopters in and approaching their prime spending years as we take advantage of the fundamental changes currently taking place in the healthcare industry and our society as a whole. We will begin by aggregating and sifting through all of the conflicting data and misinformation often prevalent during significant changes in our society, and by bringing insights into new and alternative disciplines from leading edge teachers, healers and leaders in the areas of healthy living, disease treatment and prevention, planetary health, and money and abundance. We will then encourage the growth of this new awareness by making the most effective and powerful of these products, services, and technologies available through a dynamic, web-based, e-commerce solution that is scalable, easy to use, and above all client-friendly. We will facilitate the spread of this new awareness through an innovative word-of-mouth and network-marketing framework that fuels the growth of those on a path of personal transformation by encouraging these network partners to share and interconnect, by providing practical experience that helping others helps themselves, and by creating a foundation for financial independence and support for change that compels the movement of many more to utilize the connective, time-contracting properties the Internet offers. We will move to teach these partners to reach out, network with and embrace their fellow human beings. We will teach them that as they simply learn to change their buying habits from that of a needs-driven, advertising-enacted consumer of products and services to a truth-empowered investor in their own health, their own well-being, and their own abundance, they are taking ownership of their actions and their life and setting in motion a self-exciting cycle of events that improves their life as they improve the lives of others. And as they find their lives improving, so are they able to help improve the lives of others even more, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum eventually realizing that they have begun living their life purpose and doing their life's work in a greater way.
The emerging markets of online health including vitamins and nutritional supplements, health oriented technologies and disciplines, and environmentally friendly household goods and services are ideal for our initial endeavors not only because they map well together, but because they allow us to focus on segments of the economy that have a large number of innovators and early adopters who are more likely to respond to new ideas and new channels of distribution. By focusing on these segments in the market we can also reduce our initial capital outlays and hone our business model while creating a foundation for growth. Once dominant in these niches, we can identify additional markets ripe for change, spread to these markets and repeat, thereby leveraging the acceptance of the innovators and early adopters into greater acceptance as these markets grow. And because our sales and marketing strategy utilizes a word-of-mouth referral program which gains us important positive reinforcing network effects that give us greater reach as our network grows without the added expense of a costly advertising campaign, we will actually be moving to widen rather than merely maintain our competitive advantage in these niches by simply making good on our promise to deliver the most effective and powerful products, services, technologies, and disciplines for transformation available through a dynamic, web-based, e-commerce solution that is scalable, easy to use, and above all client-friendly.
Dynamic results in the constantly changing environment that promises to be our new economy demands fluid thinking and a fluid structure. It demands being open to new ideas and old ideas used in new ways. It requires that we shift our thinking to a new paradigm. Changing the way we do business and perhaps the way we do everything in our lives. It is our belief that efficient, effective execution of this plan will begin to move us toward our ambitious goals of global health, well-being, and abundance, and a world where all are living their life purpose and doing their life's work.
To more fully move toward our vision, we are currently seeking strategic partners who share our vision, have the insight to help us refine our vision, and have the expertise to help us carry out our vision. The ideal partner will have the ability to add value through their access to a variety of potential synergistic relationships as well as connections to follow-on capital sources. If you or your organization have such characteristics, are committed to leading markets rather than following, and would enjoy the stimulating challenge we offer, we want to talk to you. You can reach us toll free at 1 (866) 445-5307, or by e-mail at partner@worldservice.org.nz.
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