MLM = Multi-level marketing
Ralph Smedley ‘s vision
Ralph Smedley originally created Toastmasters as a place to develop communications skills. It has since evolved mutated degenerated into two organizations. One of them, centered around the club mission statement, still follows Smedley’s vision, at least in some clubs. The other, centered around the district mission statement, kinda mimics a MultiLevel Marketing organization, with the “improvement” where they share none of the income created, but instead hand out pieces of ribbon, and paper “recognitions.” It’s brilliant, from a bean-counter’s standpoint; it can be run with people who can be motivated merely by internal recognitions, instead of money. To be fair, there are things to be learned in that second organization, but it can make otherwise-decent people put pressure on folks who don’t care for the MLM-stuff. This is what you may be seeing. While they can be annoying, this may actually be a benefit to the MLM-like portion. See, headquarters ought to make maximum income if everyone thinks like an MLM’er. If you’re not one of them, they might benefit if you’d leave in a year or two. The MLM’ers will then scramble to fill your vacancy with someone else, and THE REPLACEMENT might be more the MLM type. In this way, the system appears to work as a sieve, to gather those who’ll give (or can be eventually persuaded to give) free labor to the organization. The product they’re selling to get you into the sieve is a speaking course. People in both organizations can benefit. if you don’t care for the “leadership” side of the place, you must learn to say no, firmly, and if possible, diplomatically. You must learn to recognize questions that probe for info to be used against you, in pushing you do do what they want. Understand that these tactics are common in the workaday world, and Toastmasters is the ideal place to learn to recognize & deal with them. Being able to do this well may be just as helpful in advancing your career as the communication part. I don’t think you’ll hear this too often, though…
Curious organization
Toastmasters is a very curious and probably a unique organization. They do provide an incredibly useful service. Deep, deep inside, it is a nonprofit that provides a very nice living for its management. They would lose their nonprofit status if they actually shared membership income with those who produce it, but their business model cleverly uses that to their advantage. See, there are numerous organizations worldwide, that operate on a staff of largely free labor, but Toastmasters is still unique. All the other organizations are either charitable, or religious; that is, their members work for free because they’re serving a cause higher than themselves. But the objective of Toastmasters is self-help; our objective is ourselves! In order to encourage free labor, a huge number of their “leaders” are instead persuaded to strive for a hierarchy of made-up recognitions, to further promote themselves. While TI may promote its programs to the outside world, there is an absolute, total blackout of mentioning the kinds of recognitions its members may earn. Think of it; it takes an extraordinary amount of work to earn a DTM. It would be a great benefit to the membership if their employers knew that some of their workers were capable of the effort and sacrifice needed to earn that distinction. But their employers don’t even know what a DTM is! Toastmasters has made no effort to educate them! I won’t presume to read minds, but TI greatly benefits from this. If a member works hard because they need recognitions, and those recognitions are seen only inside the organization, then the member has every incentive to remain a member. If they leave, then all that recognition is lost! And of course, if they remain in the organization, they remain available to get tapped, again and again and again, for more free labor. It’s freakin’ brilliant…
MLM landmark model
Toastmasters is sort of like a MLM and sort of like Landmark, except that we don’t get paid. This is BTW something that’s been known about Toastmasters since the 80s, and that’s exactly why Toastmasters is such a popular market/target for true MLMs. Without this model, Toastmasters International would have never been international.
The leadership track is really about selling memberships and making sure the club complies with brand. That’s it, really. In an ideal world for the organization, clubs that hit beyond a certain threshold would just automatically split. That doubles the numbers of club officers, and that doubles the number of people District (i.e. the downline) can train to . . . sell more memberships and the Toastmaster brand.
Everything – the easy entry, the constant validation when you’re a new member, no pass/fail, the DTM letters, the Open Houses, the testimonials, the status conferred by the letters – are all designed to get you to the point to sell memberships. They don’t need everybody to do it; they just need the true believers to. That’s also why they don’t focus on membership retention.
All the above being true (just reason through all the org policy changes), it doesn’t invalidate the value of the journey. And in fact, knowing this, it gives you the clearest and effective path to succeeding in your role and learning from the volunteer/sales wing.
Knowing that you ARE working in a business (with little risk to your well being), there is a lot to learn. And, above all, it puts the impetus back on you to wear your customer hat and demand the best possible experience for your dollar and time. You can still make this your own.
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