Do You Think I’m Here Speaking for Free?

Tape: For Your Information

Speakers: Charlie & Ann Durso

Stock Number: BWW271

Recording Type: ‘Basic Mix’

Brief Review:

This is a very disturbing tape. I am not sure, but I think it is a Spring Leadership. The tape detailed how much money is available by taking advantage of the BWW system. He talks about Emeralds and above making money from functions, One Domain, Communikate, SOTs, BOMs, speaker engagements, the Britt rally circuit. He does such a good job promoting the necessity of tools that he violate the corporations rules regulating them. He also brags about breaking the law by speeding in his car to impress the college age students he was driving with. He concluded with a very deceptive way to get a new person to a function.

Motivational Aspects:

They have “Others First” hanging up on the refrigerator to remind them to always help fill other people’s needs first.

Cult-like aspects:

“You need to be in Diamond Club just to be around them, just to see how they interact together.” At this point, Ann talks about being around Bill and Peggy Britt and watching how Bill serves Peggy. She paints a wonderful; picture of how well their marriage is and implies that they will provide the example to grow your marriage strong. [I checked on the date of this tape: 2004. I would like to point out that November 2003, Bill & Peggy were legally separated over the issue of money. The promise of a better marriage is often used as a recruiting tool. The facts have not been conclusive, though many people while still in the system will say that it is better, those same people when they leave sometimes say that it really wasn’t. My overall point here is that there is no evidence this business will save a marriage, but there is evidence that a lot of high level people do indeed break up, remarry, and often times in a non-biblical way.]

Ann continuously talks about unconditional love. [I will grant that unconditional love is a good thing to have, but is this what these people really have? I do not think so. Unconditional love is when people love others, as demonstrated by actions, without any expect of return. It could be said that these people are only ‘loving’ the people in their downline (as evidenced by coming to help them show the plan or whatever, their exact actions are never defined) to get the money out of the group. The proof of this is that they do not continue to help someone who rejects the plan because such a person ‘does not want help.’]

“When we came down to our first function, we left that weekend. It wasn’t so much what we learned, as much as what we felt. At the end of this weekend, I hope each and every one of you that are sitting out there, you feel the pull to be part of this elite Diamond Team.” [This is funny because they keep on talking about being in an education business, but it is not about what you learn, but what you feel. Indeed, we are emotional creatures, not factual creatures, and that means that we are swayed by wherever our feelings take us. That provides short term action, but not long term conviction. This is the goal of several weekends a year, and further, opens, team trainings, rally’s, etc. They keep you motivated while losing money until you either make it to a level where you are doing that to many other people for money or else you go flat broke.]

“If I get a person on total faith. Now lets think about that, we’re talking faith. We’re not talking about you knowing that you can do this thing. We are not talking about you leaving this weekend convinced that you can be up here. We’re not talking about you showing people this business and in your mind you think everyone you show is going to get in, everyone that gets in is going to do this thing. Just on total faith, you step out and in two years, absolute total faith, two years, you give your business five nights a week. Total faith…there’s something magical about five nights per week…” and then Charlie literally drones on for several minutes without actually closing his point

“People want to be a part of something because they have nothing to be a part of today.”

Charlie does the usual attack against a college education where the professor puts you to sleep by reading from the book. You need to catch up, so you just read the book. He contrasts that by saying the in BWW, they are giving people the ‘information’ from their heart. [The implication is that college is bad, but this business is the way to the truth.]

Charlie says that the only secret is to show the plan 5 nights a week, for 2 years on total faith {this means if nothing is growing or happening}. He says that a good presentation will not get in someone who shouldn’t be in, but a bad presentation can not keep someone out who is supposed to get in. It is, therefore, a numbers game.

“When Bill puts challenges out there, winners meet the challenges.”

At one point, Charlie talks about not believing his age. He is taking a car fullof college students somewhere and talks about laughing and cutting up, and ‘hanging with the boys.’ [This is not intrinsically wrong, but I point it out to demonstrate another cult parallel, This is an appeal to people who want to ‘fit into a crowd’ and live a ‘free’ life.]

Try to follow this one. Charlie is talking about how to get people to the functions. “I had a guy, I said, hey, listen. This is the best thing you can do: Get to this weekend. I had just showed him the plan…It was six days later…Do you really want this thing to work for you? He said ‘Yeah’. What do you want out of it? He said, ‘I’d like to be free’…If I was to tell you what you needed to do to become free, would you want me to tell you? ‘Yeah’, Great, you need to be at that weekend function. I’ll pick you up a ticket. He said, ‘fine’. I called him back, I said, ‘I got your ticket.’ He said, ‘Well, I was thinking, you know, I wasn’t sure…”{cuts off}, ‘Well, I got you a ticket. You told me you were going.’ I GOT NOTHING! I didn’t get his ticket! {Crowd laughs} We went down to the function, I said, I got your ticket, I’ll be right back, I walked over to the ticket booth and got him a ticket.”

Teaching Points:

Ann teaches that people are to be seen as good friends, emphasizing the relationship. They are not to be seen as PV. [I have two problems here. The first is, why does the upline never seem to demonstrate being a ‘good friend’ with a downline who has quit (generally speaking) and two, how can they say this when the upline leg starting with Ray & JoAnne Melillo holds the ‘Eagle Cup’ game every month where the winner is the largest growing person on the team?]

There is no secret; you must build the business five nights a week.

Other Notes:

Charlie references the “$150,000 for 6 Platinum legs” in the plan and says that kind of money is a joke.

Charlie talks about the money that is to be made in the BWW system. As he explains in brief, the Platinum’s get a ‘differential’ in the costs from the rest of the downline, and above that, the Emeralds and above get a further differential to cover ‘administrative costs’. [I have a problem, if it is ‘administrative costs’ that are being ‘covered’ by the extra, why is it that about 50% or more of the income is derived from System money verses Quixtar money. Another question, are the terms of this exchange disclosed?]

“We need CD’s. I could not build this business without CD’s. I need to get in my car, I need my spirits uplifted. [There is a Standing order Tape program that they recommend everyone be on. It is a tape a week at $7.50 plus tax and shipping ($8.25 total on my team) which is about $429 a year, but many teams in BWW refer to that as being the minimum, thus you need more.]

“As we read books, I read constantly…We need the books.” [The books come once a month, but again they suggest more. This will cost in excess of $10 extra a month. The discounts and such detailed above apply. The books will cost in excess of $120 a year.”]

“How many of you here on One Domain? That’s our business.” [One Domain is the BWW personal website, it costs $87.95 for the domain name a year plus $14.95 a month for a total of $267.35 a year. Again, the upper level pins (Emeralds and Diamonds) make money on this according to this very tape.]

“How many of you here have ever picked up Communikate. That’s our communication system. There are profits, it is very reasonably priced.” [Communikate is $31.95 a month for the regular which they teach to get. Many of the Diamonds teach to get the full version instead of the light version. This price does not include extra minutes, conferences, and a few features which can raise it in excess of $10 a month. To be conservative, the annual cost of the regular with nothing extra is $383.40.]

Next, Charlie talks about Diamond Clothiers and suggests that you need to buy clothes from there. [The funny thing is that the IBO’s don’t even get PV/BV on these items, but the store is owned in part by Bill Britt. According to this tape, the upper level pins profit from the sale of Diamond clothiers.]

“Do you think I’m here speaking for free?” He talks about the costs involved in putting together the function. At one point, he even mentions the band, which gets paid to perform. This is either Goads or Day One, depending on what weekend it is. He talks about the people running the booths, the camera men, the sound equipment, etc. [This is funny because another tape clearly states that the Goads do NOT get paid to perform at the function. That is the tape “Dream Your Way to the Top”, by Brad Duncan (BWW-5 [note – this tape was removed from the BWW Registry]). On another note, for long we were hearing that no one made money from speaking engagements, then it was external speakers made money, not it is apparently all the people who talk.]

Without really going into the details, Charlie teaches a brief bit about literally manipulating people into seeing your plan. I have covered many details from this tape, so I will leave out the details of this lengthy session.

We seem to have some violations of the law: “Look at this straightaway here, ain’t nowhere a cop can hide anywhere on any side of this for the next couple of miles…Let me open up the top to my sun roof here…you see any helicopters? Because sometimes they get us from up above…hold on {makes fast driving noises then screams with excitement}…man that was awesome! ‘Alright Charlie…!!!’” At this point, he starts to cut down his old J.O.B. again. The crowd goes wild at these stories and contrasts. [The wholesale rejection of legality for the purpose of impressing people is WRONG, STUPID, and FOOLISH. We have the direct command to obey the authorities, but I see many references in this business to reject authority (1 Peter 2:13-17; pay special attention to verse 15.]

Quixtar Rules Violations:

Rule 7 in the Quixtar Rules Compendium (pages D32-34) are about the BSMs (tools). We read many interesting statements:

“IBOs who choose to sell or distribute SM must emphasize that the purchase of SM is strictly voluntary”

“7.5.3. IBOs who choose to sell BSM shall not say, suggest, or imply that the use of any such materials will guarantee success”

However, according to Charlie, the tools are required to build the business. Such quotes as “We need CD’s” and “We need the books”, as well as many other statements that I did not directly record, Charlie is seriously violating the policy. What is worse, he is doing so to promote the money that can be made in the system. In the good old days, they hid this aspect, now they are not.