You may have heard about the seminar featuring Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham.
According to Jay and Rich, thousands of websites are promoting the Become a Maven home study course, and for good reason.
If the program is effective, more superstars will be created in the next 6-12 months than we've seen in the last decade.
Knowing the reputations of these two men, it is almost assured that the program is highly effective.
For the Network Marketing community, this could be the equivalent of striking gold.
But that's the point of Mavendom.
People assume it's good because your name is attached to it.
In fact, according to Rich and Jay, once you've established yourself as a maven in your market, people will seek you out in droves and eagerly buy anything you sell.
Case in point: the Maven Matrix Manifesto.
This 83 page special report outlines the 11 steps that you must follow in order to be perceived as the leader in your marketplace.
But is this report an example of free helpful advice, or is it another thinly-veiled product launch in "special report" clothing? As a network marketer, you can learn a great deal from what this report has to say - and how it's said.
While it's geared toward Internet Marketers, I'm looking at the usefulness of this product to the Network Marketing community.
Much in the same way I dissected Mike Filsaime's Net Web Marketing product launch, let's take a look at the inner workings of this manifesto.
When I received my invitation from Rich to review the manifesto, I was sent to the obligatory capture page.
I input my name and email credentials and was then led to a refer-a-friend page where I could tell 5 people about a report I hadn't even seen yet.
Note:If you're not already using a capture page, you need one stat! Of course you also need a reason for people to leave their credentials with you in the first place, and the Manifesto does just that for Jay and Rich.
At the bottom of the "tell a friend" page was a link to skip that section entirely, but it was difficult to find - a tactic that is common in network marketing today.
Once I clicked through, I was told to check my email for the link.
This confirmed my suspicion that the primary reason for this report was to generate marketing leads for the Maven program.
After I downloaded the report, though, my thoughts were a little less cynical.
Rich and Jay go to great lengths (28 pages to be precise) establishing their credibility and explaining how people will benefit from establishing themselves as an expert in their niche.
They set up the benefits of becoming a maven and how lucrative it can be.
Rich cites the example of his own Internet Business Manifesto report.
He drove traffic to a 'free' report that, in turn produced thousands of list members and created millions in back-end sales.
In Rich's own words:

People who downloaded that e-book received tremendous value and were thankful to partners who offered it to them.
My partners and I made money.
And I ended up with tens of thousands of new leads and customers..
..
nearly two years later, direct links to that download page still brings me an average of 100 opt-ins a day nearly 40,000 new prospects every year.

Did you catch that? That is the power of having your own report to give to the masses: continuous traffic, repeat business and the position as an expert in the minds of your market.
As a network marketer, you need to hone in on your product niche, create a report, and get it to the masses.
So once they finished tooting their own horns, the meat of the report is really an eye opener.
The workbook-style approach to the 11 key elements makes this report a hands-on tool you'll use with fervor.
Sprinkled with case studies and examples from Jay's own career, the 11 steps will at the very least get you thinking about where you're going with your network marketing business.
I've said it before and it bears repeating, your company's most valuable product is YOU, and that's what you should be marketing.
The 11 sections of this report will help you flesh out how you want to position yourself in your market.
But there's a 12th section that's not even mentioned until you've read all the way through your eleven steps.
And it's here where I'm the most disappointed.
The last 17 pages of this report are nothing more than a shameless plug for the seminar and home study course that Jay and Rich have partnered on.
To make it even more shameless, there's no visible affiliate link either.
Ultimately, there are some great bits and pieces in here that will make your heart race and get you thinking about ways to grow your network marketing business like a maven, but you have to sift through the promotional fodder to find it.
It's been said "what we think, we are", and if that's true, then Rich and Jay have positioned themselves as the champion of every would-be maven in the Internet Marketing community, and for our pruposes, the network marketing community as well.
If for no other reason than that, we should be paying attention.
Just skip ahead a few pages to get to the good stuff.