Game for teaching fundamental aspects of network marketing

Abstract

A board game used to teach players about the fundamental aspects of network marketing. The game includes a game board having tiles corresponding to various networking principle cards that teach basics on prospecting, personal development, downline development and the inevitable challenges. The prospecting and personal development cards allow the players or teams of players to add prospects and personal development (PD) points, which leads to obtaining associates and customers. The downline development cards lead to the downline team obtaining customers and associates. The accumulation of associates and customers, directly and downline, provides entrepreneurial income. Entrepreneurial income, plus job income assigned at the beginning of the game, less an assigned expense, equals net income. The object of the game is to grow entrepreneurial income through learning networking principles that vastly exceeds job income in order to achieve a stated goal or dream having a lofty price tag.

1 . A game for teaching network marketing skills to players, which simulate entrepreneurs in a network marketing company, the game comprising: 
 a plurality of job cards, each job card including a job with job income and expenses to be assigned to the player selecting the job card, thereby setting an initial net income for each player;    a plurality of destination cards, each destination card including a destination goal having an assigned cost to the player selecting the destination card, the assigned cost being significantly higher than the initial net income;    a plurality of networking principle cards that teach basic principles of network marketing by presenting a player with potential real-life experiences in networking;    a plurality of playing pieces;    a game board having substantially consecutive tiles corresponding to the plurality of networking principle cards, wherein landing on at least one tile with a playing piece results in a player experiencing a change in status of a player's network marketing business, which affects an entrepreneurial income of the player;    means for randomly indicating a number of tiles each player will move a playing piece in a turn; and    a worksheet to track the accumulation of net income of the player.    
   
   
       2 . The game of  claim 1 , wherein the change of status includes receipt of at least one of a new associate and a new customer.  
   
   
       3 . The game of  claim 2 , wherein the networking principle cards include personal development cards, which provide players with personal development points, which are accumulated.  
   
   
       4 . The game of  claim 3 , wherein the player provided personal development points incurs an investment expense.  
   
   
       5 . The game of  claim 3 , wherein the networking principle cards include prospecting cards, which provide players with a plurality of new prospects, which are accumulated.  
   
   
       6 . The game of  claim 5 , wherein the player provided new prospects incurs an investment expense.  
   
   
       7 . The game of  claim 5 , wherein the number of prospects provided to the player is dictated by the player's accumulated professional development points.  
   
   
       8 . The game of  claim 5 , wherein a subset of the prospecting cards include means to enroll associates and customers while incurring a reduction of accumulated prospects.  
   
   
       9 . The game of  claim 8 , wherein the networking principle cards include downline development cards, which reward the player with additional associates and customers for using sales and recruiting techniques, wherein the use of sales and recruiting techniques incurs an investment expense.  
   
   
       10 . The game of  claim 9 , wherein the networking principle cards include challenge cards, which result in a business setback, the setback affecting the entrepreneurial income of the player.  
   
   
       11 . The game of  claim 10 , wherein at least one tile on the game board is a pay day, wherein the player who lands on or passes the pay day is paid the player's net income.  
   
   
       12 . The game of  claim 11 , wherein net income is recalculated at least when the player's accumulation of associates or customers changes, and when the player quits the assigned job of the player, thereby losing job income.  
   
   
       13 . The game of  claim 12 , wherein the entrepreneurial income of a player who has achieved a determined level of entrepreneurial income is increased at least by a factor of ten.  
   
   
       14 . The game of  claim 2 , wherein a subset of the plurality of networking principle cards indicate that the change in status of the player's network marketing business is dictated by the roll of at least one die.  
   
   
       15 . The game of  claim 14 , wherein if the player chooses to quit the player's assigned job, the player's entrepreneurial income dictates if the player is allowed to choose one, two, or three dice from which to change the player's status.  
   
   
       16 . A game for teaching network marketing skills to players or teams of players, which simulate entrepreneurs in a network marketing company, the game comprising: 
 means for assigning a job to each player, the job having an job income and expenses affiliated therewith, thereby setting an initial net income for each player;    means for assigning a destination goal to each player, the destination goal having a cost affiliated therewith that is significantly higher than the initial net income;    means for randomly indicating one of a plurality of networking principles to each player, in turn, which changes a status of each player's simulated business through fluctuating gains and losses of a plurality of customers and associates, wherein an increase of customers and associates translates to an increase of entrepreneurial income;    means for tracking a net income of each player; and    means for indicating a winner of the game based on at least a player's entrepreneurial income when compared with the cost of the player's destination goal.