January 20, 2009
Network Marketers.why are you so convinced network marketing works?
I am not trying to bash the industry, I just have a family member who is absolutely convinced MLM is the wave of the future, but the reasons she gives either cannot be proven or do not make any logical sense.
She is thinking she is going to make a solid living with only minimal amounts of sales per month. At the amount of sales she is talking about, she will need to sign up thousands of people in her group to reach her goals. That is fine, but at the bottom, those people will need to do the same and so unless she is selling a lot more herself its going to eventually crumble as there are not infinite amounts of people to sign up.
She uses books and magazines that speak well of MLM to provide evidence that it works, but doesn’t consider these were written to make a lot of sales to people in MLM, not because its necessarily true.
Help me understand because none of this makes any sense and I would like to believe her but it seems all too hocus pocus.
Oh, she also insists that people are making a lot of money doing this, but none of them can prove it, she just takes the word for it because they seem trustworthy. It really seems deceiving but she believes it.
Filed under Small Business by Peter
Comments on Network Marketers.why are you so convinced network marketing works? »
I have no idea what she is involved in, but I am in a home business that I sell as well as build my downline. Is this her only job? What is the product? What documentation did she get to prove that what they are saying is true?
You can go thro this
I believe it does work- I do a couple of MLM businesses, but you DO have to work! You make $ on your personal sales, but of course, the real potential is in expanding your team. Some companies are easier to recruit for than others, but you have to treat it as a business. If you don’t coach your team, they will not succeed, will not make money, and then YOU don’t make money. There are costs in recruiting and coaching a team, but if you can devote the time and/or money it can work for you.
Most MLM’s have a minimum in sales you have to maintain to keep your team and earn from them It varies from company to company, but she WILL have to sell. The more, the better because it sets a high level of standards for her team.
I always tell people that I recruit that their sales are the only ones they can control. She should depend on her own income and consider the team earnings a perk that will vary from month to month.
The greatest benefit for me is that I have freedom and flexibility and am able to be a work at home mom. I make as much from MLM as I would outside the home and I have no day care costs and work shorter hours. But that is due to MY consistent sales- and the perk of bonuses from my team.
First of all, it depends on what her product is and whether people are looking for it or not. She may or may not be in the right program for today depending on whether the company has already gone through the momentum phase or not. It also depends on her personality and sales ability as well as how much training the company offers.
Another thing you have to consider is some will work harder than others, so the charts that MLM companies put out with their compensation plan are only guidelines. It doesn’t mean you have to sign up an infinite amount of people as some will move tons of product while others will just be customers. Those that sign up as customers and order their minimum amount per month, are getting the discount as well as the tax advantages, and may never choose to build their business. But that’s okay because they are happy receiving the product they want for a discount and the sponsor still builds volume. As for the business builders, they are looking for customers as well as other business builders to help them. It’s called leverage. You can either work 80 hrs a week by yourself, or you can find 10 people to work 8 hrs a week. Everyone runs their business differently, but the bottom line is, they are all trying to get the product into people’s hands. They are doing the same thing that any store would do but in a different way.
I am trying to dispel the myth that only the people at the top make money and the new people are just being ripped off. That is entirely untrue.
People need to picture this as an inverted pyramid. Everyone starts at the bottom and there is room for everyone at the top, it all depends on how much effort they put into it.
If someone goes to work at a retail store, they have no chance of making it to the top. They also make far less than management and the CEO. THAT is a pyramid yet people have no problem accepting that.
You should be proud that your family member has the spirit to realize that the only way to succeed in this world is by creating leverage and residual income which frees her up to earn passive income through investments. It’s something that you cannot do with a conventional job if you are not earning top incomes.
If she does not find success with the company she is with, she has lost nothing and can easily switch to a company that is successful. If she is with the right company, all of the obstacles of MLM have been removed and it is now easier than ever to earn a very lucrative income.
Time to put all the negative connotations aside and really investigate what this industry is doing today.
At least the 3rd answer is a person who might actually be a salesperson (bravo) but has been misguided into the MLM think tank that thinks there is merit in also building the pyramid. See, at best, MLM is a sales position that sells products that are not good enough to sell on an open market, and at worst, its a total sham job trying to convince you of all the possible incomes you can get continuously signing up more and more people indefinitely. I can at least respect the person who naively joined MLM but still plans on making their own sales a priority. At least these people have a quality that is transferable into real world positions.
Then you have someone like Mexico4me who spends hours on here posting spam. Just look at the Numbers of answers she does a day. She also will avoid answering intelligent questions like you have asked by adding one liners (such as “some will work harder than others” and other crap such as signing up to get the discount). These might be true, but they have nothing to do with the fact that there are actually NO LOGICAL REASONS to sign into an MLM company in terms of building a business. Sure, sign up to get a discount on a product you think you need, but don’t kid yourself into thinking this is even remotely close to a business unless you are convinced you can sell the product yourself in a high volumes.
Mexico4me likes tag lines like “if someone works at a retail store they have no chance…yada yada” well that is because they are taking a job, not opening a store. If someone open a retail store however, they have a much better chance of success than anyone in MLM. This is the smoke screen circle logic that MLMers who are deliberately deceptive (or shockingly stupid) use…why would you compare a so called MLM business to someone taking a retail job? That is apples and oranges and anyone with common sense knows this. And might I add, at least the cashier in a retail store is making money, which is a lot more than can be said for the average MLMer.
Why put all the negative connotations aside when its the industry that brings it on itself? MLM has been around now since the early 1960’s and has had more than enough time to shed its negative connotations and prove to the world how great it is but it obviously cannot. MLMers will have you believe that its only a matter of more time until the rest of the world comes around to MLM. This may be the very definition of naive.