Multi-level marketing, network marketing, pyramid schemes or direct selling, whatever you call it, if you’ve had any experience with network marketing, chances are you have an opinion about it.
My personal experience with what used to be called multi-level marketing honestly didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth.
I’m going to share my experience briefly here and then share a guest post below from my good friend Doug Grootveld. Doug has had a much different experience with network marketing.
Then I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts on this controversial subject. Please share your experiences in the comments.
The Part of my Misspent Youth that Involved Selling Amway
I vaguely recall my parents going to “meetings” when I was a kid and returning with boxes of laundry detergent and household cleaners. They had been talked into becoming “associates” in a business my aunt and uncle were involved in.
The detergent and cleaners found uses around the house, but the brochures and cassette tapes my parents were supposed to use to recruit other associates into the business with sat around collecting dust.
No big loss for my folks in that case, but someone else in the family wasn’t so lucky. Let’s call him Tom. Tom was recruited into the same organization (anybody heard of Amway before?). The people who recruited him had been somewhat successful and so he bought into the whole idea deeply. Like, I’m talking maybe tens-of-thousands of dollars invested into “the business” (as it was called by insiders).
Tom spent a few years buying marketing materials, recruiting a few “downline” associates and attending conferences. He even recruited me at the age of 18 to join the “massive opportunity for passive income.”
After a few cringe-worthy attempts at selling to my friends’ parents and some strangers in the mall, I gave up. The whole experience probably cost me a thousand or so dollars and nine months of attending meetings. I suppose I learned something from the whole experience, mostly that I didn’t like cold-selling people anything in person.
Tom eventually gave up too, at least on that particular idea. I know he’s become an associate of a handful of other network marketing businesses since then, but hasn’t done much with them. I’m fairly certain that every one of these opportunities have cost him more than he’s made, which is fine for a hobby, but not for a business.
Why Am I Writing About Network Marketing Here if My Experience Wasn’t Positive?
Great question. There are three simple reasons why I’m dedicating an entire post to a business model that I haven’t had a positive outcome from.
Plus, let’s be honest. This is a controversial subject and I thought it would make for good discussion 
- Just because a business model has an overtly poor reputation doesn’t mean there aren’t better/legit/profitable ways to do it.
- Some of you don’t want to work online, but still want to support yourself with a independent lifestyle business.
- My friend Doug is starting to have some success with network marketing.
Take affiliate marketing as an example. For months I dismissed affiliate marketing as something I wanted nothing to do with. The whole industry seems sketchy and fake.
But then a few people I admire online started talking about their success with affiliate marketing. I trusted and respected people like Chris Guillebeau and Glen Allsopp so when they embraced affiliate marketing I knew it was worth looking into.
It could be that network marketing is the same way. Yes, the industry has a negative image, but perhaps there are certain opportunities and methods that are worth checking out.
Plus, the fact that Tom and I both didn’t succeed probably had more to do with our lack of effort, motivation and interest in the actual products we were selling than the business model itself.
What do you do if you don’t want to develop websites or blog for a living? Network marketing promises to be that opportunity.
This is honestly what sparked this whole discussion. Doug Grootveld is a close friend I originally met in Mexico. Doug’s an entrepreneurial guy (he’s been flipping houses during the summers and doing acupuncture in Mexico in the winters for the past 5+ years). Like some of you perhaps, Doug doesn’t want to sit behind a computer all day to earn a living.
We developed the Morning Spanish newsletter business together last year. I handled most of the website stuff, while Doug developed the content. It turns out neither of us are passionate about teaching language learning enough to fully commit to a business in that space. We sold the business for four figures last year and moved on.
Doug has already found alternative ways to earn a living that allow him to live in abroad for 6 months every year. He and his wife are a big reason why I started this entire journey to build a lifestyle business myself last year.
But Doug also knows he doesn’t want to practice acupuncture or be a real estate developer forever. He’s looking for something more passive, but still mostly offline. He thinks he’s found that in network marketing and asked if he could share his story with you.
Now it’s over to Doug to share his experience.
23 Months, 1 Network Marketing Company, Four Figures
Guest post by Doug Grootveld. Read more about Doug’s company or get in touch with him.
How I did basically did nothing with a Network Marketing company in just under a year-and-a-half but finally got off my ass and am now starting to make some money and having fun doing it.
Network Marketing – Lifestyle Design Worthy?
Okay, so maybe my manifesto (aka short blog post) isn’t quite as inspiring as Corbett’s, but I was fortunate enough to be on the beaches of Mexico during this story too.
Let me begin by saying I’m not an expert network marketer. I’m not making 6 or 7 figures a year doing it, in fact I just had my best month where I cleared the 4 figure mark.
I’m an acupuncturist by trade, but my largest source of income the last 10 years has been buying and flipping houses. I don’t really enjoy this much anymore but it has become a means to end to support my travels and surfing addiction. You may have even read my bio in the early days of Free Pursuits under the alias of Darryl.
A little less than two years ago I stumbled into Network Marketing knowing nothing about it (including the stigma). A friend invited my wife and I out for a drink. She showed us a health product, and as a health care practitioner, I did recognize the benefits and it was unique.
Then she said the magic words for me: “potential for passive income.” Since that first Rich Dad, Poor Dad book I read while still in acupuncture school, passive income has been an obsession. The idea of making money while screwing off is so seductive to me (this my idea of lifestyle design). The house flipping actually began with the idea having rentals, but I quickly found out that buying houses that cash-flowed was not quite as easy as in Robert Kiosaki’s books.
So anyway, I signed up for my first network marketing company right away much to my wife’s dismay.
Unfortunately the business side wasn’t all rainbows and waterfalls for me in the beginning. Between my laziness, lack of understanding of how the business worked, and more importantly, pretty much ignoring the successful people in company trying to help me, I wasn’t really making much of that passive income I was hoping for.
I decided about 6 months ago to put a little effort (about 15 hours a week) into it and really listen and learn from those who are successful.
Amazingly it is starting to work.
From my many mistakes and bit of success I thought I’d give you a little breakdown on what this business is all about.
The Misconceptions
Network Marketing is simply a business model. It’s a method of marketing and distribution that is a little different than your average retail setup.
The products tend to be unique and instead of a company spending large sums of money on advertising, celebrity endorsements, and retail shelf space, they compensate individual consumers for “spreading the word” instead.
Unfortunately for the industry, this model has also been manipulated to form illegal pyramid schemes or to hawk stupid shit that nobody wants using high-pressure sales techniques.
I’m here to tell you that much like affiliate marketing, there are good ways and bad ways to go about network marketing. I’ve found what works for me, and it doesn’t include high-pressure sales or selling things I don’t truly believe in. Read on to find out how I’ve made it work.
How do you choose a company to work with?
- The Right Product or Service — Find something that you are really interested in (and think others would be interested in also). The product should be unique, and something you would tell people about whether you were affiliated with it or not.
Also try to find a highly consumable product or service that people need to reorder every month. Even if the company and compensation plan is super badass, if you are not into using the product or service yourself, the people you approach will see that in you. Also, make sure it isn’t a fad, i.e.: long distance telephone minutes are pretty irrelevant now days.
Note: if it is kind of vague what the product or service actually is, be very careful, it may be a cover for a pyramid and ponzi scheme. A friend of mine lost about $10,000 on “website traffic” company that was shut down after being found to be a ponzi scheme.
- The Right Company — Check out the company behind the product. A lot of network marketing companies go out of business in the first couple years. It’s probably best to get involved with one that is at least a few years old.
Also, check out the distributors that you will be working with and the “company culture.” Do you get along with them? Are they total cheese-dicks? Are they pushy or do they seem like legit business people? Are they having fun?
- The Compensation Plan — Sometimes these can be a bit confusing at first to understand on paper, but the main thing is to see if people are making money. When I first signed up I met a lot of really cool people that had all been involved a short period of time that were making good money – many had even replaced an income within a couple years.
Ask about the retention rate as well. This is a good way to judge both the product popularity and the compensation. A higher rate means people are using the product and/or service and they are getting paid (the industry average is around 10%).
What it takes to be a good network marketer
Choosing the right product and network marketing company won’t guarantee your success, but it will increase the odds. I was lucky as “I fell into” one that was right for me. As with any business, success ultimately comes down to your effort. The name of the game in network marketing is building a network of people buying and using the products or services you are promoting (and using them yourself).
Here is the basic formula that all successful marketers use: provide information about your business and product/service to people, answer any questions or concerns (or refer them to someone who can), follow up with them, sign them up if they are interested, help train and support so they can do it, repeat the process again.
Another important point is not to be a pushy asshole. Don’t get involved with one of these companies that invite people to secret meetings and then use high-pressure techniques to sign them up. Find a company where the product/service can stand on its own merit.
On the other side of the coin though, you have to get over the fear of introducing your business to as many people as possible and also tempering your disappointment if they are not interested. This may mean that your dad and your best friend don’t sign up – that’s okay, it’s not for everybody (and if you’re not weird about it they won’t think any less of you).
If you may have never considered something like network marketing, I hope these tips are helpful. The best thing about this business is that it can be done part time, with a low cost of entry, and for the handful of you out there that this matters to, very little computer skills.
I’m happy to answer any questions you have in the comments, and appreciate Corbett giving me the chance to share my experience with you here. Get in touch with me if you’d like to learn more or talk to me directly.
-Doug
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Doug Grootveld spends half of his year in Portland, Oregon and the other half searching for the perfect wave in Mexico. He’s a certified Chinese Medicine Doctor and part-time network marketing business owner and consultant.
Read more about Doug’s business or contact him to learn more about how to succeed in network marketing in a friendly, ethical way.
How about you? What experiences have you had with network marketing? What’s your opinion of the industry as a whole? Do you think there are legitimate opportunities to pursue (especially for those who don’t want to work behind a computer all day)?
Let’s discuss in the comments!
photo by Intersection Consulting
I’ve known about and researched a lot of network marketing companies over the years. Doug’s advice is good here. There is that tremendous stigma associated with these ever since the early days of Amway, though there are plenty of reputable companies with good products that use multi-level marketing.
I think the stigma is much worse for MLM than for affiliate marketing, because everyone knows someone who has tried to get them to sign up for make-up, kitchen products or prepaid law services, it seems. But there are plenty of perfectly legitimate businesses that use this form of marketing.
With affiliate marketing, there is more emphasis on the product itself than with most of these systems, though there are certainly exceptions for both products and the people selling them.
Doug’s advice is spot-on here!
Doug and Corbett,
Glad you brought this topic up. I think its especially important to the type of readers who read this blog because most of them are trying to design their lives with as much freedom as possible and often that means –> passive income.
Personally, companies like Amway really turn me off. But affiliate marketing online doesn’t. That made me wonder..why?
Seth Godin popularized (invented?) the term permission marketing. Basically, you shouldn’t dare try to sell me something unless you have permission from me to do so. Take Everett Bogue at Far Beyond the Stars. He’s always offering affiliate links but I read his blog because I want to hear what he has to say…I care about his opinion and the products he reccomends – that’s why I read his work. Everett Bogue implicitly has my permission to try to sell me stuff.
People who work for these companies like Amway, sometimes forget this part. Ok, they almost always forget this part. They think they can approach me and try to sell me something I didn’t ask for and that can be annoying.
The biggest thing problem with some types of network marketing is that they don’t build the type of relationships where they have permission to sell. What they’re doing is nothing more than real world spam and that can only work on so many people.
Unbelievably cool.
I emailed you recently to ask for your thoughts on how you define a “lifestyle design” business for the express purpose of seeing if MLM would jive with lifestyle design bloggers. And here is my answer!
In my opinion this industry couldn’t be easier to succeed at – IF you have a good company. *I will be quitting my job in 2 DAYS* to start living my life like a Rock Star, and MLM is paying for it.
My pops was also in an old-style MLM company when I was younger, and was successful (30,000 people he helped succeed and was paid on) but got burned out with all the travel and meetings. When real-estate slowed up due to the credit crunch he started looking for another income source, sorted the MLM industry like a laundry basket, and came out with a company that is amazing!
My only addition to the list of company requirements ( and this is just my preference ) : No product to move/ buy/ sell. If you do great at MLM, and I’m positive any reader of this awesome blog can, you don’t want your home to become a warehouse.
Yours in Free Pursuits,
P. Derrick Seagraves
I’ll go on record to state I really dislike MLMs and Network marketing.
It’s my belief that in virtually all of the cases, the only people who make money are those at the top. And don’t forget about the critical ‘weekly tools’ and stuff folks need are bullied into buying, or the ‘rah rah rah!’ offsite meetings that cost an arm and a toenail.
Too many folks willing to sell the dream and damned be the outcome…for me to even consider it.
Thanks Corbett and Doug,
Doug you are dead on with the fear of introducing your business to people you meet. I think that is the biggest problem with MLM is that people are all fired up upon first signing up- pitch it to their closest friends and family members, then run out of people to introduce their business too, because they are afraid of rejection.
I have tried a couple of MLM’s for the passive income potential. I was young and lazy on a few, but the most recent one I was part of with a passion. I was working the business everyday for 8 hours attending presentations, meetings, training and many network events. The network events was basically 15 MLM owners trying to introduce their new and great idea to each other and it just didn’t work well.
The problem eventually came when the company didn’t follow thru on all the future projects they were planning and they structured all the financial incentives for the upper levels, leaving the lower levels failing with little financial return to show for their efforts.
I’m with Corbett that left a bad taste in my mouth for MLM, but I know there are many well established businesses that utilize a MLM instead of advertising to spread the word about the product.
It’s a great concept, you will buy from the people you know, if you find the right company to support and trust.
Great topic Corbett!
Eric
Doug and Corbett,
I’ve had experience in MLM and can personally say that in the end, like Corbett it left a sour taste in my mouth.
I’m not going to lie as I did money…however, what I don’t agree is how companies out there fool people into joining without being real with them.
What I liked about Doug’s explanation was that it seemed real, no bull shit. Goods, bads. If I were to get into MLM again, I’d want an “upline” like Doug.
Supportive and real, with a game plan.
But now my passions lie elsewhere…
Good post.
I’ve always advised peeps to seriously avoid MLM. especially online MLM.
The problem I have always seen is that the promises on the front end don’t match up to the results most people get. The whole downline thing is too close to pyramid scheme style for my liking.
Although the way the internet is going with everyone becoming transparent and realising that honesty actually gets you further, MLM could move into a new era. But it has alot of work to clean up the general image.
Thanks chaps for kicking off this discussion.
Hey Corbett (and Doug!) for sharing your points of view.
The way I judge a network marketing opportunity comes down to one question – Is it something I could talk about without “selling” that will matter and make an impact on people? If the only time you talk about how awesome it is happens to be during a cold-sell interaction, chances are I would lean towards it being a sham.
But when someone like my neighbor, who got involved in his business venture after losing 60lbs in 4 months, can talk about how much his life has changed 180 degrees from sick and tired, to energetic and having already replaced over half of his wifes income just from talking about the results he has seen – I see a legit opportunity that more people should look to when forming their opinion about network marketing.
Thanks again for sharing your experiences!
Hey guys -
Amway. I have a bit of a personal connection. I’m originally from the Grand Rapids, MI area – home to Amway global headquarters. The DeVos and Van Andel families, who started Amway back in the 1950s, are local heroes. Their names are on nearly every building in town, from the Van Andel Arena to Devos Hall.
I actually worked at their corporate headquarters 5 or 6 years ago in the IT department. The headquarters is a massive complex that’s stretches for a full mile down the county highway.
Anyway, as I said, the family are kind of local “folk heroes” due to their contribution to the community, but at the same time, when you talk about selling Amway, you’ll get knowing looks and snickers. It’s a weird dichotomy.
Everyone – and I mean everyone – in West Michigan has either tried selling Amway or has a close friend or relative who has. My parents did. My grandparents did. Nearly all of my Aunts and Uncles have.
And not one of them made any money. Between the product that they were required to buy and the rah rah meetings and motivational books and tapes that they were bullied into buying, everyone that I know who tried it ended up losing money. My uncle lost thousands of dollars.
I don’t personally have anything against the MLM business model. If you can find a company with a great product that doesn’t use high pressure techniques to sell you motivational tapes and whatnot, and you can actually use it to to design your lifestyle and create passive income, then great!
Personally, though, I think that there are easier ways of gaining your freedom from a paycheck.
The amount of work that it would take to separate the wheat from the chaff in finding a legitimate MLM company to promote would seem to me to not be worth the time lost in researching in and dealing with pushy assholes from the companies that I decided not to promote.
With affiliate marketing, I can investigate a product in a few minutes and have a pretty good idea if I want to promote it. And when I promote it, it’s using permission based marketing (as Mike Donghia said). People are either purposely coming to my blog or searching on a specific term in Google, which I think constitutes permission to give them a low-key pitch. With MLM, even if it’s a great product and a great company, my friends haven’t given me permission to pitch to them just by coming over to my house, and I would feel sleazy doing so, even if it was in a low key manner.
Anyway, I’ve said enough. If MLM works for some people to generate passive income and live the lifestyle that they want, then more power to them. But when I come to your house and comment on the bottle of wine that we’re drinking – don’t try to sell it to me!
That’s crazy you have such a connection to the topic, Trever. Thanks for sharing your experience! Small world.
Hi Guys,
As any other business model, multi-level marketing is a good idea.
What is not a good idea is the following
1. Promises made to new business prospects of wonderful and lavish lifestyles
2. Completely ignoring the ideas on which any Business runs, and primarily targeting people’s emotional needs to be better human beings.
And it takes simple math to prove how many people make money in this business and how many don’t. The number of people who don’t are a substantial number. If you know the math exponential function, you will know what I mean.
I’ll respectfully disagree with you Doug.
There is nothing remotely unique about MLM products except that they’re overpriced clones of popular consumer products or the latest fad product repackaged; i.e. grape juice sold in wine bottles for $30. If they were that unique they would stand on their own in the marketplace.
Try to find a highly consumable product? Are you kidding? Try to find an MLM product that’s not! Selling overpriced consumables is the MLM model, it doesn’t work without it.
MLM works right up until those suckers realize their clothes get clean, makeup is makeup, multivitamins aren’t revolutionary, acia juice can be bought at Whole Foods and all had for drastically cheaper prices. Then those products get dumped on eBay for pennies on the dollar.
MLM isn’t about the products it’s about building downlines, and the only successful people are those with masssive downlines. The MLM community is run by groups of marketers with huge down lines who move these downlines to new products as soon as a product or fad dries up. They all know each other and they are continually bringing new clone products to market and those with huge downlines are invited ground floor, first tier. That’s who makes money effortlessly. Product/fad dries up? start a new company! Secure product and marketing pitch/claim, invite those with huge downlines, they conduct conference call to downline about fantastic new product that will make them millions. Rinse, repeat.
How do you sell an overpriced product? you spin it as something revolutionary, you provide a financial incentive of passive income, and you let friends sell it to friends dissolving the largest obstacle in sales, trust.
All Ponzi schemes have winners and mostly losers. you want to make money start your own scheme, be the ground floor, first tier and laugh all the way to the bank at the suckers drinking $30 bottles of grape juice.
You can’t find an MLM product cheaper than I can find in Wal-Mart.
Me personally, I’d rather live a mac & cheese lifestyle with a properly pointed moral compass sitting next to me.
Tom
Geez, Tom, you started by “respectfully” disagreeing and then went on to question people’s moral compasses. I appreciate you sharing, but prefer to keep things congenial in the comments. Just FYI for next time.
Sorry Corbett, that’s not what was said.
I didn’t ask Doug how he sleeps at night participating in MLM. For all I know his MLM company is run by nuns, selling puppies to sick children.
Me personally, means me personally. To paraphrase my last sentence, Being an honest person and true to “myself”, “my moral compass”, is more important to “me” than making money”.
If you honestly want to twist my experience and opinion, into me questioning your friends morals, well I guess it’s your house, your rules. I think it’s bullshit.
To Doug or anybody who felt slighted by my comments, please accept my most sincere apology.
Tom
I will clarify, ” “I”, Tom Clarke would rather not make a passive income from selling a product through MLM, as “I” believe through “my personal” experience and “my” own research that the MLM business model is not sustainable unless distributors purchase overpriced consumer goods, and that there is a constant inflow of new distributors who must contribute into the system and get little to nothing out of the system. In other words, in order for someone to be successful someone else must fail.
Because “my” belief and understanding of MLM directly conflicts with “my personal” morals and values, “I” will sit in peace knowing that “I” remain true to “my” moral compass by not participating in MLM.
Hey Tom, nobody’s feeling “slighted” so just relax a bit.
So all businesses rely on distributors (stores) and/or consumers to buy their goods or services to stay in business, exceptions may be something like governmental agencies or n0n-profits that are donation based, etc. So yes, my company does rely on people buying the product, whether that be me and fellow distributors, or somebody else.
It seems to me that you think all products sold through network marking and MLM are overpriced scam items. I don’t think everybody feels that way. My mom really liked a particular type of make-up that comes from Mary Kay – she still buys it today. Another person I know is actually a distributor for organic beef jerky. I didn’t join his business as a distributor, but I have frequently bought product from him that is way more affordable than what I can get in stores (and it is amazing). My wife could give a shit about my business, but consumes 80% of the product I buy and asks for more. In my company about 30% of the distributors only consume the product and they under no obligation to do so.
As far as success goes, I’ve found that people must succeed (not fail). If they aren’t successful neither am I. In fact, one of my main regrets is not helping a few of the first people I got interested in the business. I took off for Mexico for 6 months and figured they would figure it out on their own. A few of them still eat the product and a couple of them dropped out. I’m actually at a net loss with them. I felt so bad, I bought some of the product they didn’t consume. However, as I mentioned in the post, my business has really started to take off in the last 6 months for the simple fact that I am really working hard to help the people I got involved (and they are doing the same).
I’m not here to defend the whole industry of network marketing and MLM, I thought I actually was trying to warn people in the post of the possible dangers and tell what to look for in a good one.
And I will agree with you Tom about the comments from Derrick here: they do seem purposely vague. I don’t know what you (Derrick) got going, but based on your comments, it seems shady.
Otherwise, I’ve enjoyed hearing all the comments from this post. Clearly, the industry I’m involved have evoked many strong feelings – many of them based on negative personal experience. You can get burned in any business especially if you don’t do your due diligence. I have three coin operated breathalyzers sitting in my closet that cost me $10,000 – I believed the hype and claims of the income they promised, but didn’t research it at all. So I think the moral of this story is to really have to check out any business/investment you get involved in to see if it makes sense financially and doesn’t compromise your morals/beliefs.
Doug
Most new products in any marketplace are simply revamped older products, spun to be revolutionary. And they’re all overpriced, thanks to the joys of capitalism. That’s nothing unique to MLM, nor is it any less honorable of a business model.
Hey Tom, I get the lotions, potions, and food rant. A company that markets themselves as “revolutionary” has to be continually cutting edge (risky/expensive) or lying.
I’ve got your pyramid scheme right here though: work your behind off for 40 years in an upstanding business like a bank knowing full well that you’ll never make more than your boss lets you. Get fired when it’s convenient for them, rinse, repeat.
What would you have to say about a MLM company that GAVE away it’s product, not as a trial but never charged for it? Is that company still for “suckers?” I find that Network marketing is a perpetual opportunity, and have found that many people who are not given a chance due to education and circumstance are able to make good livings by being themselves.
Hey Derrick,
I’m a little confused by your response. I’m not sure what the revolutionary paragraph means.
The pyramid scheme paragraph I think your making an analogy to the typical corporate world . If that’s true, then I’d say that’s incorrect. If your point is the corporate world sucks and it’s a scheme and is no guarantee of security I’d say you are correct.
An MLM company that gave away it’s product won’t be in business very long, and isn’t a business. I think you’re purposely being vague. Yes, I think anybody giving money to such a company is a sucker.
I think the uneducated and people disadvantaged due to circumstance would be better served by spending their money on schooling and their time better spent in a library reading about business before they invest in MLM so they can better understand why the MLM model is flawed.
Tom
Tom
Let us assume the traditional large business is flawed. It is unfair for people “at the bottom”. So, Derrick, your solution is MLM. “You” are now at the top of the pyramid, so all your downlines can now be unfairly treated, because they are “at the bottom”.
Yes working in a large firm is like being at the bottom of the pyramid. More importantly, an MLM, perpetrates the same thing, it’s just that you are at the top.
It doesn’t matter who commits a crime, it’s still wrong!
Couldn’t agree more with you Tom!
Excellent article.
I agree with what Doug is saying here. It matches my thoughts and experiences with MLM / Network Marketing. It is a business model, and as such should be treated with the same scrutiny as any other business or business model.
As for making money / Passive income is concerned, I would quote my ex-roommate. “Sweetness is directly proportionate to the amount of sugar you add.”
Rasheed
Did some research on xocai chocolates. here is a great article in the NY Times about MLM and xocai. Its been really fascinating to follow this movement of self-branding, lifestyle design, and selling of oneself on this site by the many regulars that post here and similar sites. I applaud you all for really coming up with great and creative ways to sell and advertise your products through blogs, commenting, and social networking, etc. As a business man myself who has been in advertising, marketing for many years, seeing new ways people sell themselves and their products is fun to watch. Like fashion, the art of selling never really changes at the core, it just gets a makeover and expressed differently.
forgot to add the link
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/nyregion/10chocolate.html
Great link, interesting read. Thanks Andy.
Oh guys, bringing me back memories of selling vacuums door-to-door. I gotta say I have mixed emotions with this topic. But I’ll be a man and admit, it was worth doing that for two years. But I think there’s some MLM companies out there that as Doug says you gotta be careful with.
The only positive thing I like about MLM is the opportunity that it brings to people that have no professional degrees or any type of career. I know that promoting something that you don’t believe in is totally unethical, but there’s something really funny about these businesses I’ve found out. The people that succeed in MLM or any type of pyramid believe in what they sell and that matters a lot.
But if someone is selling me a product just because they want to make a quick buck of me, then I got a problem.
I have been involved in quite a few MLM/network marketing companies in the past. I was never successful as I didn’t really understand or “get” the vision for the potential. Howver, over 2 years ago I started working as a corporate employee for a network marketing beauty company. I am no longer employed as I chose to leave for a variety of reasons, but nothing unethical. My job was to recruit, support and train independent sales reps, and to institute corporate policies in the field. It is a reputable company with a long track record, but one thing that is missing there as well as other MLM, is the amount of work that will be required to have any amount of success. You tell them all the good stuff but most people don’t tell about the hard work and determination and the fact that it is a business they are starting and new businesses don’t run or grow themselves. It takes hard work!
Knowing what I know about the industry overall, I think I will stay away. I have my own ideas and training products I want to create and sell and not sell someone else’s stuff (except for maybe some products I affiliate for)
Just my 2 cents!
Bernice
http://livingthebalancedlife.com/2010/dream-job-overload/
If network marketing companies focused more on training and a lot less hype the concept would be so much better off. To many times recruiting becomes the main focus and good people with good intensions fall through the cracks. The fact there is so much garbage being promoted as business opportunities does’nt help. The other thing is don’t become a distributor for a company unless you have a passion for the products and use them yourself. Training or educationg yourself, a passion for the business and pesonal accountability will take you a long way toward success in network marketinrg or in any business.
Cheers,
Dennis