Ten tell tale signs it's MLM. MLM Jargon explained.

Have you ever got an 'Out of the blue' email that starts with:

"Do you ever look at other ways of making money?"

"Do you ever need an addition income?"

"Would an extra 500-1000 dollars a month come in handy?"

"How you going to get out of your Job?" (usually follows a chat about work and 9/10 of the time they know you won't sing your employers praises)

It will probably be from a Multi Level Marketer.

The Network Marketing industry is worth billions so it is not going to stop overnight, and entrepreneur will always be thinking how to 'MLM' their own business opening it up to Millions of salary free reps who will bring home the bacon risk free.

MLM is basically selling a companies products by selling the products or services yourself directly, and recruiting people in your team so you make a continuing commission every month on your teams sales. Eventually your network grows so big the company buys this network from you and gives you a percentage for life. Although it is sold as one of the easiest things to do, it is in fact one of the hardest things to achieve, due to all the negativity about MLM. But the rewards are there.

There are good and bad MLM's out there.

The Good:

Free to get into, no mandatory purchases of any kind, and a real product, something that can be sold independently from any MLM network , and probably was or is being sold direct anyway.

A decent MLM will have excellent regular and local training that any corporate business would be jealous of, with free product training workshops as well as sales training workshops.

The product pricing is transparent and the same throughout the network.

The bad (Pyramids and Ponzis)

The ones where the product is secondary to the recruiting:

"Don't worry if you have never bought make up or skin creams Dave, the woman will , so just recruit and recruit woman, remember when they sign up and pay $1000 you get $200!"

Getting paid to recruit people is akin to a cult, is unethical and immoral, and is what has scourged the MLM industry since the 1950's. It's a grey area, many MLM's disguise recruiting with a product pack you have to buy.

The product V the business.

More recently some of the Crypto Currency MLM's have been offering an educational product based on Finance that they consider curbs the Direct Sales Industry's standards, but ask them privately do they expect anyone to buy the product, hell no, it's way to complicated but it has a product and that makes it 'legal.'

If you were an Immoral person you could get rich just starting an MLM with a $1000 product pack, and a monthly commitment to say $200 full of inferior products bulked up with brochures and cheap business cards, start the excitement with a few snake oil type seminars with loud motivational music, 'hire a crowd' and stooges to stand on stage and cry how this product instantly cured all diseases and found you the perfect husband, then finish with fireworks and dancing in the aisles kissing everyone, the feeling of belonging etc.

Then sit back wait for a whole network of people to pay $1000 for something worth $100 then pay $200 a month, until they realise they have been duped. You know they won't be able to sell anything more with a garage full of products no one wants, but do you care?

Recruiting

However you look at MLM and so many people have tried to re-package it as an online business, its driven by getting people involved in the business.

Ask any successful MLM'r and they will tell you if you showed the business plan face to face 30 times a month for two years you will end up with 6-10 leaders who will follow you to the end of time, and eventually have more wealth than you need, the rest of your living time will be spent striking up conversations with strangers and contacting friends and family to get them to a meeting.

These numbers are scientifically proven to work, if someone followed you all day with a gun to your head you WILL be a diamond distributor in 2 years no doubt, but the stress and effort put in will either kill you or give you the return.

Online it's even harder with the 'other ways of making money' approach so cliched and frighteningly predictable you will need to have 60-100 monthly meetings online over 2 years before you got rich.

No matter how learned and gifted you are at approaching people and cold calling, you have to start from less than zero, as this is the 'brand' the MLM industry has sadly.

I get approached 3-5 times a week by MLM people who see I have a decent network and how my network could make me (and them) rich. However my brand could not take a sudden diversion.

I tell them I believe MLM works, but the work ethic to make someone wealthy in the time frame most talk about which is 2-5 years is relative to the rewards.

I mentor people in small and start-up business and the one thing I will say always is; stay the course, as long as you love what you do and stick with your brand, everyone will know what you do and call upon you at some point. We are the No.1 Business directories and Sales Leads websites in Southeast Asia, If I suddenly started offering vitamins to everyone that would really upset the apple cart.

Take away:

If you are going to be a bear be a grizzly, if you are going to do MLM, choose the best and most legitimate and ethical company, stand proud, realise it's not going to be easy, stick with it for as long as it takes, and try a different chat up line for Pete's sake!