How many of you don't SWEAR at the name of MLM Marketing? Have you made any money with it?

by MoneyRaker

Posted: 14 years ago 21 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi,
Over the years I have noticed that a majority of the IM marketers are strictly against MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) programs. The irony is that most of them have actually never even tried hard - and alot of people simply subscribe to the MLM haters list simply by listening to others.

Please note that I am not talking about the scam programs here. We know that there are a bunch of very reputed and trustworthy MLM companies. But somehow people seem to hate the overall comcept of multi-level marketing so much that even if they give it a short - they are quick to write it off without putting the time and energy needed to pull off any Online Business. Its sometimes funny to me that people are often okay with blogs earning them pennies - even after months of hard work. However if an MLM program doesn't earn them good money in the first month itself - they immediately unsubscribe - why this discrimination?

Its not that I have made Millions with MLM marketing but surely I have made some money with it, and more importantly realized that this particular model needs alot of patience, relationship building and mutual co-operation to succeed in it - It surely is a great and very stable way to make money online if done properly.

In this thread I invite all those people who have positive experiences with MLM programs, their tips and any guidance that they would like to give.

Additionally, I also invite those who may not be great fans of MLM marketing but would still like to share something with us - afterall its always best to look at both sides of the coin!

I'd really appreciate if you could answer the following questions - as it would really help me in identifying the general perception of MLM programs amongst the Internet Marketers - Let me tell you - I am planning to write a detailed Report on MLM Marketing

- Have you ever signed up for an MLM program? If yes then which?
- Which are your favourite MLM programs and why?
- How has your overall experience been with them?

- What do you feel is the single most important feature to achieve success in such programs?

Come'on give me your insight - really want to know ....!

#made #marketing #mlm #money #swear

Zeus66 14 years ago

I love MLM! Not as an actual money maker. Can't say I ever made a penny back in the day (late 1990's), when MLM was all the rage. But when I had an email marketing business humming along, I made BANK from all the desperate MLM'ers (especially the newbies) who were trying to fill out their downlines. Those people were throwing money left and right to get to the "next level." Of course, most of the "companies" they were a part of are long gone, but the people at the top probably made good money off the suckers at every other level.
- [ 1 ] Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470290].message }}

Alexa Smith

Banned 14 years ago

[DELETED]

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470292].message }}

Success With Dany Banned 14 years ago

The right way to make money in mlm is to promote a funded proposal mlm system on the front-end and your mlm in the backend.
- Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470317].message }}

MoneyRaker

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

We'd never have guessed from your style of posting, font-size, emphasis or anything. :rolleyes:

Thats because this is not a promotional campaign for my ebook or anything - its just a ....... What say? kinda of a post - Therefore, I needn't be in my top gear.

Its funny how some people love to be sarcastic.

Nevermind.... I appreciate all feedback .... even if its got nothing to do with my subject

Originally Posted by Success With Dany

The right way to make money in mlm is to promote a funded proposal mlm system on the front-end and your mlm in the backend.

Hmmm. Can you elaborate on this a little more. 'A proposed mlm system' - What is that?I bet alot of people want you to speak a bit more on this - cause it sounds interesting ....!

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470340].message }}

Alexa Smith

Banned 14 years ago

[DELETED]

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470377].message }}

Success With Dany

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

He didn't say "a proposed mlm system"; he said "a funded proposal".

Here's an interesting article written by a very highly successful MLM expert explaining exactly what a "funded proposal" is and what its relevance is to MLM. (You might find the whole blog interesting, actually, given your purposes. There's nothing promotional/affiliate there at all, no opt-in required, and no company name mentioned: just very reliable, objective, independent information. And very unusual to find it in a context without anyone trying to sell/promote anything, of course. Hope it helps).

Very interesting article.

What solutions are left if not for FP? Coffee shop meetings? Three-foot rule harassment?

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470454].message }}

Alexa Smith

Banned 14 years ago

[DELETED]

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1471877].message }}

Success With Dany

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Yes, isn't it? (The rest of the blog ain't so bad, either, btw!

).

God, no.

Well, not for me (when I was briefly in MLM anyway) and not for the author of that blog, who - if anyone's interested - is aged 25 and earns over $400k annually from her part-time network marketing business.

The "secret of her success", to the extent that there is one at all, is best described (i.e. by her!) as "Show your home-based business opportunity only to people who are known to be looking for one already". Because that way, you never persuade anyone, and your people, when you sponsor them, don't all drop out within 2 years.

She and her (enormous) group have built their downlines in three main ways:-

(i) Promoting the products in places where people are shopping for those kinds of products and gradually turning re-ordering customers into distributors;

(ii) Advertising at very low cost in "Business Opportunities" classifications in newspapers and magazines (not glamourous but it's where people who are looking for a business opportunity are looking, and it avoids "online leads", which she won't touch, which is part of the reason she wisely refused to sponsor me when I originally asked - which was actually how I "met" her);

(iii) Drop-cards (known in the US as "sizzle-cards", I understand).

It works. It's duplicable. It avoids rejection, and "warm-market prospecting" and "funded proposals" and all the crap that doesn't actually duplicate because most people can't/won't do it. Her point is that you need to build an MLM business from the stuff that 90% of people can and will do.

Where could one get information on this non-funded proposal, non-old-school way to do mlm? I've read her FP article many times now and I'm VERY curious to know which company she's working with.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1473023].message }}

WD Mino 14 years ago
courtesy of wikipedia.
MLM organizations have been described by some as cults (Butterfield, 1985), pyramid schemes (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997), or organizations rife with misleading, deceptive, and unethical behavior (Carter, 1999), such as the questionable use of evangelical discourse to promote the business (Hopfl & Maddrell, 1996), and the exploitation of personal relationships for financial gain (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997)." [10] "By its very nature, MLM is completely devoid of any scientific foundations." [11] MLM's are also criticized for being unable to fulfill their promises for the majority of participants due to basic conflicts with Western cultural norms.[12] There are even claims that the success rate for breaking even or even making money are far worse than other types of businesses:[13][14][15] "The vast majority of MLM's are recruiting MLM's, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit. Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLM's is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company."[13] In part, this is because encouraging recruits to further "recruit people to compete with [them]"[16] leads to "market saturation."[17]
Similar claims regarding profits have been stated by
- The Times ("The Government investigation claims to have revealed that just 10 per cent of Amway's agents in Britain make any profit, with less than one in ten selling a single item of the group's products."[18]),
- high level "Emerald" Amway member Scheibeler ("UK Justice Norris found in 2008 that out of an IBO [Independent Business Owners] population of 33,000, 'only about 90 made sufficient incomes to cover the costs of actively building their business.' That's a 99.7 percent loss rate for investors." [19](case referred to is BERR vs Amway (Case No: 2651, 2652 and 2653 of 2007) which does list this as one of the points of objectionability: "c) because of the requirement that an IBO pay a joining and renewal fee and the likelihood that an IBO would purchase BSM there was a certainty that the Amway business would cause a loss to a large number of people (to the extent that out of an IBO population which exceeded 33,000 only building their business).")
- Newsweek (where it is stated based on MonaVie's own 2007 income disclosure statement "fewer than 1 percent qualified for commissions and of those, only 10 percent made more than $100 a week.)" [20]
- Business Students Focus on Ethics: "In the USA, the average annual income from MLM for 90% MLM members is no more than US$5,000, which is far from being a sufficient means of making a living (San Lian Life Weekly 1998)"[21]
MLM businesses operate in the United States in all 50 states and in more than 100 other countries, and new businesses may use terms like "affiliate marketing" or "home-based business franchising". However, many pyramid schemes try to present themselves as legitimate MLM businesses.[23][24][25]
Because pyramiding (getting commissions from recruiting new members including "sign-up fees") is illegal in most states,[8] to remain legitimate in the U.S. a company that uses multi-level marketing has to make sure commissions are earned only on sales of the company's products or services if they cross state boundaries. If participants are paid primarily from money received from new recruits, or if they are required to buy more product than they are likely to sell, then the company may be a pyramid scheme, which is illegal in most countries.

I stay away from anything like this i offer an affiliate program but the affiliates job is to drive traffic it is my job to "sell them"
- Thanks
Signature

"As a man thinks in his heart so is he-Proverbs 23:7"
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1470520].message }}
timpears 14 years ago

I have never made any money, other than one time for a little while, in any MLM that I joined. And it is for sure that MLM has got a bad name because of some of the scam operations that have promoted themselves that way.

But, basically any company that has a sales force and a sales manager is an MLM company. The model for MLM is exactly the same as any sales organization. A manager hires a performance based sales person, who probably has to buy their own tools, and they go out and try to sell the products. If they can hire any sales people themselves, then they become the sales manager of that group.

Now, tell me that is not the model for most sales organizations. Maybe not every sales person is allowed to hire people, but for the most part, that is how all sales are done.

I am not for, or against MLM. I think it is more about is the product you are selling any good. I am currently a member of Prepaid Legal. I can't sell the damn stuff to save my life. But the product is fantastic, and I always wonder why the people that I have tried to sell it to would not see that. But who cares. I have used the product and am glad I have it, and nothing else matters. I don't have to sell it.

Just my 2 cents.
- Thanks
Signature

Tim Pears
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1471932].message }}
The Dotcom Hippie 14 years ago

I'm with Zeus. Nothing wrong with MLM. I mean, if someone is sold on MLM then you should be able to pretty much sell them anything. Also, MLM people are a bit like Jehovah's Witnesses in that you can make a choice as to whether you're going to let them annoy you, or just have fun at their expense.

I make a little money because of MLM every day. Lots of people do - just not MLM distributors.
- Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1471961].message }}
Don Schenk 14 years ago

The title of your post showed up as "How many of you don't SWEAR," and I thought, I quit smoking, I quit drinking, but heck and darn if I'm going to quit swearing too.

It is probably close to thirty years ago, when there were only a few major players in MLM, I became a member ("joined") of one of those larger MLMs.

I was a business owner at that time and had owned a couple other businesses prior to this experience. I wanted to see if MLM would work and see how it worked. I stayed in for a while, but spent more money on sales tools and motivational stuff than I made. The local upline (Diamond) kept pushing these sales tools - insisting we buy them.

The main appoach they used was, "You can have a business of your own." Well, the upline wanted to run every downline member's business, and it wasn't anything like owning a business of your own... soooo many rules. I wasn't permited to make my own decisions. It was all dictated from above.

As an experienced business owner this drove me crazy!

In 1993 I attended a Jay Abraham marketing bootcamp. Jay had the habit of letting all attendees have a list of the names, addresses, and phone number of every attendee. His office would publish the list and give it to us.

Jay was threatening to stop letting attendees have the lists because of a large number of attendees getting into and MLM and pestering the heck out of everyone on the list. Jay does not like the MLM model of doing business. Again the upline is too restrictive and won't let people use some of the proven marketing techniques Jay teaches.

In working on your research about MLMs get a copy of a book called "Merchants of Deception" by Eric Scheibeler. I think he now gives it away free. Google it. I found it to be an eye opener.

:-Don
- [ 1 ] Thanks
- 1 reply
Signature

Studies prove happier people have massively more success. It has worked for me. Use this one trick too... Click Here

Total Competition Stomper - Simply the most powerful tactic your IM or Offline business will ever use... See it here!
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1471994].message }}
- JohnMcCabe 14 years ago
  
  I spent around five years pursuing network marketing. In that time, I met some seriously good people, some of whom I still consider friends even though we've gone our separate ways. I've also met some world-class a-holes. In other words, it's like any other business.
  
  I might still be involved, except for two things that kept happening every time I started building a decent group...
  
  > The company went belly up or
  
  > The group fractured when everyone started trying to recruit everyone else to their latest leads source (which also had an mlm pay scheme) or tried to push group members into multiple companies. Every single time this happened, the group quickly disintegrated.
  
  Another thing that struck me as ironic with one company was the top money earners often spent 60-80 hours a week doing trainings, hotel meetings, conference calls, etc., all selling the message of getting rich while working a few hours a week talking to your family and friends.
  
  Thanks
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1472123].message }}
MoneyRaker 14 years ago

Hey Guys this has been an amazing learning experience for me. I thank every1 for their input especially Alexa for sharing that wonderful post and Don for sharing his vast experience.

What I make out is that the biggest problem with MLM programs is the instability associated with them and the lack of trust that arises from the various MLM programs going bust everyday.

Therefore, a stable and successful program that has been running for a while will surely be well recd by the people.

It makes me happy that some people have reinforced the theory that hard work, dedication alongwith fresh ideas (like the person alexa has talked about) will almost inevitably lead to success in MLM marketing just like any other Business.

Though many people have negative experiences with MLM marketing - I feel its still not possible to write it off as a great way to make some good money ..... especially if you are patient and like to work with commitment.....

I'll be waiting for more input.....
- Thanks
- 1 reply
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1473077].message }}
- ladyjane 14 years ago
  
  I have an aunt and uncle who made it big in Amway back in the day (we all used to always get free Amway present catalogs from them each Christmas...catalogs where you could pick out any one thing from Amway for free). Well, back in the mid-1990's, when I was a newlywed, they switched MLM companies and succeeded in talking nearly everyone on that side of the family into joining them. They even got to my mom and step-dad, who never join that kind of thing, and my mom, in turn, talked me into joining. It was my one and only experience with MLM.
  
  My aunt and uncle promised each and every one of us that they'd help us fill out our downlines, but they didn't. We had weekly meetings at their house for months, learning how to sell, but any new people they brought in, they put in their own downlines instead of ours as they had promised us. We all used the products of this MLM company religiously, too (they actually WERE good products).
  
  Well, after several months of bugging my friends to buy from me (to the extent that some of them stopped returning my calls!), and finally getting my husband's ex-wife to join my downline, I eventually made my first and only check for $300. After that, I decided I'd at least made SOME money, and it was just way too hard and that was it for me. I kept using the products, though, but I quit selling them, and have stayed away from MLM ever since. Of course, this was before any of us knew we could use the Internet for MLM, so we were all doing this in person.
  
  Eventually, everyone else in the family dropped out, too, including my mom and step-dad (who made two checks before they ditched it). The only people left were my aunt and uncle (who are still in this same MLM company to this day...it's stuck around all this time, believe it or not), and a couple of cousins (one of whom had married a well-known motivational speaker and author who recommended this company's products in his books). So, out of about 15 people in the family who joined the MLM, only 4 are still in it. And they're making money. But for the rest of us, MLM seemed to be a talent we just didn't possess.
  
  Internet marketing, though, is very different from MLM, at least to me. I've been MLM shy ever since my experience a decade ago. I'll buy MLM products, but won't join any companies to sell. Fortunately, I'm doing fine on my own in IM, and am enjoying it a lot more than I ever did with MLM. Thank goodness for IM!
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1473230].message }}
  
  Hyaku_Man 14 years ago
  
  I hate MLM because I don't like friends and relatives trying to rope me into their business and then painting me as a selfish or irresponsible person when I say no. There are a lot of persuasion (read: manipulation) tactics used by MLMers that make me very uncomfortable. In my world everybody is free to make their own choices without manipulative pressure.
  
  I feel nothing other than misled when someone invites me out for a beer and then when we sit down they start a yes-ladder on me. "Would you like to have passive income?"
  
  "Nope! Passive income sucks. Cheers."
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  Signature
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1473674].message }}
  
  TSc 14 years ago
  
  EVERY kind of provision system with referals is a kind of multi level marketing, don't forget.
  
  MLM as system isnt bad, it is just another provison system.
  
  The problem are MLMers how catch newbees without any talent for selling the offerd products by promise them to the moon only to get there privat contact lists.
  THOSE bandits are the problem and the reason of the bad repution of MLM.
  
  Thanks
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1473711].message }}
sdentrepreneur 14 years ago

There are many MLM's out there, you can make big money in many of them. It's just like IM or pretty much anything in life. You work hard enough, believe in your product and educate your self on marketing, it can work.
On the down side of MLM, I am not a big fan of pitching pills, potions, juices and data services(ACN) to my friends and family. In my opinion, the best thing to market online right now is Internet Education, why do you think this Forum does so well? Helping others !!!

"Internet Marketing is the most highly leveraged skill to be learning right now. Write your ticket for life with Internet Marketing" One of my Mentors - Aaron P
- Thanks
Signature

Learn Digital, Internet and Social Media Marketing For Your Business
Click here to learn more - Digital and Social Media Marketing Training Course
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1474480].message }}
Jon Tees 14 years ago

You can make money with MLM it just takes time an effort. Most will quit before they even get started and others throw in the towel when their expectations aren't met. For example, someone might expect to make $500-$1,000 a month or more, when they fail to achieve this in their first month they consider it an overall failure and call it quits.
You are building toward a residual income , this takes time to accomplish and is not something that happens overnight. Its like building your retirement income, for most people this takes years.
I would not recommend MLM as a primary means to earn a living when you are just starting out, for most people anyway. You'll need some other streams of income coming in as well.
- [ 1 ] Thanks
- 1 reply
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1474847].message }}
- osvaldo 14 years ago
  
  Hi,
  
  I have used pre paid legal services. They provide legal advice for an affordable fees. Prepaid legal markets their business opportunity under the network marketing umbrella. Prepaid Legal pays commissions of $69-$250 every time you personally sponsor someone into the business.
  
  Thanks
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1505269].message }}

How many of you don't SWEAR at the name of MLM Marketing? Have you made any money with it?

Trending Topics

Are Solo ADs the Most Cost Effective Way to Promote your Product?

How do I effectively build and nurture an email list for affiliate marketing purposes?

Been a while! Any of you Old Timers here?

Are billboards still effective in driving customers?

How much does the rebranding affect CR ?