What Stops Web Design And SEO Packages from being the Greatest MLM product of all time?

Very interesting topic you have going on here John.

SEO would make for a terrible MLM company. In a lot of MLM's, everyone tries to sell the product to everyone else. Well, ethically you can't sell the same SE0 service to the same types of businesses in the same areas. Ethically.

But, the website part is interesting. You could do it with mobile sites.
The market is still pretty wide open. But, I just don't know how design would be coordinated. Maybe have several templates???


Or SMS. You could sell packages. You can get 1000 messages through Twillio for $100.
Then resell the packages through the downline for $300. Pay $10, 10 levels deep. Then the company still makes $100. Out of that you could designate a portion to bonuses. Maybe $50 goes into a bonus pool or something.

Then it's recurring, assuming a new package is needed every month.

It is an interesting concept. I would like to see how this evolves.

Huge upfront costs??? You can hire a comp plan company. Pay a few grand to Twillio for a short code. But I would think that would be it. ?????

I actually did this in 1998. We had a system that was a web site of products, that you bought into - then of course you sell the ability of your downline on the same.

The secret to the MLM is of course at the top the kingpins you locate. I think a lot of people get the perspectives fuzzy depending on what level you are looking from. The only difference between MLM and an offline guru with a mailing list is the downline, which is also of course supported by a compensation model. In other words, why would you want to be in a downline, unless there was some kind of compensation to do so.

So, you can talk about the tech all day, but the compensation levels are what makes any MLM what it is. Actually, the products and services are placed in there just so it is not a scheme; since you can do a MLM without it but that would be pondsy/pyramid only. The product/service acts as a place holder for legality.

So you would need a repeatable system, and focus on building up kingpins in select cities. Train them to train a downline and then create a support system for everyone (brand identity, learning materials, weekly webinars QA). Then the biggest problem of all is the payout system. I mean coming up with a compensation model is dandy, but you have to have a payout system to handle it - straight up accountant needed.

Anyway, those are only some thoughts off the top of my head. It really is doable, but there is a clear difference from other models like affiliate marketing. Although, no matter how complex the MLM is - one solid goal is this. Get your "legs" to find just two people that are total go getters. If one is weak and you can find a better one, replace them and totally focus on a left and right leg. If you can inspire that throughout a downline, then you have a solid foundation.

Also, I do know how much our group had invested in this around 1998, it was in total around $150,000 initial. The web biz in a box thing I designed was $500 a year, and on opening day we sold about 100 and continued onward for several years. We actually priced that based on that era, and everyone was barely on board with the internet being worth anything - it was just starting to climb up in status; as most of these people were from areas that barely had computers, and most of out customers were on AOL and had 640x480 dial ups (all factors that hindered my designs). Now, you could easily charge a $1999, because if you had it setup right people would get ape ass crazy about it.

that's awesome... I did not know the term australian one up.. until
i saw it in the subpoena, i was arrogant enough to believe
what i was doing was unique, and new, and ... blah blah blah...

funny now... scary to the max then.

We to be honest there are several challenges with this type of business Model. I know and have faced many of there are about 3 years ago a group I was partner with started a mlm company based on that model. Previously I was involved in successfully 3-4 company and made a nice income sadly the office products have several hurdles that are very difficult to overcome

I will not go into the legal challenges a company like this must face but they are substantial alone, but what was even a higher challenges Is the mlm Model it self
Year ago I got started in the MLM business worked with 3-4 of the major players and several of the smaller ones . Face is 95 % closed in the first 3 years . but here are a few of the challenges one would face
1. The stain of MLM- just having that ty0pe of business model by name created a distaste in many prospect minds the word pyramids, etc come to most when presented with this type of business model due to the negative history of mlm.
2. The sad face 95 % of all Income generate by mlm company are for the Representatives . This is the in my eyes the number one hurdle.

Example health company selling X,W and Z product well to be a agent for this company you 99% of the time have some type of monthly requirement offer referred to as a auto ship you have "sell" every month to qualify for a commission check and the pitch is you need to be a user to know how to sell. The face is 93% of Representatives sell less than 300% a year where the MLM company makes it real money is the upsell of products to the agents from actual products, tools, fees etc.
89% of the representatives sell little to nothing but are end users themselves of the product they find the product useful ,helping with their medical conditions, or diet, or other personal need etc with a offline type product the typical user ie stay at home mom would not need any of the typical offline products the critical Need factor" would not be there so the auto ship would be near impossible to get any long term value thus they would drop any product line fairly quickly leaving less then 1o of your base actually trying to sell products

MLM makes money by recruiting people in the system NOT by selling a product sad but truth from Herbalife, Pre Paid legal etc on down to the stat up's companies which 90% of all product usage is by the user thus 90% 0f all revenue generated is by the reps. Offline the typical rep(64%) is a stay at home female .

Retention would plummet( did in our case after just 3 months ) the heavy hitters or big recruiters ( which any mlm must have to get off the ground) would see a revolving door of new recruits leaving faster then they could fill their downlines. When you Add in the fact of no real auto ship violable product ,there would be no huge recruiting commission for downlines due to the nature of product line thus the top recruiters would bail quickly.
83% of all Sells are to family friends and relatives. Anyone that been in any MLM knows this as if they were even had the smallest of success so does there family as they bugged, gave free sample to ,begged to come to a webinar /meeting etc every friend ,family member rand neighbor they could talk to.

First Rule in a MLM if you have a active upline they will tell you is make a list of 100 friends and family...
While with this model you could make a list of business you use i.e plumber insurance agent etc it is 10x much harder for them to present a presentation to the business on How the product has help them unless a weight loss product or cream etc as the rep would not be using the product , they would not be a expert on the product line the rep would know this and would be more hesitant to try and sell , do presentation gets discouraged and well the revolving door spins even faster .

There are other challenges on using a mlm model but this are a few that we faced and found it easier and more profitable after 18 months of trying the mlm model to go the more traditional sales route