MLM - and why the old ways don't work

mlm

MLM – and Why the OLD WAYS don’t Work

Now I’m not a “big hitter” or high achiever in the MLM industry – in fact I’ve never made more than “pocket-money” with MLM.

I was with Amway for a few years and achieved very little, and at the time of writing I’ve been with TNI for just over 2 years and the results are not much better.

So why should I be writing about MLM ?

Some people might be saying;

“If you’ve never been able to achieve a level of success then how would you know what you’re talking about ?”

That's a good point.

But hang on a minute, your own experiences will have taught you that you don’t need to be an expert to see that something isn’t right.

You might not know how to fix the problem – but that doesn’t stop you from seeing that a problem exists.

It's clear that MLM works for some of the people, some of the time (they make buckets of money), but it doesn't work for all of the people, all of the time. But why not ??

If there's a simple, duplicatable system, I guess we should be able to follow it to achieve success.

Well, it’s my belief, based on my own experience and that of all the people I’ve sponsored. that MLM has some significant problems.

And unless those problems are fixed MLM will not work for most people.

Lets get right down to basics :-

When you know that most people get into MLM for the same reason

–to make money

And when you know that most people have the same result

– they don’t make any money,

You have to begin to wonder, “Are we all stupid ?”

Of course we’re not.

So why doesn't it work ?? There's a number of reasons, and here's a few :

Why it doesn’t work – Reason #1

Why can’t we do the simple, DUPLICATABLE, things that our sponsors or upline have taught us ?

And there you have the basis of the first reason for “Why it doesn’t work”

In most programs

we are taught to do things
which we then teach those we sponsor,
and show them how to teach those they sponsor.

Sounds familiar ?

But the things we’re told to do are often very different to the things our ‘leaders’ actually did to achieve success.

Jack Zufelt, a great teacher, make this point very well in his tapes and training. Leaders in MLM companies are telling their people to do things they never did – and they seldom tell what they really did.

Why is this ? And why would they tell us to do things that don’t work ?

They don’t want us to fail do they.

No, they most definitely do not.

But for the most part they’ve developed a ‘Guru’ complex and they feel they have to produce words of wisdom to keep their status.

And, more important, they have to try to stop the appallingly high drop-out rate among distributors and they’ll try anything.

Kelly L. Reese, Chartered Financial Consultant and Founder of the Financial Freedom Society has said;

“Top networkers know that they CANNOT retire or even come close to retiring on their network marketing income, because the vast majority of their team is made up of average men and women, not superstars, and the severe dropout rate demands their constant attention.

They know that the promise of stable passive income is nothing more than an exciting mathematical concept.”

What this means in reality is that more and more of the top earners are seeing their checks getting smaller by the month, and they know they’re putting in more hours to achieve this backward slide.

Note: Whatever happened to

“Retire in 2 to 5 years”
“Fire the Boss”
“Get Back Your Time and Money Freedom”

Many of these Leaders are in a “Financial Panic”, so they tell us to

Have home meetings

Make 3-Way calls

Give out books and tapes

Attend all meetings

Keep buying the products

And a lot of other stuff that doesn't work. But how did they, our upline, become successful when they didn’t have access to some of these things, and some of the other things didn't contribute to their own success ?

The truth is often very simple, and three main points are:-

They worked incredibly long days, day after day after day.

They prospected EVERYONE they met, whoever it was.

And they got LUCKY !!

We can do the first two, if we choose to and if we are motivated that way, but the third item is, well, just a matter of luck.

What I mean is, they, our uplines, got lucky and prospected one some people who were prepared to do #1 and #2 above.

But we should not build a business by expecting to get lucky.

So, getting back to the drop-out rate.

This occurs because we can’t, or won’t, do the things the Leaders tell us to do.

Take a moment to think back to why we got into MLM.

I think for the most part we are looking for something more out of life and because of that we often listen to well meaning people who generally believe the story they tell.

But because they believe – it doesn’t make it true, does it ?

But we hear it, then repeat it to a prospect (even when we know it’s probably not really true) and the cycle continues.

The MLM world seems to be populated with people who actually believe the anecdotal evidence they’ve heard - and so they repeat it and expect others to accept this as the “Why It Works”.

When it doesn’t work for you, well then you must be doing it wrong.

And this leads to “Why it Doesn’t Work” Reason #2

A lot of people, even if they profess to having an open mind, will ‘know’ in their heart of hearts that it won’t work (for them that is).

Some of this feeling is due to REALITY and some to a healthy scepticism about things they don’t understand.

This scepticism takes many forms and lots of articles have been written about MLM, the pro’s and con’s.

Some useful references can be found at Health-eBiz.com and their website is at :-

http://www.health-ebiz.com/mlm-scams.htm

From this site you can link to others worth a look :-

#1 http://www.whatisgood.com/nwm/NWM12tests.htm

Twelve Tests for Evaluating a Network Marketing (MLM) “Opportunity”

By Jon M. Taylor, Ph.D., Consumer Awareness Institute

This is a bit ‘wordy’ but covers a lot of ground. So dive in and pick out the bits that have a meaning for you.

#2 http://www.mlmwatch.org/01General/mlmlies.html

“Four Lies about MLM” by John Milton Fogg

We’ve heard these lies many times over the years, for example :-

Harvard business school teaches MLM
20% of all millionaires were created by MLM
and others

He debunks these, comes out with the documented facts, and then simply says “tell the truth”.

#3 http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html

“What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?”

Another useful paper from van Druff with a lot of interesting comment.

#4 http://www.profitclinic.com/MLM/boobytraps/Index.html

“MLM Boobytraps!” by John Counsel

Heaps of really good stuff.

And the product itself is often the cause of

“Why it Doesn’t Work” – Reason #3

Most of the products sold through MLM do the job the manufacturers claim they will do. It has to be so otherwise they’d be in real trouble.

But in most cases, (I can think of no exceptions) the price is way above the price you might pay for a “similar” product in any supermarket or pharmacy or wherever.

The story is always told about the

The Quality of our product
How it’s more suited to this form of marketing
How the product is helping to make ordinary people rich, etc

But that is just so much B.S. or Hogwash or whatever term sits best.

Jack Zufelt, again (and many others now agree with him) states that the actual marketed product doesn’t matter very much because the REAL product we are marketing is MONEY.

I’m not talking about those distributors who are in MLM to retail the products. Many do that quite successfully but I believe they have missed the point. If they really want to retail to success there are many easier routes than MLM.

No, the real product in MLM is MONEY.

And the thing that make the money flow is the Auto-Ship program, or the Standing Order, or whatever it’s called in your program.

This is so important that Big Hitters have told me it doesn’t matter what distributors do with the product just so long as they stay on Auto-Ship. Very often the Auto-Ship program is fairly pricey and this in itself can accelerate the drop-out rate.

e.g. If I’m putting out $200 a month on Auto-Ship and my small downline produces $50 a month income I won’t stay long with the program, will I.

After all, I only joined to make money!!!

So, the reasons MLM doesn’t work are

It’s not DUPLICATABLE, there’s usually no system to duplicate
Peoples natural SCEPTICISM
The PRODUCT is usually overpriced

But why does it work for some ?

Most of the big earners in any program got in early. These are the guys who will promote to ANYBODY, ALL THE TIME, and in doing so they create a huge ‘army’ of little people all bringing in 2 or 3, or 5 or 10, new people each year. And that’s how they make their money.

Why doesn’t it work for latecomers ?

Don’t know – but it doesn’t seem to. Maybe in the early days of any program you can do things that later on, as the program matures, will not be permitted. And it does seem that if you join early, make a good start and get to a high pin level that’s where it’s likely to level off. Anyone who joins late and builds to the higher levels usually had a pre-built downline he carried with him from another company.

Hope you haven’t been put off MLM.

Don't forget, it can and does work for many people and if you join an MLM program I hope it works for you. Just don’t believe all the Hype and the Rah-Rah along the way.

And always remember – you only got in to make some money.

Internet is the way to do business today, but MLM is not the only business model you should consider.

For instance, have you looked at Affiliate Marketing Programs?

Just follow the links in the left hand column and you'll see a review of some of the better programs.