It is surprising how many people have asked me what I do and when I say “MLM”, they say “What is MLM?”.
It’s funny how many people still are not familiar with what is MLM.
(Be sure to listen to the audio recordings below)
So…what is MLM?
MLM is an acronym for “Multi-Level Marketing”.
Let’s look at some definition to answer the question “What is MLM?”:
-MLM is a sales system wherein the salesperson receives a commission on his own sales and a smaller commission on the sales from each person he has enrolled to also be a salesperson.
-It is a distribution technique where independent salespeople represent a parent company and are paid commissions based on the volume of product sold. Generally in an MLM structure the salespeople may also refer or “sponsor” other sales people into representing the parent company and thus the “sponsor” then receives a certain percentage of all product sales made by this new salesperson.
Here Are Some “What Is MLM” Audio Training/Lessons:
These are very powerful.
MLM Is A Game-
The Rules Of The MLM Game-
Why Choose MLM?
Multi-level marketing programs are attractive to people because of the potential for making money from “multiple levels” of salespeople enrolled beneath one in the MLM structure. The reason it is called “multi-level” is because one can get paid commissions from sales which are made by multiple levels of salespeople within one’s organization. It’s that simple.
The variations on commission structures within the MLM industry are enormous however they all have common threads, and that is the fact that earnings are passed up and one can earn from the efforts of others whom he has sponsored into the program. In the course of diagramming out the pay structure for most MLM opportunities one ends up looking at a pyramid-like structure, which is where this phrase “pyramid scheme” comes from. It is based simply on the concept that you would refer, say, 4 new reps to the program and they would refer four, and they would refer four and so on. So you end up with a 1 x 4 x 16 pattern. The idea is that one would earn a percentage of the sales which occur below him in the “pyramid”.
Isn’t MLM A Scam?
In the late 1970s through the late 1980s there were some very large companies who ran into legal trouble due to their compensation plans and the way in which they were administered. The government intervened and placed some regulations on the direct selling industry. Those who were forced to close shop were essentially those companies which did not even offer a product of any kind but were simply playing a money game using an MLM structure to pay out the people at the top of the pyramid based up the sign-up fees of the people joining below them. Some people felt that this was not an honest money game. This could be, and you may have your own opinion, but the fact is that now in the USA MLM companies are required to at least have a product or service to provide in exchage for the monies charged in order to be legal.
The only programs that I am aware of now which move money in this fashion and yet have no product and generally called “gifting programs”. As it is not illegal to simply give someone a gift, these programs can operate legally. This makes the idea of mandating a product a relatively moot point, since we are dealing strictly with semantics here.
Currently the MLM industry is growing rapidly. History has shown that this occurs when the economy and job market are doing poorly. As individuals look for ways to supplement their income many of them will come into contact with an MLM opportunity.
What Is MLM Today?
Today the big trend is in internet MLM, usually referred to as internet network marketing. The internet has proven to be much more effective as a communication tool as compared to the telephone, knocking on doors, hanging flyers, print media, group meetings and various other promotion methods once thought of as typical in the MLM game.
Personally I think the entire idea of MLM was contrived not by individual marketers, but by the company itself, who was looking to move more product. For many years there were very few people who made large incomes from doing MLM. It was a very small percentage. In most instances it was a question of a person purchasing the product and finding that they liked it or that the product helped them in some way, and then they developed an interest in the potential to sell the product themselves, or maybe even just to get the product at wholesale cost. This may be one reason why so many nutritional products are sold via an MLM model. These types are products are repeat business products and they are conducive to converting customers into reps.
In the last few years, with the advent of internet network marketing the entire industry has changed and a much higher percentage of people are able to earn without needing to be particularly talented as a salesperson. This was not true in the old days when you had to be a master seller in order to make any real money. The real reason behind this paradigm shift has to do with the internet as a communication tool and the fact that it allows people to communicate with hundreds of people in the same amount of time it used to take to talk to one. It is strictly a numbers game.
Being a person who has been in this industry for 13 years I can say that present day is a time when a higher percentage of people than ever are able to make decent money in the MLM industry. Yes, there are some people getting incredibly wealthy and there are those who earn nothing. There will always be both extremes in any business on earth. But today the opportunities in this area are far more user-friendly and easier to attain goals with than they have every been before, simple as a result of technology. Also, I don’t bump into too many people these days who will say, “Is this a pyramid scam?”. Generally if I do, it’s an older person who saw some of the trouble that some of these companies had years and years ago. Nearly all MLM companies out there today are perfectly compliant with regulations. If not, the internet makes it so easy to blow the whistle on them that they don’t last long.
Can You Succeed In MLM?
If you have not yet listened to the audio recordings (controls at the top of this post) you are basically costing yourself $1 Million. You think I’m joking, but I’m not. These two recordings contain the most powerful, most fundamental concepts to help you be effective in your MLM/Network Marketing business.
You may download both of these files as mp3 .zip files and save them to your computer for you own personal listening–If you do so, and you have your own blog, please give me a back-link to this post using the anchor-text “What Is MLM?”. You can even save them to your phone or mp3 player, etc. for you own personal listening. These are copy-righted materials. You may not create copies, or copies of any portion of these files, and you may not upload to your own host. But you can download to your computer or portable listening device for your own listening.
Be sure to put your information into the form on the right side of this page for many more trainings and resources related to the “doingness” of how to get your business expanding, starting today.
Alan Cosens
ajcosens@gmail.com
