Multi-Level Marketing is often disguised in the form of a pyramid scheme. The sales person who generates a sale is compensated for those sales, and for the sales of anyone they recruit. The compensation moves down the line with the person at the top of the pyramid always making the most money. In a pyramid scheme rarely do you surpass the person who recruited you in revenue.
Are you involved in a sports club, have entrepreneurial and business interests or working in the health science industry? I have little doubt that at some point you would have been approached by someone who has “an amazing opportunity for you.”
All 8 pitches I have painfully sat through for my own amusement were all multi-level marketing schemes that involved vitamin supplements and skin care products. Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at what I am hearing. People can be so naïve believing everything they were pitched when they decided they wanted to get involved in the multi-level marketing program.
Let me give you a very brief and simplistic overview of how it works.
You Are Targeted By A Recruiter
You are definitely targeted for a reason; often they try to sell it as a great business opportunity for you and sell you this dream of making passive income while you sleep. The sell it as being very easy and you only have to recruit X amount of people and you will start receiving the product for free. What they don’t tell you is the people that are successful at multi-level marketing work their asses off to get where they are and burn through a lot of friendships as well.
If You Have Shown Any Form Of Interest Expect To Be Harassed Until You Take Action
If they think there is a potential sale expect your phone to have 5+ missed calls when you get home from work or messages in your phone inbox asking you to contact them are your earliest convenience. You will also be invited to these ‘exclusive’ Facebook groups and marketing teams and invited to seminars to again sell you the dream on incredible wealth through passive income. One of the girls at work wanted to know more about Avon and a sales rep ended up at our office door wanted to talking to that employee about this opportunity.
So You Have Decided It Is For You And You Join Up
So you have signed up. You didn’t want to commit to heavily and despite every effort of the recruiter to try and get you on the largest package you decide to just to get the minimum package. And for those of you that were talked into a package worth thousands of dollars, how do you feel towards that person now? Commissions and structures work different for every company.
You Are Now A Recruiter! The Selling Begins
So you are ready to start recruiting others to your new found money making machine! Where else better to start than with your friends and family? If you really appreciate your friends and family, do not, I repeat do not try to take them on this adventure with you because every example I have seen has not ended well. The issue is despite all your good intentions, if they do not have the same drive and determination as what you have they will always be stuck at the bottom of this scheme and end up resenting you for it.
If you want to sell effectively you need to recruit people where the product will seamlessly integrate into their life with easy distribution channels. This is why personal trainers are so heavily targeted with supplements programs because realistically the two go hand in hand. The smart personal trainers implement their products extremely well often running free work out groups to promote the supplements and they are usually approached and not the one approaching people coldly.
If you do take the approach of trying to get all your friends and family on board you can expect them to get sick of you very quickly. If they say they are not interested leave it at that. It got to a point where I was not taking a friends legitimate calls because I did not want to be harassed again about some ‘amazing opportunity’
Reaching Hurdles In Your Pitch
If you are pitching this as a recruiter and aiming high you will start to approach health care professionals who in all honesty know a hell of a lot more about nutrition than you ever will. As soon as you start pitching things that you have no idea about and learned through seminars and ‘mentors’ expected to be questioned vigorously. Health professionals will take you to town on a lot of these products because in all honesty multi-level marketing products are not the best on the market, they are mid-range products sold at premium prices to compensate the commissions associated with a pyramid scheme.
I was preached about cartilage regeneration and how amazing the doctors were that founded the company and how much better the recruiter felt being on these products only to be met with very hasty replies when I question them more about the product.
I put to a recruiter was also a health care professional the question – how can you possibly tell me that after everything you’ve studied. I said to them you know this is a mid-range product at best so tell me why you are really here. His tune changed very quickly and he went on to say that the products were merely a bi-product for his love of business and passive income. This in other words means he wanted to recruit me to put more money in his pocket and couldn’t care less about the product. Hats off to him I appreciated the honesty.
The Ones That Break The Mould
Now as you can see my angle towards multi-level marketing has been a relatively negative one however that does not mean it is not a viable business model. Many people implement this extremely well into their own businesses and lifestyles. They are the exception. They understand selling, they understand how to attract the right audience and they know where the line is. More often than not these people are approached because people want to be in the multi-level marketing scheme and have them as the tier above them as their mentor. Again this scenario has nothing to do with the product and is all business.
I am going to show you a prime example of conversations I have with these recruiters and this person is also a friend of mine. I have blacked out the name of this person and every company named mentioned as I do not want to promote these companies in anyway.
They all start the same! They ask how you been or even start the conversation completely off topic but within the space of two minutes you know their exact intentions for initiating that conversation. They always seem to sell it as this great opportunity as well.
Sometimes I wonder if these people are actually reading what they are writing. This person has no background in nutrition and would have absolutely no idea how it compares to other supplements in the market. They read these self-serving research studies and take every word for fact. Don't be so naive!
The old cut and paste of the 'research study' lucky you have those documents saved for the quick cut and paste. To be honest this companies vitamin supplements were of higher quality than other ones I have seen. But they were by no means the best in the world. At this point I was curious to just how heavily invested in this program he was.
WOW! I did not see that coming. That was a much bigger investment than I was thinking. A lot of people like what was just previously mentioned will invest the amount they would typically spend on vitamins anyway so they are not hugely out of pocket. If you are getting involved in Multi-Level Marketing I highly recommend you do the same. Do not get caught up in the hype that is pitched to you. Take time out and assess the whole situation and start from the very start. Get a feel for it and you will quickly realize if it is for you or not without burning through thousands of dollars!
This is what told me straight up that this person had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Another company who was a direct competitor for the company they signed up for and do exactly the same thing was brought up and his response was "[Company X] is a scam and a half." This is the point where I had been entertained long enough. That was just the nail in the coffin.
I could show you many more screenshots of Multi-Level Marketers making contact with me, however I tend to let them know very early on that I am not interested. The amusement that I use to get from it has definitely passed.
Tips If You Are Getting Into Multi Level Marketing
- Start at the lowest entry point. You can always make bigger commitments at a later time if you feel it is the right industry for you.
- Do not be pressured into signing up to something you haven't researched
- Put a message out for people that have been involved in Multi Level Marketing schemes previously to find out about their experience
- Don't commit more money than you can afford to
Where are they now?
As you can see that Facebook conversation was from 2013 so where are they now? I did ask them recently how it was going and this was his reply:
Hey mate, [Company X] is good, but you've gotta have the time to put into it. I don't have the time haha. I'm so flat out with my own job and life as it is. But I've noticed that the people who do have the time and effort for it do well. It's like every other MLM thing, you have to live and breathe it and know it back the front. And you've gotta be able to sell it. I'm not really a big fan of that myself but I've found it's not so bad with [Company X] because their products are actually decent. I sent some skin care products to a chick mate of mine who has really bad psoriasis and reckons they're pretty good. And I've always had good feedback with the vitamins, I take then myself and can definitely notice a difference. But yeah I've been good man
As you can see he is no longer a distributor but still takes the products himself.
If you are looking at getting into passive income. I highly recommend affiliate marketing over multi level marketing. Promote products you use yourself and are truly passionate about.
How many times have you been approached by Multi Level Marketers? And in what form? Was it at a free group work out or a health taste testing catch up? Let me know below.
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