Get Paid Today - MLM is Dead

StuzzaX asked:


I know that with mlm’s you need to sell a legitimiate product. However i was thinking that if that product was a subsription/membership can you create a legal downline with that as a product?

Annette

Beelzebub asked:


Are you people so stupid that you would not sign up in my business just because I live in my car? I have thousands of people in my downline and am an expert MLMer.

Rocky

Marcello asked:


I have always felt trying to get rich in MLM is like trying to cross the Atlantic in a canoe. While it may be possible, it may be the dumbest way to get across.

Considering all the ways to make money in this world, and considering the history of all the ways people have made money, MLM might be the at the very bottom of the totem pole.

I would bet more people have gotten rich merely saving a few hundred bucks a month in mutual funds than have in MLM (and probably a lot more secure too). Of course, MLMers will claim that MLM has produced more millionaires then something or other which is a total line of BS since there is no evidence of any of that.

Anyhow, always enjoy hearing the thoughts of others, even the biased MLMers themselves. Type on!

(as a last note, this is merely a thought provoking question. MLM is fundamentally flawed since you cannot expand past 30 levels with even a 2 by 2 downline structure - a canoe with no bottom perhaps ).

Monroe

Marcello asked:


Even minimum wage sales jobs that high school students are doing require realistic volumes of sales…at least 3000-4000/week.

If MLMers were required to actually sell the equivalent of even the minimum wage sales people they would quit in droves.

So essentially MLMers are doing less personal sales than minimum wage salespeople yet they will tell you MLM is about sales and not making money by recruiting people. Well, if they are not doing real sales volumes, then they are making money recruiting. HMMM.

How do those in MLM justify this?
Brad H - the question was clearly addressing the money made by recruiting versus sales. Thanks for completely avoiding the heart of the question.

What could I have expected though, this is normal MLM mentality; when confronted with a question you don’t like, change the subject. Nice work.
Laura J - A+ for your long and seemingly educated answer. However, a few points I want to bring up. A good portion of your answer describes the benefits of building a customer base. If you have a large customer base providing you residual income that is terrific, but if that was the norm in MLM than this question would not need to be asked.

The clear point is directed to bulk of people making (or trying to make) money by building a downline. Surely if everyone built a massive customer base first, then it would indeed be about sales, not recruiting. But the fact that nearly all MLM compensation plans reward recruiting over sales speaks volumes.

If you are making more money from your customers than you represent an extremely low percentage of MLMers. If you want to suggest that everyone be like that, then bravo, but we know the reality is people try to make money on recruiting instead of sales in MLM.

Thanks for your answer though.
Edi - Thank, but you clearly missed the point. If you are recruiting and not selling, what value do you offer to the company?

You admittedly don’t know how to sell, so your value is not in teaching anyone. The difference between a bank or any other company that recruits sales people is that the people being paid to recruit and train them have clear value else they would be out of a job.

Merely making money recruiting is the very definition of a ponzi scheme.

Sorry to be harsh, but what you described IS the exact problem with MLM.

Artis

Beelzebub asked:


It would seem if MLM is such a great vehicle for earning money, and being that it has been around since the 60’s, that someone would have finally earned their way to being super rich. But there is not one MLMer famous outside of MLM that didn’t make their money selling books or something, nor is there an MLMer that is a billionaire.

It is because MLM really doesn’t grow like they all tell you it does? Is it really just a load of crap like most people tell you it is? What gives?
The question evidently goes right over the head of domers13. No one is saying that people in MLM don’t make money…the point is that no one in MLM has ever made BIG money. Don’t give me the “time” reasoning either, MLM has been around long enough for at least a single example of someone who would make it big. After all, isn’t the whole basis that your downline grows exponentially? Wouldn’t it makes sense than that someone by now would have a downline so massive as to be making BILLIONS?

Philip

Marcello asked:


I assess businesses for a living and look mostly at real estate. When I have been presented a deal and determined it was a poor investment, people generally do not get emotional or upset calling me names and telling me I am negative. This is the same in most business ventures.

But in MLM, you can express your opinion of it being a poor business choice and you get MLMers jumping all over you as though you insulted their family?

Is this because people get in to MLM emotionally instead of intellectually (on the hype as oppose to assessing it as a business), or is it because MLM is more cult like that they would like to admit?
plr2win, you have expressed exactly my point. The issue (well one of them) is that you need to depend on your downline for income, and thus at any given time, there are always more people producing less than is needed to provide themselves an income than there are actually earning an income.

You see, in real world business, whether it be sales, admin, management, whatever, the person working that position is always providing enough value to justify their pay. In MLM, the majority is always earning less than would justify incomes because instead of focusing on personal sales first, they focus on recruiting and thus need others in order to make money.

Show me a model where everyone is first made to do enough personal volume to make a good living then allowed to recruit and I will show you a decent MLM…but none like that exist.
plr2win - to further clarify, its not that I am suggesting the model is some unethical system, I am suggesting the presentation of MLM as a means a getting wealthy is a sham. Explain how an exponential matrix can keep supplying revenue streams for someone on your 20th level. You can’t because at that point you would need millions and million of people in your organization. This simply yet another reason that MLM is flawed as a “business opportunity.”
MLM like a McDonald’s franchise…thats Ripe! It would be the same if everyone in your neighborhood set up competing McDonald’s on every corner with no concern for how that competition affect each franchise, and also if the fry guys and cashiers only got paid when they brought their friends and family in to get jobs as well. Gimme a break. MLMers are kidding themselves with these false comparisons.

Paige

uVme asked:


Hy there

I am trying to create a downline in a new MLM business who looks very promissing, it’s in pre launch phase until September. More I can’t tell you here.

I would like to know in general how you people in the US do think about MLM sales structures.
As the US has the most companys in MLM I belive that you can give me a very good feedback about this.

Thanks for all answers and contacts
Guido

Abraham

Beelzebub asked:


I am making money hand over fist, in fact over $20,000 a month, but I happen to still live in my car because I CHOOSE to. Why would people not join my downline when I am making all this money just because I live in my car???

Brant

Beelzebub asked:


I am trying to build my business but everyone keeps telling me that my network marketing business is a scam. I know network marketing is not a scam, but I don’t know how to handle this objection.

My company sells bottles of water. We only need to get on autoship for 1 liter of water and it costs $100 each. It sounds like a lot to pay for water, but if we sign up 5 people we get nearly all of it back, and once they sign up 5 people I am actually making good money. Then, as long as everyone signs up 5 people for 10 levels deep, i can make $10,000/month. This seems really smart to me but with everyone telling me its a scam there is nothing I can do.

What do you suggest?
i dont think you people understand. you only buy the water for 100 bucks becuase it gets the process going. once you get enough people in your downline you are making tons of money off other people who are buying it. eveyrone gets the same chance to make the money so its all legit.

This is what MLM is all about. Why anyone would think its a scam is beyond me.

Herb