Get Paid Today - MLM is Dead

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

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

Marcello asked:


You always hear them give the line that all business is set up like a pyramid to justify that MLM is built on recruiting people.

While real business has fewer people in high earning roles, it seems MLMers miss the very obvious point that even a lowly janitor at McDonald’s doesn’t have to recruit 5 other janitors to make a living wage.

Do people in MLM really think its the same? Do they really miss the point that real business doesn’t have to keep hiring people for infinity to keep making money for its employees?

It just seems such an obvious difference, yet it makes no sense that people in MLM are convinced it is the same.
Andre - while you are correct about the legality, let’s not let the absurdidty of the whole thing get lost on us.

The fact that MLM gets around being illegal and not a straight pyramid scheme is ONLY becuase there are products and services available to be sold by the reps; however, the fact is nealry all MLMers focus their attention on recruiting others instead of sales - meaning although it is legal for all intents and purposes it is virtually the same.

If MLM companies wanted to put the focus on personal sales instead of recruiting then how can you expalin that ALL MLM compensation plans allow you to move up the ranks ONLY by recruiting others. You can be the worlds best salesperson but unless you recruit other people you can’t obtain the top rank in any MLM compensation plan.

Let’s get serious, they are the same, depsite anyone considering it “legal” or not.
L.F.Heap - you spent spent your entire answer describing any sales company.

Evidently the point of this question was lost on you because if MLM was focused on sales and not recruiting then there would be no issue.

The question was in reference to the fact that MLM push recruiting, and weigh it as FAR more important than personal sales, and the evidence is in the MLM compensation plans.

Ramona