[nabentre] some thoughts on network marketing

[Mary Ellen]

I'm with you, Loren. I also believe very strongly in network marketing. I
think it's public relations difficulties come from those who expect it to be
a quick bonanza. There are certainly those who make a lot of money very
quickly in MLM, but it is net *work* marketing, not net *wish* marketing.
Imagine you started a shop at your local mall. On any given day, a thousand
shoppers might come into the mall; ninety per cent of them will walk right
past your shop without stopping. They are simply not in the market for what
your store has to offer. Of the ten per cent who do walk in, more than half
of them will look around for a few minutes and walk out again without buying
anything. The other half will spend more time, but probably half of them
will make a token purchase and the other half will buy something
substantial. This means that two and a half per cent of your potential
customers will make a significant purchase, two and a half per cent will buy
something. Ninety-five per cent won't do a thing, at least not today. That's
an acceptable level of traffic for a traditional business. 

Now imagine that you have a network marketing business. You let one thousand
people know that it exists. Ninety per cent turn you down flat; they don't
even want to hear what you have to say. Of the remaining ten per cent, you
spend time with them and half of them still don't want anything. Of the
final five per cent, you get two and a half per cent who make token
purchases and two and a half per cent who buy into the vision of your
company and opportunity. What do most people say about that? "I talked to
one thousand people and only got twenty-five customers and twenty-five
distributors. This MLM is garbage; I'm going to quit." (Most network
marketing companies will tell you that the odds are usually that one third
of the people who sincerely take a look at a company will do something,
either become a customer or distributor.

I think the difference is that, when we approach people to let them know
about our MLM business, we're putting ourselves out there in a way that we
don't if we have a traditional business. It's easy to feel that we're being
personally rejected when the truth is that people we talk to just may not be
on the same wavelength today. That doesn't mean that they won't be five
months, five years, or ten years from now. Successful network marketers get
their egos out of the way and concentrate on finding people who want what
they want. They don't try convincing people; they just look for the right
ones. Network marketing actually has a better return rate than traditional
business; it just seems less because the "no" of someone you talk to in
person or on the phone is much more memorable than the "no" of the person
who just walks by your mall store without stopping.

As for the complaint that the people "at the top" get the money and the
people "at the bottom" do all the work, there is a lot that could be said. I
won't begin to say all of it, since everybody on this list has better things
to do than read a small book. In reputable companies, money changes hands
for products. You buy something and pay for it. (You may need to pay a fee
for registering with the company, but that is never a commission for the
person doing the recruiting. In Nikken, the company with which my husband
and I work, commissions are paid based on the sales volume of the person
doing the selling. The person who does the work of training new people gets
paid for it in the form of bonuses based on the recruit's volume, but never
to the detriment of the recruit. The people "at the top" earn a lot because
they've helped train a lot of people. If you're good at prospecting (and I
don't mean nagging everyone you know) recruiting, and training people, and
if you do it consistently for long enough to develop a staff, you'll make
money. If you don't do the work, you won't. It doesn't really matter whether
you get in early or late; our company's products have less than one per cent
market penetration, so it's still early after twenty years of doing business
in the United States. I suppose that even a company which is known to most
people still has opportunity for an ambitious representative. 

This isn't intended as a commercial for our company; obviously I think it's
reputable and has phenominal products or I wouldn't associate myself with
it. It is intended as a brief explanation of the principles of reputable
network marketing. If anyone on the list would be interested in
understanding the concept behind network marketing more thoroughly, I would
be happy to find links to resources on the topic.

 

Mary Ellen Gabias