Hi everyone,
I was wondering if some had anything to share about Multi-Level Marketing as a business opportunity.
I came across an online presentation that explains the business end, but doesn’t give a business “pitch” in it. It is purely informative of the industry.
I’d be interested in hearing feedback, positive and/or negative.
Thanks all.
The link to the streamed presentation online is:
yourlegacyforlife.net/guests/mlm.html
Appreciate the input.
Thanks for posting this. I hope that the community will be more constructive than simply saying “it’s a scam”, and will be able to back up their opinions with facts.
Enjoy.
A.N. Moderator. 
Those videos are a waste of time (I watched them all). I’m pretty sure almost everyone knows how MLM/NM works. It’s not the system that is the scam, but the people and companies that tend to use them.
I had a friend that was making a lot of money from the Sprint thing (that was mentioned in the videos), but one day his checks just stopped coming. He was young at the time and thought the money was just going to keep going on forever (but it didn’t).
The only non scammish MLM system that pops directly into my head is:
www.excel.com
And I don’t really know much about them.
Anyway, my time is better spent playing Tekken or something.
How much do you make a year doing MLM? Or how much does the guy who got you in make? How has doing MLM improved upon the quality of your life?
I did omegatrend.com/main/default.htm for a while.
Never again! The amount of time I wasted on that was phenominal. I do miss the Sandenbrook coffee though. Nice.
I know people who are making money from it, but the truth is, there is a saturation point where it’s not worthwhile to sign on. I joined to late. I joined after everyone I knew was already a member. Dooh! :loco:
Ok, so, everyone send me two dollars and I’ll send you one back.
I had a brief experience with MLM, and managed to make just enough to cover my losses. Come to think of it, I doubled my money, but the money you make from these things is from persuading friends to get involved, and they then lose out.
In a nutshell, this is how it worked.
You bought a couple of holiday tokens for 250 pounds (sterling). You then had to persuade 2 people to do the same. They then each persuaded 2 more, and then those 4 people each persuaded 2 more. The 8 newest members’ money went into your pocket and you “retired”.
The group then split in two, with the two people you originally persuaded becoming the leaders of each group. Once they got another 8 members for their groups, they pocketed the money and moved on (or re-joined at the bottom).
The problem with me is a moral one. I was lucky enough to become the leader of a group just before the whole thing dried up (and believe me it always will, and very quickly). 3 people had joined up on my bottom row, which meant that I had tripled my money, then it all stopped. That meant that there were more than a few people in my group that had lost their money. I can’t remember exactly how, but I had only encouraged one friend to sign up, and I felt so guilty that I gave him his money back (luckily I was able to do this).
Even if you make money from MLM, you are effectively taking it out of someone elses pockets (often your friend’s). For some people that’s not a problem, but for me it is.
I got into one for internet telephony. Sounded fucking fantastic. Flat-rate long distance with a voice activated software that allowed u to use any phone to make your LD call.
I bought in for 500US and the company’s assets were promptly frozen by the SEC.
MLMs suck, and if you come around me, bet your ass I’ll be a “dream-stealer”.
Appreciate all the feedback.
I completed my major school obligations last august and moved to a local large city to begin looking for work. Having studied business and marketing in school I took a unique approach to the job hunt, and found myself quite successful with opening doors, but a little discouraged when I was coming to terms with what I was going to have to trade in for my salary…
In business (specifically marketing) I realized that I am going to be involved in the marketing/sales of something to someone. That’s not the question, nor is the exchange of money for product or services. To me the dillema was WHAT would I be willing to pour energy and creativity into for the next decade(+), turn around and see what impact I’d made.
That’s the question I faced.
Some have alluded to my personal experience in MLM, and despite being involved for 3+ months, I’ve recouped my innitial investment of $39, and have been slowing growing with my monthly residual - All by just doing what someone did for me: They gave me a CD to listen to. I made me own decision.
Here’s my stance:
There is a lot in business that’s unfair, dishonest and really just bad for us. From product, to management. MLM is no exception in this case. Like every other industry, humans are behind it, and in such some are honest, and some not.
From a marketing standpoint MLM makes a lot of sense to me provided the product was something unique, and truly of benefit.
To me that was the question I had to ask:
If the business model makes sense, and I found a product I genuinely felt others needed for their wellbeing, why would I not consider it?
Interestingly, the time it took me to check out the info on my sponsor’s site, was the same amount of time I’d spend flippin’ through channels on tv, or online.
As skeptical as I was, the company history, and science has made a serious impact on my innitial stance.
Thanks again for the input.
Does anyone see where I’m coming from?
I don’t see where you’re coming from.
Have you ever done the maths?
First, figure out what rate of growth you need to make a reasonable return on the investment you make.
And your investment is not $39. Your investment is the number of hours you put in multiplied by whatever your time is worth, plus the money you put in. How much money could you have earned in the same amount of time and what would your residual income be if you invested that money into something with the same level of risk.
When I experimented with MLM (and almost everyone has) the recommendation was that you should put 10-15 hours a week in. That’s 500-750 hours a year, and even at a modest $20/hr you could have $10-15,000 in the bank doing that. (10-15 hours a week is a huge commitment for someone with a proper job and/or a family or social life, btw)
What level of residual income do you project in exchange for your investment? Give us a number. What is YOUR target? For one year or two, tell us how much money you anticipate earning from this scheme.
And then tell us how many people you need in your downline to earn that level of income.
These must be active distributors of your product on whom you can earn an over-ride. If no-one sells the product then no business is done. How much product do you sell, personally? What level of business can you show to a prospective distributor and say “Look, I’m doing it and you should too.”?
It’s not acceptable to say that you’ll make your money from recruiting and others will sell the product. You will only recruit people with the same attitude and no one will sell the product.
MLM is a leadership system. You have to lead by example, and be seen to be selling the product. How much have you sold in your three months? How much can every new recruit anticipate selling?
Once you have a figure for the individuals in your downline, based on your own sales figures, then you can calculate your residual income and tell us how many people you need to have selling the product on your behalf for you to make enough money.
And when you know how many people you expect to have in your downline you can figure out how many people in total will be in the business by then. Are you the first one in? Every other person in the network is also aiming to have a huge organisation and residual of their own. How many people will be distributing your product by the time you reach your financial goals?
Then extrapolate that rate of growth on behalf of the last person to join your downline. He/she will also want to have a similar return on his investment. He has to see the same potential as you do, or else it’s not worth his time and energy. It has to be worth his time and energy or else he’s not going to work on your behalf selling product, and you’re not going to get the growth you need.
Every person who joins needs to see the same potential for growth for you to recruit them. All the people in the organisation now are going to have big downlines full of people expecting to build big downlines full of people expecting to build big downlines full of people expecting to build big downlines… ad infinitum.
When do we run out of people? And who do they sell to?
Let’s see, you’ve been in this business three months and claim to be earning some residual now. So you must have someone in your downline?
If not then you might as well quit now because you’re plainly wasting your time.
So, in three months you have gone from one distributor (you) to two. Wow, 100% growth in three months. Keep that up, and in six months you will have two ‘front line’ and your first recruit should have started building too. So there will be four of you.
That’s not much to ask for, is it?
9 months, 8 people
12 months, 16
15, 32
18, 64
21, 128
24, 256
So in two years you will have 256 active distributors of your product earning money for you. This assumes that no one drops out. You need committed, hard-working people who don’t waste your time. Right?
Is that enough people, making you enough money to say you’ve achieved more than you could just by working in a job? I would hope so, because there’s no point doing this otherwise.
All these people want to get to where you’re at by this time, so they keep working and recruiting.
Two years and three months (27 months), 512 people
30 months, 1024
33, 2048
36, 4096
Three years and you’re head of an organisation of 400 people and making a fortune. All those people want the same, and every other person who is in the organisation right now will also have achieved the same thing, right? Or will they have dropped out, leaving their sponsor without a downline? We don’t want that happening, do we?
39, 8000
42, 16000
45, 32000
48, 64000
Wow, four years in and so many people are making a fortune. It’s unbelievable! But it has to be true, or else the last people are wasting their time. If they’re wasting their time then the people before them are not going to make any money, so they’re wasting their time. So the people before them are not going to make money, and so on back to you. You’re not lying to people to get them into something they can’t make money out of, are you? Of course not, you believe in this so you keep on building into year five.
51 months, 128000
54, 256000
57, 512000
60 months, five years, hoo ha!! You have a cool million people in your downline!!!
Fucking A!! Where do I sign up? This is incredible. It has to be achievable. The numbers don’t lie.
63 months, 2million
66, 4 million
69, 8 million
72, 16 million
I hope to hell you will have expanded out of Canada by this time because there will be no-one left to sell your product to by this time. How many customers does one distributor need to maintain an acceptable level of turnover anyway? If it’s just 10 then you’re already saturating the entire North American market already. And that’s just your personal downline. What about all the other people who are in this business today?
75, 32million
78, 64million
81, 128million
84, 256million = almost every person in North America
All this in just seven years!!
87, 512
90, 1 billion
93, 2 billion
96, 4 billion
Eight years in this business and 2 out of three people in the world will be in your personal downline. Who are their customers? And didn’t you say you were following a ten year plan?
8
16
32
64 billion at the end of 9 years
128
256
512
1 trillion people.
After ten years of recruiting just one person every three months your downline now encompasses every inhabited world for 100 light years. It is possible for everyone to recruit one person every three months, isn’t it? It has to be, or else there’s no point joining.
And you’re not the only person in this business today. How many other people are also trying to conquer the galaxy? And who will they all sell to?
I experimented with Herbalife in 1985. Amazingly enough, they’re still in business and people are still joining. But if the growth you NEED to make a profit is truly achievable then surely they should have maxed out by now? One new person every three months comes out at 1 trillion trillion after 20 years. Yeah, right!
Questions for you:
I think I have ‘paid’ Amway people at least 3 times to just leave my home.
Another ‘problem’ I have with MLM - It forces you to adpt a highly predatory outlook on everyone you know and meet.
You are taught/trained to immediately judge people by the - “What can this person do for me?” attitude. If they look promising - I spend my time with them. If they don’t - they are a waste of my time. This is what MLM ingrains in its salesbots.
Also, MLM products are highly overpriced. With the possible exception of some technology applications, every product sold by MLM has a less expensive and equal or better in quality non-MLM equivalent.
And MLM is a ‘LIFE’ it is not an occupation. Once word gets around that you are deeply involved with an MLM, people just look at you differently. Sure, you’ll make new friends, and they’ll all be in your MLM scenario. And they will be looking at you with the same $$$ signs in their eyes.
Just my $.02’s.
An MLM where you make money off of recruiting people = scam.
It seems to me (without giving it much thought) that an MLM that really worked would allow you to recruit people without charging them anything. If they’re going to be making you so much money in the future, why do you need to change them $5, $39, $250, etc. to sign them up?
I think the majority of your time should be spent selling the product and recruiting others would just be something you could also do if you wanted to. I think the ONLY incentive for recruiting should be that they could potentially make you more money by being good salespersons. But, turning them into good sales persons would mean investing some of your time into teaching them the trade. That way you wouldn’t be trying to sign up everything with a heartbeat and a wallet.
Proper MLM is probably not a scam. I don’t know what my friend paid to be a part of that Network 2000 thing for Sprint, but the way it worked was he just went around signing people up to use these long distance cards (if I remember correctly). He not only got paid for each person each got signed up (I think there were different levels) but he also got paid a percentage of all the calls they made using his cards. He said he got up to making about 200,000USD/year (this is in the 80’s too so it’s worth more than 200,00 now 
). But something happened and Network 2000 just stopped paying everyone.
Think about being a 20+ year old guy with a fancy car, a cool New York apartment and no savings and going 200,000USD/year to 0 in no time flat. Even when it wasn’t a scam it ended up being a scam.
If I wanted to make fast money selling crap I’d spam.
I was involed in one for a few years. And although i just recovered my costs and broke even over two years, and started making money i was tired, and due to other financial difficulties beyond my control, i had nothing to keep that business alive. I step from bankrupt. Hard to make real sence with out a long explanation. I was in Usana.
Heres where it personally goers from ok to bad. I have recently checked online about the company and my downline…and much to my shock…many of my downline are making $200,000 +(CAD) So i jumped ship 4 years ago my downline took off and im the sucker.
To me the scam or not mostly depends on who teaches you and or what the policies of the company are. Any company worth 2 grains of salt will be legal in thier rules and business dealings. The problem comes in when people dont play by the rules…like emphasizing that its all about the sign up…wrong ! thats clue number one its a scam.
thats my 2 NT
That’s a great post Loretta, on the mathematics of MLM.
The United States legal landscape on MLM is pretty varied, state-by-state. But most states outlaw it in some form or another.
I found this website to be pretty comprehensive on what it is legally: Legal Principles of Multilevel Marketing.
Here’s a blurb on why New York think it sucks: Don’t Get Caught in a Pyramid Scheme[quote=“Office of NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer”]Pyramid schemes may or may not involve the sale of products or distributorships. The trend is to involve sales of products or distributorships in an attempt to show legitimacy. This is done solely to sidestep the regulatory agencies, as most state laws prohibit marketing practices where the potential for profit stems primarily from recruiting other investors and not from the sale of products. The bottom line, however, is that in all pyramid schemes, the selling of a product itself is much less important than the recruiting of new investors. {Emphasis mine}[/quote]
There are some legit outfits there. Insurance is one industry. Agencies are built upon MLM but it’s legitimate because you’re actually selling a real product. Your profits are independent of your downstream (recruits) line. Of course if you recruit and train your agents under your agency, you’ll benefit from a commission of their sales. However, the sale of a product is primary as you cannot earn money without selling the product.
Again thankyou to all that took time to research, create number scenerio’s and share their comments.
There were a couple questions asked, and so I’ll do my best to answer them.
Having graduated several months ago, and spent the last several months researching this opportunity, I have spent the majority of the past 3 months researching, and learning of both the business and the product. It has varied from my first month to my most recent.
First month was $1,200 US last month was $500 USD (keep in mind it is a consumable product renewed at the customer
i can’t tour your web site without submitting personal info …
now i suppose i could lie, but i really don’t like little messages like this:
so i guess you’ll get your criticism from elsewhere …
Some MLM comapanies are a scam. That I do agree. There are some very reputable companies out there that do business with honesty, and integrity. As a matter of fact. The Coca Cola, and IBM are MLM companies just to name a couple.
All the above being said. I am in an MLM business. Have I made a fortune? If the question refers to money? NO! Thats not why I am doing this business. What I have recieved is far beyond money. Helping people regain their health, and live a better quality of life is more satisfying than any paycheck I could recieve. To be able to provide someone with a LIFE again is beyond words, and feeling.
I do not pressure anyone to do “The Business”. Offering people the information on the products, scientific validation, and the company is what I do. Yes, if they enroll, I do recieve compensation.
MLM, Network Marketing, is a matter of choice. I can provide you with information…What you choose to do with it is totally up to you.
We are expanding our products and our business in to Taiwan as of June 20th 2005. Anyone that would be interested in the product line, or business oppurtunity. Please feel free to contact me or visit my website provided below.
My wish is for everyone to lead a healthy, happy life!
Personal website: mannapages.com/feelnstrongrevryday
Scientific Research site: www.glycoscience.org
Eamil address: smilleric@bigplanet.com
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[quote=“stmark58”].
All the above being said. I am in an MLM business. Have I made a fortune? If the question refers to money? NO! Thats not why I am doing this business. What I have recieved is far beyond money. Helping people regain their health, and live a better quality of life is more satisfying than any paycheck I could recieve. To be able to provide someone with a LIFE again is beyond words, and feeling.
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Dude, what are you doing? Want to save someone’s life then become a volunteer candy cane girl at your local hospital, move to Romania and help save their indigenous giraffe population (which is on the brink of extinction) or donate an appendix or something.
This is business and it is all about the money. I’m sorry, but that Willy Wonka “I’m in it for the love” shit just doesn’t fly.
Very nicely put. But Manna Relief has already taken care of Romania. Manna Relief has helped countless thousands.
Say what you will. Everyone has a right to there opinion. But please do not tell me what my life is about.
I stand by my words. Its unfortunate that more people do not feel the way I do.
Have a great day. Smile too, it will make you feel much better.