Network Marketing Survival blog post

 

Network Marketing Survival

How to Survive in the Network Marketing Jungle

“Choosing the Right Company & Always Making Profit From 

Them All!”

LEGAL NOTICE

The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of 

this report, notwithstanding the fact that he does not warrant or represent at any time 

that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet.

While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the 

Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of 

the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or 

organizations are unintentional.

In practical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income 

made. Readers are cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their individual 

circumstances to act accordingly.

This book is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial 

advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, 

business, accounting, and finance field.

You are encouraged to print this book for easy reading.

THE SHOCKING TRUTH!

If you are reading this book, let me first congratulate you if you are a newcomer to the

world of MLM and allowing me to impart my experiences on the industry to help you in

taking the first step into this fantastic industry.

My intentions of writing this book is to help and provide people generic information that

would apply to any company regardless on their marketing/compensation plan, product,

team, country or even offline or online!

It is indeed a shocking truth to find out that over 95% of network marketers or home

based business owners are operating their business at a LOSS!

How scary if you are reading this for the first time.

Well thankfully if we all worshiped statistics fanatically, most people today will be afraid

to drive cars or even go to school (e.g. the percentage of road accidents and how many

students in a class „make it‟ in getting distinctions)

We all want to be smart people and rather be in the top 5% being the ones making the

money now, don‟t we? Of course we do.

It is sad that countless of poor victims join the industry, uninformed, and when they run

into problems, they usually put the blame on the company, the team or even the industry

itself!

That is why we hope to avoid such unfortunate circumstances.

Even if you have been involved, this information is invaluable because it might teach you

things you have missed out or information to help your downline.

Let’s proceed…

Why Would You Be Choosing an MLM in The First Place

MLM survival. Let‟s face it, the world out there is like a jungle. More particularly so in the

MLM world. It would be easy to say, since it is that difficult, let‟s just forget about the

whole MLM or network marketing deal in the first place (then this book would not be

necessary at all). That action would be self-defeating.

There is good news for all of us. So let us instead start from a positive note.

The purpose of this book is not just about teaching you to choose the right MLM

Company but also how, by being properly educated about the industry, you will be able

to receive benefits from every opportunity you invest your time and money in. The

information here will be completely generic and neutral. I am not endorsing any company

over the other as there is no such thing as the perfect MLM but rather choosing an

MLM that is SUITABLE for YOU!

Whatever your reasons may be, let us make a few assumptions about it before we

proceed (or else you wouldn‟t pay for this E-book in the first place)

(1) Making money

(2) Saving money on products

(3) Meeting new people

(4) Growth and development

Making Money

(a) Looking for fast money

(b) Building a long term business with money coming in long after you have „retired‟

(c) Investing in the product itself

For people looking for fast money, there are pros and cons to this kind of thinking.

Some people are WELL TRAINED salesmen. They have built the relationship with their

clients, customers and all sorts of people. People trust what they say and will trust

whatever they are selling. They may sell the product itself (sometimes, in large

quantities), or they may sell the opportunity (the money making part of it) or both. Are

YOU this kind of person?

Fast money is not impossible, but it COULD be for the short term only. Consider the

facts that 80-90% of people in the world a tore NOT built for sales. If a salesman sponsors.

a non-salesman, would the non-salesman be able to do the same thing as his upline?

Does that mean that I would spend most of my time looking for the 10-20% of sales

types?

The next type of money is the long term type.

When I define long term, it does not have to mean that you might not see money right

away. It differs from company to company. But as a general rule of thumb, it involves

BUILDING A NETWORK OR AN ORGANISATION.

The key to building a large organization as quoted by Zig Ziglar, “You will get whatever

you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” In other

words, if you will help enough downlines get enough downlines, you are on the road to

network marketing financial freedom. The key is to help others.

There is one more category of people who „invests‟ in network marketing companies, not

to make money through retaining or networking, but rather investing in the product,

position, or depending on the company, appreciation of their „assets‟. A few examples

would be investing in a product, so that in the future, its value will appreciate, so you

can sell it to other people at a very high margin (sort of like old comic books.) Others

might purchase the account or distributorship from you (depending on the

compensation plan of the company) while some Internet companies actually pay you to

„invest‟ in their company, sort of like buying a share of the company.

Saving Money on Products

Retailing of a product is very important to an MLM business. Lack of (or even non￾existing) retailing could be harmful to the distributor or the company as certain states

have outlawed „headhunting‟ and have their own policies.

Nevertheless, saving money on an MLM product is one of the most wonderful key

features of joining an MLM company if recruiting is not your forte.

In certain compensation plans, repeat purchase of the products you buy from the

company gives you more rebates or bonuses. In essence, the more you buy, the

cheaper it becomes. This becomes an even greater pleasure if you are totally in love

with the products or you have already set aside a budget for those products (which

means you are now buying from the MLM company or your upline instead of buying from

the supermarket, pharmacy, grocery store, etc)There are some important aspects to take note however, if the company requires you to

purchase the products in bulk (hence the term – frontloading), is there a DEMOTION in

your achieved position in the company, is there MAINTAINANCE required, or how much

are the renewal fees for membership. All these will be further discussed in the later

chapters.

Meeting New People

This is one of the many reasons why people join MLM companies (even if the first two

reasons discussed above don‟t even concern them). There are all types of people in the

world. Some like the positive environment. Others like the social events the company or

team organizes. Some look for a potential life partner there!

Lots of people even go all out to join these kind of businesses to get more contacts for

their OWN BUSINESSES (maybe even THEIR OWN MLM BUSINESS). Bear in mind

one thing. There is this old saying that goes, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. If you

participate in their activities but don‟t go full force in their company/team vision, don‟t

expect them to join you or buy from you. There may even be negative repercussions

(such as being banned from coming back to the company).

Growth and Development

One of the biggest reasons why I would recommend joining an MLM company and doing

the business is opening your mind to positive thinking and achieving your full potential.

There are many companies out there who have the best training courses, motivational

rallies, sharing sessions and whopping transformation camps that will not only fire you

up but take your business building to the next level.

I will not touch much on this subject extensively here. There are so many companies out

there that will do a fantastic job in terms of training.

Remember that growth is a journey and not a destination.

Types of People Who Are Looking For Opportunities

Remember that people join MLM companies for their own reasons. However, the

character or intention of a person will determine how far they want to go in MLM. Here

are classic examples of different types of people

(1) Genuine business opportunity seekers and builders

(2) Product consumers

(3) The supporters

(4) MLM junkies

(5) 001 syndrome

Genuine business opportunity seekers are the most important people in building a large

business. They are the bread and butter. Not all are leaders but leaders are not born,

they are developed. This group of people also can be product consumers.

Product consumers are people who join an MLM and buy from them because they like

the product and enjoy the service of their upline. They are not necessarily genuine

business opportunity seekers or builders yet for many builders, a lot of their income will

come from this group. The good thing about them is as they learn more about the

product, the company and interact more with their upline, their exposure to MLM grows

and they might convert to opportunity seekers and then builders.

The supporters‟ category is quite a mixed match of people. When their close friends or

relatives build an MLM, they will join under them to „support their businesses. However,

the consequence of that action varies according to the individual. For example, I would

join my friend‟s organization but it could be purely out of obligation and not for any

genuine reason. This could potentially lead to resentment (when you mix business

dealings with friendship), confusion and even loss of friends. Others might even join to

see if their friend or relative is involved in a scam to try and pull him or her out. In order

to prevent any potential disaster, make sure your intentions for joining an MLM are very

clear cut.

MLM junkies are the sort of people who jump from MLM to MLM (some people even call

them Multi-Level-Monkeys). They attend a talk, get hyped up about the opportunity, and

build the business on euphoria. Sooner or later, they lose steam and find problems with

the company (when the real problem is themselves most of the time) and jump to the

next SMOKING HOT business opportunity. It is not wrong to be a member of many MLM

companies (depending on your budget). Bear in mind, certain companies discourage or

even forbid you to join other companies (then their business practices should be

examined). If you are a member of many companies, it is ok to do a good survey and attend trainings, but the key to remember is you must focus on ONE good MLM for the

long run and the others can operate on a referral basis (like recommending a friend to

buy a product from another company while building one main one).

This leads us to one more category of people who could be MLM junkies as well – the

001 syndrome. Basically they want to be the first to start building a business in a brand

new start-up. They want to be the pioneer. There are many pros and cons to assess

about a new company like their background history, financial status and product market

rather than just focusing on the income potential. There are many more challenges to be

faced for people who are sponsored directly under the company and new companies

don‟t usually have a time-tested workable system in place.

If you fall into one of the above categories (or even some or all of the above), these will

give you a general guideline on how to improve your choice selection of MLM companies

before we go in to the details about compensation plans and product demand. By

knowing yourself better, you can do a better assessment.

What is the MLM Jungle Like

There are thousands of MLM companies out there! Here are a few categories of MLM.

These will help you determine which company suits you.

Product/Servicing

Traditional MLM

Concept

Physical product

Internet MLM

Digital Product

The main difference between traditional MLM and Internet MLM is the method used to

recruit or sponsor. Traditional MLM relies mostly on one-on-one prospecting (like at a

McDonalds or Starbucks), home party, opportunity meetings or rallies. Internet MLM

does the recruiting through e-mail, newsletter, forums, websites and sales letters. This

minimizes the human interaction part and may be more suitable for those who are not

very good at talking to others.

Two main types of traditional MLM are one that is heavily concerned with retailing,

consumption or distribution of a physical product. Typically one with a high volume of

repeat sale (like vitamins or skin care products) and good testimonials of the product

with high visibility (e.g. look at my skin, the product has cured all my pimples!).

Concept MLM doesn‟t focus as much on products compared to its former counterpart.

They usually do have a product, but it doesn‟t have as high a repeat sale as those

mentioned above. Most of them run their business like a club. Some are like lifestyle

clubs. Others conduct their business with a high degree of professionalism (they all

dress better than an office worker). Often they will sell their people a dream or molding

them to a particular image to convey the image of the company for attracting more

recruits. It‟s the sizzle that sells the steak.

In Internet MLM, there are distributions of two types of products. A physical product

distributed through the Internet means that the Internet does the selling and recruiting,

taking the orders, and the shipment of the product are done offline. Digital products

remove the headaches of physical product distribution. This usually gives the company a

better margin due to lower overheads (no warehousing or shipment).

Exposure to the Industry

In the MLM industry, there are a few factors to consider when considering which

company to build a long term business.

Product background

Marketing or Compensation plan

The team (Upline, Sidelines, even the company staff)

The trend of the time

First off: It has been said in the past – your UPLINE chooses the first company you join.

It still is the case today for many who are either unexposed and their friends or relatives

who join an MLM first approaches them.

The unexposed might oblige their upline and if they are not careful, will cause a very bad

first impression on the industry.

Today, you don‟t need to be picked by someone else. You can choose first. Do a good

survey based on the guidelines above. As a matter of fact, you don‟t even need to join

the first person who invited you in a company. You have a choice to choose someone

else to be your upline within the SAME company.

Products are very crucial in MLM. Just because one company says our product is the

„best‟ doesn‟t mean that it is. Just like any other business, people seriously building an

MLM will only say good things about their own product. They will even give fantastic and

even outrageous testimonials about how the product can help them.

Many are very sincere and well-meaning, but the rule of thumb to remember is – yes,

you say the product is the best, but that is also because you haven‟t tried any others

because you are in this business!

I firmly believe that most MLM products are of exceptional quality. That is because the

product must work then only can the distributor give good testimonials due to the nature

of the distributor doing direct sales (dealing directly with the prospect/customer). There

are companies that DISCOURAGE their people from using products from a competitor

MLM (some even ask you to stop buying from the supermarket and buy from your „own

business‟ instead). 

Beware: some even go as far as to talk down about the products of other MLM

companies. Most people, in their zealous zeal to recruit others, may use this tactic. This

is often perceived as rather unprofessional.

Bear in mind: in MLM, if you talk bad about other MLM companies or their products, you

are talking bad about the entire industry as a WHOLE (you mean to say that only your

company, product, compensation plan, team is the best in the world and the rest of all

the other companies are of inferior quality? Man… I don‟t want to be in this industry.)

Can you imagine if every network marketer is doing this? No wonder the industry has a

bad name!

The Marketing or Compensation Plan

The plan is very important. It shows how much work you need to do to get paid this

much. All marketing plans have their own advantages and disadvantages. Different

companies offer different margins for their products. The key to remember in margin

comparison, if the company pays the distributor too low, you might not survive; if the

margin is too exorbitantly high, you might earn a lot, but your retail customers will suffer

and the business might not be long term.

Before I share with you a few more popular type of marketing plan to give you an idea

about what company will offer what, I wish to highlight two things in every plan:

DEMOTION and MAINTAINANCE

DEMOTION means dropping from one MLM position to a lower one (usually resulting in

a loss of future potential income) or your remainder quota required to reach a certain

target is increased (the volume achieved in the past do now count towards the grand

total anymore) Demotion is an important factor to consider in every marketing plan as

someone who suffers demotion suffers a sudden loss in income and could be very

embarrassing to others.

MAINTENANCE (sometimes called autoship) is the minimum amount of sales volume

(usually every month) a distributor or serious business builder has to buy either his own

personal volume or combined with group sales in order to maintain his rank, be eligible

for bonuses, overriding commission or sometimes even maintain his distributorship.

Having maintenance or no maintainance all has its pros and cons. I will highlight 3

scenarios to give a clearer picture.

A) MANDATORY MAINTENANCE

Some companies require you to purchase products every single month. This is

good if you have built a large organization and it ensures you have guaranteed

income every month. Not good if you are forced to maintain and you are not

making money in your business. If you are in love with the product and don‟t

mind paying for it every month then it is fine. But this can cause a person who is

not seriously building or is still struggling with his business some pressure and it

is one of the main causes of drop out in MLM.

If the maintenance is too expensive, people might shun the company. However,

the upline with a lot of people in his group can build a large stable income this

way. Some companies may not require you to maintain at the early stages and

increases the maintenance after they achieve a certain rank.

B) NO MAINTENANCE

This is very good for people who have just started their business or for people

who is just casually „trying out‟ an MLM. There is no pressure and a person can

be in an MLM for years but still at the same rank.

The bad news is that it might not be good for the long term (because no

maintence means no downlines need to buy anything) unless your group is in

love with the product or if you and your downlines have built a solid customer

base and the demand of the product it there.

C) OPTIONAL MAINTENANCE

This is also very good for people who just started or the casual type. They will

only ask you to buy a certain volume of products when you want to override your

commission from the company. This is also very good in the sense that you are

not pressured to pay maintenance and you only pay when you are making

money.

There is one problem with this, however. Among the serious business builders if

the downlines are not producing any sales, even having a large organization will

not pay you well if not at all (just like a zero maintenance company, no downline

sales means those in the middle will not maintain, causing a chain reaction all the

way to the uplines at the top). This is a hollow organization where your rank/title

means nothing without income.

Next, I will go in detail about the more popular types of plans…1) The Stairstep

2) The Unilevel

3) The Binary

4) The Breakaway

5) The Matrix

6) The Australian Two Up

7) The Hybrid

1) The Stairstep

 Grand Emperor

 Emperor

 Champion

 Leader

 Noble

 Peasant * Purely for illustrational purposes only, not actual

The Stairstep or step and ladder plan is a simple plan that has requirements that you

must meet to get up the “Stairs of Success” Every step is a promotion usually based on

achieving a certain volume and each promotion or rank gives you a larger cut.

Demotion in stairstep plans to ensure a distributor‟s group commits to a certain volume

every month. It gives a particular rank a guaranteed income. Demotion in this case

means that you must either maintain a certain volume every month (or quarter or fiscal

year) in order to maintain that rank. Let us say for example, Anthony achieves a sales

volume of $200,000 in his entire team (for a certain timeframe) and that promotes him

from Leader to Champion, certain companies require him to keep up that same sales

volume the next time or else he will be demoted back to a leader. In certain plans, there

is no demotion in rank, so the group sales are accumulated for reaching the next level.Maintenance here plays a key factor how building a solid group will look like. If there are

low repeat sales for the product being marketed, expect the minimum entry fee to be

higher than the average MLM. This is because low repeat sales means less

maintenance hence the majority of the income comes from recruiting new blood. If

nobody does maintenance in a Stairstep plan, having a high rank doesn‟t earn you

money so don‟t be a fool if someone tells you that the „minimum‟ income for a „grand

emperor‟ is $100,000 a month – it all depends on the volume generated. On the

contrary, plans with maintenance involved do guarantee an income or else you will not

be in that rank.

This type of plan is one of the oldest and longest plans around. The advantage of

climbing the ladder gives major incentives for distributors to work harder and fight for the

target. The larger your group the more you override even up to infinity levels as long as

your downline is of a lower rank than you. There is also a fair system involved lets say if

your downline works harder than you and sponsors more people, he can actually have a

rank higher than you and that is when breakaway in certain plans come into play

(discussed in the breakaway plan below)

The disadvantage however, is once a downline reaches a certain rank (lets say you

need 3 directly sponsored leaders to qualify as a champion), one of them becomes a

leader while you focus on making the remaining 2 groups to become leaders, the first

leader might be neglected in the process. The other disadvantage is if the downline is

too far deep in the organization (lets say your downline‟s downline all the way down 10

generations), some distributors may neglect helping them because the monetary

incentive is too small.