What Is An IDEAL MLM Company?
I was on the phone with a semi-retired lady. She has been through the early years of MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) when she made good money. But, she backed off for some years helping her family in a traditional business. She is now seriously considering a comeback. But, she is very sharp in analysing companies to determine if that is a company worth joining and whether it is fast or slow money-making. We shared our experience in MLM.
She asked me, "What do you think is a good MLM company to join now?". I shall not name any company here. But, if you need advice, feel free to talk to me. I will be writing a second book on MLM to address this particular question.
In a nutshell, drawing from the success and failure stories of those in the MLM industry, here are some of my thoughts.
You should not start MLM on a full-time basis unless you have another steady source of income or you are already out of job. It is best to have a full time job but starting it on a part-time basis until the income builds up to the level comparable to that of your full time job. Then, you decide if you would like to quit your full-time job.
MLM is best run as a home-based business that you can work the business from your kitchen in your pyjamas or at the beach in your bikini. It should not be one which necessitates you to attend numerous meetings. If that is the case, where is the time freedom? This leads to the next point.
It should be internet-based and online. In USA, the country is huge, and so it is unlikely that prospects would travel hundreds of miles just to attend an OPP seminar!!! So, most Americans prefer to work from the comfort of their homes. How could that be achieved? Internet shopfront, online presentation, conference calls etc. are the ways to do it. Singapore is geographically small and the herd instinct is still culturally strong here. Coming to an OPP seminar and feeling the warmth and the size of the crowd and get hyped up, is still one of the deciding criteria for joining the company for many. I envisage that it takes another 5-10 years for Singaporeans to adjust to and adopt the home-based concept.
Entry into any MLM company should not involve a big sum of money. People joining a company in this manner would usually end up with lots of inventory and no network. After all, what is network marketing? It should focus on building the network. As I mentioned in my first MLM book, network is what moves the products. To build a network, you need lots of users. From the network of users, some of them might want to consider building the business as well. So, they can proceed to do so. The rest may remain as users. There is nothing wrong with that.
While many people thought that a company without quota or monthly maintenance is good, the contrary might be better. If nobody buys anything or maintains something, how could the uplines earn? In a system that makes maintenance or monthly purchase a part of the requirements, there will be residual income for the leaders at least. Does it mean that the downlines would suffer and not make money? No. The system duplicates itself.
Earlier on, I mentioned that MLM should be done part-time for a start. So, if you are dealing with products that you need to go to the stock centre, make purchase and deliver them to your customers, how do you find time to do it? You probably have to do it after work or over the weekends. So, this brings up another consideration. Ideally, you should work with a company where there is no physical product to deliver and if there is to be delivered, it should be delivered by the courier service and NOT by you.
Many people are also stuck with lots of physical inventory, worse will be those that carry expiration date. If you could deal with a product that is NOT physical and there is no need to keep physical inventory, that would be superbly ideal. Is there such a product? Yes. E-product is one. It would be good to have a product that you can market worldwide without any special need for physical demonstration of how the product works.
If you need any special discussion, please send me an email.
She asked me, "What do you think is a good MLM company to join now?". I shall not name any company here. But, if you need advice, feel free to talk to me. I will be writing a second book on MLM to address this particular question.
In a nutshell, drawing from the success and failure stories of those in the MLM industry, here are some of my thoughts.
You should not start MLM on a full-time basis unless you have another steady source of income or you are already out of job. It is best to have a full time job but starting it on a part-time basis until the income builds up to the level comparable to that of your full time job. Then, you decide if you would like to quit your full-time job.
MLM is best run as a home-based business that you can work the business from your kitchen in your pyjamas or at the beach in your bikini. It should not be one which necessitates you to attend numerous meetings. If that is the case, where is the time freedom? This leads to the next point.
It should be internet-based and online. In USA, the country is huge, and so it is unlikely that prospects would travel hundreds of miles just to attend an OPP seminar!!! So, most Americans prefer to work from the comfort of their homes. How could that be achieved? Internet shopfront, online presentation, conference calls etc. are the ways to do it. Singapore is geographically small and the herd instinct is still culturally strong here. Coming to an OPP seminar and feeling the warmth and the size of the crowd and get hyped up, is still one of the deciding criteria for joining the company for many. I envisage that it takes another 5-10 years for Singaporeans to adjust to and adopt the home-based concept.
Entry into any MLM company should not involve a big sum of money. People joining a company in this manner would usually end up with lots of inventory and no network. After all, what is network marketing? It should focus on building the network. As I mentioned in my first MLM book, network is what moves the products. To build a network, you need lots of users. From the network of users, some of them might want to consider building the business as well. So, they can proceed to do so. The rest may remain as users. There is nothing wrong with that.
While many people thought that a company without quota or monthly maintenance is good, the contrary might be better. If nobody buys anything or maintains something, how could the uplines earn? In a system that makes maintenance or monthly purchase a part of the requirements, there will be residual income for the leaders at least. Does it mean that the downlines would suffer and not make money? No. The system duplicates itself.
Earlier on, I mentioned that MLM should be done part-time for a start. So, if you are dealing with products that you need to go to the stock centre, make purchase and deliver them to your customers, how do you find time to do it? You probably have to do it after work or over the weekends. So, this brings up another consideration. Ideally, you should work with a company where there is no physical product to deliver and if there is to be delivered, it should be delivered by the courier service and NOT by you.
Many people are also stuck with lots of physical inventory, worse will be those that carry expiration date. If you could deal with a product that is NOT physical and there is no need to keep physical inventory, that would be superbly ideal. Is there such a product? Yes. E-product is one. It would be good to have a product that you can market worldwide without any special need for physical demonstration of how the product works.
If you need any special discussion, please send me an email.
posted by Jonathan Ooi @ 10.2.06
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