Should you get involved with network marketing or multi-level marketing, and what’s my take on it? What’s my view? Do I recommend it, am I against it? Well, let me just say this, I think network marketing is an interesting industry.
With network marketing, myself, I mean I belong to a couple network marketing companies where I’m just a consumer. I like the supplements, I like the products that I take, and some companies, they do produce phenomenal products.
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Joining MLM for the wrong reason
I think most people got into network marketing for the wrong reason. That if you got into it, you enjoy the products, I think that’s great, because you can get products where you typically cannot get anywhere else, and they do have good products.
However, I think most people, they get into it because they think that’s the magic pill. That if they join the company, that they’ll be financially free just because by joining the company, or the opportunity, and that’s everything, and it’s not. Because all It’s, it’s just like a vehicle. I don’t care if I give you a Ferrari, if you’re a lousy driver, you don’t know how to drive, you’re gonna crash the car. It doesn’t mean that you’re a good driver. So, it has very little to do with the opportunity.
It has a lot to do with who you are as a businessperson, as an entrepreneur. For most people, they get into network marketing because they’re lousy entrepreneurs. Because if they are good entrepreneurs they would build something, they would create something.
What it takes to be an entrepreneur?
The definition of an entrepreneur that I have, is that entrepreneur is an artist in commerce. We paint with our skills. We create, we engineer, we envisioned. We put a team together and turn our vision into reality. Network marketing attracts people who want shortcuts, they want to get-rich-quick. They want someone to babysit them and a proven system.Just follow these ideas and you’ll be successful.
Well, by definition that’s the opposite of entrepreneurship. ‘Cause the very definition of entrepreneurship, is that you create new things. You don’t follow the same path. You think outside the box and be unconventional. And the problem is, with network marketing, and I’m not putting it down. I do have friends who are very, very successful at it, but chances are they are either phenomenal speakers, they’re phenomenal salespeople, that they are very, very good at what they do, they’re great leaders.
The truth is it doesn’t matter if they’re in network marketing, they’re in real estate, they could be in insurance, they could be selling whatever, they would still be successful. It makes no difference, It’s not because the company made them successful. It’s because they are successful people to begin with, and it just happens to be in the network marketing industry.
That’s very profound, I want you to think about it. It’s not the industry. They are successful people to begin with. That’s why they get into it and that’s where they made their money. And because of leverage, because of the whole structure and compensation plan, it ends up they make a lot of money.
I do think if you’re getting started, it’s not something that I think is easy to do, because with the whole network marketing industry, and people always pitch about this whole thing, about oh, it’s this opportunity, and it’s so great, and the company’s growing, and it’s got a track record, and is all this stuff, and that’s all good.
You are a commodity
The problem is you’re a commodity. You’re a commodity, meaning as you are involved in a company where you are the same as everybody else. Anyone who’s your downline or your distributor or whatever the hell you call it, like your distributor, underneath you, well if they can sign up with you, they can sign up with anybody else. It’s the same shit.
They get the same package, they get the same stuff, they’re plugging the same system. So you are not unique at all. When you are not that unique, they get the same product, they get the same pricing, they get the same everything else, it makes it very difficult to build a business. Very, very difficult, because you don’t have that advantage, right? And also people, if you go into it, consider also the timing of the opportunity, sometimes you go into business, even bigger companies like Herbalife got into a lot of negative press.
Herbalife, Amway, Nu Skin, all these big companies, where if they’re too mature, then it’s already saturated. Imagine when you meet someone new and say hey, what do you do? I’m in Amway. Great, thanks talking to you, goodbye, right? That’s the end, like, you want people not talk to you?
I was just having a little bit of fun when I was attending an event, they have these name tags, and I attend an event, I actually don’t want people to talk to me. I put I’m in MLM, like a little ribbon, nobody talks to me. It’s awesome. It goes to show you, most people have negative association or negative experience with network marketing or MLM. So, it becomes very difficult to sell and to make money with it.
Most people don’t make money in MLM
And if you study the statistics, most people, they make little to no money. Only the people at the top make money. They make the top because they get into the right time, maybe early, maybe they are opening a new territory, a new country, and they’re there early. That’s who makes the most amount of money. People who have been around a long time, and now you join, there’s no money in that. So timing is critical.
Who you join hands with is critical. So that’s what I’m saying. If you want to use the products and you like the products and that’s what you want to do, that’s fine. But if you think that’s an easy way to make money, it’s not true. If you treat it like a business, that you’re going to do it for two, three, five, 10 years, and this is your career, and knowing you’re gonna get thousands of rejections, know that you’re gonna be babysitting a bunch of people who are like fucking just not entrepreneurial, like lazy and full of excuses and victim mentality, because that’s who the industry attracts, unfortunately.
If you’re okay with that, and you do get in the right time with the right company, then maybe. I’ve also had friends who make a lot of money with the company, suddenly the company, the corporate, changes the compensation plan or the structure. They were making 20, 30,000 a month, suddenly they’re freaking down to 5,000 a month overnight, a very short period of time.
Or, in some cases, the company got into some kind of scandal or some kind of issues. So don’t think about, oh, it’s no different than you’re working for a big company. Just thinking that company would always prosper, would always sustain. If you believe in that, you’re naive. I’m just pointing out the facts.
Develop Your Skills
If you want to make money, I think the very first thing you want to do is develop your high-income skill. Develop that skill, not joining some opportunity but develop your skill, what value you can add to the marketplace, to the world, and make money that way, and when you’re making a decent, high-income skill, I consider a six-figure income. Then if you want to leverage that, you want to start some network marketing business on the side, you want to join something, now you have some kind of skill set, then the chances of you succeeding will be a little bit higher. Still not easy, but it’s a little bit higher.
Conclusion
True entrepreneurs don’t join network marketing. True entrepreneurs, I believe, don’t buy franchises. They sell franchises. They start network marketing company, they don’t join network marketing company. The ones who I know make the most amount of money, there are a couple guys I know, here’s what they do. They have this amazing team of people and they will start these network marketing companies. They will raise capital, they’ll have the lawyer, they have an attorney craft the compensation plan, they will start it as the founding members. They’re not recruiting people, trust me. They’re the one who started it, and if it works to a certain degree, they’re going to scale it, expand to different countries.
If they don’t, they’re gonna close it down and then start the next one. And they hit a couple ones where they could go from zero to 100 million, 200 million in sales with massive distributorships, and they go to the next level, or it doesn’t go, the product is not getting traction, they shut it down, they start the next thing. That’s who makes the big bucks. The guys who sell, the guys who start network marketing company.
Everybody else, they make a little bit of money but that’s how it works. So that’s the truth. That’s my take on MLM and network marketing. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m just sharing you my perspectives. Maybe share your perspectives, comment below, and just, what’s your take? Maybe you love it, maybe you’ve been brainwashed by it, I don’t know, maybe you’ve had negative experience and you fucking hated it, that’s okay too. It’s okay, freedom of speech, right?
