Is network marketing right for you? You may have been approached by a friend or come across some information online about it.
Some people have crazy opinions about network marketing. In this article, I hope to give you enough information so you can form your own opinion and decide if network marketing is a good fit for you.
When it comes down to it, network marketing is just a business model that happens to be wildly successful. Some of the most successful companies in the world have this business model.
It’s not surprising then that network marketing produces more millionaires than any other business model.
Let’s take a deeper look.
Why Network Marketing?
Here’s one of the many reasons why I love network marketing.
It’s a marketing strategy where you are paid a commission for sales. You also generate additional income for sales from others on your direct team.
That means income comes from multiple levels of your organization. For example, in my network marketing business, we have 8 different ways to generate income!
If you were just a salesman, you would only get commission on the products you sell directly to your customers. With network marketing you get to leverage your team.
Another key benefit of why network marketing may be right for you is the low entry cost.
If you ever wanted to start your own home business with a chance to be successful beyond your wildest dreams, network marketing is the way to go.
People join network marketing for many reasons, the most popular of those:
- Supplemental income
- Full time income
- Product discounts
- Meet new people
You might invest anywhere from $100 to $500 to start your business and have a small monthly autoship of about $100.
That is nothing compared to if you were to start a brick and mortar franchise business that would cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and take about 5 years to break even.
You can see that the ability to generate multiple levels of income and low entry are powerful reasons why network marketing may be right for you.
But the best reason is that with this business model, you can truly make as much money as you want, depending on what you are willing to do.
How is Network Marketing Structured?
Network marketing has been around since the 1950’s. The most popular MLM products were supplements, household products, and cosmetics.
As the industry grew, other products were added to the mix such as insurance, phone services, utilities, travel, legal services, credit cards and much more!
The underlying marketing method is word of mouth marketing and relationship referrals. This means is there no middle man involved in the sales process.
There are no employees required for your network marketing business. This is one reason why it may be the right business for you.
By building a team of independent business owners, each person has the ability to earn residual income. This income is based on purchases made by each team member as well as their customers.
Residual income differs from employment in a big way. When you are employed, you trade time for money. This means that if you work one hour you get paid for one hour.
With residual income, it continues long after the work is completed. That’s where leverage comes in.
And let’s not forget the tax benefits!
There are many type of compensation plans with the most common ones being:
- Unilevel plan
- Breakaway plan
- Forced matrix plan
- Binary plan
You can read more about the compensation plans here.
Network Marketing is About People Helping People
You may have heard network marketers talk about their passion for helping others.
It’s true!
Most often, people are not actually looking for products or even to start a business.
They are searching for solutions to life’s problems. For example, if someone needs to lose weight, they are searching for ways to shed those pounds. They are not necessarily looking for a specific product.
If someone is tired of living paycheck to paycheck or behind on their bills, they are looking for a way to solve that problem although they don’t yet know what that is.
For those reasons, network marketers are really problem solvers, helping others get solutions that work in their lives.
Is Network Marketing a Risky Business?
That depends.
Many people make money in network marketing while others don’t.
But that is not due to network marketing at all. You can start a franchise that cost hundreds of thousands of dollar and not make any money.
The success of your MLM business has little to do with the network marketing business model and everything to do with your understanding of the business.
For example, many people join an MLM company but don’t really treat it like a business. They treat is more like a little hobby and hobbies cost money!
So really, it’s up to you as to whether you succeed or fail with any business you get involved in.
The advantages of network marketing businesses is that the average person can start one. Really? Who has a cool million sitting around to start a brick and mortar franchise?
Network marketing businesses are perfect for people who:
- Lack experience running their own business
- Have little previous sales experience
- Are unhappy with their current income level
- Have been unsuccessful running previous businesses
Any person can achieve high levels of success.
Conclusion
I hope that I’ve provided you with enough information to determine is network marketing is right for you. Starting any business is a decision that should be taken seriously, especially if you want to succeed!
What are your thoughts about MLM? Do you have a business or are you thinking about starting one?
If MLM is not for you there are other ways to make money online, such as promoting affiliate offers.
If you’d like to learn about other types of marketing and how they can be applied to your personal success, then simply click here to learn about a top earner framework that gets results!
Hi Lisa,
Another first class post from yourself
You’ve covered the most important questions people have about network marketing.
About 90% of the people in our industry would be much better off just to be a customer and do something else. Most people in our industry have the employee mindset. I honestly believe you won’t/can’t build a successful business of any kind with that type of mindset. Just to clarify, there is nothing wrong with being an employee. That being said, most people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. Just my two cents.
Chuck
Hi Lisa. I like network marketing for the same reasons that you said. I will have been with my company for 10 years next month. I think anybody can be successful in this business, but like anything else, they have to know what they want to accomplish and then be willing to do what has to be done to achieve that. That’s probably the biggest challenge to network marketing. Many MLMers are so desperate to get people to sign up with them that nobody every leads the new people through that process of determining goals and what success means for them. You have to have a plan.