MLM: Success Factors Revealed

MLM or Multi-Level-Marketing or Network Marketing or whatever other name some clever company will invent to get you to join, is not necessarily bad. I'm not here to trash the concept.

However, before you allow yourself to be sucked in by pretty brochures and circles drawn on the board at some hotel meeting next Tuesday night, here's what you must know.

If you are going to treat your MLM venture as a business, please understand that your success will never depend on a product or group of products. It will not matter that you are a founding member of the organization (going to ride the wave of success).

It won't depend on your passion for the product or your belief in the company's philosophy. Oh, by the way, forget about the compensation plan too (unilevel, binary, schminary, whatever...). None of it will matter if you don't do your homework.

Here are some secrets that I found out the hard way (not through MLM though...so you don't think I'm a disgruntled MLMer). Don't put the cart before the horse. In the case of promoting a product, don't fall in love with a product or an idea before you are absolutely certain that there exists a strong market for it.

Everything else that follows pales in comparison to this major secret that I just shared with you. Now, once you are absolutely convinced (through testing, preferrably tests that you conduct) that there is a market for your product (and please, please don't fall for "EVERYBODY needs it" either), pay attention to these critical facts.

You have to like and respect your upline and his upline as strong leaders. You must feel that you are committed to building the business; and, you must feel the same way about your upline and his upline. They must be reachable enough to know that they care about you and your success.

Next to doing your market study for the viability of the product you are promoting, nothing else comes close to the importance of working with strong and caring leaders. It's OK to be recruited by your best friend. In that case, look to two levels above your recruiter for the leadership.

In your Tuesday evening meetings and the Monday night conference calls and at the special events that you will be asked to participate in, you will hear lots of stories. How great the founder is, how wonderful the miracle products are, and how much of a strong and duplicatable system they have in place.

All of that is wonderful. But your success once again will depend on:

As you contemplate joining a MLM organization either because you feel you will have time to kill on your hands and you need something to do or you sense that this is your ticket to early retirement, don't bet the farm on it. You may find that there are more profitable opportunities - such as how to make money online - that may be worthy of your attention.

There are some well-intentioned folks out there who have graduated from the school of hard knocks in the MLM industry. If you can learn from them, I encourage you to. But as always, do your homework. With that said, here is one young lady's experience.

Remember the above and you will do well. Best of luck in your business ventures.

Return from MLM to Retirement Income