What My Corporate MLM Job Taught Me About Success
I spent most of my time talking to people offering advice, resources and encouragement. I learned a lot about human nature and about the fundamental difference between the successful and unsuccessful.This lesson can certainly be applied to business -but more importantly, life in general.
The fundamental problem with MLM's or Network Marketing Companies is not an erroneous or flawed business model. In fact, MLM is brilliant... it's taking customers and turning them into distributors. And, in order for that distributor to be qualified to earn money, they must themselves buy products every month (in some cases a lot of products.) That's just smart if you ask me.
But the MAIN PROBLEM is that the vast majority of people who become distributors in MLM do so believing that they can make a ton of money with a minimal amount of work. That is the essence of failure.
I didn't keep exact stats but over the years I had a good feel for the ratio of winners to losers in the company I worked for. Approximately 10% were successful (successful defined as people who were making more money than they were spending on products each month.) And, with that very generous criteria of "success" I'd say that only about 15% of the "winners" made over $1,000 per month.
So out of 100 of our distributors, 2 of them were clearing over $1,000 per month.
I did get to spend a lot of time with the truly successful distributors. A handful were making serious money -over $20K per month. (Probably way more than that now.) I discovered they weren't necessarily brilliant. They weren't necessary hot-shot salespeople. They all seemed to possess two very key characteristics. They genuinely cared about other people and they were absolutely committed to what they were doing. Failure was not part of their vocabulary.
Conversely, I spent a lot of time with the unsuccessful distributors. I also discovered a very popular characteristic of this group. They were complainers, and at their very core, they were not willing to do what the successful were willing to do. Simply put, they lacked commitment. I truly cared about them and wanted them to win, but I spent most of my time defending the company because the unsuccessful distributors needed to blame someone for their lack of achievement. I'm generalizing... there were a lot of very decent, hard-working people but they just did not have the commitment and focus it took to be successful.
I'm nowhere near where I want to be in my online businesses. But I've stuck with it for many, many years and learned that to be successful, I need to commit and recommit to what I'm doing and just as important, I need to care about people -that will make me more effective in meeting their needs. The money has and will continue to follow.
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I fell into the trap of Joining a MLM thinking it was going to be easy money. I joined EPX body thinking that anyone who joined would not have trouble enrolling four people (four people is the break even point)The problem was that
1 I had no idea how to convince people to join, to me it was the smartest thing anyone could do.
2. My upline never contacted me once, even when I tried contacting them. This was a huge mistake for them. They needed everyone they personally enrolled to succeed as much as they do.
On paper MLM is absolutely amazing, but in practice it is so hard to pull off.
Right on the money! As previously successful networkers, my wife and I have found exactly the same thing. But, interestingly enough, I did work with one company that deserved all the criticism coming from the field. The CEO is arrogant and narcissistic. And, he left a greedy moron in charge of the hen house when the fox was away. We were making in excess of $20-40K/mos, and we walked away from it. We simply quit on principle.
The worst part of that was, there were many people who felt that that was a severe solution to the problem and criticized us saying that the company cannot be that bad. But, when you know what you know, you have to take action on it.
So, now, when I hear people whining and complaining about a company I listen closely because there may be a kernel of truth that provides insight into a problem. We have learned how to discern up front, before we join a company, whether the integrity is worthy of our involvement.
I just joined WA a couple days ago, and I hope to have my account set up shortly. Then you will be able to learn more about who I am and what a 63 year old networker looks like.
Thanks for the comments. Welcome to WA. I know you will love it here as I do. Perhaps one day we could networking stories.
Great read - thank you.
My first boss (too many years ago to remember) told me that if you took any business sector 1-2% of businesses in that sector would be real stars and doing exceptionally well, a further 3% would be doing well, 10% would be getting satisfactory results, 60% would be just getting by and the rest would be slipping down the slope to failure. Pretty much stacks with your analysis.
I too spent many years working with distributors (not in MLM) and yes the vast majority spend a lot of their time looking for someone to blame. Strangely enough the same is true for many unsuccessful direct sales people.
As a fellow distributor of mlm products I would have to agree. Great insight, to that end I would say if people aren't exited about the products and opportunities they shouldn't expect much. Passion for your cause or the "why" you do it is what drives the commitment. That's why people excel at what they love, they are committed. Excellent advice!
Thanks Simkin, I agree. We used to call it "business evangelism". True passion, not superficial, is contagious!
I think the real value or worthiness for MLM companies reside in there credibility & how they function. There are MLM's dating back to the late 1800's like Avon, and they're very successful. Avon works very well for its customers and has a good staff running it. But I also know a few MLM's I prefer not to say, because it's known that a few have been spamming up the search engines & various social marketing sites like Fb, while encouraging others to primarily advertise for there own business instead of pursuing the ideal of advertising a product they might actually be interested in advertising through Amazon, Ebay, or another specific affiliated company. No matter what product you're advertising for, I feel it's important to pursue real marketing instead of spam tactics while with the goal of helping others find resources that really help them.
Good comments. Completely agree with you Slayton. The MLM company I worked for was a great company, lots of integrity and great leadership. One of the biggest challenges of an MLM company, (and I know this because it was part of my job) is to control how the distributor field represents the company, in terms of marketing, internet exposure, etc. To a large degree, It's virtually impossible to control the tactics they use.
Very interesting analysis, thank you. I agree with your comments, much the same as you see in most parts of the corporate world,
Regards
Hudson.
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Great points. I loved your insight.