Have you ever considered making a career for yourself online? Of course you have. Even if you haven’t, there’s not a single person I can think of who would turn their nose up at a chance to make their living online, and I can’t blame them; you get to work from home with nothing but a computer, time, and a little bit of dedication.
Sure, you have to have that time and dedication, and a little skill doesn’t hurt to help you put yourself out there, but for the most part, working from home is the bee’s knees as long as you have the drive necessary to push yourself and be successful.
When you find that you’ve gained that success, you’ll also find that others will want to get in on the action as well. While this attention can definitely be a great thing, there are certain schemes which do not have your best interests in mind – Multi-level marketing (MLM) is one of the latter. If you haven’t heard of it, or don’t know what MLM is, here’s the sitch: MLM is all about recruiting sales people who will then hopefully recruit other sales people, and so on and so forth forever.
They believe in compensating sales by not only the sales force, but the other folks they recruit as well, and it works mostly by word of mouth sales, as well as sales based on relationships, such as your friends and family. By doing this, they’re hoping you’ll not only sell to them, but also encourage them to join you as a seller by making it sound like you’re making lots of money with minimal effort. At the surface it all seems very cut and dry, but there are a few reasons why it’s definitely not, and why it’s never worth your time.
Recruitment
We’ll start with one we’ve already touched on a little bit: Recruitment. Part of your job as a seller for an MLM company is, essentially, selling others on becoming sellers themselves. You’ll tell them how wonderful being a seller is, how successful you’ve been at being a seller yourself, and sell them on goals you yourself have likely not yet reached. Achieving these goals will depend entirely on how many people you can convince of these goals, and honestly? If you’ve managed to convince some of your friends and family that these goals are achievable, then they’ll likely soon realize you’ve not been entirely honest with them. And so on, and so forth, forever.
Zero Control
When a multi-level marketing associate approaches you, they have one goal in mind: Getting you interested in the ever-present dream of becoming an independent business owner and finally getting the chance to be your own boss, work your own hours, and be in control over your income. Unfortunately, this pitch is pretty far from the truth; in fact, behind all of that sugar lies some spice, being that you are entirely at their mercy. You, as an MLM associate must sell the things they want you to sell, say what they want you to say about them, and follow their strict guidelines on how you can and can not promote their products. After all, in this industry, you aren’t being paid to be honest, you’re being paid to sell the product, and you will be condemned if you don’t follow their rules.
Customer Base
Multi-Level Marketing is all about getting you started by selling to the people you know will support you – your family and friends. It teaches you to essentially use their loyalty and trust in you to capitalize on them while you ‘self-start’ your own business, and in the long-run, this can have quite an impact on your personal relationship with them, especially if you manage to get them in on the scheme as well. You’ll sell them products that you not only may not have personal experience with, but that you may not believe in if you have had experience with them, and generally the products will be far too overpriced for the quality. Trust me, this is not the type of business you want to run or be a part of, especially not since participating in the way they would like will likely make you work to gain back the trust of those who trusted and supported you most. People just don’t appreciate getting taken advantage of, and you really shouldn’t be taking advantage of them. Can you blame them?
How You Can Avoid It
Now that we’ve covered some bases on why MLM is just not worth the investment or the loss of friends and family, we thought we’d take the time to go over a few ways in which you can go about avoiding getting caught up in one of these online pyramid schemes. After all, the best way to build your own business with success is to build it upon a foundation of trust, honesty, and integrity, and multi-level marketing just won’t get you there.
Do Your Research
Be prepared for the fact that MLM’s will reach out to you once you’ve hit a certain point in your career, and they’ll come with promises of wealth and success. The general rule of thumb is that, if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is, and you should avoid it. If you’re hard up for cash, though, and that opportunity seems good enough to take a chance with, all we ask is that you do your research. Google the company and see what others have said about them, or what they have said about working for them, keeping in mind that too many over-zealous and perky reviews is sometimes a negative sign, too. Look on their website for a page which outlines their views and beliefs, and their business. Does it seem to be run with integrity and honesty, or is it nothing but “Started From The Bottom, Now We’re Here” success stories?
Fine Print
If you’ve found a company that seems legitimately good and profitable, make sure you don’t sign up for anything without reading the fine print. Likely they will have a contract they want you to sign in order to get started, and you’ll want to make sure you read it all in its entirety. I know, I know, it’s a lot of reading, but if you can avoid getting caught up in an MLM scheme, I promise you it’ll be worth it. And trust me, they’ll throw everything they have at you, and they’ll throw it hard; after all, at the end of the day their main goal is to get you to sign up for their program so they can use you to be more successful, and they’ll pretty much tell you everything you want to hear. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it to be a part of an honest company that will help you come by your success honestly, and in the best way.
From Visually.
