How to be Successful at MLM

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Multi-level marketing (MLM) has been getting a bad rap recently in many media outlets. While many of the concerns have a foundation in fact, they are not the only facts. I have been working on these insights on how to be successful using an MLM platform for a few years. Today the wait is over and I am here to uncover the secrets to MLM success.

I am not currently affiliated with any MLM company, and I have no plans to be. I am not trying to recruit anyone for anything. My first wife was successful in a company that is no longer in operation as an MLM. I do not know what happened to the company. It was after I was no longer involved with the company or that wife. I did work with her for a couple of years, and we had relationships with some of the highest performers in the company. We did well enough to qualify for fantastic travel incentives, which gave us special access to the stars in the company, including both MLM veterans and newbies.

My advice is not based on anything I learned directly from those high performers. Instead my insights are based on 20-years of reflecting on our experiences, what the company taught, and what they did not teach. It comes from thinking about the people I knew who became successful and made a great deal of money.

Not all MLMs are Scams

While not all MLM opportunities are scams, many are, which contributes to their bad reputation. Even those that are not scammed are usually operated in a way to maximize company success over individual success.

Often people associate MLMs with pyramid schemes, and I can see how a MLM could be used to support a pyramid scheme. It is not hard to pick these out, though.

A pyramid scheme is a fraud/con that uses the money from later participants to fund returns for earlier participants. Often these are investment schemes (see Bernie Madoff). The con artist uses the money invested by investors to provide an outsized return to early investors. This leads early investors to invest more money and to attract other investors to the scheme. Let’s say you invest $100 with me, and next week I return $20 to you with the promise to repeat this every week. A 20% return on an investment in one week is unheard of. Loan sharks and casinos do not see returns like that. There is a good chance…