How I chose an MLM

So many of my friends literally shreiked in horror when I told them I was going to give MLM a go. Why, they asked, when you already have a great job on a good salary and as a lecturer you have status and respect.

Well, to the best of my knowledge status and respect did not pay my bills and all my skills and knowledge simply made me a good employee. We were still struggling to pay our mortgage, save for holidays, keep up with the credit cards, pay for the kids music,dance and drama lessons etc.

By 40 instead of life getting easier it just kept getting harder with literally no end in site. In fact it began to feel like a life sentence.

So, that's why I started to look round for another way. I knew lots of people were making money by working online and I couldn't see why we shouldn't give it a try.

Now I have a Post Grad degree in business so I had a reasonable idea what to look out for. Here was what I decided to avoid - anything where making money depended solely on getting others to join, anything with a product that would not sell in traditional retail, anything that said 'in pre-launch' or 'get in now' etc

Even though I have been involved for over a year now I am still amazed at the complete rubbish people will sign up to. It is so easy to tell the difference between a scam (pyramid/scheme/programme etc) and a real online business.

A business is an entity whose sole purpose is to generate profit through the sale of goods or services. If there is no product or service being sold then whatever it is it certainly is not a business. And if the profit (or the money) is being created from sign up fees/sale of start up kits/sale of ongoing training tapes etc then again there is no real product at the heart of the business.

A friend of mine joined Amway many years ago and spent a fortune on the products and training books.tapes etc. After about 2 years he quit and asked me why he hadn't made any money. When I explained that it was because he was his only real customer and that they made more from the training materials than they did from the products he got it. That's why all new distributors were virtually forced to sign up to the training programme - there's a huge profit on selling tapes that cost pennies to make for a couple of pound each.

I decided to seek out a business that did not require me to collect or distribute any stock - I had no time and if I wanted to go into retail I would open a shop. I wanted a 'product' that was placed in a market sector experiencing long term and sustained growth and something that already had mass market appeal (as opposed to some lame product that nobody had ever heard of that came with spurious and vastly over-inflated claims of what it could do)

I also wanted the company to be legitimate and to have been trading for more than 3 years (most MLMs don't make it to 12 months) I wanted a sponsor who would be actively involved in helping me to grow my down line rather than someone who relied on auto-responders/emails and newsletters.

What I know about business is that there is no such thing as a free lunch or easy money or get-rich-quick. Millions of these schemes/pyramids come and go and I must be invited to join at least 20 per week - I have already met many people who have lost money or not earned anything like they were promised.

Business is HARD WORK! MLM takes time, effort, dedication and a genuine willingness to help others - not remotely via email etc but personally either face to face or by phone & web cam. I treat all my down line the way I want to be treated myself - with respect and a heart felt willingness to help.

It took me 6 months research to find the MLM I wanted to join and it has been the best decision I (and my wife) ever made. Though we are not millionaires yet it is a great feeling to know that we will be and we have certainly met some amazing people along the way.

So if you are reading this and you would like some help to tell the difference between a legitimate online business and a scam please get in touch. The easiest way of all is if it says you'll be earning thousands of dollars within weeks/months my advice is to avoid it like the plague!

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