A Great Way To Lose Money, For The Most Part

So Let me get this straight I do not promote MLM’s.  Have I seen people make a living with them?  Yes.  I knew a woman who made a good living off of it I believe she used Amway as her outlet.  I will not say that you cannot succeed.  The problem is most people do not and the people who do have to keep finding people to buy into the company because most people cannot succeed and end up in the negatives and have not seen the wonderful profits they promise.

I Would Like To Discuss A Business Opportunity

I do not know about you but I have been approached by many people trying to sell me on a wonderful business opportunity.  I found out very quickly that they were normally selling an MLM like Amway or It Works Or some other scheme.

Now first thing they will normally tell you is that it is not a pyramid scheme because those are “Illegal” which they are .  Yay but the only difference is between a pyramid scheme and an MLM is that one actually offers physical goods that can be sold to the general public and the other normally does not and to make a profit one needs to recruit others into the business.

Lets look at It Works for a moment it claims to be an MLM not a pyramid scheme.  It does sell a physical product that the distributor can make money on (In Theory).  Then why do all of the people I know who sell It Works change their strategy from selling products to trying to sell the business.  Well it is simple.  Like most MLM the product is hard to sell it is either too specialized or the returns on your investment are too low to be of any profit.

Most people who join an MLM find they are sitting on tons of product that they paid their hard cash for and they have normally exhausted their client base and cannot sell any more product so they have to switch gears and start selling the dream.

Everything in an MLM costs money they will try and get you to buy the starter kit for just $99 oh it is a steal and you can sell the  four wraps and various other products that are way too expensive for most people to want to buy them.  Wait there is more!!!  Do you want to learn the secret method to really turn this business into shear gold well then pay for an exclusive trip to a far away land where you will get the best training on how to peddle It Works.  Normally the training is sell the dream and if people do not believe in It Works they are stupid.  It sounds more like a cult than a business.

You see the business model is normally not a sustainable one.  The product is way too expensive.  You can buy It Works wraps on Ebay for way less than a distributor.  You can go to Walmart or Amazon and buy comparable products for way cheaper than any MLM distributor because normally they charge their distributors closer to retail not wholesale.  So you get invested in tons of product that just sits because you cannot get rid of it.

So they tell you to get distributors under you that is where the real money is so you start selling the dream to others.  They run into the same issues you do and they either drop out or they try to recover their losses by selling the dream to others.  It is a vicious cycle and one that normally leaves people more broke then when they started.

You Are Aways Selling And Everyone Is A Client

The first thing they tell you is to go on social media and promote your products and the business.  They tell you to sell to people you meet everyone is a prospective client.  This really will play havoc with your life the constant have to sell mentality not to mention the alienation of tons of friends.  The people I know who are promoting It Works have lost friends even had horrible fights with their loved ones over It Works.  The sad thing is they are so sold on the cause that the loss of friendships doesn’t even phase them they just think if they were good friends they would believe in the business I have chosen.  People do not want to feel like they are being sold to all the time especially if it is an unwanted product or business.

If you keep promoting to your friends and family you get viewed as a schemer and a cheat.  You quickly strain relationships and lose them as well.

Are The Products Really That Great

When my friend started It Works I did a lot of research on their products.  “Can a wrap make you skinnier?”  I asked.  Well yes and no.  You see the wraps work by dehydrating a certain part of the body.  They take the water out and the area shrinks because humans are mostly made up of water.  If you don’t keep wrapping then the area will go back to normal.  There may also be health consequences if you get too dehydrated.

You see most of the products are touted as some great thing when they are normally just a scam themselves.  Take AmWay they sell nutritional supplements and beauty supplies.  What makes them better than what you can find at Costco, Walmart, or Amazon is it the higher price?  Oh wait they are specially formulated I forgot.  Unlike all those other non-specially formulated brands that cost way less.

You Can Earn

The question is do you want to?  Most MLMs require you to find other people to be distributors and get you a percentage of their products that they buy through the MLM.  The drop off is so high though that you have to keep recruiting others into the business otherwise your revenue will dry up very fast.  So you are always selling and that is how people make money through MLMs.  They keep finding others to pay into the dream and when they leave because they found that it was not a feasible business model normally after they had spent a lot of money and have tons of unsold product they have to find the people to replace them.

If you are OK with making a buck off of others and not caring if they can afford it or not then go ahead.  You will not win any friends and your life will just be focused around the sale.  I have met people who have made it work but normally they are constantly selling the company not the product because they know it doesn’t sell either.

So What Is An Alternative

Well I have promoted many different methods of making an honest buck.  There is Dropshipping, working for Upwork, and Affiliate marketing.  These are legit and honest business models that are focused on helping people get what they want and you get paid for it.

Just like everything you can be shady with any business, but they are not shady in nature.  One method is Affiliate Marketing.  This is one of the best models for making money, because it can be on autopilot.  You create a website that is based on a passion or a solution to others problems.  Take acne this is a common problem so you create a website based on helping people find solutions to their acne problem.  This is something you do all the time with out even knowing it.  When you find something you love like a favorite video game or the best fishing rod you have ever used you tell people about it.  Well that is affiliate marketing you just are not getting a commission for the sales as you would if you had a website.

This is why I am such a fan of affiliate marketing.  if you do it in an honest way it is a great way to direct people to things you are passionate about and make money off of your passion at the same time.  This is why I promote Wealthy Affiliate.  I am a member and I really believe in it.  Read my review and see if it is a good fit for you.

Share your experiences with MLM in the comments section.