Sunday, November 9, 2008

What Is Network Marketing?

By Matt Hellstrom

Network Marketing is a way that companies market their products to the consumer. It is different from most other types of businesses because it doesn't have any advertising, wholesaling, or retailing costs involved in it. It is done entirely by direct selling and referral, word-of-mouth type of advertising. This eliminates the middle man.

What do you mean by "No Middle Man"?

One of the benefits of this is that more money can be spent on research, development and manufacturing, which usually results in much higher quality, unique products.

The benefit that probably means the most to you? It's the fact that some of that money that's freed up by not paying for advertising, wholesalers, and retailers, can go in the pocket of the person who is promoting the product by telling his friends and family about it.

These people have their own business, generating income by recruiting like-minded individuals who want to work for themselves, or customers that just want the products and purchase them directly from the parent company, or a combination of the two. They are called associates, distributors, or independent agents, depending on the company. All three mean the sam.

Distributors earn commissions based on the sales efforts of their organization, which includes their efforts as well as the efforts of their downline. Commissions are paid to distributors according to their company's compensation plan. There can be multiple levels of people receiving commission from one person's sales. In addition, distributors can earn profit by retailing products which they purchase from their parent company at wholesale price.

I've heard of multi-level marketing, or MLM. What's the difference between this and network marketing?

There is no difference! These two terms, network marketing and multi-level marketing actually refer to different aspects of the same type of business.

Network Marketing describes how the products are marketed, through a network of people in communication with one another.

Leverage is created by paying commissions on multiple levels of associates as compensation for their efforts. This is what is referred to as the term "Multi-Level Marketing".

What do you mean by leverage?

When you are talking about leverage in this context you are talking about earning money from somebody else's efforts.

This leverage concept is used by any traditional business with employees. The company pays the employee a salary, which hopefully isn't is as much as he brings in. The owner of the company gets to keep the difference. He is leveraging his income by making profit from the efforts of his employee.

This is kind of the same as network marketing compensation plans, but there is a big difference: In a network marketing plan, the ones that are being leveraged off of are other independent distributors instead of employees. Therefore, there are no employee costs involved and hopefully these people will be more motivated because they also own their own business.

Wait a minute! Is this one of those "Pyramid Schemes"?

If distributors are paid primarily from money received from new recruits, or if they're required to buy more product than they are likely to sell, then the company may be a pyramid. Pyramids are illegal in all states and most countries. Legitimate Network Marketing companies are not only legal, but thrive in every state and in most countries.

There are illegal pyramid schemes that try to pass themselves off as legitimate network marketing businesses. If a company is legitimate, the distributor can only earn commission from sales of the company's products or services, and not from recruiting sign-up fees alone.

Here are a couple of good resources for learning more about the Network Marketing Industry.

First is Brilliant Compensation by Tim Sales. Second is The 45 Second Presentation That Will Change Your Life by Don Faila. Both of these tools are highly recommended for your own knowledge and to show to skeptical prospects. They are both created from a third-party perspective and not for any particular company.

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