Network Marketing - Can I Make It?
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Q:  I need help. I was touched by your inspirational words about “The Bum.” 
Right now I am fighting for my future, I am doing a network marketing business.
I believe that God has put this business in my heart, also a vision for this business 
but my parents don't agree with this business.

They have their own reasons. One of the reason is that once they were cheated in 
one of "this kind of business." Please pray for me, because I know that parents are a doorkeeper 
for blessings upon my life. I felt too that right now the devil is attacking me badly. In just 1 month... 
I have experienced being fined 3 times and I crushed someone's car. 
Please pray for me because I have a vision to share this vision to youths of my generation, 
especially those who are Christian.
Thanks
God Bless You

from the Mountain. . .

Dear Network Nervous,
Business is usually a struggle. It can be a joyous struggle but it is usually a struggle nonetheless.
I always advise people to listen to their parents, especially if they have good parents with good track records.
I advise you now as a businessman, not a pastor. Although the advice should be the same, for truth is one, 
in reality different sets of experiences will lead you to express advice in different forms.

This is from the practical businessman:
There is a reason why your parents are skeptical about your network marketing business. 
They have been mislead through a network marketing business before. Many, if not most, have been misled by a MLM. It’s not that they were specifically lied to, but they were led to believe they would make a lot more money than they did. A lot more.

I have been involved personally in two Multi-Level Marketing Businesses pursuits. You can call them MLM’s, Network Marketing, or the original name, Pyramid Schemes. No matter what the name the concept is the same, 
you get other people to sign up and you get a percentage of everyone they signup. Everyone that signs up under you is in your downline. Each level usually has a different percentage and different MLM’s go anywhere from two to infinite levels deep. 

Network Marketing is not new but it began to get very popular within the last 10 years. 
Other people got me involved. 
The first was a long distance phone service MLM and the second involved nutritional products. There was nothing illegal about either venture. Both had good and fair products. One even had an outstanding product that was better than anything on the market.

These are my logical views and experiences with MLM's. These are MY VIEWS. I always try to separate personal from spiritual truth. This is an area that I have had direct experience in and know many others that have direct experience in it.

First, MLM’s are highly emotional. Virtually every MLM has its members believing that they will be ready to retire in a year. The long distance phone service that I was involved in sent a monthly newsletter. In the newsletter they had a listing of the number of members that were making over 20,000.00 per month. They had a listing of the number earning 10 to 20k per month. They had a listing for each level and the number of members earning within that level. 

When I looked over the figures, of 200,000 members, only 5 to 10 people made big money. About 100 made 
decent money. About 1,000 made enough to make it barely worthwhile. By the time you subtracted what they spent from what they earned, over 99% didn't make enough to cover what a minimum wage job would have paid for the same number of hours.

It was a legitimate MLM but when you looked at the money distribution, it was a BIG Pyramind. A very few people made a lot of money at the top, and a Huge number of people made very little at the bottom.
In the meetings hype went through the roof. You felt as though you could go out and put a deposit on a Rolls Royce because the money was just around the corner. The problem was the corner was a million miles away.

The person that brought me in had over 500 people in his down line. He felt he a Rolls Royce was just around the corner. I asked him not too long ago how much was he receiving from his MLM. It was about $30 a month.

When I recruited people for the long distance service, I paid the entry fees for 75% of those that joined under me.

Why did I do that?

Because I knew that most of them would not even earn their money back from the $400 sign-up fee. I would not be a part of having people put money in when I knew they would not likely get it back. If a loss occurred, I wanted it to be on my end, not theirs if I was the instrument that brought them into the MLM. I also knew that it did present opportunity, and for a select few, they could make it worthwhile. None did. I paid for 12 people to give them an opportunity to make it. None earned enough to even pay back the $400.

The second MLM that I joined sold a nutritional product. I got involved not because of the money, but because the product was unique and the best on the market. Again, they made everyone feel as if a Rolls Royce was just around the corner. The person that sponsored me made at a peak $5,000.00 in one month and that was only after 3-4 months. This person incidentally made a 5 star distributor rating faster than anyone in the history of the company.

Now, his monthly amount is virtually zero. The $5k was three years ago.

The problem with the nutritional product was the price. It was a great product but the cost was nearly triple what it should be. The reason the cost was so high was because of all the commissions through all of the levels. It was great for those that were selling the product, but terrible for those that had to pay the high price to buy the products.

What we found was that after a few months, the high cost caused most of the customers to fall out. Eventually, most dropped off.

These are 5 rules that I can tell you from experience concerning MLM's.

1. The VAST majority in MLM's will not earn any significant money for any extended period of time. Of the 500 people in the phone MLM downline, none made any real money. The nutritional product did much better but only for a very small and select few.

2. MLM's have become so commonplace now that most people (like your parents) have been exposed to them, have had negative experiences with MLM's, and are leery about MLM's. Most SPAM (unsolicited e-mail), promotes an MLM of some sort. They all promise easy money in a short period of time.

3. Any MLM whose primary income is derived from the recruiting of new people is destined to collapse. This is the core of a pyramid scheme. Never base your future on anything that is destined to fail in the end. If the major money is not from legitimate, competitive priced, competitive quality products, then you will lose customers and you will eventually run out of new recruits. The Big question is always, what are you selling. To make continual money in a down line not only must the products be good, they must not be One Time purchases. You need a product that people use up on a regular basis.

4. MLM's foster an extreme spirit of greed. I have seen even the most religious of people completely change when enveloped with the passion of the MLM hype. Believe me, I have seen it more than once.

5. The core of the spirit of the MLM philosophy is "get something for nothing." It is built on the premise of getting someone else to work for you. You bring them in, they bring someone else, they bring someone else, etc. and you get paid on everyone's work. I am not saying it is necessarily wrong, but the psychological base theory is to get something quick on someone else's effort.

There is an old slogan, “you can’t con an honest man.” That is still basically true. All cons operate on the principle that you put 1 in and get 100 out.  If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Be wary of the MLM hype. I know many very intelligent people that have been in a frenzy over an MLM project. 

I am not saying that you can’t make a success of it, but I am saying there is more hype than truth in the MLM promo.

I would give the same advice to someone that wanted to be a professional athelte. Sure, a select few make millions, but get a good education and have something else solid just in case you don’t make it in the pros (which unless you’ve got the skills of Tiger Woods is likely).

Your parents may not be right, but they do have the statistics on their side and they probably know what they are talking about.

Just a word from the businessman's side.

One other note: You said the Devil was attacking you, that you had been fined 3 times in one month. 
Fined for what? 
If you were fined 3 separate times that wasn’t likely the Devil. 
That was more likely you were breaking the rules.
Anytime rules are broken, whether they are traffic, business, or spiritual, there is a penalty to be paid and that penalty is not levied by the Devil.

Pastor Nathaniel

A Comment from A Subscriber

Wow!! Your network marketing advice was VERY on point!! 
I got involved in a phone AND product-based MLM scheme. 
(They were legal, but were based upon getting rich quick) 

Most businesses have a value statement. 
The value statement is the selling point of the product or service that is being sold.  

The MLM value statement (although tacit) is that YOU (the representative) can get rich quick. 
One might argue that the MLM's are really trying to sell a good product/service; however, their meetings &
conferences focus more on how you can make money than on product training. 

I might be off base, but, I generally get a bad feeling about those things. Plus, representatives for these schemes
become like crackheads: always chasing you down asking for money, never taking no for an answer, always in
denial, and always lying. (rep's are in denial about the fact that they aren't making any money, but if you ask them how things are going, they'll say GRrrrrreat! ha ha ha) 

Anyhow, just my long-winded way of saying i wholeheartedly agree with your advice.

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