Network marketing, multi-level marketing (MLM) or direct selling is a popular business scheme, not only in the Philippines, but also in other parts of the world. This kind of business can be done part-time or full-time. Whether you’re young or old, a professional or still a student, network marketing can be a lucrative business for you if done the right way. If you want to achieve success in MLM or network marketing, here are 10 tips to succeed in this industry.
1. Choose the right company. Make sure that the MLM company you are joining is a legitimate one. Check out if it is duly registered and have all the necessary legal requirements to do business in your place or country. In the Philippines, a legitimate business should have a certificate of registration with the Securities of Exchange Commission (SEC) if it’s a partnership or a corporation, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) if it’s a sole proprietorship, Mayor’s Business Permit, Bureau of Internet Revenue (BIR), and other applicable registrations when necessary. A legit business should also issue a BIR official receipt or sales invoice every time you pay money for a product or service from them.
2. Choose the right products. Aside from choosing a legitimate MLM company, choose the company that offers products you can really promote. If an MLM company doesn’t have any product at all, and it’s just all about talk, then it’s not a good business. Choose a company with high-quality products that can really help people have a better life. Pick products that you can be confident in promoting and selling it to people.
3. Create a marketing plan. Strategic planning is a vital step in marketing. If you want to be a successful network marketer, then you have to make a game plan. Define your long-term goals, set your specific objectives, and establish your steps and procedures to achieve those goals and objectives.
4. Be the manifestation of the product you are selling. Do not promote or sell products you haven’t used and proven to be useful to you. Make yourself the living evidence that your products are great and effective. If you want to become highly convincing, then you should convince people not only by your words, but also by your actions and way of life. For example, if you’re promoting health products, then you must show to them that you become healthy by using those products. Network marketing is based on word-of-mouth marketing. Make sure that what comes from your mouth is your actual experience in using your products.
5. Practice relationship marketing. Network marketing or multi-level marketing is also based on relationship marketing. Do not expect people to immediately believe and trust your words. You have to be patient in building good relationships with them. The MLM industry is a very competitive one. In order for you to stand out from the crowd, you don’t need to have the loudest promotional words spoken, but you need to have the most sincere words spoken and the deepest relationship built with people whom you are targeting. So make sure that your purpose is making friends and making them happy and not just in making dowlines to increase your income.
6. Respect people. In order to improve your relationship marketing campaign further, show respect to everyone. Be positive in the right way. Do not judge people that they are negative just because they ignored your invitation, but instead be polite, humbly ask an apology for getting their attention, and thank them for listening somehow. Respect is very important in network marketing because it is an important key to building trust and good relationship with other people.
7. Find mentors. Learn from the success of other network marketers. Be passionate in growing your knowledge and wisdom in convincing and influencing people. You can find mentors inside your team. You can also learn by reading books, blogs, articles, and by listening from the different testimonials of other people who have already succeeded in this kind of business. Furthermore, don’t forget to learn from your customers or from your downlines – they often give you the best lessons in business and in life.
8. Guide and coach your downlines. MLM won’t succeed without teamwork. The reason it is called multi-level marketing is because it is based on team building and amalgamating the knowedge, skills and efforts of each team member, including the team leader. If you’re a team leader, make sure you are helping your entire team to move forward and achieve your common goals.
9. Build your personal brand. If you want to convince, influence and recruit more people to join in your networking business, you have to earn authority for yourself. You have to build your personal brand. There are many ways to establish your personal brand. You can build a blog, create social media profiles, contribute articles to related online publications, and other personal branding tactics to establish yourself as a trusted person in your industry. For example, if you’re promoting health products, you can build a health blog with informational content to earn followers. You can also try getting career certifications (e.g. certified dietitian or nutritionist) that are related to health to increase your authority in the health industry.
10. Be socially responsible. Finally, share your blessings. If you are already earning money from your MLM business, give back to people who are in need. Do charity. It is a great proof that your business is really earning and you are indeed making money from it.
I hope you learn something from the list above. If you have any other proven MLM success tips to add, feel free to make a comment below and let’s start a very interesting discussion.
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
The idea behind multi-level marketing (MLM) is simple. Imagine you have a product to sell. A common MLM product is some sort of panacea, such as a vitamin or mineral supplement. You could do what most businesses do: either sell it directly to consumers or find others who will buy your product from you and sell it to other people. MLM schemes require that you recruit people not only to buy and sell your product, but who will also recruit people who will not only buy and sell your product but also recruit people….ad infinitum. Only there never is an infinitum to move towards. This may seem unusual to traditional business people. Why, you might wonder would you recruit people to compete with you? For, isn’t that what you are doing when you recruit people to sell the same products you are selling? MLM magic will convince you that it is reasonable to recruit competitors because they won’t really be competitors since you will get a cut of their profits. This will take your mind off the fact that no matter how big your town or market, it is finite. The well will go dry soon enough. There will always be some distributors who will make money in an MLM scheme. The majority, however, must fail due to the intrinsic nature of all pyramid schemes.
I here people say the majority of distributors in mlm will fail because of nature of all pyramid schemes. I agree, however this is not just mlm it is with any business. The only exception I have found is any small or start up business. If you compare the earnings of any multi-million dollar company all owners and upper management earn far more than any support person or worker. I am sure if you compare the earnings of the Walton family – Walmart to the cashiers you would say the cashiers are failures. No different in mlm. Those who build the biggest teams and make the most sales earn far more than the person that only makes the minimum auto-ship purchase and never makes a personal sale or recruits anyone. They may soon drop out completely without ever making a penny. The same at Walmart. A new employee may never make it pass orientation training before getting fired.
The exception small business or start up. The owner may not even be able to take a salary for years while paying his employees. Then one day he is in profit and can start paying himself all while building a business with all the headaches that go with. IJS mlm is a better way.
Hi! I understand your side when you talk about MLM. However, I believe that there will never be SATURATION of prospects. Do you know why? There are still BILLIONS of people who have not been into MLM. Every year, there are new blood ( 18 years old) who become part of the adults who can qualify as distributors.
I have in my place people who joined MLM at the age of 50 and it is their first experience in MLM.
I think the people you know have failed but there are those who succeed 🙂
All it takes is proper training and the right motivation to do the business 🙂
I have MLM experience where I reaped in the profits and I have MLM experience wherein I just burned to exhaustion. I must say, MLM is a business just like any other business. It requires a lot of hard work and time to grow.
Also, the principles of marketing and business applies to it just as to any traditional market.
Hence, the comment that the market is finite implying saturation is valid just as the comment that how can a market be saturated when there are millions of people who haven’t heard about MLM and there are those who turn 18 years old every year?
The question is: what is MLM’s main product? Many people confuse if the purpose of MLM is to move a product be it health care, water dispensers (yes there is an MLM company for this), beauty products, etc. or the whole get-rich-achieve-your-dreams scheme.
For some, it is the products, for others, it is the dream.
But the main point we can observe is that, saturation does happen, due to the massive competition. This is even true for traditional businesses that’s why innovation is constantly needed.
Although it is possible for even those who recently joined to also earn potentially big incomes just like those who came in first, the truth is, seldom does it happen. Why? By the time a new blood joins, and the company is decades old, chances are newer companies have opened and the new blood’s close network or even immediate cold market has heard of the decades old company. I see this happening when I take into account the entire MLM history without bias of any company.
Bottomline: MLM or traditional business – hard work is still the key to success.