When looking, over the Internet, for jobs or money making opportunities, one thing is certain: 99% of the offers are MLM businesses. And if you find that 1% that offers something you really like ( "serious and secure", in the view of anti-mlmers) you're going to be disappointed because you'll find all sorts of inconveniences like: your CV does not meet the necessary requirements, you do not have enough experience in that field or in any working field, you do not have the necessary studies, you don't have the required specialization. Or maybe you are not comfortable with the offered salary. Or, if the salary is high and you get employed, soon you'll feel the bitterness of working for an employer. The unemployment threat will always follow you. You must, always, support the moods of your bosses, etc., etc., etc..
And then, where are you going to look for another option?
Are you going to start your own conventional business? You need a lot of money and lots of skills that you may not have.
And then, where are you going to look for another option?
Will you emigrate? Will you sacrifice years of your life on foreign lands, to make some money which, attention, nobody knows how long you can keep?
And then, where are you going to look for another option?
Browsing the Internet, on various forums, we discovered several comments on the multilevel-marketing systems. Our attention was drawn by the comments of those who are against MLM businesses - the ANTI-MLMers.
What do anti-mlmers actually say? We'll reproduce here some of the most encountered such views.
According to anti-mlmers, the network marketing businesses are anything but methods used by some people who don't have anything better to do than to attract naive people, these naive people must, themselves, attract other naive and so on. Anti-mlmers are so "smart" that they can't conceive the idea that someone could attract them in anything. They do not see themselves as fools or naive (but who actually admits about himself to be naive?), but see themselves as winners because they "were not fooled" or "have not taken the bait" of these "dubious pyramid business offers". Actually, anti-mlmers have placed the equal sign between MLM businesses and the word "scam". Here are just some of the labels made by the frenzied combatants against this system of business:
"Miserable system which allows you to use other people's naivety"
"A joke, a hoax for fooling the easy gullible people"
"Illegal pyramid business"
"As long as there are losers in the world, there will always be slicks"
"Motivation (to greed) and persuasion (to manipulation)"
"Good for dreamers"
"Big money are made only with bigger or smaller scams"
"Indoctrination method"
"Convince people using deceitful opportunities"
"Perfidious advertising system, with agents who lie people"
"Dreams sales"
"Brainwashing"
"Etc., etc., etc."
We are very analytical and we like to think with our own minds, so we sought to understand the real reasons for which there are such anti-mlm views. Without doubt, this is about the complexity of the human psychic. Anti-mlmers have already put some labels, but beyond the simplicity of these labels there certainly is something much more complicated. The criticism against MLM's is of different types and are based on several motivations. There is a class apart of more cultivated critics, which explores the mathematical model, of the marketing plans, practiced by the network marketing businesses. According to these critics, the marketing plan of MLM companies is in fact a masked pyramidal scheme, in which the few people from atop the pyramid, win more money based on the many from the base of the pyramid. Since the ones from the peak of the pyramid are the first, they are the only ones who will win. Those from the base of the pyramid have no way to win, because it will be impossible for them to recruit other people, by words of criticism of the MLM.
Anti-mlmers dissect the pyramidal theoretical model, for example the calculation with the 5 recruited people:
If each would enroll 5 people, the 16 level would no longer be able to enroll anyone in the pyramid, because, in their view, the world population has ended.
Anti-mlmers say that, according to this pyramidal model, is impossible for an MLM business to grow forever without having someone that, eventually, would lose. Probably this is the cause for which many people associate MLM with scams.
Of course, many people refuse the MLM offers for diverse reasons:
Some simply can not believe that you can enrich from such businesses.
Others don't like the idea of being recruited by someone, then recruiting themselves other people.
Others simply don't have the necessary patience to develop a MLM business.
Others fear that the "chain" would break and the business would collapse.
Some have even tried a MLM business, for a while (not too long), then they have come to the conclusion that it "did not work". So, if it did not work, according to their opinion, there is no possible way that it would continue to work.
Others do not like that they should participate in all sorts of dubious meetings or conferences, with applauding "penguins".
Others do not like that (in their view) they would have to sell dreams of other people.
Others fear of rejection when trying to recruit someone in MLM.
Others don't like to sell (although in the pure MLM's, something like that it is not necessary).
It is impossible to make an inventory on all the reasons that make some people refuse the MLM businesses. Why do many people label the MLM businesses as a UN serious? Some of the reasons would be those described above.
And yet, what is the truth about the MLM?
We once read a book about MLM ( "Network Marketing: How To Make It Pay", by Trevor Lowe and Peter Clothier).
It is a book that includes the most effective network marketing techniques, specifying there, since the beginning, something very clear and very realistic. According to the two authors (and not only), the one who wants to start a MLM business must keep account of 2 essential aspects:
1. in the MLM businesses you can win lots of money
2. in the MLM businesses don't all people ever win.
Both versions are very true.
Of course, you need to exactly understand why are they true. Because the second version has a correspondent in truth and in fact, anti-mlmers have rushed to declare that the cause of failing in MLM is, in fact, the MLM system. Because many people have tried the MLM but they weren't successful, the anti-mlmers had concluded that the MLM is just dreams selling, an illusion or simply a hoax.
We once saw a list with over 1000 activities (without any connection to MLM) on an anti-mlm website, activities that were supposed to create a passive income (meaning those money that you earn even after you no longer want to do that work). According to the authors of that site, if you want to earn money (without any jump in a MLM) so that you no longer need to go to work, is sufficient to start with an investment of at least $ 1,000 (the amount available for Westerners) and to do an indeed "serious" business, one of those listed on that site.
The question is:
If those opportunities (which are NOT MLM, therefore, are "serious"), even those that can make you money so you no longer need the job, why don't they all start doing them and earn "serious" money so they would no longer need their jobs? It's clear that people can record failures in any business (whether or not MLM).
That's what Peter Clothier and Trevor Lowe wanted to transmit through their book.
The success or the failure of a business does not depend on the system of that business, as much as it depends on who starts the business.
And yet, if you put an anti-mlmer to give a very detailed explanation on why the MLM is a scam, his explanations will stop at the level of some very simple labels: "It is a pyramidal scheme, those few from the top win and the many from the base lose, many have tried but lost, you attract some suckers and make them attract other suckers, sooner or later this kind of schemes will collapse, if it was true, everyone would be rich, etc., etc. ".
Actually, if you carefully notice, this is a very simplistic label. If you sit and analyze it very well, the MLM is much more complicated than anyone can theorize (mlm-er or anti-mlmer).
If we would believe the labels of the anti-mlmers, because the MLM has more than 50 years, at this moment, starting with the just born babies and ending with the ones of over 90 or 100 years old, all but absolutely all, should already be recruited in a network marketing business (MLM). There have already passed more than 50 years since the first creation of the MLM systems and they still have not collapsed. We wonder how many tens or hundreds of years will it take to happen?
And yet, what are those who are critical, on the MLM systems, missing?
We enumerate only some of the aspects that the anti-mlmers have not taken into account:
-- The complexity of the human psychic
-- World population dynamics
-- Diversity of the marketing plans
-- Seniority of the MLM systems (tens of years)
-- Technological evolution (the emergence of Internet has made possible the improvement of many MLM methods)
-- Etc., etc.
If you take a closer look over the the pyramid, you can see that the pyramidal model ... is only theoretical. What is criticized is, in fact, the pyramid theory.
We'll make a comparison so we'll be better understood.
Let's suppose that someone does not want to get married, because, as inferred from information about marriage, this means obligations, fights, necessities, etc. Furthermore, he/she will say that the marriage means a long string of problems, because that is the conclusion based on what he/she read or heard. That means he/she will criticize something that doesn't exist yet, because he/she can't know how his/hers own marriage would advance.
The truth is that perfect pyramid has NEVER been formed in any MLM business. And there is no possibility for it to form.
The exponential growth model is only educational, created to better understand how a network marketing business can evolve. The theory is theory and reality is reality. Anti-mlmers waste time criticizing the pyramid which never existed.
WHY can't there be formed a perfect pyramid?
Simple: Because people are not perfect. People are not robots, all made by the same pattern. Not all people can carry out an activity at the same rate. Not even an individual can, every day, work at the same rate. When, let's say, one man, decides to start a MLM business, an infinite variety of factors can influence the evolution of that business. And the intervention of factors is taken place over time, in an infinite variety of other ways.
It is impossible to give you even a theoretical model of the evolution of a freshly affiliated into a network marketing business ( "pyramidal" ...).
Some people start very enthusiastic, but that enthusiasm may decrease over time, not necessarily because the success fails to appear.
There are many people who failed in classic businesses, not only in MLM, and not because of the business or of the system, but because of them.
Some people simply get bored very quick, others are endowed with more patience.
Some maintain their enthusiasm for a few weeks, others for a few months, others for a few years, and others just for a few days.
Some are more motivated, others are less motivated.
Some can work 1 hour per day, others 2 hours, 5 hours or others even all day.
It can happen for some people to leave on a 2 days vacation, for others a one month vacation, and for others to not have a vacation at all.
Some want to earn more money, others less.
Some are happy with 50 dollars, others don't give until they win thousands of dollars.
Some have more perseverance, others less.
Some let themselves influenced by others opinions, others maintain their firm convictions.
Some can have a better focus on their purpose, others can not concentrate with the same intensity.
Some are more creative, others less creative.
There is an infinity of factors related to the human psychic.
These factors act so that perfect pyramid will never form.
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