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Business

What is MLM?

"investment of money in which you have to recruit your downlines and earn a certain percentage from their membership fee or whatever they call it, and earn again from the recruits of the recruits" - someone's blog

2 Answers

J.T. Gralka
J.T. Gralka
20,126 Points

Hey Paul,

Yeah. That's exactly what MLM is all about. A lot of people don't like to call them Ponzi schemes, but that's pretty much what they are. I wouldn't necessarily call all MLM businesses scams because the idea is that you are supposed to be able to leverage your downline referrals. Obviously, it's not a one-click system, and without the proper products, training, and support, you can end up spending a lot of money (instead of earning a lot of income).

There's a lot that goes into managing a successful and professional multi-level marketing campaign, but like I said, it can be very time consuming and very expensive. I wouldn't recommend that you invest any large sum of money into an MLM business unless you are very confident in the product or service you are promoting. If the product doesn't sell, or if you have to pull teeth to get one or two measly sales, then that's a pretty clear indicator that you're not involved in a very lucrative business.

I much prefer working with straight-up affiliate marketing services. For example, you can make a nominal commission off of somebody else's product by promoting an Amazon.com affiliate link. But, then again, it ultimately revolves around your ability to promote the product -- and yes, that probably means writing blog posts, placing solo ads, and optimizing your site and web resources so that they earn a creditable ranking with search engines.

It's hard work, and depending on the amount of time, money, and effort you're looking to expend, these types of money making efforts tend to fizzle into fairly fruitless endeavors.

Hope that gives you some insight!

Best,

J.T.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you say Ponzi scheme I think you mean pyramid scheme. A Ponzi scheme refers to the practice of taking out loans to pay off existing debts.