The reason why I strongly dislike Multi Level Marketing (MLM) and Network Marketing (NM) systems is that the people who join don’t actually earn anything or benefit from them in any shape or form.
The only people who make any money are those who are at the top of teams.
Ultimately, the only people who win big are those sitting at the top of the pyramid.
In 2019 there were roughly 116 million people globally signed up to either a MLM or a NM business including around 400,000 people in the UK.
Less than 1% of those people actually made any money.
In the documentary Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires, (On the BBC iPlayer which I highly recommend watching), BBC investigator journalist Ellie Flynn went undercover to learn more about Younique and Nu Skin, two cosmetic and lifestyle MLM & NM networks aimed mainly at women.
She discovered that out of 1.23 million people who had signed up to Younique, only 0.02% of presenters (the name Younique give to members) achieved top earnings.
That is just 240 people… out of 1.23 million!
She also discovered that in 2017, Nu Skin had 90,079 active distributors (the name Nu kin give to members) across Europe, Africa and the Middle East and that 89.2% of them made no money and only 1.09% made around £870 a month.
If a distributor was working full time that would actually be less than the UK minimum wage.
Only 36 people (0.04%) were earning around the £18K a month which is heavily pushed as an incentive to get people to join the Nu Skin family.
Both networks ‘sell’ their incredibly overpriced products to the team members and all team members then need to sell the company products to the people they recruit.
But selling products is not the way members make money.
The whole focus of these companies is to recruit more members, something which they do not talk about much until they get you inside the network.
The members believe that they are ‘representatives’ of the company and believe that they are ‘building their own business’ within the business.
They see themselves as ‘entrepreneurs’ when in reality, they are actually the ‘customer’.
Why do they think they are entrepreneurs who are building their own business within an established framework similar to a franchise?
Because they are told that!
A lot of the MLM & NM training focuses on mindset and empowerment.
They organise big events where members are encouraged to buy tickets and meet up with thousands of other ‘entrepreneurs’ where speakers on large stages with flashing lights and big video screens encourage members to ditch toxic friends and family who question their decision to join the network.
The three main points these events focus on are:
- Developing an empowered mindset: Basically they are preventing you from thinking about leaving by insisting that if you are not making money then you are being held back by a negative outlook… which can be changed.
- Ignore others: They repeatedly tell members that they are on an incredible journey to wealth and that they are entrepreneurs building a business and that they should ditch anyone who questions what they do. Including close friends and family.
- Recruitment: The main focus of all MLM & NM companies is to get new members and they talk and teach more about that than actually selling the ‘products’. The reason for that is that the network itself is the ‘product’ and the members are the ‘customers’.
There are seminars where you learn useful information…
Then there are seminars which are very reminiscent of the large gatherings for evangelic preachers such as Billy Graham where they request people to ‘hand over money to gain entry to the house of God’.
One clip in the Secrets of the MLM Millionaires documentary had the company founder named alongside Jesus as one of the ‘most important people in history’ at one of their large gatherings!
Interestingly the global capital of MLM businesses is Utah in the USA, the spiritual home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints aka The Mormons with over 100 MLM businesses founded there.
So what does that tell you?
With MLM and NM, you are not entering the house of God; you are entering a world where you are rich and living a life of freedom… or so they promise.
In reality, people lose a lot of money when they join an MLM or NM business and are left with absolutely nothing when they leave.
The Empower Network (there’s that word again!), a MLM style business that focused on building an internet business collapsed when it hit the point that it was no longer sustainable.
Pyramid and ponzi schemes collapse and imploded when they hit saturation point.
Members paid to join the Empowered Network and for that they got access to internet marketing training which focused heavily on getting new people to join the network.
Members would get a website built on the Empower Networks network with all of the Empower Network graphics.
Basically putting it, people were paying to advertise the Empower Network and they were actively seeking out new members for the Empower Network hoping to make money when really all they were doing was putting more money into the pockets of the two Dave’s who set it up.
Members will always lose out, while they are out there talking about the network, trying to recruit new blood, people who are curious will go and do a quick Google search and what do you think they will find?
They’ll find the main company website which has landed a high ranking position in the search results thanks to its age and all of the other websites pointing back to it.
This means that a lot of people who decide to join will actually join via the main website and side step the recruiters who have been busy trying to persuade people to join.
MLM and NM are completely geared up to make money for the business owner and a select few of people who joined at time of its inception.
What happens when people leave the network and stop paying?
They lose all of the products and services they were using and promoting.
That includes any website they may have had, all of the content they were adding to the website which they shared across the internet.
They are left with nothing!
No business, no website, no content… absolutely nothing!
In the documentary Secrets of the Multi-Level Millionaires one woman was heard saying that she had spent £1,800 and was left with nothing.
She had earned nothing back and had nothing whatsoever to show for her money.
This is why I believe that you should either build your own business, create your own products or look into something which you can do for yourself such as sports trading or trading the markets.
Used correctly, £1,800 would pay for the creation of several fully automated passive income systems that makes sales for you online while you are busy doing other things.
It would build an email list to which you could promote yours or other people’s products where you make money whenever a sale is made.
It would be a decent sized bank for trading football matches or horse races in Betfair.
It would also be a decent sized bank for trading the financial markets.
There is no reason why you cannot take £1,800 and double it within a few short months… maybe less.
You should be able to take £1,800 and use it as a start to make a lot of money… as long as you do not invest it into any MLM or NM business because as we have seen, you will be left with nothing.
Starting with a lot less than £1,800, our friend Kate Davis now makes between £750 and £1,725 each month trading the financial markets.
Strictly no MLM or NM involved here!
She makes the money while she workouts each morning in her home gym before going to work.
It’s just her and her phone.
If you would like to learn exactly what she does, go to:
www.TreadmillTrader.co.uk
Kind Regards
John Harrison
PS… Since her first profits during lockdown, Kate has earned over £20,000 (as of September 2021… it’s probably a lot more than that now).
That’s over £1,000 a month.. oh and it’s TAX FREE too.
Here’s that link again: