Online MLM, building your MLM business on the Internet, is very appealing to a lot of people. Sometime it’s for the right reasons – more contacts to build relationships, and leveraging time to help your business grow faster.
Other times, all too often, the real appeal of online recruiting is avoiding talking to people and hoping to harvest easy signups through slick web presentations and recruiting systems.
Regardless of the reasons, online MLM can fool you. Let’s take a look inside the mind of Joe.
Joe is working days as an accountant for a local engineering firm. He is burned out, feels confident he can build a business and earn a living from home, so he starts looking around.
Joe knows about MLM and network marketing, and believes it might be the answer. However, he is shy about talking to people and feels that doing something online is the best bet for him.
So, he starts Googling one evening and finds a presentation by a top MLM guru. In the video, the guru talks about how he was once virtually broke, living paycheck to paycheck, and unhappy working in the traditional corporate world. But his life changed when a friend introduced him to network marketing.
In six months, the MLM guru testifies, he grew a downline of 200+ people and built an income of $5000 per month in his current opportunity using online sponsoring methods. The guru talks about his simple online prospecting system that Joe can use and implies that Joe can do the same thing.
Joe is intrigued, convinced, and moves into action. He signs up that day. Six months later, following the guru’s online MLM plan to the tee, Joe has only sponsored a few people and is nowhere near the $5000 per month income level. He is discouraged, thinking about quitting, and wonders how the big guy did it that quickly and he can’t.
Here’s the deal.
The guru’s presentation, so far as it goes, is true. However, some key facts were left out.
- he was a veteran network marketer who had great success in prior opportunities
- he had a large following, both online and offline, and brought many of them into his new business
- the online recruiting system he developed, alone, is not what brought in those big numbers for him
This is what trips many new network marketing entrepreneurs. They see the guru stories and dream of such a miracle in their own life and business, but really have no grasp on what all it takes to achieve it. They don’t see the initial failures that some of the most successful marketers had to endure. They don’t see the hours of training, personal development and sweat that went into it. They just see a step-by-step system that makes it all look simple and easy.
Sure, the online MLM marketing system is a key component in the toolbox, and may well be simple and easy to use. By itself, though, it isn’t likely to make it happen. It takes more.
Here is my point. Online MLM is great, definitely should be a big part of your overall strategy, but don’t be fooled into thinking an automated system of some sort will do all the work for you. You still need to build relationships and make personal connections both online and offline. Online sponsoring tools can bring prospects to your virtual front door, but don’t let it stop there. Make every effort to establish that personal connection and keep moving forward.
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About Eldon Beard
Great post! Unfortunately this is one of the things that make people think that all MLM’s are scams because they don’t know the whole story. Even the best opportunity will go no where if you lack the proper skills and don’t focus on building relationships.
Hi Alice, appreciate your comment! A big key to success in MLM, which is often overlooked, is going in with a realistic attitude toward what it takes to succeed. It isn’t a quick fix, but the rewards are huge if you hang in.