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How Network Marketing Works

By Matt Hellstrom

Network Marketing is a business distribution model that allows a company to market their products directly to consumers by means of direct selling and referral, or word-of-mouth advertising. It differs from most other types of businesses in that there are no advertising, wholesale, or retail costs involved (no middle men!).

How Is 'No Middle Men' a Business Benefit?

The key benefit of not having middle men is that the company can spend more money on making the product better and more unique.

The other main benefit of the Network Marketing business model is the fact that some of the money spent on advertising and the distribution channel (wholesalers, retailers, etc.) can now go to the people who actually promote the products by their word-of-mouth advertising.

These people have their own business, generating income by recruiting like-minded individuals who want to work for themselves, or customers that just want the products and purchase them directly from the parent company, or a combination of the two. They are called associates, distributors, or independent agents, depending on the company. All three mean the sam.

Distributors earn commissions based on the sales efforts of their organization, which includes their efforts as well as the efforts of their downline. Commissions are paid to distributors according to their company's compensation plan. There can be multiple levels of people receiving commission from one person's sales. In addition, distributors can earn profit by retailing products which they purchase from their parent company at wholesale price.

There is also a term called "multi-level marketing" or "MLM". What's the difference between MLM and network marketing?

There is no difference! These two terms, network marketing and multi-level marketing actually refer to different aspects of the same type of business.

First, network marketing. This term describes how the products are promoted, which is through a bunch of different people talking to each other, or networking.

Multi-level marketing is simply the means by which the people in the network are paid for their efforts. Commissions are paid to multiple levels of distributors, which creates leverage.

What exactly is leverage?

Leverage in this instance refers to being able to earn income on someone else's efforts.

This leverage concept is used by any traditional business with employees. The company pays the employee a salary, which hopefully isn't is as much as he brings in. The owner of the company gets to keep the difference. He is leveraging his income by making profit from the efforts of his employee.

This is similar to the concept of network marketing compensation plans, with the distinct difference being that those that the distributor is leveraging off of are independent distributors themselves. This means that there are no employee costs involved, and that these people are going to be much more motivated to succeed.

Wait a minute! Is this one of those "Pyramid Schemes"?

If distributors are paid primarily from money received from new recruits, or if they're required to buy more product than they are likely to sell, then the company may be a pyramid. Pyramids are illegal in all states and most countries. Legitimate Network Marketing companies are not only legal, but thrive in every state and in most countries.

The way to tell if a company is a pyramid scheme is if you can earn commission from sign-up fees. If there is no product or service obtained for this fee, then it's a pyramid. All legitimate network marketing companies pay commission only on sales of the company's products or services.

Two Good Resources For Learning More About the Industry of Network Marketing.

The two resources are The 45 Second Presentation That Will Change Your Life by Don Faila, and Brilliant Compensation by Tim Sales. These are both excellent third-party tools that are not only informational, but extremely useful for showing to prospects that are dubious.

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