Marcello asked:


I assess businesses for a living and look mostly at real estate. When I have been presented a deal and determined it was a poor investment, people generally do not get emotional or upset calling me names and telling me I am negative. This is the same in most business ventures.

But in MLM, you can express your opinion of it being a poor business choice and you get MLMers jumping all over you as though you insulted their family?

Is this because people get in to MLM emotionally instead of intellectually (on the hype as oppose to assessing it as a business), or is it because MLM is more cult like that they would like to admit?
plr2win, you have expressed exactly my point. The issue (well one of them) is that you need to depend on your downline for income, and thus at any given time, there are always more people producing less than is needed to provide themselves an income than there are actually earning an income.

You see, in real world business, whether it be sales, admin, management, whatever, the person working that position is always providing enough value to justify their pay. In MLM, the majority is always earning less than would justify incomes because instead of focusing on personal sales first, they focus on recruiting and thus need others in order to make money.

Show me a model where everyone is first made to do enough personal volume to make a good living then allowed to recruit and I will show you a decent MLM…but none like that exist.
plr2win - to further clarify, its not that I am suggesting the model is some unethical system, I am suggesting the presentation of MLM as a means a getting wealthy is a sham. Explain how an exponential matrix can keep supplying revenue streams for someone on your 20th level. You can’t because at that point you would need millions and million of people in your organization. This simply yet another reason that MLM is flawed as a “business opportunity.”
MLM like a McDonald’s franchise…thats Ripe! It would be the same if everyone in your neighborhood set up competing McDonald’s on every corner with no concern for how that competition affect each franchise, and also if the fry guys and cashiers only got paid when they brought their friends and family in to get jobs as well. Gimme a break. MLMers are kidding themselves with these false comparisons.

Marcello asked:


I just want to hear about one MLM company, just one, where the emphasis is on sales, not on recruiting.
Let me clarify, I am in no way interested in joining any MLM, so don’t bother. I am merely interested in hearing if any MLM’s exist that actually are about sales, and not a pyramid scheme. And please, don’t tell me focusing predominantly on recruiting to make money is not pyramiding.
Mexico4me, i think you need learn what leverage actually is rather than just accepting a term from your MLM buddies.

In your silly example you merely transfered the hours worked to your downline without changing the total hours worked. Suddenly we are to believe that you are still making the same amount of money working no hours yet your downline makes money as well? So because you merely spread the hours worked out among more people the company is paying out more money? Right. Do the math.

This is my EXACT point. MLM is set up with the mentality that its better to make money by recruiting people than it is to work hard.

You are delusional if you suggest that is about sales first. You have said in prior answers that no one sells enough personal volume to make a living without a downline and that is precisely why MLM is flawed. Its about making money recruiting (a pyramid) not about sales. The fact that some product is sold doesn’t negate that fact.
Sunny, saying MLM is part franchising is merely MLM tag lines, aka propaganda to justify to the naive.

Think about what you are suggesting. Most people are not sales driven, yet you are telling them its the same as a franchise.

Can you actually imagine a franchise operation that didn’t first sell product? Gee, your new franchise is not moving any product, here is the answer, just open up more franchises! Brilliant.

Only in MLM are foolish principals like this accepted as intelligent.