Downline.com

As in any other kinds of businesses, the MLM marketing business has its own string of terminologies and jargons which a newbie has to be familiar with. Here are some of the common ones:

Upline
Your immediate upline is the one who recruits you into the business organisation. Then you in turn  begin to recruit people as your downline . An upline earns commission from your group volume of sales. Usually your upline is responsible in training and motivating you so that you would be able to succeed in the business. However if your upline is also new like you, then the upline leader or mentor would help in the guidance and training.

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In MLM or network marketing businesses, compensation plans are what distributors really want to look into as that is how he is going to earn his income from commissions from his and his downlines’ volume of sales. Compensation plans differ in every organization. It is indeed very overwhelming or even confusing for a newbie to comprehend the big circles and small circles at the first sponsoring or introduction into the business.

Therefore it would be an advantage to sponsor someone who is familiar with network marketing in the first place. However if a newbie is introduced then the distributor has to be patient and slowly familiarize him or educate him with the compensation plan and help him along the way in his new found business. The distributor has to find the right compensation plan that works for him and that can help him earn money. Therefore what’s most important is that he understands the plans well especially on how he can earn his commissions based on his downlines’ volumes and his own volume of sales.

Distributors will always be looking for new downlines to join him in his organisation. But before he goes a step further in roping in his downlines, it is almost imperative of him to master the knowledge of his company’s compensation plans. One will never know when one would meet someone who might have just left another company and is well versed with compensation plans already. How can the distributor be a good leader, exude the type of confidence so needed to influence others into the business if he himself is not well trained in the business yet?

It is not true that people join an MLM business because of a superior compensation plan. More often than not distributors might already know his new downlines as he would like to share his money- making venture with them too. Or they could be his customers who have confidence in his products or services and give him repeat sales. It can be said that it is actually the leadership, influence and confidence that attract new downlines to a good distributor. There could also be that chance opportunity that a company collapses, distributors have a fallout with his upline and there you are, some well trained people waiting to join you in your company. You will never know!

Now that we have set the record straight, knowing your plan and their plan well will bring you one step to closing a new sale or sponsoring a new distributor from another company.

It sounds unethical to pinch downlines from other companies. There is actually no rules that say you can’t really. However be careful not to do this within your company as you might be disqualified or terminated in your distributorship. Some form of competition is healthy but it would be better for the distributor to sponsor new people out of the company. Remember, your downlines might also want to leave you to join other companies too! Then it is time to realize and look into the reasons and improve in areas like leadership qualities, support and motivation that you might have failed to provide them with.

Having said so much about compensation plans of MLM companies , it is then advisable that a distributor invests a lot of time and effort at learning the details of his own company plans as well as other companies’ plans too. It would benefit him a lot to attend as many opportunity meetings as possible to gain more knowledge about compensation plans and other aspects of the business in order to succeed in his network marketing business.

Saving Money In Network Marketing

Retailing of a product is very important to an MLM business. Lack of (or even non-existing) retailing could be harmful to the distributor or the company as certain states have outlawed ‘headhunting’ and have their own policies.

Nevertheless, saving money on an MLM product is one of the most wonderful key features of joining an MLM company if recruiting is not your forte.

In certain compensation plans, repeat purchase of the products you buy from the company gives you more rebates or bonuses. In essence, the more you buy, the cheaper it becomes. This becomes an even greater pleasure if you are totally in love with the products or you have already set aside a budget for those products (which means you are now buying from the MLM company or your upline instead of buying from the supermarket, pharmacy, grocery store, etc)

There are some important aspects to take note however, if the company requires you to purchase the products in bulk (hence the term – frontloading), is there a DEMOTION in your achieved position in the company, is there MAINTAINANCE required, or how much are the renewal fees for membership. All these will be further discussed in the later chapters.

Meeting New People In Network Marketing

This is one of the many reasons why people join MLM companies (even if the first two reasons discussed above don’t even concern them). There are all types of people in the world. Some like the positive environment. Others like the social events the company or team organizes. Some look for a potential life partner there!

Lots of people even go all out to join these kind of businesses to get more contacts for their OWN BUSINESSES (maybe even THEIR OWN MLM BUSINESS). Bear in mind one thing. There is this old saying that goes, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. If you participate in their activities but don’t go full force in their company/team vision, don’t expect them to join you or buy from you. There may even be negative repercussions (such as being banned from coming back to the company).

Personal Growth And Self-Improvement

One of the biggest reasons why I would recommend joining an MLM company and doing the business is opening your mind to positive thinking and achieving your full potential. There are many companies out there who have the best training courses, motivational rallies, sharing sessions and whopping transformation camps that will not only fire you up but take your business building to the next level.

I will not touch much on this subject extensively here. There are so many companies out there that will do a fantastic job in terms of training.

Remember that growth is a journey and not a destination.

People who join the network marketing business have different thoughts and aspirations when it comes to how to make money from their business. Let us take a look at the different ideas and determine which of them suits you best….

(a) Looking for fast money
(b) Building a long term business with money coming in long after you have ‘retired’
(c) Investing in the product itself

For people looking for fast money, there are pros and cons to this kind of thinking.

Some people are WELL TRAINED salesmen. They have built the relationship with their clients, customers and all sorts of people. People trust what they say and will trust whatever they are selling. They may sell the product itself (sometimes, in large quantities), or they may sell the opportunity (the money making part of it) or both. Are YOU this kind of person?

Fast money is not impossible, but it COULD be for the short term only. Consider the facts that 80-90% of people in the world are NOT built for sales. If a salesman sponsors a non-salesman, would the non-salesman be able to do the same thing as his upline? Does that mean that I would spend most of my time looking for the 10-20% of sales types?

The next type of money is the long term type.

When I define long term, it does not have to mean that you might not see money right away. It differs from company to company. But as a general rule of thumb, it involves BUILDING A NETWORK OR AN ORGANISATION.

The key to building a large organization as quoted by Zig Ziglar, “You will get whatever you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” In other words, if you will help enough downlines get enough downlines, you are on the road to network marketing financial freedom. The key is to help others.

There is one more category of people who ‘invests’ in network marketing companies, not to make money through retaining or networking, but rather investing in the product, position, or depending on the company, appreciation of their ‘assets’. A few examples would be investing in a product, so that in the future, its value will appreciate, so you can sell it to other people at a very high margin (sort of like old comic books.) Others might purchase the account or distributorship from you (depending on the compensation plan of the company) while some Internet companies actually pay you to ‘invest’ in their company, sort of like buying a share of the company.

A new kid on the block in the Multi-Level Marketing affiliate program often makes some mistakes at the beginning. Many of them are too naive, enthusiastic and ill-prepared that they fail to make an in-depth survey of the background of the company leadership. They do not check out whether the company has enough experience in this field too. The newbie also lacks the knowledge of basic marketing principles too. As such he would meet a lot of problems or failures in the beginning of his venture into the MLM business.

A newbie has to be very careful to make the right choice of a dependable and trustworthy company that can show proof of success in such affiliate marketing. He could be misled into believing in the fantastic offers which more often than not are actually of short term high rewards by some fly by night companies that do not consider the long term benefits for the companies. Often a newbie realizes too late that he had been misled and finds that he has lost lot of money and time in the company.

Before venturing into such a business, he should gather information about the rules and principles of MLM marketing strategies.. He should get in touch with experienced people who are skilled in MLM marketing and join hands with them in the affiliate programs. Simply recruiting anyone interested in your program won’t do as he needs recruits of caliber, skilled and experienced who would be able to help generate sales volume. A newbie should refrain from being desperate in his recruiting efforts. He should carefully pick and choose ones who have enough experience to help him succeed in the MLM marketing program together.

Strategy plays an important role in recruiting down lines. He should target those who are able to help him generate links and sales. Understanding the marketing plan is of utmost importance as he would be able to build his down line strategically in order to maximize income and sales. He should make calculative moves in placing his recruits under his down lines in order to generate revenue from the groups. Thus he should actually know the number of down lines and recruits and build the hierarchy under leaders so that he can earn the ideal income from them.

Probably another mistake a newbie makes is signing up his own family members and friends in his MLM program. He should venture out of family and kin and look for new faces and people who possess some entrepreneurial aptitudes to join him in his MLM business .Of course people who are experienced and possess skills and knowledge of the MLM programs.

When a person is new in the MLM business, he may be overly enthusiastic and try to push or force sell products that he hardly know anything about. Thus it is always advisable to invest some money in some products, use them to be convinced about their worth. In this way the customers can see through your sincerity and belief in the benefits of the goods. Most of the time, customers buy out of obligation and the next time they will try to avoid seeing his face again. Once the customers are convinced of the quality of the products or services, they would naturally follow-up and the newbie does not need to try selling to them at all cost.

Perseverance and motivation are key factors in making a success out of an MLM business. A person has to be patient in building the down lines who believe in him and the products or services. A newbie cannot afford to be idle and expect to generate income from down lines who work hard. He has to work together with the new down lines giving them motivation and transferring skills and knowledge about the strategies of the business to them. He has to give customers confidence in his services or products as they would also recommend new customers to him. And of course once a customer has confidence in a product or service from his company, he would like to expand his usage of other products too. In this way then only can he generate more revenue in his business. Leadership by example is the way in MLM programs- a successful leader or up line in the business works and trains his down lines hard in order to build his team successfully.