If you are in your 20s or above, there are 99% chances that you might have already heard about network marketing.

If you listened, you might be either,

• Positive towards the network marketing
• Negative towards it
• Neutral
• Want to leverage the power of network marketing but don’t know how to proceed or
• Feeling what the heck is this. I don’t know anything about it.

If you fall in any of the above categories, you should stay till the end of this article — Because I am going to throw light on core areas in this article.

If you stay till the end, you will understand,

• What is network marketing?
• Why there is a lot of buzz around it
• Is network marketing worth paying your attention to?
• Facts of network marketing

Key Sections of this Article

1. Why you should read this article
2. The journey of innovation when it hits the market (meets you)
3. What is Network Marketing
4. How does Network Marketing work
5. How is it possible to earn big money from direct selling? — Compounding, the eighth wonder of the world.
6. History of Network Marketing
7. Is Network Marketing / MLM / Direct selling, legal in India?
8. Stats and Scope of Network Marketing
9. Is Network Marketing for everyone?
10. Why there is a lot of negativity around Network Marketing
11. 7 Top myths around network marketing
12. Success Stories from Network Marketing
13. How to choose a Network Marketing company
14. Conclusion

Why You Should Read This Article

There is a lot of noise around the internet covering the truth of network marketing with pseudo opinions. When you want to know about something new, what will you do? You head to google that shows you what others like you write on the topic. However, if the majority doesn’t know the info of any concept, how can you expect to receive exact info from them? Exactly, you won’t be receiving the right info.

You must be thinking about who Abhinay is to speak on this subject.

I can feel you. My uncle exposed this business model to me in 2010. But I was too young to make such big decisions in my life at that time. However, I started working closely in this field in 2014, with many breaks, in between, due to numerous factors. I even stayed away from it for over 2.5 years.

But those 2.5 years exposed me to a lot of things in my life. Those experiences helped me to see things as they are.

Here I am in front of you with an article to help you see the truth about network marketing as it is. Click on this link to see glimpses of me.

PS: I am not taking names of any companies that I came in my way as you may feel I am misleading you. If you stay till the end, you get enough information to do your research to understand any company. [I took the names of different companies only in the section “History of Network Marketing”. Because I need to provide the right info to you]

Network marketing is a simple concept yet challenging to see in its true form. It is due to the noise around you. The reason is it is a new thing for you. (Though it is not)

To understand network marketing better, you need to understand the phases of innovation.

The Journey of an Innovation When it Hits the Market (Meets You)

Negative Phase: It is the human tendency to be sceptical when you come across new things. For example, you can consider insurance. People were so negative and used to run away from insurance agents, in the beginning thinking it is fraud. Later they started doubting if it is beneficial for them before turning to a positive phase. In the negative phase, very few notice the potential of the new concept, and they enjoy more benefits. It applies to any field.

Positive Phase: Great inventions will always pass through the criticism, negativity and grow over them. And people change their perception towards those concepts and start giving respect to them. And more people make use of them. The same happened with insurance as well in the later stages. And more companies start in this phase.

Growing Phase: In the growing phase, people admire the new concept a lot as they witness more companies in this line. Due to this, the competition will also be high. Only the unique companies will survive in this phase. If you enter into it now, you can grow effortlessly, but the rewards will also be less compared to the previous stages.

Saturation Phase: Any idea will have a shelf life. Many ideas got so much fame but became obsolete. Walkman, CD Players, Telephone booth, pagers are some to name a few. In the same way, depending on the idea, it will have some shelf life.

You may think, “why do I have to mention them?”

The reason is to make you understand the noise that is surrounding network marketing. Yes, even the noise can’t stay forever. It has to fade when it is time for the positive phase.
We are also in the transition phase of network marketing that you will understand by the end of this article.

Let us understand network marketing.

What is Network Marketing?

Network Marketing is a life-changing opportunity that will help you become successful in life.

I can sense what you are thinking, hahaha. I am just kidding.

Before knowing about network marketing, I want to clarify that network marketing or direct selling or MLM are similar. I won’t go into all for brevity.

As we are talking about the truth, here is the definition of direct selling or network marketing,

“Direct Selling means marketing, distribution and sale of goods or provision of services through a network of sellers, other than through a permanent retail location.” —Source: Consumer Protection Act, 2019 Govt. of India (Chapter 1, Section 2, Para 13)

How does Network Marketing Work?

You may say you need to add people to your network, they will keep on adding people, and you keep on making money. All of this is crap that went into the minds of most of the people. Reasons are many, innocence, acts of people who focus on short term gain, lack of proper knowledge, are some to name a few.

You may ask me, “how does it work then?”

Network Marketing works on word of mouth, which is the most authentic form of promotion.

The only difference between direct selling and any other business is ads. Every business in the world has ads, but the most revenue is through word of mouth. And Direct selling replaces those ads with word of mouth. Due to this, the companies save a lot of money due to the absence of ads and distribution channel. And companies share the same money with the direct sellers based on the performance.

In simple terms, in traditional businesses, companies pay money to celebrities for ads. Whereas in direct selling, companies pay the same money to the sellers enrolled in the company. In this way, wealth distribution takes place through direct selling.

You must have heard people make a lot of money in this business model, let’s get to this point in the next section.

How is it Possible to Earn Big Money from Direct Selling? — Compounding, 8th Wonder of the World

First, you need to remember that Network Marketing is also a real business that requires hard work and efforts like any other business.

The journey is not smooth as people assume, but the growth is exponential. You must be knowing about the principle of compounding. The world is also revolving around compounding except you. (If you are relying only on a single source of income from a job)

Here is a short video to help you understand the power of compounding.

The same happens in network marketing as well. Just like any other businesses, network marketing also involves teamwork. You form a team and build people, and people build the business.

Sometimes, connecting dots backwards help you understand your future. Let’s do the same by knowing the brief history of network marketing.

History of Network Marketing

The moment I wanted to throw light on this, I understood why elders look at the family history of brides or grooms for filtering the profiles. Yes, in some cases, the history of the family could be the present of the person. But in network marketing is not a person but a business model and people are the same at the core irrespective of the country of residence. So, the “past of the MLM industry” is definitely the same as its “present” in our country as it is just 26 years old in our country. (as of 2021)

For brevity, let’s focus on the important years.

• Direct selling started in the USA in 1903.
• MLM (two-level compensation) started by California Vitamins in 1942.
• Amway introduced a three-level compensation plan by 1959 & eventually become unlimited.
• The FTC accused Amway of operating as an illegal pyramid in 1975
• Amway prevailed after four years of litigation in 1979 and the laws are formed to safeguard the genuine MLM programs.
• Amway’s victory paved the way for many MLM companies that would follow and FTC focused on “deceptive” practices of MLM companies such as earnings representations or medical claims rather than attacking the “structure” of MLM programs.
• Usana introduced the Hybrid plan in 1992.
• Companies like Microsoft, AT & T, Colgate-Palmolive, Coca-cola, Gilette, Unilever etc have a similar division.
• Oriflame, a Sweden MLM company entered India in 1995.
• Part of the academic syllabus of various Universities in India.
• It is very difficult for common people to identify a Network Marketing Company from an illegal Money Chain or Ponzi Scheme in India.
• Herbalife restructured its MLM operations and paid $200 Million for consumer redress to settle FTC charges on 15th July 2016. [US]
• Got guidelines by Govt. of India on 9th September 2016.
• FTC settlement ended AdvoCare’s alleged pyramid scheme and banned defendants from multi-level marketing on 2nd October 2019
• Vemma Agreed to Ban on Pyramid Scheme Practices to Settle FTC Charges on 15th December 2016. [US]
• ₹1300 Crores business in Indian in the financial year 2018-19.
• Law passed by Govt. of India (Consumer Protection Act 2019) on 9th August 2019.

If you pay close attention, Network Marketing faced its sweet share of challenges in the US as well till proper guidelines and laws are passed. After that, FTC started playing a crucial role in making sure that genuine companies are protected while terminating unlawful companies.

Now, we know how the profession works and its history, but you must be concerned about legality. Let’s talk about it.

Is Network Marketing/MLM Legal in India?

Having this question is quite common because you are new to this industry.

Network Marketing is not legal in India till 2016. It doesn’t even make it illegal before that just authorities haven’t noticed that it is legal. Thanks to the efforts of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in different states. As they arrested CEOs of multiple MLM companies, it pushed the top players in the industry to work towards having guidelines.

Finally, because of their relentless efforts, Network Marketing got central guidelines on 9th September 2016.

You may ask me, “why are cases happening on network marketing?” — Because law comes first before rules and guidelines, and every Govt. body works abiding by the law. But in the case of Network Marketing, it got guidelines first but not the law. (It is still under process in India) Moreover, direct selling got independence in 2019 with the release of the Consumer Protection Act.

Dept of Consumer Affairs recognized 388 companies as legal Multi-Level Marketing entity, offering a new platform and an incredible opportunity for thousands to grow using the industry.

You may ask me about the cases after 2019.  Because it is to protect the consumers and Govt. is yet to introduce laws to safeguard Direct Sellers and the companies. One more reason is due to a lack of awareness. And remember that only a court of law judges if any company is illegal when the police dept proves the allegations are correct. It is vast in itself. I will cover it in another article.

I covered the basic details up to date. Let’s step into the numbers and future scope of network marketing in the next section.

Stats and Scope of Network Marketing

Global Statistics

These are the stats worldwide in 2012

• North America has a revenue of $33.8 billion which constitutes 20% of the global share.
• South & Central America has a revenue of $32.6 billion which constitutes 20% of the global share.
• Africa & Middle East has a revenue of $1.2 billion which constitutes 0.8% of the global share.
• Europe has a revenue of $25.9 billion which constitutes 15% of the global share.
• Asia-Pacific has a revenue of $73.2 billion which constitutes 44% of the global share.

For more details on country-wise stats, please refer to page 20 in the FICCI KPMG report

Indian Stats and Scope

The stats and scope are self-explanatory, so I am not rewriting them here.

If you pay close attention, network marketing is still in a negative phase in India. However, FICCI in association with KPMG researched and made a report of the stats and scope of MLM. It even has action steps to legalise and safeguard network marketing in India which you can see in the below image.

If an organisation like FICCI is working on protecting network marketing and bringing laws to establish order, there is nothing wrong with looking at that industry positively. And it is good news with immense potential as well. Are you wondering how?

Let’s take few examples, who is ruling,

• Automobile industry
• IT industry
• OS
• Infrastructure
• Mobile industry
• eCommerce

The answers are inevitable. And if you enter those industries now, would you be able to position yourself as a market leader? Yes, it will be challenging. Even those industries faced a lot of challenges in the beginning and if you had entered into those in the initial days, you would be reaping more benefits out of them. As we all know, the bigger the challenge, the greater is the reward. You have the same opportunity in network marketing now.

You got to know the basic information till now. But it is crucial to understand if network marketing is for you. Not knowing this, is one of the reasons for the noise out there. Let’s talk about the same in the next section.

Is Network Marketing for Everyone?

My answer is a big “NO”. Anyone can be a network marketer, but network marketing is not for everyone. It is like any other profession.

Before knowing who suits network marketing, you need to know who won’t.

Below are the top pointers to check if network marketing is not for you.

1. Who wants to lead a routine life. (9-5 mindset)
2. If you always want to stay in your comfort zone.
3. If you are not ready to face rejections. (Yes, any business has its sweet share of them)
4. Always want someone to push you. (Yes, any business needs self-motivated persons)
5. Want instant results. (Patience and persistence are crucial for the success in any business model)

Here are the pointers to check if the business works for you.

1. You want to live life to the fullest.
2. Learning attitude.
3. Ready to unlearn.
4. You want every day to be new.
5. You want to help people. (Even the subtitle of Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Business School” is “For People Who Like Helping Others”.

The best part is, “all of these pointers revolve around the mindset which you can rewire if you are determined”.

If you stayed up to here, you must be wondering, if network marketing is so good, why there’s a lot of negativity around it? Let’s talk about it in the next section.

Why There is a Lot of Negativity Around Network Marketing?

Before going too deep into this section, I would like to ask you a question.

Show me one industry about which everyone is so positive that everyone recommends that profession to others.

Aren’t you able to find one?

Exactly, I want to convey the same. The problem with the majority of the networkers is, “they think that this profession is for everyone.” And they start chasing everyone.

Let me ask you a question. If someone chases you constantly, what do you feel about that person?

Yes, your impression will be negative on him for sure.

But the problem in this industry is,

For the mistakes people commit, people build a negative impression on the industry.

So, first, let’s focus on the mistakes networkers commit.

1. You start the business first. I will take care of everything: Stay away from these people in any industry. They are so skilled in making false promises and focusing on their benefit.
2. Lifestyle selling (show off): 67% of the people are not happy with their life. In this situation, if a person shows off in front of them, only 53% take positively, the remaining gets anger which turns into negativity.
   However, 53% of people start the business with high expectations due to this. You have to face reality sooner or later. And when they face reality, 90% quit, turning into negative.
   How to spot them: They speak about their achievements a lot.
3. People reinvent the wheel and blame the company or industry for their failure: The beauty of network marketing is having a proven system so that you can follow it to minimise rejections. But 97% of networkers make the mistake of reinventing the wheel. Out of them, 67% follow the system after burning their hands. Whereas the remaining 30% quit the business thinking it is not working. Out of them, 90% of the people blame the industry or upline or anything on the earth also the seasons.🤪
4. The arrogance of many networkers in terms of the knowledge they gained leads them to discriminate against remaining people: Network marketing is one of the best industries that doesn’t mean people in the other professions are inferior. People choose any job based on their priorities. Those networkers don’t understand that.
5. Amateurs motivate instead of educating the people: People are not fools. Anyone needs the information to make an informed decision. But most of the networkers, instead of learning first and educating the people, try to motivate others to make the decision first. It leaves a negative remark on the industry but not on the people.
   How to spot them: They talk more instead of showing the proof and they say big words like, “don’t you trust me”, “Don’t worry about them I will handle it if any situation arises”.
6. Focusing more on the cases on the other companies instead of focusing on the truth: On seeing cases, people go mad over the industry, saying it is not the right platform. Show me one famous company on which there are no cases? Even if you try, you can’t find even one. Police cases are inevitable for direct selling as well due to lack of awareness. Let’s focus on it in the next section.

Lack of Awareness: Ponzi Schemes vs Chit Fund vs Pyramid Schemes vs Direct Selling

If you focus on the root cause, most cases are happening due to a lack of clarity between network marketing and money circulation schemes. Let’s understand each of them.

Ponzi Schemes: It focuses on recruiting people without products to sell and pays no commission on recruiting new members. Instead, the promoter collects payments from a stream of people promising the same rate of a high return on a short term investment. But the magic is, there is no real investment opportunity.

Chit Fund: Without any product and based more or less like a Ponzi scheme. A Chit fund is a kind of savings scheme where a person agrees with a specific group of people that everyone pays a certain amount on periodical investments over a definite period. Whereas, they promise a return by lot or by auction or by tender.
Though often misused by promoters, chit fund schemes are not always fraudulent, and organised financial institutions may be conducting them within the law.

Pyramid Schemes: They are in multiple forms, promise consumers/investors large profits based primarily on recruiting others to join their program, not based on profits from any real investment or real sale of goods. They have products to disguise their identity. Three signs that they are using a product to disguise pyramid schemes are:

1. Large joining fee
2. Compensation paid for recruiting without regard to end sales (headhunting fee)
3. No right of return, buy-back or cooling off period offered.

Direct Selling: It has a genuine product that is unique in nature addressing the need of the people. There should be a genuine need for the product that you get reorders monthly. A person should be able to earn decent money even without recruiting people.

I am not framing the words. You can refer to page 26 in FICCI KPMG Report on Direct Selling.

The problem is staying updated with the latest laws. Even when the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) dept is filing cases on the MLM companies, the majority of them mention “The Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978”. But the irony is Consumer Protection Act 2019 recognised the legal status of MLM and made it a valid Economic Activity. It means it doesn’t fall under money circulation schemes.
The discussion will be incomplete if we don’t talk about the myths. Let’s burst them in the next section.

7 Top Myths Around Network Marketing

Myths have become part and parcel of life, keeping us from taking the max benefits out of the opportunities we come across. Network marketing is not different from any other industry. It also has its sweet share of myths. Let’s burst them.

Only the people at the top make money: Yes, only people at the top level make handsome money. But with the right company, you can earn money to lead your life peacefully at the bottom as well. And the best thing is, “people at the top help you to reach their level”. It won’t happen in 99% of the industries. Aren’t you inclined with me? Shall I ask you a question? How many CEOs help you become one in the same industry?

The Industry is Saturated: Let me ask you a question. Do you have a TV in your home? And your neighbours? And is there anyone without a TV in your locality? I am confident that the answer is yes to all of these questions. But from the definition of saturation, no company should manufacture TVs. One key point is TV is an electronic product, but network marketing deals with a human resource that is non-perishable. So direct selling industry won’t saturate unless we reach 2012, the end of the world.😜

It doesn’t work & No one gets successful in network marketing: True, it won’t work unless you align yourself to the system. It is like how it goes with any industry, also the classroom. Let’s take the example of the class. Only 3% will get the top marks though everyone has the same teachers. There will be failures as well. That’s the law of nature.

MLM is not for women: No comments. Just look at the below statistics.

Also, refer to the 5th image under Indian stats and scope.

Even after seeing these stats, if you feel that direct selling is not for women, you are scared of their potential. If you are a woman, it is due to giving more energy to your circumstances, like family and society. (Because the story of every woman is similar)

Network marketing is a get rich quick scheme: True, but you have mistaken. Network Marketing is a get-rich system like planting a seed whereas, the system is a fully grown tree with fruits. Here, we can consider fruits as the results. For brevity, we can consider the example of a mango tree. Mango seed has its sweet timing to grow into a tree and give the fruits. Just because you expect mangoes in the immediate year, you won’t get from it. But once you start getting mangoes in the 5th year, it keeps on giving for 100 years. The same is with network marketing.

All we need to do is add two people into the system: Valid assumption. You will get this thought only when you think that network marketing is a scheme. But it is a real business. You need to put a lot of efforts and be consistent to reap the full benefits. It is like going to the gym. You can’t expect a 6-pack by going to the gym for two days or two weeks.

I need to have special abilities to succeed in network marketing: Let me take an example. Consider you don’t know how to cook biryani at all. There is a person who is a master in cooking biryani. If he helps you at every step till you get the delicious biryani, could you cook it? Yes, you could. Now, if I tell you, some people already mastered the required skills in network marketing. Could you succeed if they help you? I am leaving the answer part to you.

Because of all of these factors, there is a lot of negativity around network marketing. If you pay close attention, all of these are due to people but not the industry. But unlike any other industry, people blame the profession instead of people.

We busted all myths and got to know the projections of network marketing and its history. But somewhere, you may feel if people can become successful in network marketing because everything we covered till now is theory. So, let’s go to real-life success stories in network marketing in the next section.

Success Stories from Network Marketing

The beauty of network marketing is, people from any walk of life can get significance that is beyond success from any phase of life, be it survival phase or secured life or successful life. So, to cover everything, I hand-picked some success stories covering all of them.

Holton Buggs: A Story from Survival to Significance.

Holton Buggs journey has a lot of struggles in his early life. His single mom raised him in the Ponce De Leon projects in Tampa, Florida. His mom worked several jobs to support the family and always encouraged Holton to achieve a better life.

Holton started his entrepreneur journey at the age of 14 by cutting hair to make money, and then got tired of doing all the work himself and discovered leveraged by buying candy in bulk and recruiting people to sell it for him.

In 1996, at the age of 27, he started his first of many businesses. It is a furniture business that eventually went out of business. And that is when Holton rediscovered network marketing.

Holton never made more than $500 a month for his first seven years in MLM, and his team never grew to more than 50 people. His friends thought he was crazy to stick with MLM, but Holton kept going cause he decided to listen to his mentor instead of his peers.

Eventually, Holton had his breakthrough. Today, Holton is a multiple 7 figure earner. He is also one of the most recognisable names in the network marketing profession. Being in Network Marketing for 28 years made him a multiple 7-figure-earner. You can get into his mindset by reading this podcast episode.

Dexter Yager: GrandFather of Direct selling

Dexter Yager started his career in the small town of Rome, New York, as a beer salesman. Most of the people in that town were broke, lived paycheck to paycheck, and had no hope of ever getting out of their daily rut at the local mill.

Yager says of those early days that they had not known anybody who had big dreams or at least talked about them. Dexter was making $95 a week before taxes as a car salesman and a brewery representative, while Birdie worked as a key-punch operator at a local Air Force base.

When a relative pitched Amway in 1964, Yager connected to it fast. It became his top priority. Yagar used to eat, sleep and breathe the business seven days a week.

The exciting part is, three generations of his family are in Amway. Dexter’s estimated earnings in 2010 – 2011 $12 -14 million. He died in 2019

Even if we consider that Yager working in the network marketing industry till his death, it makes his journey in this field for 55 years. In return, he got enough assets that he passed till his 3rd generation. You can get a glimpse of Dexter Yager here.

Ray Higdon: A story from Success to Significance

Ray Higdon began his real estate career in 2004 in Florida. He was a successful financial consultant and a real estate executive who lost a lot of his business during the financial and real estate crash of 2008. Ray made a lot of money at the time from his real estate business but lost it all in the crash.

In the moments of rebuilding his life, Higdon started his journey with a network marketing company even though he had failed in 11 network marketing companies he had been involved in before. The reason for starting is the belief of Jessica in him, and she persuaded him to start the business with her.

He is no more involved in network marketing and focusing on helping other networkers grow in their businesses.
Few Numbers from Ray Higdon
$10,000 in the first five months
$40,000 in the seventh month
$52,483 in the tenth month
Net worth: $15,000,000 approx. – Source: His personal website.

Jenna Zwagil: A Mother to a Millionaire Story

Jenna founded HempWorx and built a massive team as a distributor. She merged it with MyDailyChoice in 2017.

She is the woman who was involved in 36 businesses like hair school, nursing, phone sales, cable sales etc.

Jenna says, “Pretty much everything you can imagine, I tried it, I hated it, I either quit or got fired (or my time was up) because in every scenario I was not in control of my destiny.. and this was a problem for me.”

After all that, she came to know that there is no financial freedom. It made her enter network marketing, and as a woman, she created history with woofing turnovers and income.

There was a time when Jenna was broke completely and even her mother lost hope in her. It is evident that irrespective of the struggles if you stay optimistic and able to see the opportunities around you, you can always change your story. I got so connected to her story as I too have a similar journey. You can get a glimpse of Jenna’s story here.

She rewrote her story as a mother to a millionaire.
Network marketing changed her life.

 

Dakota McLearn: A Story of Retire Young

Dakota McLearn is a unique entity in the networking marketing industry. It makes his MLM success story all the more impressive and one of its kind. He was so successful in his network marketing career that he was able to earn enough income from his MLM company, to enable him to retire at a very young age of 19.

Dakota is from Canada. He worked for a long hour every day and 60-hour every week in the construction industry before McLearn took a baby step in the network marketing industry. He got so vexed by the idea of living from one paycheck to the other for the remainder of his life that he put his heart and mind in network marketing to retire early.

With the network marketing career and a blog for giving out network marketing advice, he managed to earn enough money that enabled him to retire to the exotic beaches of Thailand at the tender age of 20.

Hear to the words of Dakota.

You may be thinking that I am showing only the success stories from other countries. I got you. Let’s know about the person from India whom I admire a lot.

Prem Kumar P: A Story from never Giving a Job Interview to Significance

Prem Kumar is from a humble background where his single mom raised him alone. She always supported Prem to be the best in everything he does. After completing his BBA, luckily, he got the right mentor through Adv Abhilash Thomas. It enabled Prem to grow in this network marketing career despite all of his struggles. He is currently one of the top income earners in India, making his all-time high of ₹1,11,49,000($153,072) in January 2021. Buying a supercar is a dream of many networkers, but he is the only one to buy one from India. Prem bought Lamborghini Hurricane Evo through his network marketing business. Get into the mind of Prem by watching this interview.

You may think that I am talking about money in all of these success stories. But I am talking about the freedom money brought for them. If you take the story of Holton Buggs, it was not smooth, but with persistence, he got financial freedom. Dexter Yager built an asset that is taking care of even his 3rd generation. Network marketing gave financial freedom to a misfit, Jenna, and it let Dakota retire before the age of 20, where 70% of people won’t even start their career. All of this became possible because wealth distribution takes place in MLM.

The beauty of the industry is, even if you feel this is not for you and shift to another profession, you’ll succeed in it, given that you stayed committed to your MLM business for at least three years.

You might think that I am trying to persuade you to enter into network marketing. But I intend to help you see the profession as it is. The information is incomplete if I don’t throw light on how to choose a network marketing company. Because if you intend to leverage the potential of this industry, it’s only possible on selecting the right company.

Let’s get into it in the next section.

How to choose a network marketing company?

When you choose a network marketing company, you should be very careful. Because selecting a company is like marriage. It can build your fame, helping you prosper, but at the same time, a wrong selection may spoil your time, efforts, money and face value.

Company Profile, Products, Income Plan, and Business Education System are four aspects you need to evaluate carefully. They are like four pillars for your success in this profession.

Company: Here are the few aspects you need to evaluate when you come across a company.

• It should have a good profile at least five years old because building a solid network demands lot of time and hard work. If the company fails, all of the efforts will go in vain.
• Own manufacturing facilities. — helps the company to give the product at a competitive price.
• In house R&D — helps to ensure the quality of the product.
• Zero financial liability — ensures the sustainability of the company.

Product: It is the bread and butter of Network Marketing. It should be,

• High in quality
• Fairly priced
• Unique in nature
• Highly consumable
• It should not be available in the open market. — It helps in holding the customers
• Should have a 30 days money-back guarantee to ensure customer satisfaction.

You should also know the negative products to stay safe from the companies that are offering them.

The government has banned Direct selling companies from selling the below products:

• Life insurance policies
• Tour packages, product purchase vouchers —They don’t fall under products/services

Income Plan: It should be attractive and legitimate. If the plan cannot help you practically earn rupees one lac or above monthly after 1000 days of full-time work, it is not viable.

If you get income through recruitment and your income stops when the recruitment stops, it is the Money Chain. — Income should be through the sale of products by you and your associates.

If more than 50% of the company’s turnover comes from recruitment, it may fall under the Pyramid or Money Chain.

Business Education System: It is one of the reasons famous personalities like Robert Kiyosaki recommend network marketing.

• You need to check the below factors to evaluate the education system of a company.
• You need to check if they have an interest in training and educating you. — Some companies just push their distributors for sales. You need to understand if the company is focusing on your professional growth
• It should be powerful enough to transform a caterpillar into a butterfly. — Check if the company has a leadership that has been there and done that.
• Traditional businesses have a fear-based environment, make a mistake, and you’ll get punished. But network marketing encourages you to learn from your mistakes. A good company takes you beyond the fear of failing.
• You get a four-sided training which is 360°-different from the education we get in schools. — This education encompasses the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual sides of life.

If you stayed with me till here, I can understand that you got clarity about this industry. I have added all the relevant sources so that it will be helpful for you to do your personal research. If you need more information on the industry or want to get clarifications, you can reach me.

Conclusion

If you come to the ending, you must have got a clear idea about network marketing and why there is a lot of buzz around it and basic facts about it. But MLM started entering into the positive phase which is a good sign for many individuals because of its potential to give employment opportunities to the masses. My intent behind writing this article is, because of not having clear info about the industry many people are not grabbing the opportunity though it has the potential to give employment to them when they are striving to get a job with the least probability of getting it.

During my research, I came across some results which I  want to share with you as a bonus as you stayed till the end. It is from the most authoritative site in the world.

Here are the specialities of the content I am showing.

• If you are in the US and search about network marketing, it shows a piece of positive news in the google search results.
• But, if you are in India, it will show something else. Please look at the below images

Just imagine, you are researching about something and you land up on 2 contradicting statements from the same source. How would you feel? Wikipedia is just one example I have taken, but many such sites are not providing clear info as it is. As the majority are so attracted towards the negativity, they go with negative news only.

I hope this article has given you the right direction to understand this profession till analysing a company to find it is best.

I will be writing a lot more on the topic of network marketing in the coming weeks.

If you liked this article, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think about it. Also share it with your friends who might find this useful.

[This article has been written in collaboration with some of my friends directly or indirectly. Credits: Arun Kumar, Sunil Dasari, Lokesh Achyut, Sarrath Addepalli. Keep checking this page from time to time as I update this with timely relevant information]

References for further research:

1. Report on Direct Selling by FICCI & KPMG, 2014
2. Direct Selling Guidelines, 9th September 2016
3. FICCI & KPMG Follow Up Report on Direct Selling, 2015
4. Consumer Protection Act 2019.
5. The Landmark Amway Case
6. Herbalife Will Restructure Its Multi-level Marketing Operations and Pay $200 Million For Consumer Redress to Settle FTC Charges
7. Vemma Agrees to Ban on Pyramid Scheme Practices to Settle FTC Charges
8. FTC settlement ends AdvoCare’s alleged pyramid scheme and bans defendants from multi-level marketing