Planning to Join a Multi Level Marketing / Networking?

Before we persuade ourselves to join any MLM company, we need to at least understand that its concept is opposite to what a business concept is. 

You see, if we are to venture into business, one of the factors that we need to consider is the location, where as much as possible the location we choose have less competitor.

Where in MLM, assuming that the product is consumable such as supplements, beauty products, foods, or whatever, instead of mainstream advertising, the company uses the method of direct selling to those who become a member or join the company. The problem sometimes is that the product that you need to buy or consume regularly to be an active member exceeds your usage, so now you have the option to either sell, or give it to whoever might need it, but if you sell it, you might as well persuade that person to join since you will gain more via points/commission or whatever they call it. Thus, instead of having a potential customer or buyer, you are encouraging the person to become your competitor of the business, therefore next time if that person joins, he/she doesn't need to buy from you anymore, instead, that person becomes like you, and he/she will likely do the same as what you did and so on.

This type of system allows you to earn a commission from those people you recruited and even earn more if those recruited under you also do the same and so on, but the products required to be bought in a regular basis to be an active member is as good as only for personal usage. Unless you only want to become a consumer, the driving force for you to earn becomes the recruitment, which poses a problem sometimes because for you to persuade other people to join, you tend to exaggerate the product result. Well, I guess it will not become a problem if you join because you need the product, and need to maintain it on a regular basis, in this case, joining will be to your advantage, but I think many who were persuaded to join MLM did not join mainly because of the product, rather because of the potential to earn as quickly as possible through recruiting.

I’m not saying that MLM is not good in general, in fact, it's good training for someone to learn how to sell something, i.e how to overcome rejection, how to overcome shyness, etc. In Robert Kiyosaki Book " The Cashflow Quadrant", multi-level marketing is one of the options should someone wish to venture into business with little capital. According to him, there are three main types of business systems commonly used today.

1. Traditional C Corporation - Where you develop your own system
2. Franchises - Where you buy an existing system
3. Network Marketing - Where you buy into and become part of the existing system.

Each business has strengths and weakness, yet, each ultimately does the same thing. In the case of network marketing, one of the advantages perhaps is that it's a lot cheaper than developing your own system (building a business) and/or buying a franchise. On top of that, if you do it right, your network of people will increase, and should the time come where you have enough passive income to create or develop your own system, at least, you've already established a broad base of people where you can share, offer and market the system you developed.

Disclaimer: This is just my own opinion based on how I understand MLM. I maybe wrong