MLM Is Not the Problem
A comment from a gentleman who believes that people are more likely to fail than succeed at anything they do. What an outlook on life! Why do anything at all in life? What a sad life you are going to have if you’re most likely going to fail at everything!
Every negative you described appears in every sales opportunity on the planet. There will always be things out of your control. What is in your control is your attitude and response to these negatives. Your work ethic is in your control.
If your dumb enough to buy your way into a sales goal to achieve recognition, you will not succeed. That is bad business. If you open a McDonalds and buy 1000 big Macs to hit your sales goal, you’re a terrible business owner and a hollow shell of a person who believes that is success. And you will never succeed.
What you describe is not exclusive to MK. People are more likely to fail than succeed at anything they do, and we as sales people are entitled to nothing we don’t create for ourselves. The problem isn’t MK or MLM, it’s the people in them that blindly believe it’s an easy way to make 6 figures or better. They’re naive. And shame on the recruiters who aren’t straight with their distributors, hut again this isn’t exclusive to MK or even MLM.
As an insurance broker I talk to agents daily who blindly believe they are guaranteed to make 100k in passive incone just because someone else did. Only 10% of agents make that type of money or better. The other 90% are hardly ekibg out a living. But let’s blame the insurance company or better yet the insurance industry as a whole instead of taking responsibility for our poor business savvy, naivety and weak work ethic.
I challenge you to show me one business opportunity where 51% or more of the people succeed long term making an above average income. And back it up with facts. You cannot do it. 70% of businesses fail within 10 years. If you can prove me wrong, I will quit my job and sign up under you, then pass your lazy ass.
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“I challenge you to show me one business opportunity where 51% or more of the people succeed long term making an above average income. And back it up with facts.”
To compare MLM participation’s 99.6% failure rate to non-MLM work of any stripe is silly. MLM is designed to profit off the losses in the sales force. Take away the downline losses and you take away the upline (and corporate) profits.
I worked for a tech company for 35 years. Everyone who worked there made consistent, positive income, and easily 80%(and likely more) of the employees were making well above “average” income.
My side gig is rental properties. I know a handful of other friends who have the same side gig. Everyone one of us nets well above “average” income (after rental income and real-estate appreciation) over the ownership lifespan from our rental businesses.
You don’t have to take my word for it. You can easily look at national statistics on both of my claims to see this is indeed the norm, not the exception, for these traditional opportunities to provide lasting value to participants over the long haul.
In a traditional sales opportunities, cash flow comes from customers outside the company. In MLM, cash flow comes almost entirely from the pockets of the sales force. Profiting off the losses in your own downline is nothing to brag about.
The challenge for you, OP, is to identify just one MLM downline that is profitable as a whole.
Check-mate.
I agree with you Data Junkie. There is no comparison to begin with. It’s like the duck saying that the water is too shallow to swim in and the hen is saying that the ground is too hard.
He lost me at your.
And here I thought I was reading something from a PhD in psychology. At least they’re not praying to us to succeed/be less filled with negativity.
If your mansplaining ass comes anywhere near my lazy ass, I will damage it with my staple puller. That said, it’s almost a refreshing change from new Kbots high on their own pink farts.
The fast food places near me are always hopping at their peak hours. A McDonald’s franchisee doesn’t need to buy 1000 Big Macs to hit their sales goals because PEOPLE ARE LAZY AND WANT HAMBURGERS so they will buy the Big Macs. Meanwhile, the huns almost can’t give their merch away. Burger joints buy up a reasonable amount of patties and fixins based on real numbers, so they can use it up in a timely fashion. Storage, especially cold storage, costs money and inventory that’s not moving isn’t making you money. Any MLM expose will show you people with rooms full of inventory no one wants.
REAL small businesses, including franchises, fail for lots of reasons: competition, poor location, incompetent management, employee theft, the Hell Germ of 2020. Some of these risks you can reduce and some are beyond your control. Yes, even if you do everything right you might fail, and most likely you’ll be paying to work for at least the first few years.
HOWEVER… if you own the building, that’s an asset worth money. So is your inventory, customer list, secret receipe, or whatever, along with kitchen equipment, clothing racks, computers, liquor license etc. You can also sell the business itself.
MLM are guaranteed to fail because the system is built to make big money for the corporation by A) urging their distributors to buy up heaps of inventory they don’t need and 2) recruiting everything more evolved than bread mold. There are only so many sentient organisms and so much money to go around.
WHEN it fails, all you’ve got is a heap of junk you already couldn’t give away and a bunch of Section 2 stuff that’s only worth anything to another hun, and she’s already got her own to contend with.
How many stories do we see daily from IBCs and directors who worked themselves into the ground, to the detriment of their health and family and finances, and basically got nothing? They didn’t want to be millionaires; they wanted to make a living wage at something they cared about, not realizing they were doomed from the start.
PS: the starry-eyed surprises expecting to make 100+ large as insurance brokers were probably led to that conclusion by the fine selection of insurance MLMs out there, who overpromise and underdeliver the same way all the others do.
I agree with your comments about the local fast-food restaurants. The ones near me are ALWAYS busy in the morning, at lunchtime (1100 1400), and again at dinner. I know one of the local franchise owners of Fat Ron’s (aka McDonald’s), and she said they continue to hire, pay wages above minimum wage, offer weekly paychecks, have benefits for employees, and more. She has employees who have worked at this one particular location for more than 15 years; they started on the cash register or cook line and are now shift managers/store leaders. This tells me that SOMETHING is working for her and her employees.
Any MK hun bot would make more in an 8-hour shift at Fat Ron’s than they would make in a week (or more) with MK. And you’re giving the public something that they want.
PS. Her ice cream machine always works.
The claim: “70% of businesses fail within 10 years.” Change that to “Business Exits”, please.
https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/businessfailurerates
The Small Business Administration and Bureau of Labor Statistics keep statistics on business exits. This is the number of businesses that close in any given year. Notice that they’re not tracking business “failures”, because the term is subjective. (I believe they count business licenses that are not renewed.)
Business exits include any company that closes, such as:
A new start up that ran out of money.
A company that has been operating for a few years but is closed because the owner wants to change direction.
A company that closed after 30 years of fabulous success with a wealthy owner retiring to Hawaii.
A company that was sold by heirs, merged with another business, or suffered a hostile takeover
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/1-reason-businesses-fail-scott-hoover
So what is the #1 reason for business failure? In my opinion, the #1 reason is:
Not running the business like a business.
This grave error happens when the owner or owners are not anchored in financial reality. Instead they are enamored with something else. It might be building their reputation as a successful executive in the community. It could be something material, like having elegant showroom space, or a line of new trucks parked in a row by the shop. Business owners driven by these metrics generally believe their company is great, no matter what the financial results indicate.
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We constantly point out that IF potential recruits analysed the “MLM opportunity” the same way they should before investing in a taco truck, they would walk away.
If those already enmeshed in an MLM downline would analyse their activity the way the owner of a successful taco truck does, they would immediately quit.
Every negative you described appears in every sales opportunity on the planet. There will always be things out of your control. What is in your control is your attitude and response to these negatives. Your work ethic is in your control.
You can have the most positive work ethic there is out there and still fail at sales if no-one wants your products. I’m never going to make a consistent year on year profit selling coats and boots rated -40F/-40C/233K in Texas.
If your dumb enough to buy your way into a sales goal to achieve recognition, you will not succeed. That is bad business.
I agree and I suspect a lot of people here do too. However, it is a method that appears to work for some people.
If you open a McDonalds and buy 1000 big Macs to hit your sales goal, you’re a terrible business owner and a hollow shell of a person who believes that is success. And you will never succeed.
The difference being I can’t just open my wallet and buy a McDonald’s franchise. I will be vetted to see if I have enough assets to support a McDonald’s business and equally importantly, the area I am planning to locate my franchise. McD’s aren’t interested in failures nor do they need a store on every corner.
I can look on a map and see every McDs BK, A&W et c. near me. It’s more difficult to look on a map and see each MKbot or Younique hun and tell if I have enough customers to make a livable income from selling those products.
What you describe is not exclusive to MK.
No, it’s prevalent in the whole MLM business. It doesn’t make it acceptable though.
People are more likely to fail than succeed at anything they do, and we as sales people are entitled to nothing we don’t create for ourselves. The problem isn’t MK or MLM, it’s the people in them that blindly believe it’s an easy way to make 6 figures or better. They’re naive.
Victim blaming isn’t a good look, dude.
And shame on the recruiters who aren’t straight with their distributors, hut (sic) again this isn’t exclusive to MK or even MLM.
That doesn’t make it any less ethical.
“As in insurance broker I talk to agents daily”
My dude are you feeling attacked because you’re an upline in Primerica or something? Did you for real just come to PinkTruth to defend MLM as a model and show your whole ass?
TBP- I think you nailed it. I smelled Primerica too. My insurance broker is very successful. I doubt he’d have time to seek out Pink Truth and post a mansplaining essay.
My earlier comment that vanished into the ether said he sounded like a Primerica drone.
“If your[sic] dumb enough to buy your way into a sales goal to achieve recognition, you will not succeed. That is bad business. If you open a McDonalds and buy 1000 big Macs to hit your sales goal, you’re a terrible business owner and a hollow shell of a person who believes that is success. And you will never succeed.”
The writer is sending mixed messages. It sounds like this part is directed toward people still in MK. I mean, it’s exactly what everyone on this site is warning about. So how is anyone here to blame for pointing out the very same thing?
“What you describe is not exclusive to MK… The problem isn’t MK or MLM, it’s the people in them that blindly believe it’s an easy way to make 6 figures or better.”
But MLMs are a problem, because they’re mathematically designed so that most people have to fail. By contrast, if you want a McDonalds franchise, you have to prove that you have the capital and the qualifications to run a successful business. You have to be able to meet payroll for real, W2-type employees, and to do that, you have to sell to actual customers. You don’t simply rent a kitchen, sell your cheeseburgers in bulk to a bunch of independent contractors, and then encourage them to re-sell those cheeseburgers to family, friends, and random strangers.
Obviously, the McDonald’s model is designed so that corporate succeeds only when the majority of franchisees succeed. By contrast, MLMs are designed so that corporate succeeds even when the majority of their consultants fail. That’s the distinction. If you miss that part, then you truly don’t understand what you’re talking about.