My MLM Love / Hate Relationship

WorldGypsie · 10-19-2009, 10:55 AM

I hate MLM because the company can change the rules on you whenever they want. I wasted so much time, energy and money playing in someone else's ball park where they made the rules. Not much different from having a very low paying job. One that costs you more to keep than you earn.

I love MLM / Affilliate marketing when I own the company and make the rules.

Guess thats why I now make more in a month than I use to earn in a year. Not by doing MLM (I'm a MLM Loser) but by creating products and opportunities for others to promote.

Sitting at the top of your own pyramid is the only way I'll do MLM again.

Cheers

FreedomForex · 10-19-2009, 12:32 PM

Agreed,

Just like in traditional business, owning your own business is always better than working for others, and this is true in affiliate marketing and the MLM industry, and I have done both, so I speak from experience.

I started several traditional businesses, as well as one of the first affiliate 2 tier, if not the first. I saw the advantages of the simplicity of an affiliate structure, but I also saw the power of leveraging through the efforts of others, so to stay out of the MLM arena given it was a finance consulting business, not wise to combine into an MLM.

Long story short, I did well, but was overwhelmed keeping up with it, so I created a monster and got burned out with all the issues of running a home business and handling everything myself. So to put it simply, it is great to make a lot of money, but if you are the type to want to do it all yourself, beware of the trap of a business, it can be all comsuming.

Lesson learned, I did retire for a couple years to rethink my strategies, and with this break, I started another multi tier affiliate in the alternative energy green industry which is booming, and this too grew faster than expected, but it accomplished my goal as it was designed to be a limited or capped business, so absolutely, affiliate programs are great if you have your own product, but if not, almost every affiliate program I have ever researched has a limited lifespan, usually less than 18 months, so there is a lot to learn.

As we know, the so called gurus of the internet affiliates just keep repackaging the same old same old with a new catchy name, secret to this, secret to that, but how many can think of an affiliate deal with staying power, meaning lasts for more than two years? This would make for an interesting subject, how many have been successful for more than a year, two years or beyond.

It is always nice to hear success stories, so how long have you been successful in your own affiliate program? I look for trends and get ahead of them, and green ecological environmental businesses which are recession proof is my focus, money saving programs, value oriented programs, but I will never depend on just one for the very reasons mentioned in previous post, you don't have control working for others just as you don't promoting affiliates of others, or MLM's of others, but less headaches too. lol

Success to all, Mike

FreedomForex · 10-19-2009, 12:32 PM

Agreed,

Just like in traditional business, owning your own business is always better than working for others, and this is true in affiliate marketing and the MLM industry, and I have done both, so I speak from experience.

I started several traditional businesses, as well as one of the first affiliate 2 tier, if not the first. I saw the advantages of the simplicity of an affiliate structure, but I also saw the power of leveraging through the efforts of others, so to stay out of the MLM arena given it was a finance consulting business, not wise to combine into an MLM.

Long story short, I did well, but was overwhelmed keeping up with it, so I created a monster and got burned out with all the issues of running a home business and handling everything myself. So to put it simply, it is great to make a lot of money, but if you are the type to want to do it all yourself, beware of the trap of a business, it can be all comsuming.

Lesson learned, I did retire for a couple years to rethink my strategies, and with this break, I started another multi tier affiliate in the alternative energy green industry which is booming, and this too grew faster than expected, but it accomplished my goal as it was designed to be a limited or capped business, so absolutely, affiliate programs are great if you have your own product, but if not, almost every affiliate program I have ever researched has a limited lifespan, usually less than 18 months, so there is a lot to learn.

As we know, the so called gurus of the internet affiliates just keep repackaging the same old same old with a new catchy name, secret to this, secret to that, but how many can think of an affiliate deal with staying power, meaning lasts for more than two years? This would make for an interesting subject, how many have been successful for more than a year, two years or beyond.

It is always nice to hear success stories, so how long have you been successful in your own affiliate program? I look for trends and get ahead of them, and green ecological environmental businesses which are recession proof is my focus, money saving programs, value oriented programs, but I will never depend on just one for the very reasons mentioned in previous post, you don't have control working for others just as you don't promoting affiliates of others, or MLM's of others, but less headaches too. lol

Success to all, Mike

mschuerer · 10-25-2009, 06:42 PM

I love the MLM business combined with online marketing.

The MLM has residual income built into its marketing plan. I like that a lot.

What I don't like about MLM is the amount of money and hard work required to keep it going. The drop-out rate is so high that you constantly have to keep getting new distributors to keep your organization viable. The company leads are quite expensive, so I have combined it with online marketing of my own to build my own leads through free online marketing techniques.