I expect that most of you reading this have been embroiled at one time or other with Multi Level Marketing. I was and the MLM I was in was a well known weight loss company. Their product was great; I lost close to 8 kilograms using it within 3 months but the only problem was that I had to keep on taking it or I would put the weight back on. Therefore, once I had left that MLM you can guess what happened next – the excess baggage returned with a vengeance.
The one aspect of this experience with this MLM that really made me wonder about the sense of the MLM structure and methodology was the way I was expected to market it.
Being a mild mannered Australian guy who didn’t have any experience with the razzmatazz of US style marketing meetings or any understanding of what was really expected of me to market this product, I strode in where angels fear to tread. So when I went to my first marketing conference held by this MLM in the nearby city of Sydney, I was totally and absolutely flabbergasted by the hype and fanfare. Even while at this conference I started to have misgivings about being with them mainly because it seemed to based on selfishness. The idea of a team and of true cooperation was missing and although I’m sadder and wiser now and realise that that is a function of the times we are living in it still doesn’t make it any better.
Anyway, I returned from that conference determined to give it a go and so started the marketing as I was expected to do with fliers in the local shopping centres, mail box drops around the area (it certainly made me fit, maybe that’s where the kilos went), ads in the local papers and hustling all and sundry that I could get my hands on. The last was the worst as I didn’t make any friends doing this and I am certain that I lost quite a few as a result of my credibility being open to question.
However, the kicker was at the last conference I went to. This was at my home town of Canberra. I suppose that many of you are like me in that you run your business while still working in a boring 9 to 5. At that time I was a Public Servant (I worked for the Federal Government) and this conference was in a part of Canberra with many Federal buildings around, none of which were aligned to my department. The bloke running the conference pulled me aside and suggested that as I was an employee of the government, I could easily get into these buildings at lunch time and go from desk to desk flogging off this product.
While this sounds great, it was totally unrealistic as each government department has its own security which requires at least some level of certifiable access. In most cases that is by swipe card that is monitored and managed by the security team of that department from their own servers. Therefore an officer from another department cannot just waltz in to a different department, swipe his or her card and expect access. It just doesn’t work that way. Your card wouldn’t work in the first place. When I mentioned that to this organiser he was quite taken aback and his attitude was that I wasn’t trying hard enough. What did he want? For me to be arrested for trespass for that is what would have happened and I could have lost my job as a result. I therefore realised that this wasn’t for me and thus I left, significantly out of pocket.
Since then, I have tried another two online businesses. One will be the subject of the next article but the one I’m still in has a sensible business plan, a great payment plan and a realistic marketing plan which all work. See my bio for more if you are interested.
