Multi-level marketing in Ireland

Bandara

Mr Levi posts about this every now and again. At least this time he's trying to pretend its not just about this by posting a few nonsense comments on other threads first, and not opening this boards account (well the most recent one anyway) with a post advertising how wonderful his pyramid scheme will be

Yawn

M.T.D

Great post from dubtony (the 1.56am one) gives a fairly good summary
My opinion based on having been in an mlm group previously for many years.
Some good pay cheques €5k +/month and foreign holidays.

I am no longer with any mlm company but have no problem with the concept.

MLM should work, although direct online ordering has changed the market place hugely in the last 10 years.

Any company with a sales force where the sales manager's wage is partly based on what his team sells is akin to mlm

IMO the two main criteria in choosing an MLM company are

1. would you buy/sell the company products at the recommended prices with out the mlm side, i.e. are they good value.

2. is the mlm side fair and reasonable i.e. bigger group/downline/team turnover equal bigger bonus cheque in a reasonably proportional manner.

re point 1. you can then sell products and make some extra cash the same as you could car washing or cutting grass for your neighbours at the weekends.

re point 2. is the time, effort and often expense going to be rewarded.
I know people that spent huge amounts of money running adverts, putting out flyers, holding meetings, many making significant losses with no income or team to show for it.

I have yet to find a company that meets both criteria.
The products are either crap or over priced or both.
Or the pay structure is contrived and convoluted.

Duckjob

theLEVI wrote: »

I actually have met some people once that said they live very well just from constantly expanding their group of distributors, but then i didn't think about it seriously,they were talking about well over 12k euro a month,
it does take time, so i heard.

OP in all your posts, this part jumped out at me. You're going to take as true , claims about income from people who :

a) already have their own skin in the game
b) who's own success or failure depends entirely on telling you and others how much they make and convince you to climb aboard.

Seriously?

EamonOSullivan

K.Flyer wrote: »

Levi,

Let me share my knowledge that I have on the subject and you can take it or leave it.
Direct Selling / M.L.M. / Network Marketing all more or less follow the same model.
These have been knocking around, in some cases decades, they are nothing new at all, but very few of them have had longevity. Yes, some people make / made serious money from it, but only some and they were usually at the Top end of the chain.
We have all seen it before, someone "sponsers" you in, you buy product from them (they and their "up-line" make a few bob from that) you are encouraged to "develop" your own business, by sponsering more people into the business and by them buying product but the magic starts to begin when the people that you have sponsered in start to get people on board as well, now you have a business being developed under you expotentially. So say you sponser a few people in and they each in turn sponser a few people in and each of those new people get some people on board as well creating several different layers below you, so you are on Top of these growing Layers of Independant Businesses spreading out under you, all passing product down the line as profits are passed back up the line towards the Top.
Now you might see what I am getting at here, most Business minded people have been shown "The Plan" at some stage of their life, except nowadays its shown in outward building circles instead of a plan with you on the Top of the increasing levels of independant business owners, because it visually looks too much like a Pyramid, with you on Top of it.
These schemes have been around for decades with some product(s) or another and some have managed to keep going for a while (Avon springs to mind).
However there have been lots that have caused a lot of people to lose a lot of their money.
Before there would have been a "joining fee" this is now illegal and would now scream Pyramid Scheme.
Now there is no joing fee, but you are usually "encouraged" to buy "samples" or "product" to show (start to sell) to your friends, family and associates, with the "sure they might be interested in getting on board as well !!" line. And so it goes.
There may be no joining fee, but you will find that you end up being encouraged to pay for certain things through Their system, years ago it was "books, tapes and seminars".
They may have different names for it today (and different products) but at the end of the day, with you on Top of the different Lines of Independant Business Owners, when you sketch it out that way it Looks like a Pyramid and it smells like a Pyramid but it now called Multi Level Marketing.
But its legal because of a few small changes and how it is initially presented to you.
As I said, some have made money from these schemes, but most have not, in some cases some lost a lot.
So by all means look at it for yourself, examine it for yourself, but be cautious about it, as the old saying goes "....If it looks to good to be true etc etc etc".

Excellent post - great info there for anyone looking at MLM

Peterdalkey

I know it is not quite the same thing but I know a couple of people who were variously involved in party plan selling of ladies clothing, cosmetics etc. the recession and lack of cash for discretionary spending has really killed these operations. It is interesting to note the rise and rise of Primark sales over the same period. This can also be said about Aldi Lidl revenues and the general popularity of discount/euro stores , it seems clear that price points are more critical than ever, even in the middle market areas. You need a compelling price advantage to make decent revenues on a direct selling models, to me the web offers a much better opportunity than any MLM offerings I have seen.

TheEireEmpire

MLM has changed my life

Graham

TheEireEmpire wrote: »

MLM has changed my life

I've heard a few people say that.

Generally the changes are:

• a room full of tat sample products.
• a hole in the bank account where the money to acquire said tat sample products used to sit.
• ongoing invitations to mass ra-ra sessions in a non-descript hotel conference rooms
• evenings and weekends spent trying to convince other suckers like minded entrepreneurs to visualise the large house and yacht they'd like to own.

Don't worry though, the changes are usually temporary. After a year or two you'll realise it was all a colossal con and you'll reassign the tat to a skip somewhere and consciously decide never to talk about it again until a friend asks about it and you squirm for a few minutes.

Buttercake

Conor McGregor is class isnt he



Sorry thought he said MMA

TheEireEmpire wrote: »

MLM has changed my life

pedroeibar1

TheEireEmpire wrote: »

MLM has changed my life

Is that you Breifne? How's life inside?

duploelabs

John Oliver's views on MLM