No doubt, this is a controversial topic and one that certain leaders would like to avoid altogether.

What is blatantly wrong with the network marketing industry?

These are things we MUST address and correct.

So here it is in all its glory.

Now take this with a grain of salt because it really is my perspective and what I believe the solutions can be.

What’s WRONG with the Network Marketing Industry today

First things first…

Top Earners: if you’re not a fan of somebody like me offering training to your people, then you’ll definitely want to read this first point because this is why you lose the attention of your new network marketers to 3rd party training companies…

The lack of skills that are being taught is the number one reason people get disenfranchised with the industry.

Once the ether of newness and excitement of all their financial dreams coming true wears off, the reality sets in.

This is a difficult industry. It pushes people outside of their comfort zones every day… especially the “old school” way that is taught of approaching friends and family, anyone who fogs a mirror, etc.

This may be the reason the majority of company events and “training” calls are mostly hype and B.S. (none of which will fill your bank account).

Of course, there are a few companies that do teach limited skills and aren’t full of hype, but the majority are.

There is a huge disconnect between the false expectations that the industry is making through oversimplification and hype.

They make it seem like it will be easy sailing from Day 1.

And on top of that, people are trained to badger and vomit all over their warm market, and “act as if”which feels completely disingenuous.

There aren’t actual systems to teach people a real step-by-step process to building their businesses and operating them like a real business.

For example, you go to any conference for self-employed professionals like CPAs, and they’re given real skills on marketing and sales, things they can apply to their businesses.

But in the network marketing industry, the common “training” tells their distributors…

“Anyone who fogs a mirror is a potential prospect. Just have a simple conversation with them about what you do. It’s not selling, it’s sharing.”

This oversimplification of their business is the true problem.

Starting with all the hype that brings the distributor in, the industry then gets a bad rap.

Why?

Because people aren’t in it to build a real business, nor are they getting the real training they require to build one.

That’s why you’ll hear top earners say things like, “I was a 6 year overnight success.” if they’re being real with you.

Any truthful leader will tell you that it took time, it varies for everyone, but it took time… and hard work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

It took me a couple of years to fully master the skillsets that have allowed me to build online.

And to be transparent, I’m always learning more. My business is a living, breathing entity that is constantly changing with the times.

However, the fundamentals of business and marketing remain constant and with proper training of skills both online and offline, building your business has never been more streamlined.

It took me a couple of years to fully master the skillsets that have allowed me to build online.

And to be transparent, I’m always learning more. My business is a living, breathing entity that is constantly changing with the times.

However, the fundamentals of business and marketing remain constant and with proper training of skills both online and offline, building your business has never been more streamlined.

Another fallacy in this industry is the emphasis on building your downline or “recruitment only” based building.

Because it’s the fastest, easiest way of validating that you have a business you’re willing to do anything for, companies have distributors focus solely on recruiting and building their team.

Hence the “get two who get two” advice.

Not enough emphasis is put on actually generating customers and creating retail sales and therefore the recruiting turns ANY company into a thinly-veiled pyramid scheme, which will eventually cause red flags with the FTC.

Here’s some reasons why…

You need to make retail sales

For one, you can only recur so many people, eventually you’ll max out and there’s only so much personal consumption of the product that can happen to keep you in business.

Sure you might be able to make a lot of money at first, but eventually this emphasis on recruitment will burn you out.

That’s why you see top earners join a company and gain instant momentum, hit six or seven figures in their first year, and immediately be flush with money.

But the, almost overnight, their numbers start dropping.

Why?

Because they can’t duplicate what they do. They’ve built a big team, but their team, without proper training fails.

So what do they do?

They switch to another company to gain the financial momentum and make money solely through recruiting their team from the old company… creating success stories for themselves… adding to the false expectations of those around them… and adding to the hype of the industry…

Rinse and repeat.

This is what recruitment with no emphasis on retail sales looks like.

Built into this model of recruitment is the 90 day cycle of events. Distributors are encouraged to go and “network” with top distributors and meet their fearless leaders.

The leaders are always going to thrive as they move from one company to the next because they have an advantage that most newbies don’t, a list of relationships.

The people who get screwed in these recruitment-based models are the regular distributors.

There’s a top earner right now—and I can’t say his name but I’ll refer to him as Bill from here on out—Well my friend, who is also a leader in the industry, relayed a story about a great conversation he had with Bill about a week and half ago.

Bill is secretly building in a very traditional network marketing company.

He’s been involved in quite a few companies over the years, and now he’s building with an old, very well-known company.

He decided…

“You know I’m done hopping around different companies, I’m going to build this one company.”

When he told my friend which company he’s building with My friend was baffled…

“Wait, what!?”

And then revealed his the numbers…

Numbers never lie! This particular company is extremely heavy on retail.

What happens is they are so focused on retail that people with relatively small teams and organizations are making a massive income, and more importantly, the income is stable.

He also showed some of the stats regarding autoshipping.

There are thousands of return customers reordering products every month—some have been customers for 200 months in a row!

When he showed my friend understood…

“Okay I totally get why you joined this company.”

They have a really solid system for creating retail customers that create massive incomes, even if people aren’t monster recruiters.

The FTC even likes this company…

Retail is legitimately a better business model because of its stability and sustainability.

There’s a common misconception out there when network marketers think they own a business.

Network marketing isn’t a business, it’s a profession.

Yes, just like any self-employed profession like a chiropractor, dentist or lawyer.

Rober Kiyosaki describes a business in the “Cashflow Quadrant” as something that can operate and generate cash flow even if you walk away from it. It can run without you.

Network marketing is not a real business for a couple of reasons:

1. Because you don’t actually own products; you don’t own your distributorship; you don’t own your downline…
2. All of this can be taken away at any point with little or no notice.

Your network marketing company can leave you high and dry at any moment. You can read more about this here:

Stop Your Business From Being Vulnerable

You’re really an independent contractor

Really, you’re a sales person producing sales for the company, getting paid commissions based on those sales, and you get a cut of the commissions that your team sells as well.

This doesn’t constitute a business, but there is a way you CAN build a distributorship into business.

That’s what is taught in my free 10-day online recruiting bootcamp – how to take control of your brand so that your income is never dependent on one street of income no matter what happens to your company.

There’s nothing wrong with you striving to be a business owner, what’s wrong with the industry is that it teaches people to perceive it as a real business from the get go.

It leads people to believe they are building a real business when it’s simply not true.

In reality, they’re developing the skillset for a new profession and building a business comes from the skills that you’ll learn in my 10-day bootcamp.

That’s when you can truly move from the “S” or self-employed category of the Cashflow Quadrant to the “B” or business owner side.

You CAN create a real business by brand loyalty.

You can certainly convert your distributorship into a real business by focusing on the brand that you can control and thereby building a business YOU control.

Then, instead of network marketing being a profession, it is just part of your overall business strategy and the vehicle by which you get your products.

Building your presence online as a brand is the fastest way with the farthest reach. You can grow your email list, which you have control over communications as well as creating your own products to sell over time.

That is how to truly serve people, create a following and build a brand.

In essence, that is a real business.

Once you develop a following outside your company, you have all the leverage because if anything should happen to your network marketing company, you won’t be left vulnerable.

You’ll still have your brand.

Now your following stay with you because they get to know, like and trust you which is the basis for a long-term relationship and following.

Your income will be based on how well you serve your following, how loyal people are to YOU, and not based on the loyalty to a particular company.

That’s something you can control and leverage and will allow you to rebuild your network marketing distributorship no matter which company you choose to promote.

The last thing that I see wrong with the network marketing industry is the incessant pettiness.

Top earners can get spoiled easily.

I’ve never seen an industry riddled with more prima donnas!

These top earners make their incomes with a very specific skillset and that became their “truth” which they defend at all costs.

All other methods of building a distributorship are thrown out the window with very little flexibility even if they are known to be more effective in this day and age.

This creates pettiness, insecurities that test even the most confident leaders, and egos go unchecked by company leaders because these “top earners” who rose to fame with traditional methods allow cater to them so that they remain in the company, at the detriment to new-age top earners.

Isn’t this true for any organization where the leadership is inflexible… and it becomes the death of a company unwilling to bend and incapable of seeing that egos unchecked equals loss of good people.

These new methods of online marketing and social media marketing are threatening to the “old school” methods and the top leaders who can hang their hats on building their organizations this “tried and true” way.

And unfortunately, the bigger the incomes, the bigger the threat to their egos which causes them to lash out and demand companies take action upon their behalf to crack down on so that the offenders don’t rock the boat!

The bigger their incomes, it seems the bigger their egos become!

That’s what’s wrong with network marketing! 

The truth of the matter is that the threat is not just to them.. This inflexibility is threatening to all distributors willing to go out on a limb and think outside the box.

Really, social media marketing is the wave of the future for network marketing because it’s faster and more efficient…
if done the correct way.

But unfortunately, too many people have taken it upon themselves to “spam” friends and family, not knowing how to marketing online correctly so it’s given it a bad rap.

There is a better way to attract people online, recruit them without being spammy, and build a tremendous team that duplicates themselves because of the skillsets that can be learned by anyone.

What’s right in the network marketing industry

Even though I’ve pointed out many flaws, there is a reason so many people flock to this industry day in and day out. Some even trying out multiple companies before finding their “home”.

There really is NO other industry out there with the types of benefits and upward momentum someone with enough grit and tenacity can build a successful profession and then business, at such a low cost.

No other industry has such a low cost barrier to entry with basically an unlimited income potential.

Compare network marketing to any franchise: Your startup costs are a small fraction of tens of thousands of dollars it would cost to start a franchise.

Some people actually complain that they “spent a lot of money” in network marketing and it “didn’t work” for them.

Just think of a franchise owner getting a loan only to find out their location stinks and they don’t know a thing about marketing. They go under, lose their franchise and are left with a mountain of debt.

This issue has more to do with the hype and unrealistic expectations than anything else.

You don’t hear franchisors telling their franchises they’ll make six figures in one month after opening their store!

However, because of the low overhead, network marketing is definitely the best opportunity to have a high income potential… once you get the right customers through your system.

Almost to the point of throwing up, this industry pushes personal development on their distributors.

Because the leaders know that when their people work on themselves, they can overcome more obstacles, will stay in the industry longer, and ultimately have more success.

In this industry, there is so little emphasis on skills-based training that it tries to make up for it by being really really good at helping people overcome their personal demons and obstacles.

After all, if someone has enough tenacity and perseveres through tough times (different for everyone, but everyone has them), eventually they will figure out how to be successful.

It’s one reason why JT, my husband and I put on The Think Big Show podcast every Monday through Friday at 11a EST. We help people get out of their own way so that they can conquer more than they ever could imagine and eliminate overwhelm, smash obstacles and get to their own success in business.

The network marketing industry has no comparison for how much it takes willing people out of their comfort zones and boosts them up with personal development.

It is truly the reason why JT and I have been persevered through the hard times (bankruptcy, foreclosure, you name it) and came out on the other side with a thriving business.

The emphasis on personal growth and development is definitely one of the best parts about the industry.

And finally, the wonderful thing about this industry, despite it’s pitfalls, there’s nothing that can duplicate the potential for success that is inherent in network marketing opportunities.

The truth of the matter is there is no such thing as job security anymore. And millions of people very day are having a rude awakening to the fact that they have to take their income and economy into their own hands.

Network marketing, with its low barrier to entry allows anyone the potential to be saved from the mundane job that offers little to no benefits and no job security.

Having graduated UCLA and then immediately receiving a paycheck from the U.S. Navy gave me a sense for job security… but nothing is worth my freedom and personal enterprise.

I enjoyed my time in the Navy, but the time away from my family was more than I chose to exchange so I got out a year early to build a network marketing business.

It was the best thing ever, except when JT and I both didn’t have jobs and our business flailed with the economy.

But despite our own personal obstacles, we personally grew, learned from our mistakes, thought bigger and developed the skillsets to not only thrive in our business, but to help others to do the same.

Ultimately, even if you don’t end up building a big network marketing business…

It is the gateway to the road of Entrepreneurship…

It’s a gateway out of the mundane and into thinking bigger…thinking differently.

It’s a gateway to personally develop into a better human being who contributes on a grander scale.

And it’s a gateway towards opportunities that you may not have been exposed to or a part of otherwise.

This idea of saving people from the mundane and mediocre lives they could be living and waking them up to possibly realizing their dreams is definitely a worthwhile cause.

It’s definitely something that is right about the industry.

So to recap, here’s what is WRONG with network marketing:

1. The emphasis on hype and lack of skill-based training (with false promises and expectations of easy money)
2. Recruitment-only models which are unsustainable
3. The myth that network marketing is a business when it’s really a profession
4. The pettiness, out of control egos and insecurities of a lot of stalwart top earners because they don’t operate like a real business owner and have a scarcity mentality

And here’s what is RIGHT about the network marketing industry…

1. Low costs and high income potential
2. An emphasis on personal development
3. Saving people from mundane and mediocre lives

When looking at the big question of whether network marketing is something you want to do for the long haul, you’ve got to look at the pros and cons and more importantly, what will work or not work for you and your business.

So on that note, if you’re ready to start learning actual business skillsets, such as how to develop an online brand and create a loyal following…

Then I highly recommend signing up for my free online recruiting bootcamp that my mentor Ferny Ceballos put together for my team.

You’ll learn the exact online business building strategies he used to passively generate 300–500 leads per day, 30–50 customers per day, and recruit 70–100 new serious business builders into his business each month.

These are the exact strategies he used when he first started, while literally living out of a bedroom at his mom’s house, and subsequently used to create a world-wide brand and over 14 million dollars in revenue.

So if you’re ready to get started…

Simply click here and I’ll gladly give you access to my 10-day bootcamp

And if you found this content helpful, I would love to read your comments below!

To your success,

Mia DeBolt
Chief Marketing Officer
DeBolt Enterprises LLC