What is the Best MLM Business Opportunity? 

People are always asking me, “What’s the best MLM business opportunity?”. Like many questions, the answer isn’t that simple and depends on many factors. Best for whom?  The personal trainer at the gym, the corporate attorney, the 20 year old college student or the retiree looking to relax and travel the world? Each of these people have different motivations, goals, knowledge, circle of influence, and skill set… And this isn’t even considering the compensation plan.

If you are at the point where you have decided to invest some of your hard-earned money into starting a new network marketing business, make sure that you thoroughly go over the many alternatives that are available, not merely to ensure that it is possible to produce a terrific income, but also to ensure that your future downline team can benefit as well.

Look at it this way… If you made the decision to buy into a burger franchise wouldn’t you evaluate your options? McDonald’s, Hardee’s, or Checker’s/Rally’s? What are the startup costs, income potential, avg time to recoup your investment, success rate, quality of products, etc… There’s much to consider.

Direct selling companies and network marketing opportunities are not all the same, and you’ll find that those who have thoroughly investigated the opportunities available, will be the people who will build the most profitable organizations… If you make a mistake and discover it at this stage, you may lighten your wallet a bit, but its better to figure it out now rather than later after you’ve invested an awful lot of time. You’ll find many considerations set out below which you should really think about before joining any MLM or Network Marketing opportunity.

MLM Company

The very first question to ask is how long the company has been in business. Is the company privately owned or is it publicly traded? Who are the management team, and have they had prior expertise within the network marketing model? Is the company international and if not, are you going to run into trouble if you sell their goods abroad, for example with Customs? A ground floor opportunity has it’s benefits but not without its risks. While a tremendous amount of opportunity exists you may not have polished sales tools available to make your job easier, you may see the compensation plan change as unforeseen elements need to be addressed, and these can cause a higher turnover rate with regard to team members leaving for more stable ground. BUT, if you find a truly revolutionary company with great leadership and enough of the right pieces in place, getting in on the ground floor could be the equivalent of hitting the lottery!

MLM Products

Take a long look at the goods and services that the organization is providing. You must question if an average person off the street would buy that product or service at the price the company is offering if the income opportunity was not attached to it. If you have a hard time justifying the products purchase at the existing price point or you find the company’s products available in large quantities for less than wholesale on eBay or Amazon then you should PASS on that opportunity. This is a purely economical reason. If your customer is used to paying $35 for a supplement they already use and are now asked to pay $75 it’s doubtful that they will even if your product is 10x more effective. Even those that do purchase, unless they build the business, may soon give up and go back to paying $35 per bottle. When you ask your new customers to commit to a monthly purchase of your product, if they are able to locate a similar, more affordable product elsewhere they are likely to cancel.

The ideal product or service is one that needs little explanation, one that the customer will utilize again and again, and is priced competitively in the market place. One word of advice… Every great MLM has a terrific product or service that people could benefit from… What I’ve found however is that most people (at least here in the USA) don’t purchase products based on what’s good for them, they buy what they want or like… We are creatures of habit… Not downing any health and wellness products but what I’ve experienced personally is that the vast majority of my sales with health and wellness products were to the distributors in my organization… And that’s ok… you can make A LOT of money and change many lives in the process… but if you can find a product or service that has MASS appeal to customers outside of the company you have found a real winner!

Leadership

Another KEY aspect to a Network Marketing company’s long term success is leadership.  The most successful teams will develop a strong bond and relationship between you and leaders above you in the matrix (commonly referred to as upline although I prefer the term Support Team). Do you sense that they truly care about you and are committed to helping you succeed? If they don’t ask you what YOU want out of the business and only seemed to be focused on convincing you to join them look for another mentor. We’re not talking about the person who will sponsor you but rather the people above them who will be helping you build your business. Your sponsor many times has only recently heard about the business themselves and can’t be expected to have learned the new skills yet.

Timing and Trends

One often overlooked aspect of choosing the right MLM or Network Marketing opportunity is the timing and trends evolving in the market place.  Back in the 90’s a company named Excel Telecommunications rocked the Network Marketing industry at a time when long distance service was being deregulated. The company was the youngest company ever to join the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) and their number 1 income earner, Paul Orberson, topped the charts at over $2 Million per month and consistently earned over $1 million per month for 18 consecutive months.

There were other companies that entered the long distance MLM arena but EXCEL was first and captured the market share. Being first has its privileges so recognizing when a company has a first mover advantage can pay off big time. So think about the product or service an ask yourself, “Is this another me too deal, or is this a game changer?” If it’s a knock off product without much of a distinction to others in the marketplace is that what you want to represent? If not continue the search, but don’t abandon your decision to move forward.

Compensation Plan

Bottom line… is it fair or does the vast majority of compensation get paid out to a lucky few? An easy way to check is to find out what percentage the compensation plan pays out in total to all reps then head over to Direct Selling News to see what your company revenues were… multiply the revenue by the comp plan percentage and compare that to the total earnings of the top 10 reps in your company for the same period. You can find that info out at Business For Home or Obtainer.

For example: If your company had $100 million in sales last year and the comp plan pays out 55% that means they paid out a total of 55 million to ALL distributors… If the top 10 distributors collectively earned 11 million dollars that would mean that 20% (11/55) of all commissions went to this very small group of people. Great for them but not so great for you.

The best comp plans will allow the new distributor to not only recoup their startup costs quickly but also enable them to earn profit within their first 90 days in the business with. This is extremely important as very few people quit once they are earning money or even getting their personal product for free.

Support and Training

Attrition inside of network marketing can be as high as 90%! With such an high rate of people giving up it’s going to be quite tough for you to build a profitable business if you choose the wrong opportunity. Many people who start out in network marketing will only recruit or sponsor 4 individuals throughout their entire time in the business.

The main reason for failure in network marketing is that people are lazy and unwilling to learn new skills before jumping in and making a mess of things… Professional Athletes, Doctors, Attorneys, and other professionals have devoted years of their lives to learning the skills necessary to be successful in their career but join a network marketing company and don’t even commit to a week of study before launching their business.

So be sure to ask what kind of training and support can you expect to receive from the leadership. Do they give you a website, mobile app, brochures, and other sales aids (most do these days). What about training in the form of conference calls, live events, books, audios, and videos?

If they are a new company and have yet to create these for you, I strongly encourage you to invest in your own education and build your skills. You can get a lot of free training from industry leaders like Eric Worre.  His book “Go Pro – 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional” is one of the definitive resources on the industry. You can also check out his daily video blog at Network Marketing Pro

Here are some of my favorites that are available for purchase from Amazon.com

The Right Company for Me

Without going into a lot of detail, the company that is the “Best Fit” for me and my family is Paid2Save. They are a relatively new debt-free company (less than 2 years old) that is on the cutting edge. Think Groupon meets MLM… Paid2Save has a Mobile App that distributors give away to people who become our customers. Merchants advertise their daily deals on our app and when our customers redeem a deal we earn a piece of those advertising dollars. This was appealing because it was the first time since the old Excel days, where I’m not asking my customers to spend money on something they didn’t even know existed yesterday or trying to get them to change their brand on something they already purchase.

The leadership of the company is phenomenal and I have personally been able to speak with everyone up to the CEO himself, Mr David Hart. They aren’t greedy either as the comp plan pays out a very generous 80% back to the distributors. They are also quick to offer support and are genuinely committed to my success.

Everything is going mobile these days… it’s no longer e-commerce its M-commerce… and Paid2Save is poised on the forefront of a massive movement that I believe will be a game changer.

In contrast to Groupon where merchants pay 35-50% of the income produce by their deals Paid2Save only charges 10% or $1.75 per redeemed offer and the customer pays the merchant directly so they’re not waiting 60-90 days for their money like they do with Groupon.

For a deeper look checkout my Paid2Save page HERE.

Conclusion

So that the best MLM business opportunity is one that you can be passionate about and fits your circle of influence, has a good product that people already use at a price comparable to what they are already purchasing, where the company is poised to take advantage of the current trends in the marketplace and you can get the help and support from the leadership in the company who cares about your success and has evidenced that you can hit the ground running and earn money given the time you have available to build your new business venture.

Probably the most essential element to building a huge team in any Network MARKETING company is the marketing. Do you have a marketing program in place? You are going to need a budget along with a marketing plan as a way to get the word out into the marketplace so that it is possible for you to make money and then build a team. This could be anything from giving away free samples, facebook-twitter-instagram marketing, pay per click ads with google or any number of other strategies.

So what is your strategy? Marketing is one of the most important aspects of becoming profitable in network marketing, so after learning the basic set of skills and how to talk to people about your business branding yourself online should be one of the first thing you should implement soon after discovering the right Network Marketing company. Review several different strategies and pick ONE and master it before moving on to others. Take a look at my preferred strategy below and start earning big in your company!

Start Marketing Online Today