Network Marketing without MLM

The Network Marketing Opportunity -

Not Necessarily MLM

One of the things that hold people back from taking a

network marketing business opportunity is that they

immediately think that it's MLM. While network marketing

is often associated with MLM, they're not the same thing.

In fact, network marketing can work for you without being

attached to MLM.

While it's not the point of this article, it's still appropriate

to mention that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with MLM.

All too often, it gets associated with pyramid schemes,

which constitute a small percentage of MLM companies.

Avon, Mary Kay and Amway are all legitimate MLM companies.

Strategy, not Structure

The primary difference between network marketing and MLM

is that while one is a strategy, MLM is a structure. This is

an important distinction, since it means that our strategy

works without the MLM structure.

You can use this type of marketing in your own direct sales

campaign, which means one very important thing. You get

to keep all the money from your sales, rather than give up

a percentage to the person above you in the MLM hierarchy.

Starting A Marketing Campaign in Direct Sales

If you've already had experience using a network marketing

campaign in MLM, then you're ahead of the game. However,

not everyone has that experience. If you've never used it,

here are the essentials.

Network marketing is essentially using social networks to

make sales. This does not necessarily mean that you have

to start by selling to your friends and family. In fact, it's

best if you just skip over this typical first step and set up

new, business related social media accounts. While your

friends and family are more likely to buy something at first,

they're less likely to be repeat customers than new

acquaintances.

Building your Business

Once you've placed yourself in the right social networks

to get your campaigns started, you have to build your

network marketing business. It's possible that people will

become "friends" and then clients on their own, but things

move faster when you actively build your network. A

few friends made over a few days will create a snowball

effect with people coming to you.

Let's say, for instance, that you start a social account on

Facebook. Then, you "friend" a few people. When they

confirm you as a friend, as many people do, their friends

will see that they've confirmed the friendship. They will get

interested and check you out. If they "friend" you, then their

friends will see this, and the cycle repeats itself.

On the other hand, if you just put yourself out there and not

actively promote yourself, it's not likely that you will be

immediately noticed. In fact, you may never get noticed.

Very few social media sites will actually show new members.

From this, it's easy to see how an actively maintained

marketing campaign can make your home based business

skyrocket.