Looking for financial freedom? Network marketing has a lot of great things going for it. But, like any money-making opportunity, the MLM rose definitely has some thorns. The list of the cons of network marketing isn’t long, but they can give a would-be network marketer pause. Here are the biggies:
1. You need a sizable network to succeed.
If you don’t know a lot of people, or you aren’t allowed to share the business with the people you do know (such as at your workplace or church), you have failed before you even get started. Happily, in this day and age the Internet can make your network much larger than in the pre-world wide web days.
2. You need to know how to market.
Marketing skills and techniques can be learned, and some people will learn faster and more easily than others. However, because most people join MLMs looking for a quick buck and couldn’t care less about spending six months to a couple years learning a new skill set, they bail out after just a few months.
3. It takes determination and effort to succeed in network marketing.
Because only a small percentage of people will join your business, you have to contact a lot of people – and sometimes know the right things to say – in order to grow your downline.
4. Building a generous residual income check often takes time.
A handful of people do what it takes to replace their day job income in just a few months. However, most network marketers need to spend a lot more time on their business before they consistently begin receiving checks that will allow them some financial freedom.
5. A lot of MLM companies have ho-hum product lines.
Rare is the nutritional MLM company that provides truly life-changing products (Be Young is one of those rarities). If you join a company that sells supplements and products comparable to those sold in a health food store, only fifty percent more expensive, most people will wonder why they should bother doing business with you.
6. Training on marketing and products may be lacking.
I used to belong to a company whose “training” consisted of motivational phone calls. The training materials they sent out every month were about as useless for actually teaching new distributors the nuts and bolts of building a business.
On the other hand, Be Young Essential Oils has an excellent weekly product training call, so much so that I’ve gotten addicted to it!
Building an MLM business is not as easy as the gurus make it look; however, the question you need to ask yourself is, “Am I willing to deal with the obstacles in order to become financially free?”
