Lets just say it “MLM Scams”! Although not without its challenges today’s, as a general matter, legitimate network marketing companies are well received thought the US with increasing frequency, federal and state government offer assistance and guidance to the network marketing industry. The IRS releases special publications and videos and has adopted specific regulations recognizing it as a legitimate profession. As in the franchising industry, several states have also adopted specific legislation for multi-level marketing distribution companies which set forth objective standards for those companies to follow. Differencing a legitimate network marketing opportunity from a pyramid scheme should not be a difficult task for the entrepreneur when some basic and objective indicators are observed.

Any industry that offers such dramatic rewards and carries with it such a low dollar cost of entry obviously will tend to attract some of the best and some of the worst entrepreneurs. The industry has not always thrived. Over the years, it has come perilously close to extinction as a result of prosecution by regulators who claimed the industry promoted pyramid schemes under the guise of legitimate marketing. And in many cases, the prosecutors were correctly chasing and eradicating such pyramid schemes.

Other programs which were in fact legitimate have survived, however. In a classic legal decision in 1979, the Amway Corporation prevailed in such a prosecution; and , in fact, effectively received a stamp of approval of its marketing program by the Federal Trade Commission. This particular decision opened the door to many other legitimate multi level marketing companies. Thank you Amway!

Because of the abuses of the “rotten apples” these MLM scams of the industry, multi level marketing has become a closely scrutinized and regulated industry. Regulations regarding multi level marketing companies in the US are a constantly changing patchwork of overlapping laws, which lack uniformity and vary from state to state.

The basic thrust of these statutes is the marketing plans are prohibited when they require an investment or purchase by sales representatives for the right to recruit others for economic gain.

Unser these statutes, multi –level marketing companies must be bona fide retail organizations which market bona fide products to the ultimate consumer. Inventory loading and “headhunting” (remuneration for the mere act of recruiting others) are prohibited. Sales kits should be sold at actual company’s cost to sales representatives.

In the leading legal decisions, a variety of abuses have been targeted as potential elements of illegal marketing plans:

1. Products which have “no real world” marketplace
2. Products which are sold at inflated prices
3. Plans which result in inventory loading or “buy in” qualification by distributors
4. Substantial cash investment requirements
5. Mandatory purchases of peripheral or accessory products or services
6. Plan in which distributors are left with substantial unsold inventory upon cancellation of participation
7. Plan in which fees are paid to distributors for headhunting and emphasis is on recruitment rather than sale of products
8. Earnings misrepresentations or inflated earnings representations

Would you ever try to pour hot coffee into a thermos with the lid still on? Could you put a dvd into your dvd player if it already had a disc in it?

Of course not. Unfortunately, the way that most people prospect for MLM partners makes about as much sense.

For many years, you’ve all been taught to call up your friends and try to get them to come to an opportunity meeting, at least read some information, or watch a video about your MLM opportunity. To do anything different would be going against the number one commandment of your industry- duplicate what works. In other words, “thou shalt not try to reinvent the wheel”.

first, you must remember that when you propose your opportunity, you are offering a business opportunity. It is a chance at being a true entrepreneur. Secondly, you are proposing that your prospect get involved with multi-level marketing. In other words, you have at least one, probably two, major challenges here- challenges you must overcome before you can even think about proposing your specific opportunity. These challenges, nine time out of ten, are the reasons why your prospects wont even look at your opportunity.

Surveys indicate that about 85 percent of all working Americans would like to own their own businesses if they could. In other words, if all obstacles were removed, they would prefer to be their own boss rather than work for someone else.

This amounts to approximately 160 million people. These are your MLM prospects. Now, when 160 million people want to do something and don’t do it, there must be a good reasons.

When asked why they don’t go into business for themselves, people usually come up with one or more of the following reasons:

1. It takes too much money. I don’t have thousands of dollars to invest in a business.
2. It takes too much time. I don’t want to work eighty hours a week, seven days a week to get my business going.
3. Its too risky. Over 80 percent of all businesses fail in the first two years.
4. I don’t know how. I’ve never taken any business courses. I don’t know anything about taxes, accounting or marketing.

I can assure you, if your prospects are not currently operating their own business, they have considered the possibility at some time in their lives. They have also determined the reasons why they cant (probably all four reasons). Therefore, before you even start to offer your MLM opportunity, you might want to dispel, as much as possible, these beliefs about why they cant go into business for themselves.

Lets say you are having lunch with your friends and you causally mention the fact that you are thinking about starting your own business. Then you ask if they have ever considered it.

Sure, they have considered it at some time or another.

They will inevitably respond with one or more of the previous four reasons. Now comes the fun part. You ask them if they would ever consider going into business for themselves if:

-the total start up cost were under five hundered dollars and the income potential were higher than the earnings of some CEO’s.

- the total time investment could be as little as ten to twenty hours a week.

- they could continue to work in their present job until the income from their business was sufficient to earn them at least an equal income so there is little risk.

- there were numerous consultants available to them who are experts at running this business – who would train and advise them personally – for an unlimited number of hours, for the life of their business, absolutely free.

Working from Home?

Telecommuting, e-commuting, e-work, telework, working at home (WAH) or working from home (WFH) is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links. Many work from home, while others, occasionally also referred to as nomad workers or web commuters, utilize mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or myriad other locations.

Long distance telework is facilitated by such tools as virtual private networks, videoconferencing, and Voice over IP. It can be efficient and useful for companies as it allows staff and workers to communicate over a large distance, saving significant amounts of travel time and cost. As broadband Internet connections become more commonplace, more and more workers have enough bandwidth at home to use these tools to link their home office to their corporate intranet and internal phone networks.
Coworking

Coworking

Coworking is a social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share a common working area as well as the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space. Typically, a coworking facility offers hotdesking and other services with common office infrastructure, as well as social areas such as a coffee shop.

Telecommuters who begin working from home part-time for one company may acquire self-employed status through agreement or necessity. From that position an employee may seek more work from other sources. Ultimately, the size of the job unit may reduce, so that many more people are working for small periods of time for multiple clients. These short-time-period jobs have been named microjobs.

Telecommuting has come to be viewed by some as more a “complement rather than a substitute for work in the workplace”.[20] Thus, some workers may find their work load increased to the point where they are under more stress than before. Distractions at home can have a similar effect, especially among workers who leave the office to be better able to care for small children and the infirm.

Teleworking can negatively affect a person’s career. A recent survey of 1,300 executives from 71 countries indicated that respondents believe that people who telework were less likely to get promoted. Companies rarely promote people into leadership roles who haven’t been consistently seen and measured.