MLM BUSINESS

Multi-level marketing (MLM) also called pyramid selling,network marketing,and referral marketing, is a marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce (also called participants, and variously known as "salespeople", "distributors", "consultants", "promoters", "independent business owners", etc.) selling the company's products/services, while the earnings of the participants are derived from a pyramid-shaped commissionsystem.

Although each MLM company dictates its own specific "compensation plan" for the payout of any earnings to their respective participants, the common feature which is found across all MLMs is that the compensation plans theoretically pay out to participants only from the two potential revenue streams. The first stream of compensation can be paid out from commissions of sales made by the participants directly to their own retail customers. The second stream of compensation can be paid out from commissions based on the sales made by other distributors below the participant who had recruited those other participants into the MLM; in the organizational hierarchy of MLMs, these participants are referred to as one's “down line” distributors.

MLM salespeople are, therefore, expected to sell products directly to end-user retail consumers by means of relationship referrals and word of mouth marketing, but most importantly they are incentivized to recruit others to join the company as fellow salespeople so that these can become their down line distributors.According to a report that studied the business models of 350 MLMs, published on the Federal Trade Commission’s website, at least 99% of people who join MLM companies lose money.Nonetheless, MLMs function because downline participants are encouraged to hold onto the belief that they can achieve large returns, while the statistical improbability of this is de-emphasised.

Business model

Revenue streams

In the MLM business model, the commission derived from the MLM's pyramid-shaped structure (i.e. from the sales of one's recruits) is the most profitable revenue stream. This revenue stream, however, is also the least statistically probable source of remuneration to a salesperson. Conversely, the revenue stream from direct-sales of ones own personal sales is the least profitable. This revenue stream, however, is also statistically the most likely source of remuneration to salespeople. For the overwhelming majority of participants, however, neither one of these two revenue streams will be profitable after operating expenses are deducted.

Participant profits and losses

The overwhelming majority of MLM participants (most sources estimated to be over 99.25% of all MLM participants) participate at either an insignificant or nil net profit. Indeed, the largest proportion of participants must operate at a net loss (after expenses are deducted) so that the few individuals in the uppermost level of the MLM pyramid can derive their significant earnings—earnings which are then emphasized by the MLM company to all other participants to encourage their continued participation at a continuing financial loss.

Participant consumerism

Consumers of an MLM company's products/services can, in theory, be merely end-user retail consumers. End-user retail consumers are non-participants of the MLM company, with their relationship to the MLM company being nothing more than in a capacity of consumers. In actual practice, however, the overwhelmingly majority of consumers of MLM products/services are the participants. They are the very "salespeople" within the MLM who had been recruited by a fellow participant positioned above them in the MLM pyramid structure.

Revenue and total profit of the MLM company is thus largely generated from the pockets of participants within the MLM pyramid who are simultaneously both salespersons and consumers at once. Only an insignificantly small proportion of revenue and total profit is derived from non-participant retail consumers who are outside of the MLM participant pyramid. Many MLM companies will not disclose what percentage of its consumers are simultaneously their own participants. Other MLMs do not keep said figures because they do not differentiate between participant consumerism versus non-participant retail consumerism.

Distribution of profit to participants

It is important to distinguish between the MLM company itself versus the so-called "independent businesses" run by the MLM participants. Many MLM companies generate billions of dollars in annual revenue and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profit, however, an MLM company's overall profitability does not correlate to the profitability experience of their participants.

The percentage of an MLM company's total profit that is ultimately distributed to its participants (the sales force), away from the MLM owners or shareholders, differs from one MLM company to the next. However, the percentage earmarked to be paid to participants is usually a quite smaller share of overall company profits. The earmarked figure is then distributed in complex compensation plans which, ultimately, funnel most of it to a few individual participants in the upper-most levels of the MLM participant pyramid. The remaining majority of participants (often over 99.5% or more) receive no returns, or negligible return which are more often than not at a net loss after they deduct expenses which were incurred in the promotion of their "independent businesses".

Participant movement

While participants' movement up the pyramid of an MLM can be accomplished in theory, and indeed this is one of the distinguishing factors between MLMs and traditional pyramid schemes (besides featuring actual sales of products or services), said upward movement is so extremely improbable as to render it practically impossible, despite all efforts and investments of time and money by a participant.

Participant financial loss, company financial gain

The end result of the MLM business model is, therefore, one of a company (the MLM company) selling its products/services through a non-salaried workforce ("partners") working for the MLM company on a commission-only basis while the partners simultaneously constitute the overwhelming majority of the very consumers of the MLM company's products/service that they, as participants of the MLM, are selling to each other in the hope of one day themselves being at the top of the pyramid. This creates great profit for the MLM company's actual owners and shareholders.[citation needed]

As noted, many MLM companies do generate billions of dollars in annual revenue and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profit. However, the profits of the MLM company are derived to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of the company's non-salaried workforce (the MLM participants). Only some of the profit is then significantly shared with none but a few individual participants at the top of the MLM participant pyramid. The earnings of those top few participants then allows the creation of an illusion of how one can potentially become financially successful if one becomes a participant in the MLM. This is then emphasized and advertised by the MLM company to recruit more participants to participate in the MLM with a false anticipation of earning margins which are in reality merely theoretical and statistically improbable.

Although an MLM company holds out those few top individual participants as evidence of how participation in the MLM could lead to success, the reality is that the MLM business model depends on the failure of the overwhelming majority of all other participants, through the injecting of money from their own pockets, so that it can become the revenue and profit of the MLM company, of which the MLM company shares only a small proportion of it to a few individuals at the very top of the MLM participant pyramid. Participants, other than the few individuals at the top, provide nothing more than their own financial loss for the company's own profit and the profit of the top few individual participants.

Financial independent.

The main sales pitch of MLM companies to their participants and prospective participants is not the MLM company's products or services. The products/services are largely peripheral to the MLM model. Rather, the true sales pitch and emphasis is on a confidence given to participants of potential financial independence through participation in the MLM.This is referred to as "selling the dream".

Though emphasis is always made on the potential of success and the positive life change that "might" or "could" (not "will" or "can") result, it is only in otherwise difficult to find disclosure statements (or at the very least, difficult to read and interpret disclosure statements), that MLM participants are given fine print disclaimers that they as participants should not rely on the earning results of other participants in the highest levels of the MLM participant pyramid as an indication of what they should expect to earn. MLMs very rarely emphasize the extreme likelihood of failure, or the extreme likelihood of financial loss, from participation in MLM. MLMs are also seldom forthcoming about the fact that any significant success of the few individuals at the top of the MLM participant pyramid is in fact dependant on the continued financial loss and failure of all other participants below them in the MLM pyramid.

Differences and similarities to pyramid schemes

MLMs have been made illegal in some jurisdictions as a mere variation of the traditional pyramid scheme, including in mainland China. In jurisdictions where MLMs have not been made illegal, many illegal pyramid schemes attempt to present themselves as MLM businesses. Given that the overwhelming majority of MLM participants cannot realistically make a net profit, let alone a significant net profit, but instead overwhelmingly operate at net losses, some sources have defined all MLMs as a type of pyramid scheme, even if they have not been made illegal like traditional pyramid schemes through legislative statutes.

MLMs are designed to make profit for the owners/shareholders of the company, and a few individual participants at the top levels of the MLM pyramid of participants. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), some MLM companies already constitute illegal pyramid schemes even by the narrower existing legislation, exploiting members of the organization.There have been calls in various countries to broaden existing anti-pyramid scheme legislation to include MLMs, or to enact specific anti-MLM legislation to make all MLMs illegal in parallel to pyramid schemes, as has already been done in some jurisdictions.[citation needed]

The legal distinction between MLMs and traditional pyramid schemes have been characterized by many authorities as a legal fiction. Jurisdictions that retain a legal distinction between MLM pyramid businesses versus illegal pyramid schemes retain said distinction on two key distinguishing features: 1) that MLMs always encompass the sale of actual products/services, while traditional illegal pyramid schemes ordinarily do not (though sometimes they do), and 2) that climbing an MLM pyramid is overwhelmingly statistically improbable (especially to its highest participant levels) but not theoretically impossible, whereas climbing a traditional illegal pyramid scheme is both statistically and theoretically impossible.[citation needed]

Employment law

MLM salespeople are not employees of the MLM company. Participants do not derive a salary/wage, nor do participants receive remuneration from the MLM company for their invested labor and expenses in their MLM "independent business". The income of participants, if any income is made at all, is derived only from commissions on their personal sales or their share of the commissions on the personal sales of their downlines (the MLM compensation structure).

As non-employees, participants are not protected by legal rights of employment lawprovisions. Instead, salespeople are typically presented by the MLM company as "independent contractors" or "independent business owners". However, participants do not possess a business in the traditional legal sense, as the participants do not hold any tangible business assets or intangible business goodwill able to be sold or purchased in a sale or acquisition of a business. These are the property of the MLM company.

Lawsuits

Companies that use the MLM business model have been a frequent subject of criticism and lawsuits. Legal claims against MLMs have included, among other things:

their similarity to traditional illegal pyramid schemesprice fixing of products or services,collusion and racketeering in backroom deals where secret compensation packages are created between the MLM company and a few individual participants, to the detriment of othershigh initial entry costs (for marketing kit and first products),emphasis on recruitment of others over actual sales (especially sales to non-participants)encouraging if not requiring members to purchase and use the company's products,exploitation of personal relationships as both sales and recruiting targets,complex and exaggerated compensation schemes,false product claimsthe company or leading distributors making major money off participant-attended conventions, training events and materials, advertising materials, andcult-like techniques which some groups use to enhance their members' enthusiasm and devotion.

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