I ran across an article the other day titled, “How The Internet Saved Network Marketing”.
That started me thinking….
Back in the 70’s, like a lot of others, I was afflicted with the MLM bug when I encountered the Amway business for the first time. The upline I was involved with was very successful, one of the top systems in the company.
I had great aspirations, but I just couldn’t do what my leaders could do. I listened to one success tape after another, read books, did everything they suggested. I sponsored several… I had a downline of about 20 people… I was drawing circles every night. I just didn’t have the personality and leadership to duplicate my upline.
Over the years I encountered and tried several other companies with different products and different plans. There were a lot of people that did succeed in the old style network marketing concepts… make your list of 100 people… call them up and get them to a meeting… you know the routine.
The fact is, there were a lot more failing at MLM than succeeding. Network marketing really got a bad reputation… that of the snake oil salesman, so to speak.
Then came the Internet.
Things changed… and rapidly, too.
No longer did you have to chase friends and family… you could market to the entire planet.
Network marketing companies still follow the same business models… but now you can market all types of products… physical products as well as digital products and services.
No more heading to the mall to find some “new prospects”… write a new blog post instead.
People who in the past failed at MLM are now prospering.
You can send traffic to a website to sell your products. You don’t even have to stock an inventory… your customer’s product orders are delivered straight to their doorsteps.
And the network marketing company collects the payments and sends out the checks.
You can set up a marketing funnel that works 24/7 to any part of the world.
Follow-ups can be handled by autoresponders.
And if you need to make a phone call to a downline rep in London, there’s Skype.
If you need training you no longer have to travel halfway across the country for a major event… just watch a webinar.
No, I don’t believe it’s over the top to say that the Internet saved network marketing.