The Charisma Of MLM

What are people looking for when they join network marketing companies? Why do they choose the MLM route to help achieve their goals rather than looking for another traditional job with a company that offers a regular salary and a certain amount of stability and predictability? I’ve found three main reasons why people are drawn to network marketing:

1. Community Needs

2. Income Needs

3. Self-improvement

Community Needs

Our society no longer offers many of the forums in our communities that once gave people a sense of belonging–a sense of purpose. To a large degree, our society has lost its interpersonal connections. Town meetings and other community events no longer occur to create a sense of community. The workplace is volatile, the population is mobile, our culture places less emphasis on the family, and many have lost contact with the religious structure that used to give people that all-important feeling of being part of something valuable. If you don’t belong to a church where you can feel at home, if your employer seems ready to downsize you out the door at any moment, if you’ve moved hundreds of miles away from your hometown, if you don’t have a feeling of being connected—then you probably understand what I’m talking about. It’s possible to live in a huge city with millions of inhabitants and still feel isolated. In today’s mobile society, we’re actually a tribal people without tribes.

What does all this have to do with network marketing? A great deal, actually. If you’re a member of a network marketing organization, you belong. You have a place. You connect with your consumers, your downline, and your mentors in the business. You’re helping people to purchase a product or service that will improve their lives. You attend conventions and motivational seminars that help you to improve as a person. You’re on the team. In a society such as ours, in which people often find themselves alone and lonely in the midst of a crowd, belonging to a group can give meaning and purpose to an otherwise unfocused life.

Income Needs

In today’s volatile workplace, people simply don’t have the job security that workers once enjoyed. Today’s employees tend to change employers every few years. Even if you do have fairly stable employment, the chances are that your income is far less than you feel you need or deserve.

People view the money they earn from an MLM company as different from the pay they receive from a regular employer. Why? If you’re an employee of Acme Widgets, the only way for you to receive a promotion may be for someone to die or quit. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how hard you work. But, in network marketing, you have a great deal of control over what you make. You’re motivated not only by what you’re making now, but by your potential earnings, and no one can stop you.

What often worries and depresses people is not hard work or responsibility, but lack of control over their own lives. Because so many workers from all levels—blue-collar, pink-collar, middle management, executive—are feeling manipulated and shuffled around at work, they eventually decide to take charge of their own destinies and control their own incomes.

The way to achieve this goal is often by joining a network marketing organization, which offers people the chance to achieve whatever they’re willing to work for. In network marketing, an individual may reach a level of income he/she could not achieve in the traditional workplace due to lacking the degrees or the years of experience required. A conscientious distributor can see a genuine relationship between the effort put forth and the financial reward received.

Self Improvement

A traditional company usually trains employees only in what they must know to be able to provide the services the company needs from them. However, many people have a need for personal growth far beyond cursory job training. Network marketing organizations, with their motivational rallies, training DVDs and seminars, and mentoring structures, fill that need.

A Mary Kay beauty consultant, for instance, may not become rich beyond her wildest dreams, but at sales meetings, she: 1) receives for free, the same kind of training normally only available to corporate managers in traditional companies; 2) gains experience in working with people; and 3) she grows in confidence and skill level; 4) she gains control over her work environment. The same is true of the experience many distributors have with the top network marketing companies whose executives understand how vital the need for personal growth is among those who sign up.

MLM companies not only sell product; they also give their people the motivation to change and improve. A distributor might find himself/herself learning and growing for the first time since leaving school. A network marketing organization might say to its people, “Our mission is to make you more than you are. Our commitment to you extends beyond the products we sell.”

If you’ve spent much time browsing the shelves in bookstores, you know that a large percentage of the non-fiction books for sale are in the area of self-improvement. Millions of people in today’s world have an overwhelming need to make themselves more than they are now—not just in terms of income, but in terms of confidence, ability, spirituality, physical condition—you name it. An MLM organization that makes it a priority to help its members achieve these goals has a powerful appeal!