Re: Not So Fast, either

You posted -

> I disagree about MLM being inherently flawed if only because every
> organization is Multi Level and a hierarchy. The front line sales person
> makes the sales commission, the supervisor earns an income from the
> production of the whole sales staff, and the owner of the dealership's
> income is derived from everyone's activities.

But, my car salesman never had to sign up to receive a new car or pickup every month on the mandatory autoship plan. He didn't have to purchase a minimum number of units in order to receive his pay check.

> And like any MLM, many front level salespeople come and go.

Depends on the dealership. I sell to a wide variety of businesses in my b2b self-employed situation. The car dealers I serve have a good number of stable salespeople, with many having 10, 20, or even more years in sales.

Much of that turnover is the rookies who found out commission car sales wasn't for them.

Many of those long term sales people have developed a base of loyal customers who may buy a new vehicle from them every one to four years. With a good base of loyal clients and some referrals, they don't have to worry about selling to their "warm" list.

And, those salespeople never have to recruit others into their downline.

Or as MaaMaw puts it so succinctly, The cashier at Kroger's doesn't have to buy the groceries, store them in her garage, and then sell them at inflated prices to her friends and family. He or she doesn't have a minimum sales volume in order to get her paycheck.

They also don't have to purchase price lists, sales tools, and training tapes to get hired.

MLM changes both the marketing and distribution, far beyond the standard producer to wholesaler to retailer chain.

> But, in execution, individual MLM Companies can have many inherent flaws.

> Most of the time, the MLM's you encounter aren't meeting this definition.

> By this definition there are very, very few legitimate MLM's.

No disagreement with you on those 3 points.

And, I'm not down on all MLMs or the industry as a whole. It's the individual companies and uplines that tweak the system, sell the dream, and make the great income, even when 90 to 95% of the recruits quit before ever seeing a dime of profit.

So we agree on several points, and only differ on a couple.