Can you truely make money online?
One way thousands of people are making money on-line is through multi-level marketing programs. What are they? and do they really work?
MLMs are all over the web. Simply Google “home business opportunity” and you’ll get a boatload of different websites, most of which are probably MLMs. In the on-line business industry, MLMs have their cheerleaders and their detractors, so it’s probably a good idea to do as much research as possible before signing up and sending off a check.
What exactly do MLMs do? Most MLMs are a network of people who are trying to sell a product and at the same time trying to get more people to sell that product. The more people you personally recruit, the more money theoretically you can make.
And how do you get people to sign up? Mostly through websites promoting a particular MLM. The idea is someone will visit a website and sign up for the MLM to sell a product. The owner of that website has just made a sale, and will get a commission every time people under him make a sale. It’s called the downline, in MLM language, and the bigger and more productive your downline is, the more money you can make.
There’s an entire industry devoted to helping people get better at running their MLMs, by promising to get more recruits or better recruits or by making their website have better visibility to also increase recruits.
It’s not a pyramid scheme because the main purpose of the MLMs is to sell products, not simply to sign up more recruits. However, experts caution that business owners should try to avoid those MLMs whose main purpose seems to be signing up people and not selling a product.
Successful MLM website owners are usually terrific marketers. They know how to increase their search engine optimization (get a good spot on search engine results pages), and they know how to get their website seen. They use e-mails, word-of-mouth, press releases, and blogs to sell their wares.
What do MLMs sell? Some sell software, some educational materials, weight loss supplements, viral traffic and some seems to sell nothing but a name. It does cost money to sign up, anywhere from a around $100 to thousands of dollars, depending on the MLM.
Are they legal? As long as an MLM’s main purpose is to sell a product, then it is completely legal. It is only a pyramid scam if the only purpose is to sell the MLM websites.
Federal and state agencies have been known to track MLMs and pyramid schemes in an effort to weed out the bad apples. Advocates for MLMs often say those who complain that MLMs don’t work are typically those who didn’t commit the time and effort into the business to make it successful. Those against MLMs say the businesses never followed through on promises and they made far less money than stated.
The bottom line is that MLMs can be an option to make some extra cash, but you must go into it with eyes wide open and realistic goals. And if you do invest your money, make certain to invest your time. If you still have questions, it’s always a good idea to contact the Better Business Bureau.
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