MLM Solution to Unemployment - What do you think?

[Mama Typist]

Originally Posted by Yuliya Mironova

Those "poor people" to whom you feel this completely laudable and admirable generosity can be helped much more by building a successful business.

Trying to understand...how would they be helped if building a successful business meant not having them part of it?

If you'll excuse my saying so, respectfully, I think you may have missed the point I was stumblingly trying to make above about whose money that would be instead if you didn't have an inactive network, not selling and not promoting, earning it.

Well, I thought I understood you the first time to mean me (the one with all the money). Is that what you're saying?

Thanks for engaging me on this, by the way. It's interesting and helpful to know others' point of view.

[Yuliya Mironova]

Originally Posted by Mama Typist

Trying to understand...how would they be helped if building a successful business meant not having them part of it?

Well, in all the ways that "society" can give help to people to need it. In my case, I do it by maintaining and subsidising a church hostel for homeless women (that's just my personal choice - it could equally be other things instead, of course). But of course stuff like this is done (often on a "charitable basis") in a huge variety of different ways by people who can afford it. To put it bluntly, I can afford it because I've built a hugely successful downline in an MLM business, and been very lucky about it too.

But also, perhaps more importantly, they can be helped (at various different levels) more in ways that encourage responsibility than by sponsoring them into something that rewards them for doing nothing at all, no?

Sorry if it seems like a "political point", but I suppose it is, in a sense, or at least a moral one - which overlaps with that, anyway.

Originally Posted by Mama Typist

Well, I thought I understood you the first time to mean me (the one with all the money). Is that what you're saying?

No, sorry, didn't mean it that way, please excuse me.

The point is that the total commissions on any individual product sold, in an MLM company, add up to a certain maximum percentage of the money paid for them. They can't be more than 100% otherwise the company goes out of business. In fact, realistically, they can't be much more than about 60%, because otherwise the company goes out of business. (They may not have so many advertising and shipping/carriage bills, but they still have premises and staff and all the other expenses that businesses have, of course). That can be divided any way the company determines, according to its comp-plan. Some are heavily front-end loaded, others not, some pay a percentage point or two "off the top" into a "slush-fund" from which the top distributors get extra at the end of the year, others don't, and so on. The point is that there's a limited amount of money to be divided.

"Who gets it" (i.e instead of the unemployed person who isn't building the business and also isn't selling products) is going to vary from company to company. But there will always be someone who "would have got it instead" and that someone (even if it's slippage to the company!) is someone who is selling products and is building a business - and that's how it's supposed to be, for endeavour and work to be rewarded, for the corporate/commercial structure of society to survive, and for the poor to be supported, too.

A subject dear to my heart because of my own background, coming from a country with a communist past, where for the last 20 years (which is nearly all of my lifetime, of course) the pendulum has now swung very much the other way, in favour of unrestrained, unregulated capitalism!

Originally Posted by Mama Typist

Thanks for engaging me on this, by the way. It's interesting and helpful to know others' point of view.

Not at all; thank you, also. Also for me.

[BradMarcus]

Hello Mama Typist. That's a great idea Mama Typist, but it's easier said than done! How are you going to contact all those people??? And most people quit these businesses before they sponsor anyone.

Be a good leader. Help the people you sponsor. Get them/teach them to sponsor 2 or more people and so on. That's duplication. The problem is...Most people won't get out of their comfort zone, they're afraid of change, and they're too worried what others think of them!

MLM/Network Marketing is the best business in the world for becoming wealthy...It really is...especialy for the average person! It's not perfect, but it's the best there is!!!

If people really knew what we knew Mama Typist, they would do what we do!

To Your Success,
Brad Marcus

[avia4life]

Is MLM a good option for the unemployed? IMO, yes and no! I think we have to consider the fact that while anyone CAN do MLM successfully, few actually do what it takes to realize success in MLM. With that thought in mind, we have to remember that if it requires convincing to bring someone into your business the chances of that individual being successful are very slim! The unemployment rate is most definitely sky high in the U.S. and it is easy for some of us to assume that our MLM company is the perfect solution but the reality..... well, the reality is that unless a particular person has the drive to learn and apply what they learn about this industry they will fail and fail miserably. I am not saying to overlook these people and refuse to work with them but I am saying you should not try to convince them that this industry is their solution. If they make the first step in our direction, then honestly explain to them what it takes to succeed and listen closely to their responses. I would much rather have 10 individuals ready to succeed than 25 that simply desperate to succeed. There is a big difference between the two.

If we run into that person that is unemployed and has the drive to succeed, I will be the first to help them learn the industry. But I'll also be the last to try and convince them it is their solution. Could it be their solution? Yes, of course it could but I know that there is much more to it than that.

[Yogi]

Mama Typist, I was careful to say "usually and not always when talking baout the unemployed. If you know some former business owners, GO GET THEM INVOLVED !!! They wll do well and will hopefully find other people who do well.

But I don't have much to add about your ideas at income redistribution. That concept has failed for 100 years no matter how it is designed (its called socialism) and is adequately discredited both here and lots of other places. My favorite book on teh subject is "Atlas Shrugged". As was said, every dollar you "give" to someone who did not earn it is a dollar you take away from someone who did earn it. Go ahead and add 30 people to your business who do nothing, and they still earn nothing. Your premise depends on adding all the non-productive people, and then finding enough people to put under them to do all the work.

Even Jesus said to help those who help themselves. You are better off to put your effort into helping those former business owners to succeed, and then they can just feed all those other people.

[Yuliya Mironova]

Originally Posted by Yogi

My favorite book on teh subject is "Atlas Shrugged". As was said, every dollar you "give" to someone who did not earn it is a dollar you take away from someone who did earn it.

Ooh well, if we're going to start quoting Russian novelists, now, that'll expand my range of comments a bit!

Originally Posted by Yogi

Even Jesus said to help those who help themselves. You are better off to put your effort into helping those former business owners to succeed, and then they can just feed all those other people.

Indeed.

I heard a much more modern story about someone very eminent and successful giving a speech at graduation day in some university (Harvard Business School? Something like that ... doesn't matter, anyway: the point is the same). He advised the new graduates to go out into the world and build successful businesses, employ people and make a lot of money. And specifically not to go off to Africa and look after the poor, because that would be a very bad and wasteful misuse of their skills and talents, and one they could employ people to do, 100 times over, by concentrating on making money instead, which so many other people can't successfully do.

[BelleReve]

See-- theres a difference in the unemployment rate and reality.

Part of the reason for unemployed people are those who refuse to take jobs that are "beneath them". Even if it means they are on public assistance. When my teenaged daughter can go out and find a job paying $9 an hour in under a week, its not that nobody is hiring, its that many people would rather sit on their behinds and collect a check than go out and work. Period. Those kinds of people won't do well with MLM--- they won't work if they aren't seeing IMMEDIATE income. And even then, some still won't.

[homebusinessbug]

10 years ago I joined an MLM business and it didn't work out. I'd still go with home business or online jobs if legitimate. Taking time in every step of the way is important than just jumping to get a quicker income.

[Adrianne]

MLM is a better option for the employed. Think about it; most home businesses have some type of startup fee, product or service to purchase and if you are unemployed you need to be careful and wise about how you spend the money you have. A good niche to consider is approaching the already employed and use the "what if it happened to you" question as a draw. Only a handful of the unemployed would even be motivated enough to turn their situation into a Dani Johnson story.

[epixelmlm]

MLM is a good opportunity for people of all categories to make good earnings. There is no need any educational qualifications or experience to join an MLM. All you need to have is good marketing skills. Even though setting up the initial business needs some hard work, once you are able to build a good network then you can easily succeed in MLM without directly selling the products. This means that you will earn the percentage of sales your downline members make.