MLM Law Library
MLM law in 50 states, IRS Publication 911, the MLM Textbook, as well as a comprehensive index of articles on the direct selling industry.
read more »One Minute Startup Tips for MLM Companies
One Minute Startup Tips
MLM: AN OVERVIEW OF AN EXCITING INDUSTRY
MLM consultant practice tips: The following tips are geared to help answer quick questions that are often asked by MLM companies. To summarize, in the MLM startup company, MLM sales tax issues must be addressed to avoid liability for taxes and penalties. Nexus for MLM Sales and Use Tax represents a unique analysis that involves activity by distributors in promoting, recruiting and training in a state. MLMLegal.com and Babener and Associates provides expert MLM consulting advise on MLM corporate, MLM software, MLM compensation, MLM taxes, and much more. MLM consulting is an important component for MLM startup. Careful choice of MLM software is another component of MLM corporate development. A qualified MLM consultant and MLM lawyer is a vital part of the MLM startup team. MLM compensation must be reviewed by a MLM consulting and by a qualified, experienced MLM attorney.
Proper MLM capitalization (funding) is essential to the MLM startup and MLM corporate business. The need for capital is in inverse proportion to the ability of the MLM company to recruit key distributors. MLMLegal.com and Babener and Associates provides expert MLM Consulting advice on how to start and run a direct selling company.
Excerpted from the book Network Marketing: What You Should Know book, Jeffrey Babener, Legaline Publications.
An Introduction to Network Marketing
Network marketing - also called multilevel marketing (MLM), person-to-person marketing, and one-on-one marketing - is a form of direct selling. You already know what direct selling is: Avon, Tupperware, Mary Kay, Fuller Brush... these are just some of the direct selling companies that have been household names for decades...
Hard Facts About a Growing Industry
Every week, more than 55,000 people in the United States alone sign up as network marketers - 150,000 per week worldwide...
You've probably heard all those beloved multilevel marketing myths such as multilevel marketing classes are taught at Harvard Business School. Read about some of the myths that are prevelant in network marketing.
Why Millions of People Are Getting Involved
Although network marketing isn't for everybody, millions of people from all walks of life consider it to be the right opportunity at the right time. The fact is, becoming an independent distributor can fill important needs and fit within the time and money limitations many people face.
A Maturing Industry Overcomes an Old Reputation
During its wild childhood and adolescence, network marketing acquired a reputation that in some ways was less-than-sterling. Face it, any rapidly growing new industry attracts its share of scam artists, and network marketing is no exception.
Read about the top five reasons people join a direct selling company, according to the Direct Selling Association.
The "Perfect" Products for Network Marketing Companies
In the early days of the industry, most network marketing companies carried cosmetics, nutritional, personal care, or home cleaning products. While these types of products are still heavy hitters, today's companies have found that they can sell almost anything and everything through network marketing, including services.
Are You Right for This Business?
It takes all kinds of people to make the world spin. And it takes all kinds of businesses. But not every type of person is right for every type of business, especially MLM.
Are You Right for This Business? Part 2
Are you right for network marketing?
The Entrepreneurial Mind - Pushing the Envelope
In his book, The Entrepreneurial Mind , Jeffrey Timmons notes that the most important entrepreneurial skill is not necessarily technical expertise. As a professor of business at Harvard University and Babson College, he wrote that those in attendance at the Smaller Company Management Program at Harvard Business School identified mental attitudes and philosophies to be the most important business skills for running a business today and in the next several years.
The Saturation Theory? Not to Worry!
The "saturation theory" goes like this: Every network marketing opportunity will sooner or later come to an end because network marketers will eventually run out of (1) potential customers to sell to, and (2) prospective distributors to recruit.
The Saturation Theory? Not to Worry! Part 2
Arizona and Texas-based Allen Baytes, an industry veteran of many recruiting campaigns, agrees: "There is no such thing as saturation."
The Saturation Theory? Not to Worry! Part 3
Networking companies in the U.S. are constantly cracking new demographic markets. The fast-growing Hispanic market in the U.S. is a good example.
With a Little Help From Your Friends - Trade Associations
Network marketing companies are fond of telling their distributors, "You're in business for yourself - not by yourself," and "You're on your own, but not alone."
It's no coincidence that the MLMIA is headquartered on the sun-drenched coast of California in Newport Beach. After all, network marketing plays especially well in the sunbelt states of California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.
The DSA is the granddaddy of the industry, which actually goes back to 1910. One of the founding members is still probably the most famous direct selling company in the world (Avon).
Women and Network Marketing: A Perfect Match
There is a rich tradition in this industry - the success story of the American woman in network marketing. Over the last 40 years, it has been a symbiotic relationship - network marketing is great for women and women are great for network marketing.
In 1992, a study of the direct selling industry was commissioned by the Direct Selling Association and conducted by Nathan Associates. It revealed that approximately 90 percent of the industry's salespeople were women.
A Window of Opportunity for Women
The network marketing industry has been a window of opportunity for women for many reasons.
Women Bring Special Talents to Network Marketing
"Women are natural networkers," says Kollman, "They help each other in almost all aspects of life. "Women bring some unique attributes to the table," adds Venus Andrecht, a successful network marketing distributor who shared her success skills in a best-selling industry.
The Male v. The Female Approach
Men and women have different approaches to network marketing, according to Andrecht. Although some may not find her point politically correct, her observations come from years of experience on the front lines.
Humble Beginnings - Don't Sell Yourself Short
Don't sell yourself short just because you're starting small. History tells us that in America, many billion-dollar businesses have been started on a shoestring, in garages, and in back bedrooms. Cases in point: Bill Gates of Microsoft, Phil Knight of Nike Shoes, and Steve Jobs of Apple computer.
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know
Active, Binary, Business Opportunity Legislation, Buy-Back Policy, Co-Op Ads...
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know. Part 2
Consumer Protection Statutes, Downline, Front-End Loading, FTC (Federal Trade Commission), Generation...
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know. Part 3
Green River/Licensing, Group Volume, Heavy Hitter, High Ticket...
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know. Part 4
Level, Matrix, Multilevel (MLM), MLM Junkie, Multilevel Distribution Statutes...
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know. Part 5
Organization, Personal Volume, Pyramid, Retail Sale, Sales Kit...
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know. Part 6
Sales Referral, Seventy Percent Rule, Sponsoring, Stacking...
The Lingo of Network Marketing: Terms You Should Know. Part 7
Stairstep Breakaway, U.S. Postal Laws, Unilevel, Upline...
View a complete list of terms you should know.
A Brief History of Network Marketing
A brief look reveals 9 cycles in the history of network marketing.
Cycle 1. The Earliest Periods
Cycle 2. The Yankee Peddler
Cycle 3. The Late 1800's. Avon and Others - They're Still Around Today
Cycle 4. 1900-1950 - The Springboard to Modern Giants - Selling Empowerment to the Consumer
Cycle 5. The 1950's - The Birth of Today's Giants
Cycle 6. The 1970's - A Decade of Legal Confrontation - Up With MLM - Down With Pyramids
Cycle 7. The 1980's: America Discovers Network Marketing
Cycle 8. The 1990's - The Positive Decade: MLM Goes Services; MLM Goes Corporate; MLM Goes Global Seamlessly
Cycle 9. MLM at the Millennium
MLM: FINDING THE RIGHT COMPANY
Zeroing In With Some Preliminary Questions
If you've decided that you're right for network marketing, and that it's right for you, it's time to go out and find the best company...
In the process of selecting the right network marketing company, you're going to have to do a little detective work on your own if you're going to do it right.
Amway in Year One Billion and One?
Networkers are always short on time when it comes to getting things accomplished.
Sidestepping a Definite No-No: The Pyramid Scheme
The network marketing industry has come a long way in the last few decades in its efforts to steer clear of anything that could be even remotely construed as an illegal pyramid scheme.
How to Analyze Compensation Plans - A Little History
How to Analyze Compensation Plans - Go for the Goals
How to Analyze Compensation Plans - Four Major Types of Plans
How to Analyze Compensation Plans - Last But Not Least
When It Comes to Products, Value is "In"
Now that we've established the fact that the right products are crucial to the long-term success of a network marketing company, let's zero in on what makes a product the "right" value.
From Prestige to Value: A Trend Reversal
The 1980s were referred to as the "me" decade. A perfect fit for network marketing consumers who are returning to buying habits that fit the demographics of network marketers and their customers.
The Right Product. The Right Time.
Okay, so now we know that the right network marketing company for you must offer a product (or service) that clearly represents value.
What's hot in network marketing products is always changing. For instance, in the '80s the Cambridge Diet put America on diet shakes. The same applies to network marketing trends.
Choosing the Best Over the Rest
Sheffield has counseled hundreds of companies and thousands of distributors, helping them choose the best company with the best product to make them successful, and select which product or products from a company's product line to focus on. He suggests the following guidelines...
When deciding what's not, identify whom you are going to sell a particular product to and ask yourself if it will fit their needs, goals, anwhat's hot and d interests.
The Top 5 Reasons Why People Join a Network Marketing Opportunity.
Why Do People Stay with a MLM Company? - Here are the Top 5 Reasons.
Ten Common Distributor Mistakes - And How to Overcome Them
Here are ten common mistakes that networkers make. These mistakes are often ones of attitude, missed judgment calls, or misinformation. Addressing those mistakes will get you "there," as Yogi said, a lot faster.
The Basic Building Block of Success: Bonding the New Recruit
Network marketing is about people. To be successful, you must succeed at "bonding" other people to your company, its vision, its product and to you as well. Why you?
People Make Emotional Decisions
How to Plan a Great Meeting
The heart and soul of building a network marketing business is the opportunity meeting. While it is true that you will make sales and recruit new distributors in a variety of ways and places, the opportunity meeting has tradtionally been the common denominator for presenting the company and its products and business opportunity to prospects, and for motivating existing distributors to reach new heights of productivity.
All the Important Details Part 1
All the Important Details Part 2
Other Pages of Interest
Power Index
The library is full of articles, case studies, statutes and other material useful as a resource to those interested in network marketing. This index is designed to help you find information on a category-specific basis.
read more »MLM Article Directory
Browse hundreds of articles on distributor education, MLM company ownership, the legal environment, and so much more. View some of our most popular articles on the FTC, Vemma, Herbalife, and Burnlounge.
read more »Key Pages to Visit While You're Here
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