Who or what is generally responsible for the failure of the majority of MLM companies?
To answer this question, it is best to look at the two phases of MLM companies: start up and maturity.
Although many things can go wrong in a startup direct selling company, two factors are repeated with frequency for the failure to launch. The first factor is inability to recruit. MLM is a business based on recruiting a successful sales force to market products. (Obviously, there are many important factors ranging from logistics to personnel to technology to quality control to distribution… and all these can go wrong as well.) It should be noted that the need for capital is in inverse proportion to the ability to recruit. A MLM company that can recruit is often positioned for fast growth and may even become a cash cow. If the company does not have that native ability, it needs sufficient capital to hire the talent to make recruiting happen. And in the absence of the recruitment asset, a company should plan on a much longer trajectory to profitability.
And the recruitment challenge dovetails with the second major reason that companies fail at the onset: lack of adequate capital or funding. Many companies start the business without adequate capital to allow for a one or two year run to become profitable. In fact, many companies assume that they will be profitable within months or that they will not need capital for growth. The lack of buffer capital to survive the early unprofitable days of a company is a prescription for early failure.
As to mature companies – who’ve been around for years and years but find themselves on a downward spiral, the key answer is to continuously innovate and create ways to bond with both distributors and customers. Companies that can’t grow with the market, or maintain loyalty of distributors and customers, will find that sales will plateau and ultimately decline. This is a branding business and a relationship business. Unless a mature company is ready to continually reinvent itself and stay fresh, it may find itself on a slow, or sometimes rapid, road to contraction and failure.
MLM, network marketing, otherwise known as direct selling, is a relationships business. Those that succeed do so because they have a deep relationship with their customers and distributors. To maintain long-term success as a MLM business owner, you too have to make sure that you’re not just running a company, but a business of relationships.
As mentioned, networking is a big part of MLM. Come network with us. If you are interested in attending the Starting and Running the Successful MLM Company conference visit our conference page, view our speaker list, or get more details. All executives/owners of direct selling companies are welcome to attend. Call 800-231-2162 to register. It’s run by the most trusted and knowledgeable man in the business, offering legal services for over 25 years to companies like Avon and Mary Kay, Jeff Babener.
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Learn more: Watch the Video. What are the two main reasons for a MLM company’s failure?
