A network marketing company is your vehicle to financial independence, taking you from where you are now to where you want to be. Even if you are a good driver, you need to have a safe, reliable and efficient vehicle to get you to your destination.
So how do you know if your vehicle is capable of getting you where you want to go? How do you know you have the right vehicle? And what do you do when you discover that you are in the wrong vehicle?
That’s where the 5 Pillars can help you assess whether the MLM company you represent is the right vehicle for you. The 5 pillars are what you need to be successful in the long term.
My mentor Michael Dlouhy founded “The 5 Pillars” after joining more than 100 MLM companies between 1992 and 1994 to find out everything he could about how this business works. Since then, he has helped thousands of network users discover this game.
Unfortunately, the network marketing industry has a strange reputation. That’s partly due to people’s ignorance, lack of understanding, and also largely due to the fact that there are too many network marketing companies out there that just don’t work. People are unsuccessful because they just don’t know any better.
For example, there are many disguised scams of MLM companies that take advantage of their distributors. There are many companies that come and go too fast because they have incompetent management or they don’t have the right product at the right time. There are many companies that have products that are too expensive. There are many companies that have horrible compensation plans. There are many companies that do not adequately train their distributors.
The 5 pillars that a network marketing company must have for you to be successful in the long term are:
1. Business management experience with integrity – If you don’t have this, you can forget about the rest. How can you be successful without good people at the helm? It is imperative that the company understands what it is like to be a distributor. Do a Google search for company executives to find out who they really are.
2. Timing in the company and Timing in the industry – Has the company shown constant profits for at least two years? More importantly, will the industry you serve stand the test of time? There is no use trying to sell long distance phone calls when you can make them now for free.
3. A great product at an affordable price – All legal MLM companies have amazing products. That is a fact. But are they priced at a value compared to the rest of the market? Sure maybe it’s better than a non-MLM product, but can you easily sell the products based on your fringe benefits? Or do you constantly have to justify why yours is so much more expensive than anything else on the market?
4. A compensation plan that rewards part-time workers – 96% of all network marketers are building their business part time and a good compensation plan should reward them accordingly. Why should they continue to build the business if they get virtually nothing for their efforts?
5. A proven duplicatable system – This does NOT imply writing a list of family, friends and previous contacts. This has everything to do with a training program that teaches people how to market and how to be leaders. A duplicatable system gives people the skills and tools necessary to run the business.
If your company does not have these 5 pillars, EXECUTE. Due to your due diligence and finding a company that does it, it will pay off in the long run.
