Network Marketing Basics Explained

Understanding the Pros and Cons of Network Marketing before you choose a Home Based Business Model Could Shave Years off Your Learning Curve.

First things first. If you're looking for a completely unbiased opinion about Network Marketing, you won't find one. And I don't just mean on this site, I mean ANYWHERE, on the Internet, down the local pub, in the pages of financial magazines, or even in the halls of academia.

Why?

Because, just as with religion, politics or other touchy subjects, everyone's evidence is tainted by their own opinions, experience and vested interests.

The only person with no preconceived ideas about Network Marketing is the uninitiated novice, who doesn't understand 'The Plan' and has never encountered the pain of rejection. Everyone else has an angle, and it's usually rooted in money.

The first person you encounter in Network Marketing is most probably an existing distributor of a newtork marketing business, who wants to share a great new way to make money with you. He's definately pro Network Markeing, even if he's only for his own business.

The next few dozen people you encounter are likely to be very much anti network marketing, or just as much in the dark as you are about it. These are the freinds and family you will dutifully put on your 'list' and approach about your newfound opportiunity, if you are lucky with the help of an experienced upline network marketer, who will teach you to become enthusiastically pro networking yourself. 

The anti-networking crowd will at this point be in turn worried that you have been recruited into a materialistic cult, annoyed that everytime you see them you try to convert or sell them something, and will suddenly start telling you about the miriad crazy fads they were sucked into themselves and bled dry by, but finally escaped from and returned to normal.

If you are stubborn enough not to give in to these well meaning if sometimes highly irrrational nay sayers, the next people you will encounter are the high flyers and the gurus. These are the serious players in Network Marketing, and they come in 2 flavours.:

• The High Flying Distributor – These are the big earners in a network marketing business. They are charismatic, exhuberant and larger than life. They flash the cash and promise the earth, extolling the systems and tools they promise to support you with and chanting the mantra, 'If I can do it, anyone can.'
• Industry Gurus – These are usually ex distributors who achieved an apparent level of success, but inexplicably decided to devote themselves to promoting the indiutry as a whole, and their mantra is 'all ships rise with the tide.' Their monetary interest comes from the books and support systems they sell and teach. These systems are practically identical to those of the high flyers but are touted as being cross-network compatible. 

Next you will meet, and probably eventually become, the disillusioned distributor. These are long standing distributors who have failed to reach any real level of success, but who hang on in hope or desperation, having invested too much into the whole process to give in and walk away.

Each of these people will extoll the virtues of network marketing, or proclaim it as the work of the devil, depending largely on their level of success with it.

Don't be alarmed by this. As I said earlier, it's just like religion or politics. Everyone has their own opinion, and they are all perfectly entitiled to it. Everyone's opinion will have value to you, if you look to the motivation of the person offering it, and then make up your own mind.

So clearly I'm not about to claim this site is an impartial look at network marketing in general, or at any specific company. Instead what I'm going to tell you is that I'll try to make it as fair as I possibly can, and my motivation as transparent as I can.

If nothing else, it should be a refreshing change from the load of hype you'll find pretty much everywhere else, and it might just help you make an informed, intelligent decision, first of all about whether or not network marketing is right for you, and if it is, about which network marketing company has the best compensation plan, the best support system and the most compatible products for you.