Multilevel Marketing: A High Risk Merchant's Experience Told Part 1

High risk merchant providers include Multilevel Marketing in their list of industries. To some, MLM has earned a bad reputation for being a lousy business scheme in which members could supposedly become wealthy by virtue of "downline recruitment". To others, MLM is a decent way to make a profit out of sales as well as commission from new salespersons enrolled in the company. High risk merchants who own successful MLM businesses know that despite being tagged illegal or fraudulent, MLM is still a highly profitable industry. That is, if distributors aim to earn through product selling and not through recruitment alone.

SECRET MEETINGS

It was back in 2004 when my cousin approached me and asked me to come with him to some mysterious business meeting at a building downtown. He said if I was open to opportunities to make money part time more than I made then, I could learn a lot just by mere listening to the speakers of that meeting. There was no commitment to join or pay for anything. I was optimistic and joined. Yep, I was hardly surprised when I sat in the corner of the room with my cousin, listened to the highly motivational lectures of three self-professed millionaires, and learned that it was possible to make a lot of dough with the MLM scheme. We had to sell Asian coffee with herbal ingredients that's known to have amazing health benefits. The concept was new to me, but I know sometime in the 90's I've probably heard about it. Probably ust ignored some people who invited me back then.

My cousin was able to invite me, some friends, relatives, neighbors, and even people we hardly knew to join. The only problem is I couldn't pay for the membership. So someone called an "upline" came and paid for my membership, of which I promised to pay by my sales of the Asian coffee. My cousin and I made sales but only very minimal. We actually bought more of the product than we sold. Eventually we both quit as we became more engrossed with our "real" jobs. From then on I had no idea what happened to my upline, as I wasn't able to repay him, nor to the company that I joined. I was back to the real world of normal people plugging away with their day jobs and making a living on the 9 to 6 scheme.

IS MLM ILLEGAL?

The whole point of the story is that based from the meetings I've joined on those MLM sessions, it is possible to make money on MLM. But how? The basic premise is to recruit salespersons who will not only sell the product/s you're selling, but buy them too. It's a step beyond traditional business pattern of selling with the goal of competition. The funny thing about certain MLM companies is that the more they put emphasis on the recruitment side of the coin instead of product selling, the more you know that they are bound to be illegitimate businesses. In fact, some of these high risk businesses have no real products to sell. In part 2 of this article, you will read about my other MLM experience which described this other scenario.

The unique thing about MLM, as high risk merchant account provider told me, is that unlike the traditional business scheme of competition, it aims to create and build a network. Obviously, you take a percentage off someone's membership fee and sales and that's where the networking benefit comes in. However, this has always been construed as the pyramid scheme. To make it worse, MLM sessions like the ones I've been at hype the whole thing like a circus.

THE GOOD MLM

The bottom line is that people who aim to earn more money should look at MLM with a discerning eye. The successful MLM companies team up with good high risk merchant providers that are based offshore. They have an efficient payment gateway and a reliable merchant bank that accepts various international currencies. Above all, they stand on their ground when they say "networking", which means they offer excellent customer and member support.