Making Money Online; Setting Expectations

I’ve been doing some interesting market research over the past few weeks, and I’m going to be recording a few episodes of my findings on the topic of social selling. This episode specifically covers the comparison of network marketing to affiliate marketing and how people get drawn into them.

Today’s topic, I have been in the DMs For the last 2 weeks, doing some market research because, full transparency, I feel like I’m at this point in my business with social selling that I want to be able to help others outside of my direct space. 

I have conversations all the time with folks who aren’t a part of my particular network marketing company, I feel like my background in business… So if you don’t know, I have a BBA in finance, and I have an MBA in sports and entertainment management. And I grew up in a household that’s always been business all the time. My dad worked on Wall Street.

Unveiling the Secrets of Making Money Online: MLMs, Expectations, and Realities

And so I just feel as though I have this fork in the road, so to speak, showing up in my life where I I I’m like, alright. How can I help other people who aren’t just connected to me directly through my network marketing company? So I said, but first, let me see what people want to know or what their feelings are about network marketing, and I’m not gonna talk all about it in today’s podcast. 

I’m gonna obviously break it up into segments so it’s not overwhelming, but there are 2 things that I really want to focus on today, and it’s the comparison of network marketing to affiliate marketing, and how people get pulled in or drawn into it. 

Because I believe that there are a lot of people right now in the network marketing space, in the social selling space, direct sales space, affiliate marketing, whatever you wanna call it. Right? 

It’s all encompassing, and social selling, ultimately, is what it is. And there’s a lot of icky stuff going on, if I’m being very honest with you. And I think we are hitting people’s pain points because right now, we have an economy that is absolute trash. We are sending hundreds of 1,000,000 of dollars to a country that we do not need to be sending to when we’re not even helping our own people.

We’re giving out $700 to residents of Maui. Like, really? That’s what we’re doing? That’s really gonna get you far. And people are hurting, and so people are looking for ways to make an income online. 

I believe that they’re sick and tired of answering to a boss. Many people have gotten used to working at home or having this Flexibility. And some people have been working for so long, they’re like, wait a second. I’m at this point in my life where I wanna enjoy life. I’ve been working my head down, you know, nose to the grindstone for 15, 20 years, and, oh my gosh, I’m almost 40.

Like, what have I done? So people, there’s so many different emotions attached to it, but you have folks out there who are enticing you with money, and they’re enticing you with things like, financial freedom, which I’ve talked about on my Instagram before, like there’s no such thing, okay? 

Every day, you’re waking up in America and you are paying taxes on your home, your water bill, your groceries, your gas. I mean, nothing is for free And so no one has financial freedom. Even if someone has a ton of money. Right? I believe they just have more options than you. K? 

And maybe that’s what we’re all going forward. We just want more options, which is totally fine, and which is why I believe people should get involved with social selling online because you want more options.

You want to be able to go to your local nail salon and get the upgraded pedicure spa pedicure without feeling guilty. You wanna get the $50 one as opposed to the $25 one.

You want to be able to have that option in your life, and I See that? I respect that and I wanna be able to help you with that. But I don’t think it’s fair for people who know that, though, that people who know people know that people are, like, striving for that freedom. Right? 

Respect freedom, but unfair aggressive sales tactics 

That flexibility and freedom. And so what they do is they have this approach where they’re super aggressive with their sales tactics and they’re using language that makes you think, well, if she did it, I can. 

And I believe everyone, no matter what you are, what industry you’re in, whether you’re in corporate America, you’re a professional athlete, whatever, you have to understand there’s always gonna be a 1%. 

God gave us each individual talents and skills for a reason. It’s so that we can shine and so that we can, you know, just lean in and help people with whatever we’re really good at.

And no one wants to talk about the amount of sweat equity and time and reps that go into becoming an expert.

And if you’ve read the Talent Code, you know that it takes at least 10,000 reps to become an expert in anything. And so you have these folks out here, whether they were in network marketing and no longer are or they were affiliates and now they’re involved with network marketing. Right? 

What are some ethical concerns or unethical practices that may occur within the MLM industry?

I’m seeing both sides of the coin here, And they’re trying to make you think, hey. Look at me. I did it. You can do it too. But they’re not showing you the back end of things. They’re not showing you the years they have of experience.

They don’t show you how they’ve grown their network over the last 10, 13 years. They’re not showing you how they’ve hit those 10,000 reps having conversations with people, knowing how to build trust over the years, right. 

So that no matter what they promote, I don’t care if it’s a skin care line. If it’s shampoo, I don’t care. If it’s wood nickels, you trust them because you’ve been listening to them for years. I’m a perfect example of this as well. I I talked about this in my stories. You know? 

I believe my pixie dust when it comes to mentorship comes from the fact that, a, I have all of the skills and knowledge business wise from my schooling and how I grew up, but, also, I have the mentorship piece where I was a head coach.

I was a D1 head coach for 8 years. I was the youngest head coach in the entire country at one point. I had literally just turned 22 years old and it would behoove me to make people think that everyone has that skill set because they don’t, Right? 

Now there are other people in my particular network marketing space that have built a massive following on TikTok. So once they decided, hey. I’m really gonna lean into this opportunity, they grew exponentially and very fast. 

There are other people who are in other network marketing spaces where they’re, like, legit, like, famous, and their spouse is famous. So it’s a power of proximity. There are people who have years and years of social selling experience that now have dove into network marketing, and they know how to talk about products and they’ve built that trust, so, of course, people are going to want to align themselves with them. It’s a sphere of influence.

Acknowledge The Grit and Perseverance Of Your MLM Leader

Now I’ll be the 1st to tell you that just because you sign up with someone doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to see success. Why? Because you have to be able to match the grit and perseverance of your leader. 

Secondly, sometimes these leaders entice you in with the sale, like, you know, come join my team, come join my community, and then they flop. That happens too. Or third, it goes back to what I was saying. They’re not showing you all of the years that they put into x, y, z selling you know, selling in general. 

You’re only seeing, oh, they’ve been with such and such company for, you know, x amount of months or, oh, they just started selling this product and, you know, it’s brand new and look how well they did. Well, let’s talk about what’s been happening on the back end.

They don’t wanna acknowledge that. So it’s silly for you to think that you could catch Up to the amount of reps in the same amount of time. You’re gonna have to work twice as hard, 3 times as hard to make up for that time that they have that you don’t. 

I’ll give you a perfect example of this 10,000 reps analogy, but in a different arena because I know it’s super triggering, for some people to hear, who are in the network marketing space. 

Well, I believe many do have a genuine interest in helping others succeed, and I include myself and friends of mine too in this circle. The guilt of becoming the face of the team’s success can cause cognitive dissonance for many people. 

Well, what is cognitive dissonance? If you’re a truther, you’ve probably heard that before, but think of it like an ostrich putting its head in the sand. So cognitive dissonance is a conflict that occurs when your beliefs and things you say don’t line up with your actions.

If you don’t know, with me, I do not waver even when it comes to voicing my opinion and then being attacked for it, despite the Reddit threads, the comments on my post coming at me in the DMs passive aggressively, tagging me in stories to sick others on me, etcetera, etcetera. 

When I believe in something and when I say something, I don’t flip flop. I do not change the things that I say based on who else is in the room. Or if people are trying to bully me, I refuse. 

And as a result, people trust my word and know that when I recommend something, it is for a reason because I take my word and the fact I’ve built for my audience seriously. So this example of the 10,000 reps came to full fruition today when I went to the driving range with my husband and the baby. 

It was the 1st time I had hit golf balls in 6 months. The last time I played was as a member guest at Trump International. I know you’re shocked at the venue, and I only hit half a bucket because I forgot to bring my glove. 

Obviously, it’s been a while, so I forgot, wait, what equipment do we need? And my hands just are not built up from callus, from days and days of swinging and teaching on end like they used to be. 

So I  said, alright, half a bucket… I’m done. But 75% of that bucket, those shots were solid to the point where the guy who was manning the driving range, His little station was right behind mine and Nick’s. He asked. He said, you two are the best couple of golfers I’ve ever seen. 

And he said to me, are you a professional? I mean, Nick was, in full transparency, Nick was wearing his South Florida section PGA T shirt, so he was asking me, because I think Nick It was like just a walking billboard. And I said, yes, I am. How could you tell? Right? And jokingly. 

But, obviously, it was the way that I was hitting. And this goes back to the years of the 10,000 reps theory that I just keep driving into you. No pun intended. So think about it.

I have over 30 years of golf knowledge, skill, practicing, coaching in my body, and literal muscle memory. So I went to the driving range today after not hitting a golf ball for 6 months. That means that I’m gonna hit 75% of them, still pretty great. 

At my target, long, straight. Now imagine you not having that same experience of years of the 10,000 reps. Chances are 75% of the shots that you would hit would be misses. You see where I’m going with this 10,000 rep theory? 

So these folks who have 10,000 reps in their years of social selling, building a network online on Instagram, yada yada yada. And they’re trying to rope folks in Who don’t have the same sweat equity, k, with the promises of success that they have, But the chances of them achieving it are not likely.

They’re gonna fall into that 75% will be missus, right, whereas 75 of mine were solid shots. So it’s a promise that’s not likely gonna be kept. And whenever you call these people out on it, the ones who are promoting the opportunity in this way, who are trying to encourage you to buy their, whatever it is, their course or join their team, whatever. 

Whenever you make mention of anything in this. And you’re not hating on them as if they haven’t had success. They have. You’re just trying to get them to acknowledge it and let them know that, hey. This played a large factor into why new opportunity, new growth has helped you skyrocket.

Right? They balk. They have the ostrich in the sand moment of cognitive dissonance because they want to believe that everyone can do the same as them. 

And that’s what they’re telling you. Right? Because like I’ve said before, why would they tell you how hard things are? Why would they tell you how many sacrifices you have? It’s not super enticing. Right? And I do believe that many of them believe that they are just a normal person, which most are, right? 

A lot of them come from humble beginnings. They do have a lot of grit. They have Perseverance. They’ve faced challenges, right? So they believe, well, if I can do it, others can.

What are the risks and benefits of joining a network marketing company, particularly in terms of financial investment and potential income?

But the action or the reality of it is, they won’t, which is ultimately why every MLM company has an income disclaimer. And you have to put that income disclaimer on your posts, on your stories, or you have to be super transparent like I am and really recognize that there is a 1% and how hard people are gonna have to work to reach that 1%. 

And right now, what I’m noticing is network and I wanna say this because, obviously, I’m involved in network marketing. I’ve been in network marketing for almost 10 years. I believe in it. I believe that you can make good money with it. I believe that you can make great friends with it. 

But, ultimately, I think, first and foremost, the main goal needs to be, how can you get your products paid for? How can you have so say you’re aligned with my company, how could you get your supplements covered as well as your gym membership, so to speak.

That’s the 1st goal. If you are selling hair care, how can you make sure that you’re more than covering your shampoo and your, I don’t know, your hair curler, your hair curling serum, whatever. Maybe you are doing oils. How could you make sure that the oils that you’re using on your family whenever they’re sick or every night when you put it in your diffuser, how can you make sure that those are paid for? 

That’s the key because you don’t wanna be out of pocket month to month, month to month for a community, if I’m just being real with you. Okay? So that’s always the first goal. Getting to that 1%, that’s a long game. 

And you kind of have to just understand that if you’re gonna do that, you have to work really, really hard and you have to figure out what is your pixie dust? What is your magical gift that you can tap into that’s gonna catapult you? 

I know for 1 of the coaches in my network, she became famous on TikTok for… she had this, like, quirk with her food. She talks a lot about her food, and she would talk on her breaks, from the hair salon that she was working at, and she would talk live on TikTok.

And she would share her meals because she was obviously following the nutrition plan, but her big thing was she ate carrots with mustard. And that’s how she just took off. And people like, oh my gosh. I never thought to eat that. Blah blah blah. 

Anyway, long story short, she grew a massive TikTok following. She transferred those bodies, so to speak, and that content over to Instagram, and now she’s one of the top 10 partners in our network. You could laugh and say that carrots and mustard were part of her pixie dust.

So like I said, we all have something. It’s pulling out what it is, but it’s also within reason. And I’m just very frustrated for folks who are promoting their opportunities in this way, the shiny object syndrome, because we’re taking advantage of people. When I say we, not me, but, like, they are.

“And I always encourage people that when you are doing your research, you should have a risk benefit analysis. You should be laying out all those positives and negatives and it should be a company whose products you truly stand by and you don’t get involved with it because of the money, because the money’s gonna come and go. It has to be something you truly believe in, so it’s authentic and people do want to buy into you and ultimately the company.”

~Maren

They’re taking advantage of people’s pain points. And, ultimately, People are not getting involved with the industry because they’re hearing these stories of people who have been convinced by x y z, you know, fairy tale story. And then when they find out, oh, wow, all that glitters is not gold, what do they do? 

They deflect rather than owning up to the fact that they should’ve known these things. They deflect on the industry as a whole Rather than being held accountable that like, wow, I probably should have vetted this person a little better.

Wow. I probably should have had better expectations for income and whatever it may be. They don’t wanna be held accountable. So instead, they trashed the industry as a whole, which is so wrong because there are many great companies out there. 

There are many great products out there. There are many great leaders out there, but there are some bad apples that ruin it. And I wanna encourage you to not completely wipe away the idea of earning an income online. Now more than ever, your opportunities are there.

And what sparked this conversation was I saw a video, and granted, yes, one of my friends, she said, you didn’t see the whole thing. I was there. I heard his speech. 

Okay, but the person who spoke put out the real. So blame the person who spoke that he didn’t show the full context of what he was talking about. But essentially what he was saying is, and I’ve been told this before by a leader. 

So that’s what’s so funny. So many mentors just kinda overlap one another’s content and just use a different metaphor, but I digress, that, you know, you need to have a river before you have, like these streams and estuaries.

Like, you can’t, you can’t just start, you know, building off one another. You have to be an expert in one area. Well, what happens with that is you get people so hyper focused on a company, on a product, whatever, that they become married to it, and that works against you in a couple of ways. 

One is that a lot of people are, they don’t like that. Like, they feel like, oh gosh. She’s only talking about x, y, z products because she represents them. 

And so then they’re turned off by the opportunity. As the person who is doing social selling, I can tell you, I speak from experience, When you only talk about 1 thing for so long, you will get burnt out.

Standing by the products and believing in the company is crucial. It’s not just about the money, it’s about making an impact with something you genuinely love. Take the network marketing company I know that started with shampoo and now offers makeup too! ??

You’ll get sick and tired of talking about it. It is very frustrating and and sometimes will be very trying and testing to come up with unique and different ways on how to promote a new It’s not even a new product, right? 

How do MLMs structure their business models?

Like, just a new way of selling it or promoting it, right? You have to get very creative, which I believe challenges are good and they make you a better leader, but ultimately, it can lead up to burnout for a lot of people. 

And then on top of that, a lot of companies don’t want you talking about other opportunities or companies because it’s not in the best interest of the company. And they’ll try to get you to just talk about your one particular thing, and it leads to what I just mentioned. 

But they’re doing it to protect their neck. They’re not doing it because they actually, like, care or they’re really trying to motivate you to do well. Like, they’re trying to boost their own sales. It’s corporate America that’s always lost on people.

They’re like, I’m my own boss. Yeah. But you’re not. You don’t design the products. You don’t design the marketing. You don’t get to determine the price. Like and don’t get me wrong. I’m not hating like I said, I’m not hating on network marketing.

I just call it how I see it, and you always have to do a risk benefit analysis with anything you get involved in. And for me, the benefits definitely outweigh the risk or the negative with my particular network marketing company. 

And I always encourage people that when you are doing your research, You should have a risk benefit analysis. You should be laying out all those positives and negatives and it should be a company whose products you truly stand by and you don’t get involved with it because of the money, because the money’s gonna come and go. 

It has to be something you truly believe in, so It’s authentic and people do want to buy into you and ultimately the company. But this speaker, you know, like I said, I’m going off of the reels that he put out, and this is a company that promotes shampoo and now makeup. And he was saying that you don’t have to have all of these different ways to make money to become a millionaire. Like, it can be in just 1 arena.

And, granted, he was saying how, obviously, this company now is divesting into makeup from skincare. Oh, excuse me. Well, they have skincare now too. So it’s hair, then it’s skincare, then it’s makeup now. 

So he’s just saying, like, everything you need is right here. You know, if your wheelhouse is hair, you have hair. If your wheelhouse is makeup, now you have it here, and I get it. But ultimately, you’re still putting your eggs in one company.

And what people need to learn is the same thing as Beautycounter. It was great when it was going, but now it’s sold in Ulta and Sephora, making affiliates almost moot. Unless you have a really strong bond with people, most people are just gonna go to the store and buy it. 

They’re not gonna go take the time to click your link, go in and add it to their shopping cart, whatever. They’re just not. I say it about my company all the time. It’s very difficult sometimes for me to think of unique ways to promote the programming because I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years and, quite frankly, we haven’t had anything, what I would call, groundbreaking in 2 years since we came out with our bike studio. It’s been almost 2 years, so it’s a challenge.

Comparing Opportunities for Making Money Online

Do I think it’s as challenging for someone new coming into it? No. Because it’s new. Everything’s new to you, but for someone who’s been around for a really long time, it can be a challenge. 

And that’s why you’re seeing a lot of new people who are new to the network marketing space are thriving and those who have been around a while are kinda like, okay. Now what? Right? Because they’ve been there, done that for so long. 

And that’s why they are interested in looking at different opportunities and talking about other brands, because it keeps you excited about showing up on social media. And right now, people don’t even like showing up on social media. They’re taking a lot of breaks.

They’re really honing in on spending time with their family. I don’t blame them. I know I’m definitely in that space and I’m very picky and choosy with my time. Me doing this podcast is me choosing a medium that I feel like I’m reaching people and helping people versus showing up on stories that sometimes it can be just the same old thing over and over again. 

I wanna be able to make it different and fun and unique and, and reach a different audience with what I have to say. You have to keep it interesting. 

So I just want you to be aware that this is going on, and I want you to make sure you’re vetting the company that you’re signing up with, the mentor that you’re signing up with, and I want you to manage your expectations. 

You know, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about golf In my 30 plus years of playing the game is that the most successful people in the game manage their expectations.

Setting Realistic Expectations in Making Money Online

They don’t get too high and they don’t get too low, meaning because they made a couple of birdies in a row, they’re not all gassed up. They stay even keel. They actually, in their heads, pretend that it was par, which would be like breaking even, right? It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just the baseline. 

And then those same people when they make a bogey and then another bogey, they’re even keel. So it’s all about managing your expectations of the opportunities that are being presented to you. 

And I did have a good conversation with someone about this who thought that I was, Kind of picking on their particular company, which I’m not because I actually use the products. 

So I obviously believe in their products, but I just feel like there’s a lot of people out there who don’t wanna call out the space for what it is, you know, I’ll give you another example. I would be a crunchy ish mom.

And I say ish because I don’t like fully aligning with the crunchy mom community because I feel like it’s a very judgmental community. You know, it’s like you gotta be all in. If you’re not all in, like, oh, no. 

And then you’re completely ostracized and I just believe extremism in any form is just not healthy and this is coming from someone who you know, when I was in my, like, biggest years, so to speak, of network marketing and hitting major benchmarks. 

I can see how you can kinda have blinders on and not hold yourself accountable for some of the things you’re saying and doing because you’re just so hyper focused on the goal. And I stopped doing that.

Like, I stopped doing that years ago, and now I believe in promoting the opportunity, but also really lifting the veil for people so that they can just like with inoculations, truth be told, I want them to be able to make informed consent with their decisions. 

So that’s what’s been leading me in these conversations with people in the DMs. A lot of people are turned off by multi level marketing.

They’re very interested in affiliate marketing, so I’m trying to give you all the pros and cons of each because I do both. When it comes to affiliate marketing, I received an email from one of the brands that I represent. 

I’m not gonna name them, but, basically, they wanted to be very clear that they were very different from MLM. There they don’t wanna be associated with the practices. Right? So that’s what I’m trying to say is even affiliate marketing is starting to trash MLM. 

It’s not just people who’ve been quote, unquote burnt by the industry. You know? I always laugh at that because, like I said, hold yourself accountable. Hold yourself accountable with the expectations and the choices that you’ve made, with whom you’ve signed up with, the company you signed up with, etcetera.

Everyone needs to be held accountable. But they sent out this email and they wanted to emphasize how their affiliate program is fundamentally different from network marketing. 

And one of the first things they say is we’ve never promised people big bucks for participating nor have we tried to insinuate that this could be, you know, early retirement, what’s that term I use? Financial freedom, right? 

And that’s the rhetoric that’s used in multilevel marketing, which is why I think people have such a chip on their shoulder because, like I said, they’ve almost been hoodwinked by these people by not getting the full story. 

Like I said, it’s it’s both sides. People get hoodwinked, but also, like, kinda use your head a little bit. Like, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, right? And, but one of the things I really wanna emphasize to people because they say to me, oh, affiliate marketing just seems more of my vibe. I don’t wanna build a team which listen… building a downline and creating that structure, it is challenging. I will be very real with you.

But, financially, it is extremely rewarding because you get to duplicate yourself and you can’t be a 1,000 people, right? You can’t be 2,000 people if you’re an affiliate marketer versus in network marketing if you are in that MLM space, and you’re recruiting others and and you’re mentoring them to do what you’ve done, so to speak. And if they are able to match it, well, heck, you can even have people in your downline that surpass you financially. 

I know I personally, I have. But the viewpoint is that these tactics are pushy and they’re aggressive. And so this particular affiliate company was like, we don’t endorse that, and, you know, this is more of a partnership. You can share our products with your audience, and that’s authentic to you and comfortable. Well, that’s what you should be doing anyway. Even if you’re in network marketing and, you know, MLM, that’s how you should be sharing.

Risk Benefit Analysis: Affiliate Marketing vs. Network Marketing

Okay? But here’s where it gets tricky and this is where I try to tell people what’s the risk benefit analysis when you’re deciding: What do you want, affiliate marketing or network marketing? 

This particular affiliate marketing company wants to make it clear that they have never and do not have plans to tie customer accounts to affiliates. So what does that mean? 

That means that if you see me share this particular link, okay, and say you purchase through my link, but then five days later, you see someone else you follow put up a link. If you click that person’s link, they get the credit. 

Now maybe you had never even heard of the product or you’ve heard about it 10 times from me and twice from this other person. So, obviously, I’ve done more marketing for it. I’ve helped you buy into the company, right, and its products and you bought your 1st, whatever, call it 2, 3 products through me, but now you click Sally Sue’s link. 

Well, Sally Sue is going to get the affiliate commission from it, not me. Despite me talking about the product more, I am introducing it to you, etcetera.

Now that doesn’t happen in MLM. In MLM, unless that person consciously goes in and switches who their mentor is or, you know, whomever they signed up with, whatever the affiliate is, everything that they purchase going forward goes to that person, the 1st person that signed them up.

And so that’s what I want people to understand is that the money in affiliate marketing is not guaranteed, because of the way that it’s structured. And so this particular company said that we do not ever plan on doing that. 

The other thing is in network marketing, in MLM… I gotta start using those words a little better. But in MLM… so say you sign up with me, I obviously get your email address, your name, yada yada. I personally, whenever people sign up with me. I send them a welcome package with a thank you note and some samples of the products, yada, yada, yada, but In affiliate marketing, you don’t know this information.

You don’t know. Now at this point, this company has decided to take away even the name. So you’re not getting their name, who’s purchased through you, you’re not getting their email address because they don’t want you following up. They wanna have independence between their customers and the affiliates, and they want it to be genuine. I see both sides of it. 

To me, personally, especially with some of the companies I represent, which are large ticket items. I do like following up with people because they’ve dropped $500, $600 worth of skincare. I want you to be satisfied with your results. I want you to make sure you’re going through the process the right way so you can get the best results possible.

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Supplementing Your Income With MLMs and Affiliate Marketing

So there’s definitely a line drawn in the sand between affiliate marketing and MLM, the strategies that are used. And this company did encourage you to join multiple affiliate programs from different companies that you love. 

That way you can supplement your income, and they encourage you to share authentically your life, link to relevant products when it makes sense. But they really want to lay it out there that it’s important to not view any specific program as a big bucks kind of place. They’re all supplementary to your primary endeavors.

So, clearly, I told you, you could be marketing for a company, but because Sally Sue clicks someone else’s link, the sale’s gonna go to them. So it’s definitely dog eat dog and especially when it comes to content and things like that. 

It doesn’t get shared like it does within the MLM space, but everything has its positives and its negatives. And you just have to decide what is going to be the best fit for you. I’ve said it from the jump, I believe people should start in network marketing, but also simultaneously. 

So this is where people will probably disagree with me, because they think that you should get to become an expert in MLM network marketing before you become an affiliate. 

I don’t believe you have time to waste, and I think you should do it simultaneously because I believe that one hand feeds the other. You could bring someone in from maybe a product that you promote as an affiliate.

You could bring them into your MLM space and vice versa. You can create multiple sales, multiple offers, but the problem is within MLM, MLMs do not want you talking about other products. Why? Because of this, I’m not saying this in a negative way. It’s just a fact. 

You know, the biggest banks in the world, the biggest companies in this world all have a pyramid structure. Everyone has a CFO, a CEO, a COO, and then it goes down from there, presidents, vice presidents, managers and all the way down to the guy who brings you the mail, okay, that’s just corporate America. 

The Controversy of MLMs and Product Loyalty: “You can create multiple sales, multiple offers, but the problem is within MLM, MLMs do not want you talking about other products.”
~Maren

But in the pyramid structure, so to speak, these companies don’t want you talking about other MLMs because they don’t want you bringing say you were to leave, they don’t want you bringing your entire network that you built with you, causing a collapse in their system.

In the financial world, we have something called garden leave, which is when you’re working at one bank or company and then you leave for another.

So, essentially, they do not want you bringing all of the research and development, you know, what’s coming down the pipeline in not just the next quarter, but 2, 3 quarters after that down, you know, down the pipeline. 

They don’t want you bringing that along with your rolodex of networking, etcetera, with you to your next opportunity, your next company. Because, wow, here we go again, looping back, circling back to that 10,000 reps analogy that would give you quite the leg up at your new workplace. Right, therefore, an unfair advantage. 

So I could talk about this for hours, but I just wanted to address those big things that I’m seeing, and I’ll talk about this more for sure. But if you have any things that are on your mind when it comes to network marketing, social selling,

Don’t hesitate to reach out to me on social media. My Instagram is @macrowley. I’m always in the DMs.

I’m always talking to people. It’s not my assistant. It’s not a robot. It’s very much me conversing with you, and I just wanna hear your thoughts and your questions, and I would love to be able to help you because I truly believe in this opportunity. 

And I know that there is still a great future both in MLM and affiliate marketing, and I wanna be able to help you capitalize on it. Thanks for listening to the if you know, you know podcast. I hope this episode resonated with you. If you wanna get more of this type of content, make sure you follow me on Instagram @macrowley.

If you want to learn more about how I am helping those I mentor stand out effectively online while creating financial flexibility with the available time in their schedule, then head to my website https://marencrowley.com/influencer and let’s talk about it!

If you wanna get more of this type of content, make sure you follow me on Instagram at @macrowley. And if you love this episode, let me know by tagging me on IG or even leaving a podcast review. See you next week.

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Maren Crowley

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