OnlineIncomeMom.com

A Facebook friend sent me a link to their blog post titled “Can Affiliate Marketing be a part of MLM?”. I have responded describing some of my own experience, and I thought I’d post it here as well, as this is the subject I have found myself discussing with quite a few of my online friends lately.

I started my online journey in 2002 in the MLM environment. From 2005 to 2010 I was an advocate of “Internetwork Marketing” – network marketing with the help of the Internet. Since the summer of 2010 I have switched completely to Affiliate Marketing. Currently I prefer the latter to any of the former.

For 5+ years (2005-2010) I had been focusing on building an organization (a “team”) in an online business that I really considered “my own business”… I had spent a lot of my own time and effort (and often money) to “help my partners get their business up and running”… only to have to finally tell myself to stop and face the facts.

99.9% of people who join any “downline” or “team” end up doing absolutely nothing. And eventually they WILL quit no matter what YOU do. In my 8 years online I have seen – literally – thousands of people “march” through my downlines — in and out, in and out, in a never-ending stream… For 5+ years out of those 8 I had been focusing on building one and the same downline (a.k.a. “Team” or “business organization”) in only ONE online business.

Most of my time and effort was spent answering questions, providing support and advertising for the members of my Team (at the expense of putting my own promotion on the back burner). As a result, at the end of 5 years my downline was “dead and gone”, and so was my business and my income.

I finally realized that I no longer want to leave my own success (and my income) at the mercy of some “downlline” that is here today and gone tomorrow.

That is why I prefer Affiliate Marketing. I am “my own boss”, I get to pick and choose what I want to promote and how and when. And my results depend on my own action (or inactivity) and not on anybody else.

In MLM or any downline-building type business model you rely completely on the leverage from other people’s activity. There’s a popular quote that says something like, “I’d rather have 1% effort from 100 people than 100% effort from 1 person (myself)”. Perhaps it’s all individual, but I have found that this concept has failed me.

As an affiliate marketer I can still leverage my business, but through different means. The end result would be the same – do something once and get paid over and over again. And isn’t that what we all want out of our businesses, no matter what type they are?

Thank you very much for reading!

What do you think? What has YOUR experience been?

~Nat