Network Marketing MLM Products, What Should I Promote?

When trying to decide what Network Marketing MLM product to promote, it can get a little confusing. There are over 900 active companies worldwide and most of those companies have more than one product, so imagine how many products you have to choose from. Again, a person could go crazy analyzing every product. Therefore, I’m going to show you how to use the top 4 components you need to easily identify a product or service that is designed for success!

• Industry of a Product
• Repeat Sales
• Pricing
• Rights to Product

Industry Of The Product

Products and services are put into Industry Classifications by the Direct Selling Association. Here are some examples of those categories:

• Wellness (vitamins, health shakes, etc)
• Personal Care (Cosmetics, jewelry, skin care)
• Services (cell phones, home security, etc.)

When you’re researching products, a very important aspect to that product is whether or not the industry it belongs to currently growing or declining, and what has the growth pattern been for the last 10 years.

Let’s compare 2 of the Industry categories listed above. According to the Direct Selling Association (DSA.org):

For all Industries combined in 2010, in the United States alone, direct sales were 28.56 BILLION dollars. Wellness accounted for 23% or 6.57 BILLION dollars of those sales. Ten years ago, in 2000, Direct Sales for all industries combined were 25.57 Billion dollars, and Wellness accounted for 16.9 %, or 4.32 billion dollars. That’s a 52% increase in sales in that industry over the last 10 years. Folks, that’s HUGE!

In 2000 the Personal Care Industry accounted for 26.4% of over-all sales, or 7.54 billion dollars, and in 2010 accounted for only 19.4% or 5.54 billion. A decrease of 26.5% decrease in overall sales. That’s also HUGE!

It doesn’t mean Personal Care is a bad industry with bad products, these are all good industries and good products. It just means through the distribution of Network Marketing (Direct Sales), the sales have been steadily declining over the last 10 years.

These are the kinds of things people who have become or people who are millionaires analyze when making decisions. They find out what the demand trend is before they begin to market a product. They don't base it on whether it’s only a $500 investment or a million dollar investment. Start thinking like a millionaire or you’ll never become one.

Repeat Sales

Some products create “repeat sales” while others create what’s called “A one-time sale”. Now, I don’t mean to pick on a specific industry, but I need to show an example of a one-time sale product. So for those of you already marketing these products, this is intended to help you understand business concepts, not make you feel bad.

One-Time Sale: Let’s say you promote jewelry, and one of your friends buys one of your products. They aren’t going to buy that same piece of jewelry again. Therefore, that is a one-time sale. In Network Marketing, the “One-time Sale” forces you to do two things:

1) You have to constantly try to get your customers to buy additional products.
2) You have to constantly find new customers to buy your products.

Repeat Sale: Let’s say you promote nutritional shakes, and a person buys your product. They get a 30 day supply, and every month after that they get another 30 day supply of that same product. This type of consumable product creates the “Residual Income” that is the primary concept behind the Network Marketing MLM model.

Again, neither of these is good or bad. Just know what you’re getting into. If you’re starting a business to build an unlimited stream of income, then it stands to reason that a consumable product that creates a “repeat sale” is a very important requirement.

Pricing

Despite what most people read on the Internet, pricing is not a huge factor when choosing a product or service to promote. The product just needs to be competitively priced. More importantly, you need to be able to identify which product you can easily promote (meaning do they have a great marketing plan with a perceived value). So don’t get too hung up on pricing. You have to know your product is competitively priced, but the reality is, it’s the marketing plan and perceived value that will drive the sales.

Rights To A Product

Any product or service a company offers comes from one of two places:

1) It is produced by the company that offers it (that company controls the rights to the product)
2) A company contracts the rights to market the product (the company that produces the product gives another company permission to market the product).

I’ll use the cell phone industry to make the point. There are 4 or 5 major cell phone service providers. Those companies own the rights to market those products. A Network marketing company can negotiate with any or all of the cell phone service providers and enter into a contract to market their products. That agreement between both companies allows you, as a representative of a Network Marketing company, the right to market those products and gather customers. Think about this: You spend years building your business around those products, and this happens: The contract expires or gets cancelled by either party, and your business and its long term success are jeopardized.

Those are the 4 main components you need to analyze in order to choose a product that is set up for success. But, no matter what you decide to do, don’t follow somebody without a plan. Because when they go over the cliff, you will go with them. Work with a team that can show you how to choose a company, a product, and a pay plan that is right for you. Work with a leadership group that can provide you with the skills and knowledge you need to succeed.