There are two ways for every MLM member to build their business: promoting the product and/or promoting the opportunity.

While multilevel marketing ostensibly originated as a way to promote products, its real purpose has always been a way to make money, which means that it was, is, and will be abused.

If a network marketing company is offering products people want and the products are competitively priced, or the products are sufficiently unique or significantly better,  it’s possible for a member or associate of that company to make money with the company if he has what it takes to do it.

Similarly, if the company has a compensation plan that pays generously without being filled with too many restrictions or hidden traps, a member or associate of that company can make money with the company providing he has what it takes to do that.

With so many MLM companies being tied to health products, promoting health is yet a third way of business building though it ties in closely with promoting products.

Because of past abuses,  promoting the business can be risky if not done properly. Which is why you may have to sign a statement stating that you have used and/or consumed a large percentage of your previous purchase when you place a new order with your company.

Similarly, you are not allowed to make health claims for your products and may be restricted to the use of unexciting, company supplied materials for product promotion. Your personal experiences with a product or anecdotes telling about what others have experienced with the the products, however, can be used.

Weather you promote the product or promote the opportunity is generally a matter of preference, either yours or the person you are working to sponsor and whether their interest is more product or opportunity. The methods for doing both are countless, and the secret to MLM success is in finding the method or methods that work for you.

MLM or Multi-Level Marketing is a business, and like any business, it’s reason for being is to make money.Multi-Level or Network Marketing, as it’s more often called today, is not a get-rich quick scheme, not a pyramid, not a Ponzi scheme, and not a charity. It’s a BUSINESS.

In order to make money, businesses, including Network Marketing or MLM companies, sell products or services and seek to expand in order to make even more money.MLM companies make sales and expand by creating networks of independent distributors, called network marketers, who sell through their organizations and profit from the sales they and their organizations make.While MLM companies are product based, the success of multilevel marketing companies is tied to the opportunity they give their distributors to make moeny for themselves. People become network marketers and join multilevel marketing companies because MLM companies really can be vehicles to wealth.

Products are important, but the dynamic that makes Multilevel Marketing work is the concept that in Network Marketing almost anyone has the ability to open a business and create wealth for themselves with a very small investment. So the most successful Network Marketers are organization builders and not sales people. With some exceptions, the most successful network marketers sell the business and not the products.

So MLM is not a sales job, though many people have a false, preconceived idea that Network Marketing means selling.

So how do the big builders who are not out pushnig products on their friends and neighbors build their organizations?

One person at a time!

There are some extremely successful people in multilevel marketing whose earnings are derived from just one or two key people within their group, sometimes several levels down. So in Network Marketing, it isn’t necessarily a matter of whom you know but of whom someone that you connect with knows that can make all the difference in the world.

People who understand that aren’t likely to quit because they realize that with some patience and dedication, MLM can be made to work for them.

While some newtork marketers have actually been burned, most who claim to have failed at MLM never really worked the business. Since they did nothing and failed before the fact.