Top Tier MLM vs Traditional? What is Top Tier MLM anyway?

Top Tier MLM, well how do I even begin to describe it? Humm….. well, it’s kind of like being transported into a parallel universe of Network Marketing, and in this universe the only thing that’s different is that you actually make money in your Network Marketing company in your first 90 days. Now if you have watched any science fiction (I love that stuff) you know the allegory here. A parallel universe is a reality identical to our own except…… Except for a just a few tiny things that are totally different. I mean if you somehow were magically transported into one you would immediately recognize everything, your wife or husband would look and be the same, the dog the same, the house the same, the backyard, everything the same except maybe one little detail, like when you check your bank statement and somehow there’s $10 million dollars in there. Now this is where you start running around the house yelling and screaming and waving the bank statement in the air muttering something about going to Tahiti, and suddenly you notice no one else understands what you’re so excited about. There seems to be nothing strange about it to anyone else, it’s just always been that way. Now I know what you are thinking, the other universe is looking pretty good right now and our first thought is probably….. Oh yes, TAKE ME THERE QUICKLY! However as science fiction teaches us, there is always a price to pay. When you change one factor in our reality then you give up something in return. Well back to the main point of the article, the Top Tier MLM business model.

What exactly is Top Tier MLM and how come you don’t know about it?

Well it’s been around for quite a while but it’s not as recognized as traditional or as I will refer to it, Standard MLM. Now Standard MLM’s are the ones that everyone is familiar with, like Amway, NuSkin, FHTM, MonaVie, eXfuze, etc. What makes a company a Standard MLM, is that the entry fee when you sign up as a distributor is generally only a few hundred dollars. Now because the entry fee is so small, even if you are a super recruiter and can bring 10 or 20 reps into the business each month, you are never going to be able to earn a full time income based on your personal efforts. That’s not how the Standard MLM business model is designed. To make money in that business model you need to build a team of several hundred reps to earn even a few thousand in residual commissions, and a group of 10,000 or more to get to the type of money that most people associate with good income in our industry. That means you are going to have to build a big team, and so establishing that magical duplication in your downline is critical to your success. Because of this, your success now depends on factors that are outside your direct control and even if you are really good and bring in hundreds of people to your opportunity, sometimes that magic duplication just doesn’t occur. We have all seen it happen, everything seems to be lined up perfectly and then bam! The market changes, the company doesn’t handle something right, there are endless possibilities that can go wrong. A textbook example of this would be what happened recently to the mega-viral MLM success story of the decade, MonaVie (See my blog update on MonaVie). Now that of course, that’s just part of the territory, some businesses fly and some die. It’s no different in MLM.

Now enter the world of Top Tier MLM

In the Top Tier MLM business model, everything is the same except that the entry fee to sign up as a distributor is higher. Generally, it’s in the range of $2000 to $10,000 or more. Now when you sign up a rep in this model, you generally get a 50% commission for sponsoring them, so you can generate commissions of $1000 to as much as $16,000 a transaction in some Top Tier MLM companies such as WealthMasters International, Family IQ, or Avant Now supporters of the Top Tier MLM model point out that this totally changes the dynamics of the MLM business into a much more powerful lucrative opportunity. Using a Top Tier MLM model, a person can enter the Network Marketing business, go out and prospect, and even assuming it takes them 2 or 3 months to really get their feet wet, they could be earning $10,000 a month within 90 days or so, even if no duplication occurs. I told you this was a parallel universe! This puts a distributor in the position of being able to earn a full time income right from the beginning. What an interesting concept! This Top Tier MLM model is primarily dependent on your own personal efforts, so it’s more of a direct sales business model with a residual tacked on to the back end of the compensation plan. Because the compensation plan is heavily weighted on the front end, the Top Tier MLM business model is also referred to as “GPT” or “Get Paid Today” (see my review of The CoffeeHouse Letter in the post “Is Network Marketing Dead”). Now of course it seems that the biggest barrier for top tier MLM companies to recruiting, would be convincing the average MLM person who has problems trying to talk a prospect into a $500 start up kit, that it’s just as easy to sell a $10,000 one. But is it really any more difficult? Take Franchising for instance, even in today’ turbulent economic market it’s booming! So there are a lot of people with money looking for opportunity and probably the cheapest franchise you can find is $5,000 to $30,000 and then you are married to the bricks and mortar. Now of course with a high ticket sign up kit the potential prospect pool is probably smaller but then again in a Top Tier MLM, you really don’t need to sponsor many people to get to 5 figures a month, maybe 3 or 4? Now historically you built a Top Tier MLM business the same way you built a traditional MLM: make a list, do meetings, advertise, etc. However the biggest boost to the Top Tier MLM business model has been the marriage of Network Marketing prospecting with online lead generation systems like My Lead System Pro, I mean if you have a large enough pool of prospects to pull from you can sell pretty much anything. Online marketing system allow you to tap into a global market of over 1.7 Billion internet users. In today market the big earners in the Top Tier MLM companies are almost all using online marketing approaches and automated sales systems to tap their markets. So which really is the best business model? Well I actually like them both. As I pointed out in my Blog Post “Is Network Marketing Dead”, the Top Tier MLM or GPT model offers a way to achieve the big money much faster, a few months as opposed to a few years, but probably tops out at about $100,000 a month. MLM takes longer but since your ultimate team will be bigger, the top incomes are much higher. To confuse things even more, there are many reps who actually do both. They reason that since not everybody is attracted to the same company or product, why not have both in your store? Now of course in the world of Traditional MLM or old school Network Marketing this is heresy, but in today’s market I am not so sure. For those in traditional MLM that love their company or product but realize that it could take a few years to build up the duplication, marketing both a Traditional and a Top Tier MLM is a workable hybrid business model that can provide front end funding so that you can afford to do the slower build on the other. In the final analysis, I love the MLM universe and there is something to be said for just about all the business model variations. However the confusing part of the MLM world is that with only minute variations in the business models (Unilevel, Matrix, Binary, etc), there are so many choices in companies, that most people make it just based on whether they like the product (not a good way to do it). With a Top Tier MLM, the business model is so radically different, that is doesn’t seen to suffer from the same type of competition in the mind of the prospect. They either see it or they don’t, and one big advantage is that they can generally see a more achievable path to the money, 2 or 3 months as opposed to 2 or 3 years. So dive in, make your choice and GPT (Get Paid Today) or GPT (Get Paid Tomorrow) or GPTT (Get Paid Today & Tomorrow).

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MonaVie Review Update - Up Superjuice Creek Without a Paddle?

Oh MonaVie, MonaVie, MonaVie, by the gods of Network Marketing what has happened to you? For those of us lucky enough to have attached their wagon to a mega hyper-growth MLM money machine like MonaVie this is supposed to be the time where you sail off into the sunset and send postcards back to old prospects who never joined you telling them you are sorry they missed the boat. I actually knew one guy who would drip on his old prospects by sending them envelopes with small quantities of beach sand and a note telling them it was too bad they couldn’t be with him on the beaches of the world. Well as the wreckage and empty lifeboats started to float back to shore it is became pretty obvious that that ship sank. So what happened to the MLM success story of the decade? In a recent company review I did on MonaVie I cited them as an almost textbook case of the type of Viral Hyper-growth that is legendary in the network marketing industry. I mean let’s face it, MonaVie was a rocket ship that blasted from zero to over a billion dollars in sales in about 5 years. That explosive growth curve AKA “Momentum Growth Curve” ,is what is always spoken about in hushed revered tones by the MLM leaders after the big opportunity meetings as they ponder the future of their company. Yes it’s that rapid growth that creates fortunes in our industry for the lucky ones who got in early, and it keeps the rest of us pounding the phones ignoring the painful rejection form our friends and family because we know our turn is next. But is it? It seems that even if you have a reserved seat on that rocket it can explode and crash back to earth on you just like any other business. That brings us to the painful discussion about the Myth of “Walk Away Residual Income”. I know that this is heresy to speak of this, and it’s even stranger that it comes from a 7 figure earner who loves the MLM industry and who has in fact ridden those rockets. Look if you are going to bet the proverbial ranch on your success in this industry, I feel that you deserves to know the facts not the myths. Network marketing is a business just like any other business and as such is not immune to the laws of business gravity. You can’t go straight up forever, once you have tapped all your easy market and reached a certain point of saturation (I hate that word) generally at about $1 Billion in sales in the US market or approximately 1 million distributors, most companies will plateau and then fall back by 15% to 25% and then stabilize. However in some cases that fallback can be much worse. Now that does not mean it’s over, there is still growth especially on the international front but the go-go days of 35% monthly check increases are pretty much gone. Then there is that ugly word “Attrition”. That’s where your traitorous downline abandons ship and promptly jumps to other deals, taking your income with them. This is what is referred to as the “Leaking Bucket” effect that I wrote about in my review of the infamous Coffeehouse Letter, called “Is network Marketing Dead?” and why the Top Tier MLM business model has become so popular in the MLM industry. Even if a company is years away from stability there is always attrition, it happens as people lose faith in the business or just burn out, and it happens at regular intervals: 30 days, 60 days, 6 months, 1 year, 10 years, etc, etc. Because of this effect your residual income is not stable no matter how successful you are. The truth is that if you walk away after building a successful network marketing business at some point your income will start to fall. To maintain the level of income you want you will need to keep building year after year. But wait you say! I was told this was get rich quick and then retire! Sorry, it’s actually a business and you have to pay attention to it and continue to run it. But back to the main issue….

What did happen with MonaVie?

Well of course they hit the magic ceiling at about $1 Billion dollars and then began to stabilize and after a fallback that should have been it. However there were a couple of factors that made their business model unique that came back to haunt them and make the fallback very severe.

First, the MonaVie growth or duplication model was heavily product based and recruiting distributors through tasting parties was the mainstay.

Because of this and the way they positioned customers into becoming distributors they ended up with a huge base of distributors who were really not in the business. I believe that when the economy hit the skids recently and consumers lost jobs and had to cut back, the MonaVie superjuice got dumped. The other factor was the aggressive product give away strategy that pretty much every business builder promoted, of buying huge volumes of the juice every month and telling everyone to give away one bottle a day. Some MonaVie leaders it’s rumored pushed their teams to sign up for autoships of $1000 per month to feed this sampling model. This promotional effect swelled their volumes and once again, I believe that when things started to stabilize and fall back there was no reason for the business builders to maintain that huge monthly ordering volume since recruiting volumes slowed so much and they cut back also. The result was the ultimate double whammy! Alas, the market giveth and the market taketh away. From all evidence, it appears that within about 18 months of hitting their peak MonaVie had a huge unraveling of volume.

MonaVie’s Future Prospects?

Now I don’t want to give you the wrong impression here, MonaVie is still alive and kicking and by all accounts doing very well in a number of international markets, and there are a boatload of top MonaVie distributors that followed the money tree overseas and are now learning Korean, and other interesting languages. So what did we learn class? Well there are several conclusions you can draw from this:

1. Network marketing is a business (a very high paying one) and just like any other business and you have to run it and pay attention to it.
2. You should probably take a close look at the product, the market, and the duplication model rather than just base your decision on photo copies of your upline’s checks. Different types of products have different growth cycles and some work a lot better than others in the MLM universe.
3. No matter what you do, when you are raking in the bucks, don’t spend it all. Keep your lifestyle the same and build your bank account for that rainy day. (OK so buy a sexy car or huge flat screen TV but keep it under control OK?) Too many top earners in MLM spend like drunken sailors and if the money flow stops, they’re broke.
4. There are different business models in network marketing and each has a particular building style and set of benefits. (i.e. Standard MLM, Top Tier MLM, etc.). Understand your options before you make your choice.

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Is Network Marketing Dead?

Has The Network Marketing Industry Changed? An Analysis

Well the internet is a very big place but I guess it had to happen sooner or later. I finally stumbled across the infamous “Coffeehouse Letter”. It was purportedly written by industry giant Mike Dillard in 2007. Wow! Interesting read. While I scrolled through it hitting the highlights all I could do was roll my eyes and shake my head in amusement but then bam! Some very insightful truths about the Network Marketing industry started to roll off the page and then they had me, I devoured every word and at the end I was pissed off. So why was I mad? It’s that thing we all hate, being slapped in the face with a truth we don’t want to accept. We know its truth because once you are exposed to it, you kind of realize that you have known it all along. It brings that level of doubt that you have been trying to keep out of your consciousness to the surface where you finally have to look at it, and deal with it. Just so I don’t leave you too mystified, let me summarize. The coffeehouse Letter is a treatise or a rant depending on how you want to look at it about the validity of the Network Marketing model as a success vehicle in today’s marketplace. It basically says:

“Network Marketing is dead, and the internet killed it”

Now the letter is not a condemnation of network marketing by some outsider but a carefully crafted argument by an insider that points out something we all already know and proposes an alternative business model called GPT or Get Paid Today. Now it’s pretty obvious to anyone that has been around MLM for a few years, that network Marketing today is a very different animal than it was 15, or even 10 years ago. The letter points out that the Network Marketing business model is a victim of its own success and of the internet age. Look if you are in the industry, you probably already know what the flaws are. Building an all volunteer sales force and then growing that team into an organization of 10,000 or more is hard. The recruiting is hard, the drop out ratio disappointing, the duplication difficult. Hey look, let’s be realistic here, any business is hard. However the rewards if you hit a home run are well known. If you can get that organization up and off the ground and you have a hot company with a hot product, the sky’s the limit and the rewards are legendary as I pointed out in my company review of Mona Vie, where top earner Brig Hart reportedly earns about $980,000 per month. Yes that’s not a misprint, I said per month! Now as you probably already know I am a big believer in MLM and the network marketing industry. It changed my life financially in a huge way and no other business even comes close to the reward you can achieve in a network marketing business. It is a world of challenge, personal development, achievement, friendship, mentorship, and incredible reward. It is a true win-win business model where you can only achieve if you help others to excel. Then what is it about today’s market that makes it different. Well in a word the internet. Now in a way the internet has made recruiting so much easier than it ever was before. Good grief, years ago to recruit someone long distance, I would have to mail a video tape to a prospect and wait 3 days until they got it. Today, I shoot them an e mail and they have the presentation in a heartbeat! As the title of Bill Gates recent book said: “Business at the Speed of Thought” But did the internet age also open a Pandora’s box of hurt for the Network marketing industry? Well in a word, yes. Today, network marketing companies can be started in the blink of an eye, competition for your downline can be as close as the next e-mail blast and leaders routinely jump from deal to deal today like a game of musical chairs.

But is Network Marketing really Dead?

And if so, what are the alternatives? Does the GPT model really work as a viable alternative and is it really the answer to all the problems of Network Marketing in the 21st century, or is it simply a business model with a different set of problems? I have to say that after studying the concept of GPT also known as “Top Tier MLM”, it is an attractive, powerful alternative, and I can see why it speaks to a lot of people, but I also believe MLM is far from dead, you just have to play the game differently today than you did in the past. You need to embrace the changes in the market, adjust your marketing approach but most of all learn how to build quickly. Now I guess in the final analysis, you pay your money and you make your choice. Which model you are attracted to depends on your overall financial goals and how long you are willing to work to achieve them. GPT offers a way to achieve very substantial money much quicker, a few months as opposed to a few years but realistically probably tops out at 7 figures a year. MLM takes longer but you are leveraging through a much larger group so the top end can be much bigger.

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