Network marketing, at its simplest, involves independent salespeople
purchasing goods and possibly paying a startup fee in order to sell
those products for a profit. A good example would be a door-to-door
cutlery salesman who gets inventory from a distributor and sells to customers. What makes network marketing different from normal sales jobs
is the salespeople's opportunity to recruit other salespeople to work
under them and taking a cut of the profit. Each of the three types of
network marketing jobs entails elements of sales, management and
logistics.
A salesman is the most basic of all network marketing
jobs. In this role, the seller is in charge of purchasing the goods and
selling them, normally keeping the profit for themselves in order to
purchase more goods. The seller is also in charge of generating leads in
order to find possible buyers for the goods. Sales jobs normally entail
either at-home visits or online marketing, soliciting buyers via email or social networking sites.
A more profitable type of network marketing job, and often the next step up from a salesperson, is that of a recruiter.
This marketing job still involves buying goods from a distributor, but
this person normally finds workers to do the selling for them. This
person manages a sales force, often acting as a middleman by purchasing
the goods directly from the distributor and having the sales force
purchase the goods from them. Often there is also a commission paid to
the recruiter on a per-sale or annual basis.
If a person wishes to go directly to the top of this pyramid, a
distributor offers more control than all other network marketing jobs.
This person is in charge of collecting money from sellers and recruiters
and distributing the goods for sale. Commonly, this person charges a
setup fee to newcomers on top of the money needed to purchase the goods.
Some network marketing jobs have a bad reputation for scamming
clients, and people need to be aware of the risk, no matter whether they
have one of the network marketing jobs or are a customer. The biggest
risk is that most distributors have a no-return policy, meaning that if a
seller does not move the products, they will not get that investment
back. Also, some charge large setup fees. Finally, some network marketing companies
are just fronts to take money and never send any products to
salespeople or customers, so doing background research is always a smart
idea.
