MLM - The Dirty Little Secret

What is the MLM dirty little secret? The dirty little secret is something your company does not want you to know about. But they’ve kept their secret long enough and now it’s about to be exposed!

Let me ask you a question, when you joined your MLM business, did you read your companies Policies and Procedures? 90% of distributors never read them before joining. The distributors believe the company has to protect itself and there is nothing in the policies and procedures that would hurt them. Unfortunately they could be very wrong and that’s the dirty little secret to which I’m referring.

The Dirty little secret

MLM policy and procedures are legal binding contracts. Which means if you do something that breaks the contract, the company can legally enforce the consequences.

Typically the company will choose to either take your check for a month, maybe two, or worse, terminate you. This happens and it happens more often than people realize!

Why should I care about the dirty little secret?

Who is building this organization? Do you want to put your blood, sweat and tears into building a large organization only to have it ripped out from under you?

This is something you must ask yourself before you start building. Do your homework and read your policy and procedures.

Unbeknownst to many, MLM has gone big time corporate. When you have policy and procedures 10, 20, 30+ pages long, you know lawyers are writing them. These lawyers are hired to protect the company, not you.

Many of these “corporate MLM’s” have no regard for the guy/gal in the field, we are totally dispensable.

I have personally spoken to distributors who have built large downlines, then had their check taken away for a month because someone in their downline, someone they didn’t even know, violated the policy and procedures.

I also know quite a few who have been terminated and they did nothing wrong! But, in their policy and procedure it stated that they could be terminated with 30 days written notice with or without cause, and the company enforced that rule.

Why? Plain and simple, the company needed money. In their policy and procedure it is written the distributor is not allowed to disparage the company, it’s products or employees otherwise they can be sued. Meaning, you’ll never hear a thing about it!

In many of these policy and procedures there is so much double and triple talk, you can’t do business without violating something in them.

Protect yourself

If the MLM companies have their lawyers writing the policy and procedures, the least you can do is read them.

I know its worse then reading Beowulf. Boring, dry, mind numbing, but that’s done on purpose. They don’t want you to read them.

My suggestion is to start at the back and read towards the front. The questionable stuff is usually in the back and middle because no one ever gets that far when starting from the front.

Look for words like ongoing, continuous. Do you want to retire or are you planning on working this forever? If your P & P has anything about ongoing training, ongoing support, regular, continued performance, etc. you’ll be doing this for the rest of your life if you want to keep you check. And when you pass away your kids will be doing it if they want to keep the money.

Another goody is 30 day termination, termination with or without cause, etc. Some even have a clause where if your family member violates anything in the policies and procedures, you can be terminated!

Some people will tell me, my company would never do that. My response is this, if they never intend to use it, then why is it in there in the first place? Is it helping you build your business?

Please, if nothing else do yourself a favor and read your policies and procedures. Educate yourself so you don’t experience the MLM dirty little secret first hand, it can be very ugly.

Suzanne Fulford is a successful network marketer and stay at home mother of two. Suzanne believes everyone with the desire to become successful in network marketing can do so with the proper skills, mentoring and support. It is her goal to help as many people as possible attain the proper skills and mentor them to success. Download her free eBook at http://www.TheMLMmom.com or visit http://www.NetworkMarketingHotspot.com for more free tips and training.