I had a conversation just last night with a close friend about my Young Living business. I was explaining some of the business side of things to him and his wife. He teasingly (knowing that I would respond) called it a Pyramid scheme.
My friend knew it wasn't a scheme, but I still felt the need to explain that it definitely was NOT a pyramid. Yes, the basic structure looks visually like a pyramid, but that is where the similarities end.
Network marketing, or Multi Level Marketing (MLM) is a legitimate and actually brilliant business structure and marketing plan. Instead of paying money to big distributors and retail locations, they actually pay their customers to use their products. BRILLIANT! What better way to make sure there is always a customer base?
I'm not sure where the disconnect is and the complete mistrust of a MLM came from. It really is no different than buying from any franchise, or even small business. Often, the same people telling others to SHOP LOCAL to support the economy are also telling others to never buy from one of those MLM scams. Wow. Just wow.
When you buy from a MLM, you are literally supporting families. Directly supporting stay at home moms who are trying to pay the mortgage, or families who are struggling to save money to cover adoption expenses or infertility treatment.
Not everyone who has an MLM home business is a greedy money miser, who sees you as only a dollar sign. Yes, there are those out there, but they are the exception not the rule. The people I have had the pleasure to work with and my upline are fantastic examples of wonderful people who truly want to help the world and want positive change for their team members. It is approached with much love and care.
Yes, we want you to buy the products. It's a business. BUT, we also know that the product we have to offer has the potential to change lives. It's hard not to share when you are excited about something.
Back to business structure.
The money making part of a pyramid scheme comes directly from encouraging others to join you. The more people who pay to be a part of your team, the more money you make. There isn't a significant revenue stream outside of the structure of the team. It is set up for those on top to get rich and for the people at the bottom to simply hope to get there one day.
With an MLM, you can rank up past your enroller. You make money not off of people signing up under you indiscriminately, but off of the products that are purchased. You market those products to your team and educate them about the products and their usage, and you get paid based on how well you are able to do your job. Your whole job as a leader in any MLM is to be an educator.
Those who are committed to helping their teams do well and make sure everyone actually knows what they are doing with their products usually go big, and some do it very quickly.
Gary Young, when he created the company 26 years ago, had a vision for a company that had integrity. He wanted to provide the purest, most organic and natural version of the product possible. He was unyielding in that dream. Despite growth from a back room small business to a global empire, that standard has remained. There is even a whole strident process that Young Living implements in order to ensure it. It's called Seed to Seal - check it out.
It's hard to believe that a single man, with a dream and the grit to make the dream come true essentially fathered the modern essential oil movement in the western world. 26 years ago most of the oils available were for food flavoring or perfume. The idea of a pure, therapeutic oil was only something a hand full of people were even aware of.
Gary had a choice. He could have gone the way of Shark Tank, and found a distributor, and gotten a marketing partner who would position him where he needed to be in the market in order to get the best placement in retail locations around the country. He could have gone that route, and no one would have blamed him.
He chose to stick with the platform that encouraged education. He didn't just want to get his product out to the masses, he wanted those using it to truly understand what it was they had. He knew how amazing the product was and wanted to make sure that was communicated more than just on a label.
If you purchase a bottle of oil from sprouts, the employee selling you the oil can't tell you how to use it. They don't offer classes so you know what to do with this bottle you now own. They can't tell you all about the history of the company who sells it and all about the quality and purity that is represented in that bottle. They can tell you where it is located on the shelf and how much it costs. Education is lost with the mass distribution method.
In order to contract with distributors and large retail locations, there have to be concessions made and often, this includes aspects of your business they require you to regulate in a way that benefits them, NOT you or your customer. Gary did not want to get into that. He wanted to control every aspect of the process, from seed to seal, and in his own, very strict manner.
In network marketing, the customers (members) are the employees. They are paid to use and market the products to others. Some only use the products a little and don't market, so they only make a little. Others have chosen to make an entire career out of educating about the fantastic product line Young Living has.
There is no scheme. There is no pyramid. It is a large team - a family - of people who are over all committed to building each other up and educating the world about a great product and changing lives wile they do it.