Multi-level-marketing (MLM) is nothing more than a business sales strategy. A company like Mary-Kay and Beachbody incentivized independent distributors to recruit more distributors.
Many MLM companies produce consumer products. Therefore, distributors are also consumers. These types of products are commodities and are only as valuable as the packaging they come in. Around the world, there will always be consumer needs for health, weight loss, beauty, and jewelry products. In the MLM world, becoming a distributor means that an individual consumer carry’s a high volume of merchandise and is solely responsible for selling.
Selling these products, distributors are trained to recruit other distributors or salespeople rather than focusing on buyer preferences, relationships, innovation, and individual needs. Most MLM distributors have day jobs, while they plug and post their products on social media sites hoping to attract other distributors and buyers.
In reality, MLM businesses look like pyramids, but they are not pyramid schemes. A pyramid or Ponzi scheme involves financial investments where later investments merely repay earlier investors, resulting in no actual economic return. There is a similar notion with MLM businesses, the longer you’ve been a distributor and the more significant your network, the more money you will make.