BALLARDISMS

"Quotable Quotes"

of Debbi A. Ballard, INLC Founder and President

On Success

"An MLM/Network Marketing Business is in the business of building and nurturing individuals to sell products and create productive sales forces. It is not merely in the business of selling products whereby the marketing and distribution channels can be changed at will without regard to the impact on its networkers. When a company understands this difference, management will clearly recognize the mandates for quality training and dedication to their networkers. Without that realization, the company will either fold or fail to maximize its potential."

"The main overall reason for corporate failures is underestimating the unique complexities and demands of this type of business. Not understanding the capital needs, lack of financial backing has caused thousands of start-ups to dissolve within the first year. Most firms without this backing cannot pay for start-up assistance. Without proper guidance from industry specialists regarding marketing, compensation plan, data processing and legal issues, in particular, it is very difficult to succeed. If the products are high quality, priced right, and the operations run smoothly, lack of training and dysfunctional compensation plans, are in my opinion, the other most common failure triggers."

"The stimuli that cause an MLM/network marketing company to realize rapid growth often include the same factors that prevent it from succeeding long-term. Hyped up products and/or twists in compensation plans can cause a new company to explode. This has happened to the point where some firms have had over one million dollars in sales within their first month or two, and then folded within six months to a year. In a couple of cases, new food products were introduced and people thought they represented great repeat business potential. Also, their compensation plans had, what appeared to be, high payout percentages.

Many distributors and their customers did not like to keep eating the same foods; some did not like the taste at all and never reordered. Since the margins on the food products were low, the actual payouts were very low even though the percentage amounts looked high. The companies tied the payouts to bonus volumes (one on the BV of case counts) and those bonus volumes were far below the actual wholesale cost. Hence, when people started getting their small bonus checks, they were in shock! The lesson to be learned is never to get caught up in the frenzy of an exploding MLM. Take your time to evaluate the company before making a commitment to any endeavor."