March: Scanning through the headlines about multi-level marketing companies I’m seeing the same old claim – MLMs are scams.

If not outright scams, MLMs are shady, dubious affairs where some people work very hard and make nothing, while others hardly work at all and make a mint.

I’m not even going to bother to talk about the specific news articles. You’ve seen them already.

We’ve all been seeing them for decades.

And I bet you know the adjective that every single writer out there uses after the term, “MLM.”

If you said, “scheme,” give yourself a gold star.

Even when they’re talking about perfectly legitimate MLM businesses, reporters just can’t help making those businesses sound suspicious.

Profitable network marketing is best explained as a process. No one tactic alone will ensure that your network marketing efforts are successful. Nor can you be successful through one-time attempts. However, using a combination of the following 6 tips, you will be able to demonstrate and explain network marketing to your team.

Six network marketing tips explained:

1. Choose wisely the product or service and company you will be marketing. You will be investing your time and money in this venture. Your network marketing campaign will explain to others why they should join you. Be sure that you believe in what you will be selling to others.

2. Teamwork, teamwork, and more teamwork. Take time to explain the product or service, company, and tools for success to your downline. You should also explain and encourage cooperation and coordination among your team so that everyone succeeds.

3. Exercise, discipline, and effort. Even if you eventually want to work at your business part time, you will need to dedicate a certain amount of consistent effort to your business. Achieving success in network marketing is like gardening—in order to leisurely enjoy your flowers later, you need to plant the seeds and take care of watering and weeding them now.

How can you make network marketing recruitment work for you? Whether you are starting a new business or have been at it for a while, the truth is that MLM businesses grow and thrive based on the people they attract. This makes network recruitment an essential tool for beginning, growing, and maintaining your business. So, how does network marketing recruitment work?

Fortunately, attracting and keeping the best people is a matter of learning and adhering to recruitment tactics that have already been proven. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the recruitment of a network marketing downline, you just have to use the tactics.

Here are the 7 essential MLM recruitment tactics:

1. Focus on your target market in your recruitment efforts. First you need to know your market and know it well. The best recruitment messages in the world don’t have a chance with people who aren’t interested. Having a firm handle on both your potential customer base and your likely downline members is an important key to the success of network marketing.

Network marketing people are often in search of something better for themselves and their families. They have an entrepreneurial spirit that drives them to build a growing and thriving business. Using a network marketing model, these people have the distinct advantage of engaging in an industry that offers opportunities for those who are willing to work but don’t have the initial income to invest in a brick-and-mortar business.

Network marketers have built large corporations from the ground up by using a sales force that works on commission only. For the most part, this is a win-win situation for both the company and the distributor. Network marketers are often able to share their individual insights and opinions with people who may be interested in their company.

There are also issues that network marketers must avoid or take care to guard against such as network marketing schemes and surviving their first year in network marketing. But with time and effort, most network marketers who continue in their businesses achieve a level of success they would not have had the opportunity to experience outside of network marketing.

One of the benefits that network marketers find in their quest for a better lifestyle is the ability to start a real business without the usual overhead costs, business plans, bank loans, and rent. Unfortunately, this benefit may also lead the same network marketers, although motivated, to treat their business more like a hobby than a business because of the low initial investment.

Do you know what a network marketing scheme is? As you look for ways to earn more money while working at home, you increase the risk of being scammed by an illegitimate business. By being able to differentiate between companies that are selling honest products and services and those that are operating more like a network marketing pyramid scheme, you will be able to avoid financial loss and frustration.

In late 2008, ponzi schemes once again made the news when Bernard Madoff lost $50 billion of his investors’ money in a single year, 5 times the revenue of Avon. This news brought financial fraud once again to the attention of both the consumer and news media. And while it is very important not to be caught in the tangled web of an unethical network marketing scam, it should also be noted that there are network marketing companies who operate under strict moral and ethical codes and whose representatives are very satisfied with their results.

One of the basic differences between a legal commission structure for distributors and a network marketing scam is that the commissions in a legal company are paid from the income from the products and services. In a company that operates as a fraud, the sales force is compensated from the initial investments of other distributors who hope to make money themselves.

Here are some of the ways in which you can determine if the company you are considering is running a scheme or is truly legitimate. First, fraudulent network marketing companies will guarantee a return on your investment. Distributors involved in a scheme may be offered unrealistic incomes and commissions that are not based on the sale of a product or service to a client.

Your first year of network marketing can be a real challenge! It can be one of the scariest experiences because all too often you aren’t prepared for the challenges and the work. After all, network marketing is a business and not a get-rich-quick scheme. There are strategies that make the work easier and techniques that build your business more quickly.

But all too often, when you start out in network marketing, you speak with your sponsor, read training materials, attend company meetings, and make presentations to friends and family. After months of trial and error, you may lose your enthusiasm and feel like giving up.

Hope is on the horizon! There are definitely specific tactics and strategies that you can employ to survive your first year. And later, you’ll be earning passive income—what drew you to network marketing in the first place.

First, recognize that you won’t succeed without the assistance and support of those who have succeeded before you. People who start a brick-and-mortar business have the advantage of working in a more traditional setting, where education about business loans, advertising budgets, hiring staff, and purchasing or renting property abounds. This is opposed to network marketing, where you are expected to understand the intricacies of selling products face to face, answer objections fluently, and develop a winning attitude, all without assistance.

Network marketing advertising is necessary to achieve any degree of success in a network marketing company. Many people enter the business because they love the products they are selling but find they require advertising in order to grow their list of people who are interested in building their own business with the products. Your advertising campaign can help you to increase your business, your customer list, and the number of people who want to be part of your downline.

However, before jumping into just any network marketing program, it is essential that you take stock of your own style and your advertising budget. Some strategies that can be employed require little to no monetary outlay while others require a rather substantial advertising budget. Some techniques require more copywriting knowledge on your part while some require that you be able to engage others both online and offline.

The advertising strategy that has been used since the beginning of network marketing is word of mouth. This is definitely the most cost-effective manner of advertising your company’s products, but it also requires an outgoing personality and willingness to talk with all your family and friends. Unfortunately, it is also the method that has given network marketing a bad name. While some people are able to make significant headway using this technique, others find that they must look elsewhere for lead generation if they want to maintain their friendships.