MLM Due Diligence 101 - What You MUST DO Before Joining ANY MLM Company

If you want to build a solid network marketing business that will pay you a lifetime of income and that you can pass on to the next generation, you must choose a good network marketing company.

In my opinion, the company you choose to build with will account for as much as 40% of your long term success. The other 60% comes from YOU.

There are big, brash leaders in network marketing who will tell you that your success is all up to you. It’s all your fault if you’re not successful. “If it is to be, it is up to me!”

That’s a half-truth.

Sure, you can become the most highly developed individual, have a super positive mental attitude, have a magnetic personality and still end up in an illegal pyramid scheme that gets shut down by the Federal Government, and gets you sent to jail.

The company you choose WILL have a major bearing on your long term success. You must choose wisely.

Let me give you a word picture…

Whenever a new skyscraper is built, the very first thing they do is dig a giant hole in the ground, up to several hundred feet deep. They build the foundations of the building in this huge pit.

What if they just built from the ground level up? Well, the building is not going to have much structural integrity. It will topple down with the slightest of disturbances.

Your network marketing company is the foundation upon which you build your future. It has to be strong, or your business will come tumbling down, and you’ll have to rebuild it again, and again.

Rod Cook, editor of MLM Watchdog has an excellent checklist for evaluating a company from the outside and from the inside.

This is Part 1 of a two part series, and I’ve based much of what I’ve written here from Rod Cook’s website.

Part 1: What to look for from the outside…

1. Company headquarters address. First and foremost, check this out on the company’s website. If they don’t have a street address, run far and run wide.

If they have a picture of their office, verify it on Google Streetview, or drive past it, to make sure the photo matches what you see. If you see a trailer instead of an office building, run.

2. Payment options. If a company does not accept credit cards as a payment option, run, run, run.

Credit cards mean the company has a merchant account, which means they have a good credit rating. With credit cards, you can get your money back.

If you can only send money by electronic transfer, money order, check, or Fedex, you may as well kiss it goodbye. Scam artists will take it and run.

3. Website traffic. Check the company’s traffic stats using alexa.com. This is a tip that very few people know about. Basically, if a company’s traffic is headed downwards, what does that mean? You guessed it, it’s shrinking (…or dying…).

4. Starting/buy in price. A good network marketing company will allow you to start a business for less than $500.

State Attorney Generals DO NOT like heavy front end loading business opportunities that cost $1,500 to $3,000. If someone is pressuring you to join for $1,000 or more, it’s a sign that a company is recruitment driven (a pyramid scheme), not retail driven.

5. Exaggerated product and/or income claims. Avoid companies where distributors make outrageous medical claims like curing cancer (an illegal claim) or unbelievable income claims.

Any income claim without the hard evidence to back it up is illegal. Here’s a good rule of thumb: the bigger the income claim, the more likely you’ll lose money in that deal!

Some food for thought…

Stay tuned for Part 2: What to look for on the inside…

To Your MLM Success,

Wayne Wu

Looking for success in network marketing? I struggled for 2 years before stumbling upon the right answers. Let me freely share them with you.

Original article: MLM Due Diligence 101 - What You MUST DO Before Joining ANY MLM Company posted at The Profitable Networker.