The Stair Step Break a Leg - I mean Break Away....

 Hello Friends,

I was privy to a training call tonight that covered five of the different types of compensation plans, the good and bad points in each plan.  The "Stair Step Break Away" is the plan I'll go over here, and is dear to me, because I have been involved in several companies over my career in Network Marketing that used this type of plan.  Therefore I can relate truly from my own personal experience!

The first company was a wellness company, and starting off with a bang, the products were fantastic, people got great results, sometimes over night, and in no time I was building a nice team, but only had one strong leg.  Once my associate started building, with each advancement she made, I made less and less commission, which is fair enough, after all, she was working hard on building her group too!  

The money was fantastic at first, dwindled with each advancement, and when she finally achieved my level, my commission was reduced to just a couple percent.  She broke away from me by tieing with me and becoming a director, and so did my commissions. Strange how you wind up actually making less, by building a bigger team? Hmmmmmm...

 The only way I could get myself back into decent commissions was to start another leg, which meant finding another strong leg, having it do the same thing as the first, and after building 3-4-and 5 strong legs then advance above the others, and make a decent income once again, as long as I stayed ahead that is.  

The odds of finding 5 key people on my first level, who could recruit and sell were slim, in fact in took 10 long years of trying this approach before the company fizzled, and so did my entire organization. The attrition rate was tremendous, always having to replace the ones who dropped off the other end.

The second company I became involved with had a similar breakaway plan, you would think I would have learned from the first experience, but commissions were good on individual sales, in fact many created 6 figure incomes by focusing on just sales, I figured I could make it work too. They had a unique service, and no real competitors, how could I go wrong?

 I was okay at sales, and made some money at it, but also wanted the leverage of a team, so again found a solid builder and experienced the same pattern as before, he finally caught up to me and broke away, and so did my income, hu huuu..

This company was even harder to find builders in a sales resistant market, so I resigned myself to sales, and watched the people come and go, start up, get excited, sponsor there 3 people, get bored, and drop off.  Sound familier?

I began to realize, that this type of pay plan actually encourages a lack of participation from the upline, who want to make max commissions as long as possible, therefor aren't very helpful in the training process, subconsiously hoping you would stay on the lower levels awhile longer, so they could reap the benefits awhile longer too!

The benefit of this type of plan is the fast start up money people can make on sales commissions, and if you can stay on top and build above the rest, have 3-4-or 5 strong legs under you, you can actually make some decent money with it.  I've seen others prosper in these companies, so I know its doable, but for me it was a long hard road that turned to mud down the way...wasn't from lack of effort!

Check out my profile links and the free knowledge there that will teach you what works and doesn't work in today's industry.  I'll cover the other types of comp plans in future articles, and thanks for your comments!

Paul