Direct sales, or multi-level-marketing (MLM) really gets a bad rap.  Too often conflated with pyramid schemes (which are illegal!) directly selling as a distributor for a multi-level-marketing company can actually be a very rewarding, lucrative, and fun business venture for the right person!  You’re in business for yourself, but because of the structure of the business model, you’re never actually by yourself.  Joining one of these companies also means becoming part of a community, and having an instant network for support, training, and inspiration.

I have been a part of a few of these over the years – with varying degrees of success – and a couple of the bigger lessons I’ve learned are that:

1)  As with anything else, you get what you put into it.  You can’t expect anything to happen if you just sit back and wait for it to come to you.  You need to be willing to put blood, sweat, and tears into working and growing your business if you want to see any kind of success.  The people that I know who have built successful businesses in this way have worked extremely hard at it.

and,

2)  Part of being successful includes learning to be discerning about when and where you share your products and your business opportunity.  One of the reasons that people tend to roll their eyes at these kind of companies is that people have a tendency to feel like they need to be…. annoying  (Yeah, I said it)  in order to get people to sign up.  Not knowing what else to do, they bug their family and friends until they either reluctantly buy just to shut you up, or feel like they need to stop talking to you altogether.  Neither scenario is ideal.  Please don’t bug your family and friends.The nice thing about leveraging the internet to share your products and your business opportunity is that interested parties come to you…. no pestering your loved ones necessary.

The biggest thing I learned though, in fact THE ONE consideration I think you need to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to get involved in direct sales, is this:

Only do it if it is a product you are passionate about, and is something you use, love, and tell people about anyway.  If it doesn’t fall into that category, it’s not the right opportunity.  But if it’s something you already purchase and use, something that you believe in, you are far more likely to have a successful (and pleasant!) experience as a distributor.  

For me, that product was doTERRA essential oils.