The 5 Pillars of Network Marketing – The Foundation of Your Long Term Success

A network marketing company is your vehicle to financial independence – the thing that takes you from where you are now, to where you want to be. Even if you are a good driver, you need to have a safe, reliable and efficient vehicle to get you to your destination.

So how do you know if your vehicle is capable of taking you to where you want to go? How do you know that you have the right vehicle? And what do you do when you find out that you’re in the wrong vehicle?

That’s where the 5 pillars can help you to assess whether the MLM company you’re representing is the right vehicle for you. The 5 Pillars are what you need to be successful in a company in the long term.

My mentor Michael Dlouhy founded “The 5 Pillars” after joining over 100 MLM Companies between 1992 and 1994 to find out as much as he could about how this business works. Since then, he has helped thousands of networkers figure this game out.

Unfortunately, the network marketing industry does have a weird reputation. That’s partly due to people’s ignorance, lack of understanding and also in a big way due to the fact that there are too many network marketing companies out there that are just no good. People are not succeeding because they just don’t know any better.

For instance, there are many scams disguised as MLM companies taking advantage of their distributors. There are many companies that come and go very quickly because they have incompetent management or they don’t have the right product at the right time. There are many companies that have products that are just too expensive. There are many companies who have horrible compensation plans. There are many companies that don’t train their distributors properly.

The 5 Pillars that a network marketing company must have for you to be successful in the long term are:

1. Company Management Experience With Integrity – If you don’t have this one, you can forget about all the rest. How can you ever be successful without good people at the helm? It’s imperative that the company manage understands what it is like to be a distributor. Do a Google search on company executives to find out who they really are.

2. Timing in the company and Timing in the industry – Has the company shown consistent profits for at least two years? More importantly, will the industry that it services stand the test of time? It’s no good trying to sell long distance phone calls when you can do them now for free.

3. A great product at a value price – All legal MLM companies have amazing products. That’s a given. But are they value priced compared to the rest of the market? Sure it maybe better than a non-MLM product but can you readily retail the products based on their added benefits? Or do you have to constantly justify why yours is so much more expensive than anything else on the market?

4. A compensation plan that rewards part timers – 96% of all network marketers are building their business part time and a good compensation plan should reward them accordingly. Why should they continue to build the business if they are getting virtually nothing for their efforts?

5. A proven duplicatable system – This does NOT entail writing a list of family, friends and past contacts. This has everything to do with a training program that teaches people how to market and how to be leaders. A duplicatable system gives people the necessary skills and tools to make the business work.

If your company doesn’t have these 5 pillars then RUN. Due your due diligence and find a company that does, it will be worth it in the long term.