What is network marketing? As a business model, network marketing is great. When someone joins a network marketing business, the new member is encouraged by their sponsor (the person who bought them into the business), to sell the 'product'. This could be anything from health remedies to property seminars, to t-shirt printing. Whatever the MLM business is selling ie the product, that is what each new sign up has to sell to earn their commission.



Once the new sign up feels confident about the products, how to sell them and how to market their business, it's time to recruit a team of new sign up's (just like when the new person started). Any sales the team members make earn commission for the original sign up, as well as themselves.

The main problem wiht Network Marketing is that many have large up front sign up fees which can make the intital set up costs very high. Also, recruiting a team who you think will do well may be easy (or may not) but there is no real control over how much money they will make for you and for themselves, so your hard work in recruiting, training and motivating could be in vein.

There are a great number of benefits to an MLM home business. There is usually no stock to hold or ship as the head office does this for you, there is usually a good community spirit with the other company members who share ideas and training and if the MLM company has a well known name, this can help with sales.

However, there is often a lot of hours of training to undergo, there may be meetings to attend, your recruits could become your competition and there maybe ongoing costs for membership to the company.

So, what is the alternative to an MLM home business? Simply setting up your own website, selling whatever you think will sell to your target market. This seems a very popular and profitable alternative. You will not make money from any recruits (unless you have an affiliate scheme for others to sell your product on your behalf) but you will get to keep 100% of the profits you make rather than being paid a commission and there is no worry of training any recruits either.

Although you will not get the support from the 'head company' there is one good quality training package available which provides ongoing support for any business. There are courses out there which will explaine al about how to market an online business, how to fill your inbox with orders every day, how to build your mailing list quickly and massively and how to do this either for free or very cheaply.

If you invest in quality training with ongoing support, you can feel safe branching out on your own while still having help and advice in the background. It means you can sell your product or service and keep 100% of the profits, you don't have to recruit and train any team members and, most importantly, you don't have to pay a joining fee!

So, is Multi Level Marketing or Network Marketing dead in the water or still out there making money? Well, for now at least, it does seem as though there are some who have survived the change in fashion, but I cannot help thinking it's not going to be around for too much longer as individuals make their own way in the internet business world.