MLM, here is your chance. Defend your INDUSTRY!?

Question

I am wondering if any MLMers can actually defend their industry using actual business concepts as oppose to one liners and unjustifiable claims. Here is your chance to intelligently explain why you feel the following issues are incorrect in MLM. (please note, the question continues into the extra notes).

Supply/Demand issue:
Any business must carefully consider supply and demand. For example, if the ReVo Corporation thinks that it will have a full-fledged fad on their ovoid sunglasses next summer, perhaps they should plan to build and distribute, say, 10M units. This involves gearing up factories, setting up distribution and dealer networks, and carefully managing the inventories at each level so that ReVo will still have credibility with their distributors, retail outlets, and the public the following year.

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If it turns out that there is a "run" on ReVo products, and they sell out in mid-June, then they have miscalculated demand and will miss out on profits they could have made. The more serious problem, however, is overestimating the saturation point for the product. If they make 10M units, and sell only 2M units, this may be the end of ReVo as a company.

The all-too-obvious point here is that management of supply and demand, and keen insight into realistic market penetration and saturation are crucial to any business, for any product or service. Mismanagement of this aspect of a business will eclipse good market access, excellent product design, human resource assets, production quality, and so on. Simply stated, a failure to "hit the target" of supply and demand can ruin a company if the market is oversaturated.

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Interestingly, the issue of supply and demand is what brought the USSR to its knees. By design, the Soviet government tried to macro-manage supply, where bureaucrats would decide how many potatoes were needed, how much toilet paper, etc. Assuming these bureaucrats did the best they could, unfortunately their efforts to deliberately manipulate the control "knob" of supply and demand was not good enough. Notwithstanding their good intentions, they were usually wrong, which created huge shortages and surpluses, and led to a massive economic collapse.
Seeing the disastrous end of market naiveté in Russia should help clarify the fundamental problem with the MLM approach. In the real world, the profit of a company is directly related to the skill and prescience of the "hand" on the "supply knob," so to speak. In the USSR, that "hand" could not react fast or accurately enough to market realities through the best efforts of the bureaucrats.

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With MLMs, the situation is much worse. Nobody is home. Even the Soviets had someone thinking about how much was enough! If the bureaucrat in Russia was having a hard time trying to play Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in setting the supply level in the Soviet Union, then an MLM "executive" is in a truly unfortunate position. Not only is there no one assigned to make the decision of how much is enough, the MLM is set up by design to blindly go past the saturation point and keep on going. It will grow till it collapses under its own weight, without even a bureaucrat noticing.

All products and services have partial market penetration. For example, only so many people wish to use a discount broker, as evidenced by the very successful but only partial market penetration of Charles Schwab. Not everyone wishes to join a particular discount club, or buy gold, or drink filtered water, or wear a particular style of shoe, or use any product or service.

No one in the real world of business would seriously consider the thin arguments of the MLMers when they flippantly mention the infinite market need for their product or services.

The Demand Problem: Of Widgets and MLMs
Imagine a neat new product called a Widget that will sell for $100 (a fixed price, to keep it simple). Now, while everyone could use a Widget, not everyone will. Some will be afraid of anything new. Some will be loyal to existing brands. Some will want to buy an inferior product for less money. Some will want a more expensive product for prestige, regardless of quality. The reasons go on and on, and the fact is that only "X" Widgets will sell at $100.

The question for would-be marketeers is... what is "X," and how can it be predicted to maximize profits? The fact that "X" is hard to pin down does not mean that it does not exist, and every Widget built beyond "X" will end up producing a problem for the organization. The market only wants "X" Widgets at $100. What are you going to do with your extra inventory of Widgets beyond "X" that no one wants, and the sales people you hired to sell them?

No one can perfectly predict "X," and the situation is not nearly as simple as considered here, but the objective for marketeers is to forecast "X" as closely as possible in order to provide lasting value to all parties involved: to avoid missed opportunities as well as waste, loss, or failure.

Who has an eye on "X," the point of market saturation at a given price, in an MLM? Well, the funny thing, or perhaps the tragic thing, is that "X" will be reached and exceeded without anyone noticing or caring.

Let's just suppose that "X" has been reached today in a particular MLM; the number of possible units sold at this price has just been exceeded, and you happen to be a starry-eyed prospect sitting in an MLM meeting listening to the pitch. Now consider: Does anyone in this company know about "X"? Does anyone care? Is the issue being suppressed on purpose for some other motive? Since we are supposing that the market saturation number "X" has been reached, everyone joining the MLM from now on is buying into a false hope. But that is not what the speaker will be saying. He will be telling you, "Now is the time to join. Get in on the 'ground floor'." But it is all a lie, even though the speaker may not know it. The total available market "X" has been reached and nobody noticed. All the distributors will lose from here on out. Could this be you? How could you possibly know at what point you will become the liar in an MLM?

Answer 1

That was a very throughtful post which provides great insight into how a market based economy will always be the most efficient.

MLM people always like to point to successful companies such as McDonalds to show how small ideas can become multi-national enterprises. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between selling something that everyone wants or needs to the masses (McDonald's) and selling overpriced items to your relatives and friends (any number of MLM businesses).

Answer 2

Don't hold your breath waiting for any MLMer to answer this question. Even the most simple of business concepts such as supply and demand go right over the head of MLMers.

Plain and simple - MLM blunts the entrepreneurial energies that might be otherwise profitably channeled. It leaves a wake of failures behind who might otherwise have been successful business starters. Its sad, very very sad.

Answer 3

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