One of the questions we're continually asked by people interested in Six Figure Mentors, is “Isn't it just an MLM”?
It's actually one of our favourite questions and we're guessing it may have crossed you mind too so we'll take 2 minutes to explain the clear distinction to you.
MLM means Multi Level Marketing. Which means, if you're at a particular level in an MLM company and you recruit people into that company, then they join the MLM at a level below you. When they recruit people, those people join at a level below them. This is known as your downline, i.e.: the people below you in the hierarchy.
In most pay structures within an MLM you earn commissions whenever someone in your downline makes a sale. So you can get commissions passed up to you from many levels deep.
However the big trade off is, the lower you are positioned in the downline, the more difficult it is for you to recruit people into your downline.
In fact what actually happens is, the people who join the MLM Company first are the ones who are going to make the most money, because they are the furtherest up the hierarchy, and therefore get the most commissions.
It's a pyramid shaped structure.
An MLM is not a scheme per se because schemes don't have any products, participants get paid for introducing people to the scheme, and their downline gets paid for introducing people to the scheme – so there's no product involved apart from recruiting people. MLM companies do have products for example, Avon, Herbal Life, Mary Kay Cosmetics and so on. So while not strictly schemes, their structure is pyramid based, so people at the bottom of the pyramid have a much more difficult time finding people to recruit.
Think of it like the hierarchy in any corporate office – the office juniors, receptionists and mail room staff work the hardest and are often the ‘public face' of the business, but they're at the bottom of the pyramid, earn the least, but make profits for the managers and directors further up the ‘food chain'.
So exactly how is SFM different to an MLM company then?
1. We Refer Prospective Customers To Six Figure Mentors
When someone buys the Six Figure Mentors Product (Online Marketing Education Instruction) they become a member of the Six Figure Mentors. That's because the SFM runs as a monthly membership program. You access the training material for a monthly cost – very similar to how you pay your electricity or gym membership! But that's about where the similarity to an MLM ends. The Six Figure Mentors product is online marketing education training. So the back office of the SFM contains all the training a beginner needs to know to allow them to market anything on the internet.
Six Figure Mentors also provide a ton of online tools which you'll never find provided in an MLM, such as:
- Digital Business Lounge – let's you host unlimited domains, and includes a step-by-step website builder which means no tech skills are needed to make your website live on the internet
- SimpleLeadCapture – allows you to build your own unique lead capture pages so you stand out from the crowd
- Digital Writer – where you get professional blog posts or articles written for you – so no clever wordsmith skills are necessary
- YourTubePlayer – an app which puts you in control of your video branding and player controls for embedded Youtube videos, so they have the same consistent look and feel, which is important to your personal brand reputation
- Simpletrakk – helps you track and split test your ads so you know which ones work the best and which ones to scale up fast
- GraphixCreator – creates your unique 3D images which adds to your professional online persona
- plus heaps more ++
There's a number of further differences so we'll start with the most obvious one:
2. How Is The Structure Of Six Figure Mentors Different To An MLM Company?
The Six Figure Mentors operates an affiliate program. You refer a prospective customer and you get paid a commission when that customer purchases. It's exactly the same structure used by any major department store with an online presence. You recommend their products online and receive a commission when your referral buys.
One of the best examples of affiliate companies we know of is Amazon. They're the biggest affiliate marketing company on the planet (well, the internet!). Anybody can set up an affiliate account with them and sell their products online – anything from books and DVD's to refrigerators!
And there are popular Affiliate marketplaces listing household names which all have affiliate programs. Look at the bottom of the websites for big department stores like Harrods and Bloomingdales to see where affiliate can register to promote that store. The affiliate model is a win-win for big corporates as it's a way of them getting customers referred without doing too much costly advertising.
3. What About Pay Scales In Six Figure Mentors?
We already said MLM companies have downlines that go many levels deep. In SFM you get paid when you make a sale. There's no pass-up commissions because there are no levels. It's the same as any other legitimate affiliate marketing company – you make a sale, you get paid a fixed percentage commission calculated per the price point of the sale.
4. Another Major Difference Is MLM's Make Most Their Money From People Failing!
There's a term called Breakage, which prevents most people apart from those highest up the chain from succeeding. Breakage is unclaimable bonus income that distributors (especially part-time people) fail to earn because of high group volume and downline rank requirements that stop them from qualifying in almost every pay plan.
Six Figure Mentors doesn't have any bonuses for introducing new members (only commissions), no bonuses for having the most people in your team, nor any other forms of bonus. So when you join Six Figure Mentors you're on an even playing field with all other members. As long as you refer prospective customers who buy, you earn commissions.
There's no advantage for someone who has been in Six Figure Mentors for a long time, apart from their marketing knowledge, to be able to earn more commissions than someone who has just joined. It's all down to how well you market, and a beginner (after watching and implementing the training) has as much chance of success as someone who's been in online marketing for a while.
5. No Team Building
We haven't been involved in an MLM, so can't comment on the team building mentality, however all SFM members are part of a community, where everyone helps each other succeed. There's no advantage to the person helping, it's simply a supportive culture that has grown alongside the Six Figure Mentors Digital Business System. There's also no team concept, where all the people you've introduced work in their own little private group and compete with other teams. The community based structure, in our opinion, is one of the most attractive benefits of Six Figure Mentors.
So hopefully that's given you a bit of an insight into the MLM vs SFM question.
If you want to build your own successful online business without having yo sell your family and friends, without having to do team building, and without having to do tedious hotel meetings that keep your location bound, take Six Figure Mentors for a test drive here.
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