As you keep working on a regular job, you might get the idea to start your own business, among all business ideas you might hear about, two might be on the top of the list, but with one is the best: MLM VS Affiliate Marketing System?
In my life I’ve worked on both, so I know on firsthand what is about and what you need to do to become a successful entrepreneur, both systems require work, time and money.
Anyone can start their own business with these two systems, I must write before you start making some money from any of those systems, you will need to work a lot and there will be chances for you to become a successful story or not, everything will depend on you.
However, I must say, after being working on both, I can tell you from my point of view, which one is better and why, so let’s go started.
MLM VS Affiliate Marketing System
My Story With MLM – It’s A Sad One
What is MLM – Multi-Level Marketing
“Also called pyramid selling, network marketing and referral marketing, it’s a strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce selling the company’s products/services, and the participants will earn a % of the sales.” – Wikipedia
When you think about companies selling beauty products or plastic containers, you might get a better idea of what types of companies are those that work with the MLM system, and I must say, I have nothing bad to say about the products, I myself have used some products in the past and I only have some good comments about them.
I’m a loyal customer of beauty products of one company that used this marketing system (Yves Rocher) and I won’t change this brand as I think they are high quality plants based beauty products.
My story with the MLM system started with this beauty products brand, and was recruited by a friend, before I noticed she told me that it was a great way to make money and she handed to me a paper with my name on it to let me know I was the new member of her team.
So, in a blink of my eyes I was the new member of her team and I had to attend to a weekly meeting to know everything about the company and the products. I must admit at the first class I almost fell asleep in front of everyone, two weeks later I knew something about beauty products and the different types of women skin.
In a week I was prepared to go out and seek my first client.
I made a few sales, I got a few clients and I got a few new recruits to my team.
One year later, I was at the same point and my sales never were something I was proud of and I had hard times to recruit more people to my team.
In the other hand, my friend was a successful member, she started to work on this marketing system 10 years before me, she had a small team and she was making good amount of sales every month.
Pros of the MLM Marketing System
- You get recruited by a member
- You get trained
- You will get a paid starting kit
- You get commissions for your sales and for your team
Cons of the MLM Marketing System
- You need to pay for a starting kit
- You need to talk to many people to get some new members to your team
- You need to be creative to create a few ways to make sales, appointments with your friends, house parties, and others.
- It requires a lot of time and a lot of money to make some money
- You need to work to get a small team and motivate them to keep at it to make good money from this money making system.
My Story With Affiliate Marketing System
Six years ago, my husband was looking for a different way to make money from home, he started to read more about Affiliate Marketing and he got interested in this money making system.
He started to work on it and he told me about it, it took me one year to decide to give it a try.
Five years ago, as I decided to learn more about what is Affiliate Marketing and how does it work, I saw it was a good alternative to start my own online business and gave it try.
So, let me tell you what is Affiliate Marketing and how it works.
Affiliate Marketing is a system where you can create a website to talk about some products or services and as you make sales on them, you’ll earn a % of the sales.
You don’t need to buy a Starting Kit!
You can create a website to talk about a topic you love, and that is one of the best parts of this system, you won’t need a training to talk about some products or services you might not know anything about them and you might not feel any attachment to them.
Working on the Affiliate System, one thing that will lead to your success is that it’s open for you to chose the topic where you want to work on.
People around the globe are connected by the internet and most of them go to Google to look for some answers to some problem or to know more about any topic.
How many times you have searched on Google to find a solution to a particular problem?
– Google, how do I fix a flat tire ( me and many women might make the same question)
You might have a very good idea to help me and many other women to know the steps to fix a flat tire, and you might have in your mind a kit of tools that will make the job to change a flat tire a piece of cake for any woman.
As I look on the internet for this answer, I might find your website and I will read your article and believe me, I would love to get that tool’s kit in my car’s trunk, for the next time I need it.
– You just made a sale! I just bought the flat tired fix kit from your website! – and you make a % of that purchase and you’ll get paid.
This is how Affiliate Marketing works, and this is why it works for many people around the world.
This time I just talked about how to fix a flat tire, but you can think about anything, about any type of problem people want to fix at this moment.
People Look To Solve Problems On The Internet Every Day!
- What pan to use to make a french toast?
- How to knit a baby sweater
- What tools do I need to change a window in my house?
- What are the best Sun Screen Cream to use during Summer?
- What is the best coffee maker to have in the office?
Find a Niche To Start Your Own Website
Affiliate Marketing will be easier for you as a business idea if you pick a niche where you already have some knowledge and you love to talk about it.
As you create your website, you’ll be busy creating new content to share your knowledge and the products you use or you recommend being better at it.
When you work to build up a website, there will be more chances that people will find you to get some answers and solutions to their questions and problems.
As you make some sales, you’ll be earning a % of those sales.
The more content (post or articles) on your website, the chances to get more readers to your website will grow and the chances you’ll be making more sales will get better everyday.
One day, you will look at your website and you’ll be proud of what you have created: your own online business
Affiliate Marketing Pros
- Your website is your own online business
- The more you work, more chances to create a successful business
- You don’t need to recruit a big team to make money
- You can start with one website and later as you learn how to work at affiliate marketing, you can create a portfolio of websites.
Affiliate Marketing Cons
I really don’t find many cons here, but I will list a few things that might lead you to a poor success or a total fail
- You need to work hard at the beginning
- There’s a learning curve
- Building a successful website takes time, lots of work and money
- You need to keep working on your website 12, 24, 36 months, and in some cases even more time to see some good numbers.
What Makes The Difference Of Building Up A Successful Website Or Not?
1 – The training.
You always can try to create and grow a website on your own, as you work on it, you might be one of the successful and natural people who can do it, I have no doubt at it.
But if you are like me and many others, it will be always easier if you sign up to a training that will take you step by step to learn everything you need to know to create a successful website.
2 – Time
As I mentioned before, don’t expect to create one page website and start making millions of dollars from it, if that was as easy as that, everyone will have created already their own website this way.
As you work on the training, you’ll get to know that it takes time for Google to trust on your website, you’ll be working on it almost every day, every week and every month without seeing money from it.
You need to trust the training and keep working on it.
One day, you’ll notice your website is growing steady traffic to it, and you’ll notice some people find on your website answers and help to their problems.
3 – Invest Money On You and On Your Website.
Successful online entrepreneurs have invested money on them to know how to do it, and they also have invested money to create a successful website.
But I can tell you, it is worth the money, the time and all the work you put on it.
My story on Affiliate Marketing is a happy story and I see the benefits of working on it, as I write this new post to help you to decide which one of these two systems to make money, I can say, I’ve worked on both of them, and for me, I stay with Affiliate Marketing.
It’s My Own Business I’m Working On.
I don’t have a boss or a team leader to tell me what to do, where to go, or who push me to get more people to the team.
I create my own business plan, and I decided what niche I want to work on.
If you haven’t started your own website, or if you want to know how to grow your website, you can join me on the best Affiliate Training you can find on the Internet – No Credit Card Needed –
I started five years ago, and I see that Affiliate Marketing works!
But you need to start today to see the benefits of it as you work on it!
My wife had an experience with Multi-Level-Marketing and it started out ok, but we quickly realized that we were never going to get beyond a certain point and it was taking more money away than it was bringing in. She got out of that, thankfully. As I have researched them more, MLM’s just carry too much negative for me to want to get involved with them. Affiliate Marketing is absolutely the way to go, in my opinion! Thanks for the post comparing the two!
Hi Steve,
Thanks so much for sharing your wife’s experiences working with MLM, I’m glad to hear you’re now working on Affiliate Marketing, I’m sure you’ll be doing great soon, it takes time and work, but you can do it!
Hi! I appreciate your experience having worked in both models. Up to this point I only have experience working on MLMs. But I like this comparison because you demonstrate the superiority of affiliate marketing over MLM businesses. What I like most is that with Affiliate Marketing one is working on a business that one owns in contrast with MLM.
Thanks for this review.
Hi Henry
That is the point, as you work on MLM you need to work hard to build up a big team to get good results, but as you work on affiliate marketing, you can do it by yourself and that business is only yours!! That is a big win!!
Thanks for this informative and helpful post on MLM vs Affiliate marketing!
I was in MLM for 3 years, but I didn’t find this business model profitable for me. In fact, you need to recruit, pass on your knowledge to your downlines and teach your team to do the same in order to make money in this business model. So you are independent.
In addition, you have to pay a fee to sell the product or service before you can promote it and get paid.
When I realized that this is not for me I turned to affiliate marketing and thanks to Wealthy Affiliate I am making a full(time income through my blog.
Thank you for sharing!
Hello Sebastian,
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with the MLM system, it’s good to know from people who have been working on this system and I see you did it for 3 years, that’s a good time to know on first hand if it will work for you or not.
I’m glad to know you’re working now on affiliate marketing and you’re making a full income from it, that’s great, I also see some good results on this system.
Wow, this reminded me of my own experience with MLM, I must admit I wasn’t as successful as you were, I did not manage to recruit anyone. I failed miserably. Plus my family members and some of my friends had started avoiding me because I was becoming super annoying lol.
Anyway, I love affiliate marketing because you really don’t have to recruit anyone and you don’t even have to let your friends or family know what you are doing online if you don’t want to.
You don’t have to deal with merchandise, shipping returns or that kind of thing.
It’s true that affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick type of thing but with time one will be able to create steady passive income.
Thank you for this article and for reminding me of my MLM days, my goodness, that was an experience.
Hi Rose,
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with MLM, I know what you’re talking about when you say your friends and family started to avoid you, lol.
I’m glad you’re working now with Affiliate Marketing and it goes much better, keep at it!
I fully agree with you that Affiliate Marketing is far better than MLM or network marketing. I myself work for a Multi Level Marketing company for nearly 10 years, before realizing that at the end of the day it was really a pyramid scheme in disguise. I love being part of Affiliate Marketing and am very pleased that I joined the community.
Hi Line Cowley
Thanks so much for sharing your experience working on MLM, wow almost 10 years at it!
I’m glad you find Affiliate Marketing better and you’re now working to build up your own business, keep at it, it will get better as you work on it!
Your post brings back memories, and not fond ones either. I used to be an Independent Distributor with a couple of these MLM companies and yes you are so right. I had a very similar experience. You know, you make a few sales here and there, recruit a few downline members and you continue. Then you find some of your downline quit, people bawl that the product is too expensive etc. etc. I believe the only way to make real money with MLMs is to get in close to when the company starts and build an organization over years.
In my opinion if there was a fight between MLM VS Affiliate Marketing Systems, Affiliate marketing would win with a total knock out.
Why do i think that? Because with affiliate marketing there is no personal volumes or group volumes to maintain in order to get paid. There are no recruitment meetings that you have to spend money to go to to showcase the product and the oh so glorious compensation plan (where they only tell you half the truth) and there is no need to continually be harrassing your, mom, your dad, your brothers and sisters and virtually all your family members and friends to come join you.
Yes affiliate marketing is hard work too, but without any of that kinda stuff.
Hi Donald
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences working with MLM, it’s good to know from first hand if there’s any chance to make a full income on this business model, but sadly I see there are many people like you and me with not a happy ending.
I also thing Affiliate Marketing is a better way to create and build up a personal business, it will require tons of work and time, but it will be on you and no need to have a huge team to help you to make every dollar from your business.
Keep at it,
I am an affiliate marketer and I can totally relate to your story. While working at my regular day job for about 12 years, even though I truly enjoyed my work I knew that there was going to come a time in another 12 years when I would want to be my own boss. So I started looking around and then got recruited into a pretty well-known MLM.
I found the whole MLM model of making money difficult. I didn’t like that I had to purchase products just to qualify to get paid commissions on my sales and that of my small team I was barely able to put together. It was not for me so I quit and started doing drop shipping on eBay.
Fortunately I still had my fun day job but I could see the career switch light at the end of the tunnel approaching. My eBay business was starting to do real well. I even became one of their many Power Sellers making a few thousand dollars in pure profit every month. So I wanted to scale up and start an e-commerce website.
I was forced to end my fun day job when the economy crashed in 2008 and by 2009 I was out of work. Thankfully my eBay drop shipping business was enough to get me by. So I spent the time learning about building my own website and in doing so learned about affiliate marketing. Like you say above, the training makes all the difference.
It so happens that I did find a training program that not just taught me how to build a website without coding it but also how to make money in affiliate marketing and create e-commerce websites. That is when affiliate marketing became my #1 choice for making money as my own boss. It truly is much better than MLM and even drop shipping on eBay.
Hi Robert
Thanks so much for taking your time to share your story working with MLM business model with us, I see you are one more with more or less the same story. Work hard and poor results.
I also thank you for sharing the story about how you started working on your online business on eBay and it went well at the same time as you kept working on your regular job.
You were lucky to have that income source as you lost your job when the economy crashed in 2008.
It’s good to hear that you’re working now with Affiliate Marketing system to create your own website and you have good results already from it, By sharing your expertice you’ll help many other to find another way to start working to make a good income today
Multi-level marketing is a genuine business and one can make money from it when you work hard. But it’s not easy as it seems. I was looking for ways to make money online before I ran into MLM business. In fact, I made no sales at all. It was difficult talking and convincing people. I was frustrated.
Just like you said, buying a starter kit is a must, and that’s what I did. Later, I realized that MLM is just not for everyone. You will need to get trained and must be knowledgeable about their only product which may be difficult when presenting or driving sales. That’s what me switched to affiliate marketing when I saw the clear difference.
Unlike MLM, one thing I love about affiliate marketing is talking about the thing you love and make sales just like the example you gave. You don’t need to work yourself so hard trying to sell a single company’s product. With affiliate marketing, you’re open to thousands of products you can market which makes it awesome.
From my experience, the only people that can succeed in MLM business are the experienced and professional marketers. A newbie can’t, just as in your case. But with affiliate marketing, it’s just beginner friendly. I think that this is what people should consider.