Income Claims in Network Marketing — Are They Real and Should We Care?
THE INCOME CLAIM
If you’ve done any searching on the Internet for home based businesses or a Network Marketing company, you’ve undoubtedly seen them with headlines shouting, “See the Proof”, “Check Out My Bottom Line” or variations on the theme.
The question is…..
Should be care?
On the surface, it seems logical enough. Search out someone who is having the success you covet and do what they do. But there are a number of problems associated with income claims as proof of success in network marketing, or anything else for that matter.
- Are these income claims real? Maybe I’m overly skeptical, but there are scammers out there who can make ANYTHING look real. I’ve seen videos of bank accounts, company commission statements, you name it. But it’s not that difficult for someone with programming experience to create dummy sites that look just like your bank company site, for example. In today’s age, seeing is NOT believing.
- What does this income represent? Even if the income claims are real, what do they really mean? Most business owners, when trying to influence others to make a decision based on results, will only show you the shiny side. It’s not different with income. The figures you see out there on the Internet almost always represent Gross Income, and do not take into account such costs as marketing and business operations. It’s one thing to say that you are earning $10,000 per m0nth with your online business. It’s quite another thing when you find out that it took them $12,000 to get those results. All of a sudden, the income claims don’t look so inviting! If someone isn’t talking about ROI (Return on Investment), I don’t even listen to it.
- Can you assume that this person can TEACH you how they are getting their results? I’ve seen several top earners in this industry who simply do not have the ability, the means, or (unfortunately) the desire to teach others to duplicate their success. Just because they are making that kind of money online, that doesn’t mean that you will. Simply joining someones team, regardless how successful they are, in no way means that you’ll come close to achieving the same results. There are several reasons for this, which I’ll cover in a separate post, but suffice it to say that NOT EVERYONE CAN TEACH and NOT EVERY RESULT IS REPRODUCIBLE.
The bottom line? Know what you’re really looking at when you see ads or websites with income claims. If you decide to pursue things further with this person, ask about their ROI, and don’t be “wowed” by gross income. And ask them how successful their team members have been in reproducing these kind of results.
To your success!
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