Now, a Platinum in the US has a sales volume of around $25,000/mth. You could go an do that yourself, or you could find some people who want to earn some money and split the profits with them. That’s it, that’s network marketing.

Even if we take the “higher” levels of Amway, for example Emerald, it’s not based on recruiting per se. It’s again based on volume, except in this case it’s a “reward” for helping 3 people reach Platinum. So you could be an Emerald with just a team of 4 people. So it just depends on the strategy to reach Platinum – one person doing $25000/mth in sales, or 5 people doing $5000 in sales or 10 doing $2500/mth in sales or 100 doing $250/mth? In reality a Platinum business is actually about 10 people generating $2500/mth in sales, it’s just that some of those sales are generated by people who join in order to buy at wholesale price.

Strategies can and do change with changes in the marketplace and between different groups working with the concept. But no matter what the strategy, the goal is sales volume, ’cause that’s where the money is.

Could we “run out of people”? Sure. But if you were selling ipods you could run out of people too – everyone could buy one! Who would you sell to next? Similarly, if everyone sold ipods, who would you sell to? Same with what we do. So, I was wrong to say “everyone” can be a platinum – they can’t, just like everyone couldn’t be an ipod sales person and make money. But given the reality that by far the majority of people will not be interested in the business opportunity, there’s plenty of customers available for those that are – so all of *them* could be platinum! Which is what I meant! As for the “highest levels” – well, until recently the absolute “highest level” in Amway was one called Crown Ambassador – how many people are *necessary* to be qualified Crown Ambassador? 20 – you’ve helped 20 others become platinum.

I like to say “this business isn’t for everyone, it’s for anyone”. If everyone decided to join, yup we might have a problem! But if everyone decided to become an ipod dealer, same problem would arise! It’s really no different to other businesses.

MsSkyBluez, you highlight the weakness of this approach, that pretty much anyone can join! Some will treat it professionally with exactly the kind of approach you suggest. Others will do it less professionally, and give our industry a bad name. Doesn’t matter if you’re talking Amway, Noni, or whatever, there’s a lot of idiots

IBO, I truly disagree that it is possible for *everyone* to be at a uranium status. The MLM business goes by tiers, and you have to have a certain amount of people under you in order to reach those stati (plural of status, if there is such a thing). If it took one man 100,000 people to get to that level, how could 15,000 more people also reach that level if they needed the same number of people? Sooner or later, you run out of people.

I wish I could draw a diagram to help illustrate this, and I might attempt that in a future post. But IBO if it’s not too much trouble I would like for you to show us how so many people could be on the same level… there might be something that I am missing here and it seems as if you may have much experience on this topic.