I shared a video before in which John Oliver talked about how MLMs are pyramid schemes. I thought this was fascinated because I get asked all the time to do be a part of, join, sell, show how to make it work, whatever it is for somebody’s MLM or direct marketing. What is more important to me is a few things. One thing that was interesting to me and that I think that most people missed this was that people they interviewed and that talked about this said they didn’t make money by selling the product, they made money by getting people in their downline. By getting other folks to sign up to sell this stuff. Doesn’t matter if it’s Herbal Life, Energy, Supplements, whatever. What you’re going to find is that in MLMs, the only way to make it work is to get other people below you to sign up. What I thought was interesting is that most people don’t realize what that really means. If you want to make money in business, the fact that you need people below you is the most important.

The difference between what I like to teach and the reason why there are very few MLMs out there that I think are worth your time. You’re not truly building a business or becoming an entrepreneur. It’s very difficult to set yourself free with that because at the end of the day, you’re selling somebody else something and you have to hock to your friends, family, Facebook. How many of you guys know somebody out there and have been asked by somebody trying to sell something from some MLM and every day they post something. Come on, that’s not the way to do it. If you have to rely Facebook, your friends, and family to build your “business,” you don’t have a business. You’re not an entrepreneur and to call yourself one is just delusional. That’s the truth.

To get back to the point of the one thing that they got right is that you need the people below you. Let’s talk about what I mean by that. I had this conversation with a friend of mine and I explained this same thing to him, and here it is. If you really want to build your business, rather than trying to build your downline of people below you that are going to sell whatever you have out there, build your email list instead. Get people to know that you are doing something, whatever that thing is even if that thing is selling Herbal Life or supplements, that’s fine. One of my friends does that and he told me this story once of how he makes money by selling stretch mark cream. What you’re selling doesn’t matter. Building your email list is the most important thing. The fun fact that a lot of folks don’t know is that if you look across all the industries in the United States, the average return on investment for 1 dollar spent in email marketing is over 46 dollars. Let that sink in. 1 dollar across all industries on average returns 46 dollars. What other thing you do can you say does the same thing? I guarantee you that nothing else out there does it like email marketing does.

So instead of building your downline of people, build your email list. Get folks who are interested in the things that you’re already going to be interested in the things you’re going to be hocking through Facebook or whatever on your MLM, get them on your email list. That way you are building your business and your list. If you decide that you want to sell something else, you now have their email. Rather than having to go back to Facebook or call people to get them to buy whatever it is you’re selling, now I just have to send an email. You can leverage you’re time at a significantly higher level.

What I think what most people didn’t realize about John Oliver’s video is that they even told you that in your MLMs the only way to make money is to get people in your downline. This is the same idea, we’re just applying it to an actual business versus somebody else’s. Now if you really look at it, the people make the most money in the MLMs, those are the folks that start the MLMs. Those are the people making a lot of money because they have people like you, if you’re in their MLM, on their email list. Think about that for a minute. You are their list. You are buying all the stuff from them, you are getting more folks to sign up for their email list. That is what is happening. The people at the top are making money. They’re not making money on the products. They only make a few bucks on the sale, but the catch is that they’re making a few bucks on from every single person that buys it and they get you to buy it because their email list.

I want you guys to stop thinking about your business and downline. If you’re doing an MLM, that’s fine. I take a negative view on MLMs because I see too many people burned and I’m tired of being hit up with the next “Greatest Marketing Scheme.” This morning, I got a message that said “I’m about to start the Biggest Marketing Campaign Ever, let me ask you are you serious about your health and making more money?” and I’m just like, “Oh come on seriously bro?” If you were starting the biggest marketing campaign, you would be targeting me with Facebook Ads, hitting me with email marketing, getting my google results, that’s a real marketing campaign. Messaging people on Facebook is not marketing, it’s hocking your shit to somebody else. Nothing more than that. You’re not an entrepreneur, you don’t own a business, all you do is sit on Facebook and do this. So don’t do it. If you want to build a real business, you want freedom, to be able to go place, to able to take your partner out to a fancy dinner every once in a while, then build your email list. The average return is over 46 dollars for 1 dollar spent. Think about that. Look at any company. You get so many email to buy things because it works. There’s nothing out there like it. I don’t care about Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn, anything. It works.

Here the challenge that I issue to you: build your email list. Get folks on your list for whatever you’re doing. Get people on your list. Drive them from whatever social media sites you’re on onto your email list. That is the most important thing you could do to build your business, hands down. By the way, this is one of the things that I teach for Mind Protein. It’s one of the things that my mentors taught me. The list is the most valuable thing.

You build a business with a call to action, you offer people something of value. This is how you build your business, you don’t hock your shit on Facebook. You build your list and you plug in products that make sense for list after building value for them. Building value is the most important thing. That’s what MLM people don’t do, they just say “BUY BUY BUY.” Nobody cares.

I get that I’ve basically just bashed MLMs this whole time. There are a handful out there doing it the right way. I’ve worked with some people with building those things and if I didn’t believe in those thing I wouldn’t do it. But the point is that you still need to build your email list. What happens if that MLM goes away? Now what do you have? You don’t have business anymore. Everything you build relied on them. But if you have your own email list that you build yourself. By the way guys, head to some place like MailChimp, Convert Kit, there’s lots of places you can get started for very little dollars per month. Many of them are free. Many of them are just like 15 bucks a month, and if you can’t commit to spending 15 bucks a month on your business, then you’re not ready to start your own business yet.

Do this and follow this advice if you want to be successful. If you want to do your own MLM, then totally cool, but don’t do it the way they teach you. Build your list and then plug things in from there. Get those folks on your email list, not the MLM so you’re building your business not theirs.