The Difficulties Of Being a Network Marketer

I am part of two network marketing systems. The first is Usana which is a health food supplements company and the second is Sante Barley which also sells some health food supplements. I got into Usana because my close friend Joy Ferrer recruited me. I got into Sante Barley because my sister recruited me. However, I haven’t found it easy to pursue network marketing with either network – and that’s my story for today.

In Usana, I was very happy with the health food supplements I tested. Joy sold me a small amount of the Essentials multivitamin, multiantioxidant, and multimineral products. I found them to be very wholesome and really good for my health, even from the first sample I tried. When I notified my sister about it, she told me to go for it and sign up for a Distributorship under Joy’s network. She even gave me the initial amount to buy-in so that I would qualify for the Distributorship. What convinced my sister that the Usana Distributorship was worth our time was that the Essentials helped lower her BP which has been problematic for her. I found that the Essentials made me feel much better overnight. So we were definitely sold on Usana.

With Sante Barley, I wasn’t really that sold on the products. Maybe it’s because the barley capsules didn’t make me feel better overnight like the Usana products did. However, I held on to my Sante Barley Distributorship because my mother does believe in the barley capsules so every year I buy for her in bulk – and that is how I managed to hold on to my Distributorship even if I don’t promote Sante Barley.

You might be wondering at this point “So what’s the problem? What difficulties did she encounter in network marketing?”

Well, the first difficulty I encountered was that it is very hard to find paying customers for network marketing products. One reason it is difficult is that there are so many products out there competing for the attention of the buying public. Some of these products are endorsed by celebrities which is the company’s way of trying to keep itself visible in a crowded market. The more famous the celebrity, the more famous the product the celebrity endorses becomes. And that makes it easier for the network marketers to sell the product. Even if your product is very good, if you can’t get the attention of the public you will find it hard to sell. And if you don’t sell inevitably the company will go bankrupt and fold.

The second reason I find it difficult to survive as a network marketer is that many people hereabouts in Manila simply cannot afford what I am selling. Usana is a very good source of health food supplements but many people balk at the prospect of paying for the products by the bottle. Yes, there are a lot of people around me who definitely need these Usana products but they don’t have the cash to pay for it. A lucky handful of Distributors are able to thrive because they cater to the A-B-C markets – but if there are already Distributors serving this market, that kind of squeezes out the less lucky Distributors from being able to serve that market as well. So you would have no choice but to serve the D and E markets who cannot afford to buy what you are selling. And that means you go broke because you keep on marketing the Usana products but there is no income coming in.

The third reason I find it hard to be a network marketer is that some people consider health food supplements to be an unnecessary expense. Yes, they know the Usana products are good but they would rather spend on “more necessary” things than on health food supplements. Yes, they know that the Usana products would help make them healthier but they may have other priorities such as the tuition of their children or this month’s electricity bill. That is why rich folk are the favorite market of network marketers – the rich have surplus income that they can funnel towards products that make them healthier. Those who don’t have surplus money would rather not buy health food supplements at all because of this.

The fourth reason I find it difficult to survive in network marketing is that it is a networking business. That means that you are required to recruit more people into your network so that they will become Distributors and also market and sell the same products you do. True, there are financial incentives if you manage to recruit people who are very good at selling and recruiting people themselves. But it is hard to find the right people for this and often, the people you recruit might drop out of contention if they find it difficult to sell through network marketing. Sad, but true.

Lastly, the reason I also find it difficult to survive as a network marketer is that I don’t seem to have the personality for sales. It was my younger brother who pointed this out to me: he said “You’re not a people person so you don’t belong in sales”. I guess he’s right because my Usana and Sante Barley network marketing businesses are stagnant at the moment. I’m so much better at being a writer, a tutor and pursuing academics than being a network marketer. Still, I hold on to my Usana Distributorship because I like the products and can get them at the much lower Distributor’s price for myself. I stay with Sante Barley because my mom likes the products and I can also get them at Distributor’s price for her. So I won’t get into other network marketing distributorships anymore because these two are all I can handle for now – and maybe someday I’ll get that big break and land myself select paying customers who need, want and can afford what I am selling.