Why Network Marketing Doesn’t Get Respect

When I first joined the network marketing industry almost 5 years ago, I always wondered why network marketing doesn't get the same level of respect as other business models. 

Here you have an industry that has millions of participants all over the world. Tens of thousands of people have been able to earn a full time income. Thousands of people have been able to earn a 6 figure income. Hundreds of people have been able to earn a 7 figure income. And a select few have even been able to earn an 8 figure income.

However, some events over the last several weeks and months have really allowed me to see why network marketing doesn't get respect. I believe it is the same reason why religious people don't get respect and why politicians don't get respect.

Network Marketers Don't Practice What They Preach!


Here we have an industry that is SUPPOSE to be about personal development. It is SUPPOSE to be about building people up. However, everywhere you turn, all you see is people engaging in behavior that clearly lacks the personal development we profess to preach. Everywhere you turn, all you see is people tearing people down instead of building people up.

Is this what the network marketing industry is all about?

In The Business School For People Who Like Helping People by Robert Kiyosaki, chapter 5 talks about one of the values of network marketing. He identifies this value as "Friends Who Will Pull You Up, Not Push You Down."

Yet, to ME it seems like that friendship in this industry is conditional. I am only your friend if you are in the same business as me. If I leave to do another business, I'm not your friend anymore. If you leave to do another business, I'm not your friend anymore.

This is not what I was sold when I joined this industry. However, unfortunately, this seems to be the reality in this industry.

I have friends that are in different companies from the one that I'm in currently. I have friends in the company that I'm currently in. I also have friends that WERE in the company that I'm in that have left, but I still consider them my friends. I even have friends that have left the industry all together. That's because I was always taught that friendship was based on the quality of the relationship that you have with that person, not whether or not they agree to build the same business that I build.

If we in the network marketing industry ever want the industry to get the respect it deserves, we must first become WORTHY of that respect. It starts with actually PRACTICING the so called PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT that we preach!

I'll conclude this note with some thoughts:

#1 - People are going to leave your company. It's a fact of life. This doesn't make them bad people. It doesn't make them hypocrites. It simply means that they no longer have the vision for the company that they had when they first got started FOR WHATEVER REASON and have decided to part ways and go with something that they have a vision for.

So unless those people are raiding your organization in violation of their distributor agreement, wish them well and keep on moving. Because the bottom line is NONE of those people are responsible for providing for you and your family. That is YOUR responsibility and YOUR responsibility alone. Your kids don't want to hear that the reason why you are getting evicted out of your house is because JOE HEAVY-HITTER left your company and now you can't make money anymore.

#2 - Making a decision to leave a company can be a difficult decision. If that's a decision that you choose to make, go ahead and do what you have to do and move on. It's completely unnecessary to publicly trash the company that you left or individual distributors within that company. I read "How To Win Friends & Influence People" many times and I don't seem to recall that being in one of the chapters!

Now you might have left because you saw some very serious concerns about the viability of the business model. Heck, you might not have even left on your own accord, you might have even been terminated. Quite frankly, you might have even been terminated unjustly.

You might have friends in your former company that you are concerned about. However, I can assure you, trash talking your previous company is NOT going to make your friends see your point of view. If ANYTHING it's going to make them MORE likely to RESIST your point of view.

#3 - To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose in heaven. Not everybody is going to be involved in a particular network marketing company or even the industry for the rest of their lives.

I hope that when I do make the decision to leave that my relationship with you wasn't based on my allegiance to a company or an industry.

Recognize that opportunity is unlimited! Opportunity is not ONLY found in ONE specific network marketing company. Opportunity isn't ONLY found in JUST the network marketing industry. When you have TRUE opportunity, it does not get diminished just because others don't value the opportunity. In fact, some of the greatest opportunities in world history were not recognized by the VAST MAJORITY of people.

Let us practice what we preach in network marketing. When we do this, I believe the industry will get far more respect than it gets now.

And if you agree with me, please share this with your colleagues in the industry. The more people that embrace this message, the more attractive our industry will be to the masses.