I first became acquainted with the concept of multilevel marketing or network marketing while sitting in the bar in the officers club at Lajes Field, a U.S. Air Force base in the Azores which are a group of islands belonging to Portugal that sit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Air National Guard Unit I belonged to was headed to Germany where we would spend the next two weeks doing air refueling for a squadron of regular Air Force KC-135 aircraft that had been deployed to Southeast Asia for the Vietnam War (a number of different Air National Guard units alternated with three or four, two-week tours of duty during the year to replace the unit that had been sent to Southeast Asia).

Since it was February, we had elected to take the longer, southern route with a refueling stop in Lajes rather than the shorter, northern route with a refueling stop in Iceland where sudden storms could strand us there for a week or more. On the northern route we could land, refuel and be back in the air again in less than ten hours from our original take off while, with the southern route we could not get airborne again before the ten hours were up (once airborne we could fly as long as we had fuel) which meant that we had to spend the night in the Azores.

I was the navigator and good friends with the co-pilot who was four or five years older than me. At dinner our pilot started talking to the co-pilot about a business. Both the pilot and co-pilot flew for United Airlines for their regular jobs except that the co-pilot, with considerably less seniority, had been laid off. Following dinner, the pilot invited both of us to join him for a nightcap in the bar where he began attempting in earnest to recruit the co-pilot into his Amway network.

This was my first introduction to network marketing and I had the opportunity to observe the process without being involved other than to continue drinking the beers the pilot kept ordering. Since I was single, and a graduate student at the time, I didn't fit the profile the company was looking for, while my friend, the co-pilot, was not only married but unemployed and trying to get by on his wife's income along with what he managed to make by volunteering for extra tours like this one. The pilot went full bore with his scripted hard sell and not only failed to recruit the co-pilot but soured me on the idea of network marketing as well.

I am sure that many people will relate to this story, the hard sell network marketing pitch, not necessarily the drinking beer in the Azores part, and it is tactics like this which have tended to give network or multilevel marketing a bad name among many people. To not only dispel this image of the industry but to hopefully help new network marketers get off on the right foot regardless of the tactics used to recruit them, successful MLM entrepreneur, Mark Yarnell and his wife Rene Reid Yarnell present a more realistic and consumer friendly model for network marketers to follow.

The Yarnells make it very clear throughout the book that network or multilevel marketing is not the road to easy wealth. In fact, on the last page of the book (page 260) he explicitly states that only 3% of those in network marketing make more than $93,000 per year while 56% make less than $6,000. However, that leaves 41% making between $6,000 and $93,000 per year or $500 to $7,750 per month. The higher amounts in this range are not a bad income for those working the business full time and the lower amounts can be a nice supplement for those working it part time.

As for the 56% making less than $6,000 we have to remember that, in addition to the dreamers who thought they just had to buy into the business and then sit back and make millions, are many rational people who both like the product and the idea of being able to buy it wholesale but are not interested in selling to others. Shortly after my experience in the Azores I was surprised to learn that my brother was an Amway dealer. He and my sister-in-law liked the detergent and, with 4 young children in the house used a considerable amount of it. So, to both save having to call a dealer every time they needed detergent as well as to save a few bucks by buying wholesale, he became a dealer. He actually made a little money filling orders for a couple of nearby neighbors who also liked the product but didn't want the hassle of signing up as a dealer. This is why Amway, Avon and other companies who use the network or multi-level model are so profitable - many people like and use their products.

Network marketing is word of mouth marketing - friends and neighbors telling friends and neighbors about a product they like. In addition to being a very effective form of marketing and advertising it is also very inexpensive since, unlike television or other media, the company only pays when product is sold. However, the Yarnells stress that it is one thing to talk passionately about both the product and the opportunity to make money selling (and the first rule of successful sales is to believe in your product) and quite another to bore people or, worse, pressure them into joining you. They stress that network marketing is a great business opportunity which has provided thousands with a rewarding career and financial success. It is also one of the easiest and least costly small businesses to get into and set up.

However, it is not only not for everyone, but also not for everyone at this moment. High pressure recruiting tactics, such as what my co-pilot friend was subjected to in the Azores, not only don't work as most who choose to join rather than continue to resist the pressure of a friend or relative not only don't follow through and begin recruiting and selling but soon quit in disgust. This tactic also alienates people and gives the industry a bad name.

Instead of trying to pressure people to join, the Yarnells stress that you should be great full when a prospect says "no" up front as it will save you having to invest time, which could be used to recruit and train others who are truly interested, recruiting and training them only to have them leave. Further, by accepting their "no" up front you won't be sending them away with a negative impression of the industry, such as my friend and I left with, When conditions in their life change some of these people may very well remember the business and come back to you in the future ready to participate.

For anyone who is both interested in having their own business and willing to invest the time and energy necessary to make it successful, this book is an excellent introduction into how to go about the process intelligently.

Your First Year In Network Marketingby Mark Yarnell and Rene Reid Yarnell

Prima Publishing, 1998 260 pages

ISBN: 0-7615-1219-5