By Josephine Agbonkhese

With decades of experience in the world of business, Mr. Biodun Marquis, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Pragmatic Technologies, in this interview, asserts that multilevel marketing’s (MLM) ability to alleviate poverty actually depends heavily on the potency and sustainability of the product distributed. These products, he  says, should be greatly considered by anyone before subscribing to any MLM business opportunity.

Reaching end-users at no cost

Biodun Marquis

Multilevel marketing is actually used by companies to increase their sales channels by letting others work for them instead of them having to worry too much about getting to the end-users.  It’s simply looking for resellers rather than the traditional employment of sales persons.

Sustainability

While most people believe such business opportunities can serve as a major source of income, a major factor that should be considered before thinking that way is the product being sold by the company.

Is this product in demand? Is it a fad? If a product is a fad, people will only make noise about it for a few years and then it dies off. But if it’s not, then that makes the business sustainable as all parties involved will keep making good money from it.

Online selling vs MLM

However, online selling remains the easiest way of getting to many buyers at once. Although, its greatest disadvantage is that you cannot ‘feel’ the product. For someone like me, when I want to buy a product, I like to feel the texture and every other thing about it, as well as try to know if it suits me.

Factors to consider before joining a MLM company

Before subscribing to any MLM company, you must first analyse the product marketed. Is the product essential? Most products distributed via multilevel marketing like a few years ago are no longer selling. In fact, I hardly even hear about them today. Such products cannot constitute a sustainable business for any man or woman who perhaps thinks MLM can be his sole source of come.

MLM and poverty alleviation

MLM’s capacity to end poverty 50-50; it may either hold true or fail. But what else do you expect a manufacturer who wishes to push his product into the market to tell anyone who can help market it? But the truth is, whether engaging in such business opportunity will take a reseller or distributor out of poverty is a function of the product’s potency.

If the product is of good quality and people are buying it without being pressured to do so, then yes, it will take the recruited downlines out of poverty. But if the product is not in demand, the recruited downline is going to find it very frustrating, energy-sapping and money-consuming.