The New Professional makes clear the evolution of multilevel and direct marketing. Like many folks, I had a pretty dim view of the overly aggressive sales tactics and misleading meeting agendas that I ran into with many of the earlier direct marketing efforts. Now I see that things have changed for the better - much better! Inventory is not in your home, it's not in someone else's garage, it is at the distributor and easily obtained through the internet. Supply chain management is superb in these new companies.
For example, King and Robinson provide statistics to show why direct marketing is a robust and very efficient model for introducing some products into the market place. And, they show why the type of person involved in network marketing today is truly a professional: "Of key interest, the research found 'successful (direct and network marketing) sales people have a communication style or social style that encourages the building of relationships with their customers . . . The most successful sales leaders have a combination of relationship and task orientation' (in their communication styles)."
Network Marketing and multilevel marketing are synonymous terms. They are defined by a business model which pays commissions on multiple levels of the sales organization. Network Marketing/Selling differs from Direct Selling in that Network Marketing:
1. Focuses on relationships rather than on closing the sale or booking an order
2. Focuses on information sharing
3. Independent business owner (IBO)
4. Commissions on multiple levels of sales (not just retail of the IBO)
The role of the network marketing channel is to accelerate the movement of products using the most efficient distribution technique: word-of-mouth communication.
This is an excellent book to bring you up to date on the network marketing phenominon and to understand the new business models (yes, there are many).
