Question by honey: Has anyone ever heard of Market America?
I just started a home based business with Market America. I really like it so far, I just wanted to know if anyone else is involved with it.
Best answer:
Answer by soldiersgal22
I have not personally, but here is what I found from what other people on the web have said about it…
“Market America is the definition of a pyramid scan or MLM or whatever you want to call it. This is an unassailable fact. The business model is not legitimate.
Do not be confused – joining Market America is probably the stupidest thing anyone can do. You will not make money and the “successful” members are called “schills” who go into enormous amounts of debt to buy nice cars and houses solely for the purpose of suckering you into it.
Identifying any pyramid scam such as Market America can be tricky – because the people in it are unbelievably wonderful sales-people and can be so convincing it’s intoxicating.
Warning signs of a pyramid scam:
+ They start off by saying you’ll get paid $ 150K a year, for example, in 68 months or some period of time. They say there is no risk or you can’t fail.
+ Key such as “residual income” and/or “kickback” are used. This is almost an immediate give away.
+ If you have to pay them something up front to start but you still have to work. They call this an investment, but investors don’t work – they have their money work for them.
+ You have to get people under you to sell stuff.
+ You don’t even understand what they are selling. Legitimate companies (NOT Market America) sell products and services and can explain what they sell to you in 1 sentence.”
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“Market America, a North Carolina corporation, is a multi- level product brokerage company which distributes approximately 300 consumer products through a network of approximately 75,000 independent distributors. The distributors earn money by purchasing products from Market America at wholesale prices and then selling those products to consumers at retail prices. Distributors also build sales organizations of other independent distributors and earn commissions from training and managing those sales organizations. Market America’s distribution system is based on a binary matrix marketing plan whereby each distributor recruits, trains, and manages two sales organizations of other independent distributors. ”
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Some lady tried to recruit me today for Market America. I knew right away that it was a scam and I felt sorry for her. I did some research on MLM, and I formulated a “big picture” of how the whole multi-level marketing works.
First off, a pyramid scheme is marked my 2 traits: hierarchical payment structures (aka “pyramid”), and unsustainability (aka “scheme”).
The big picture is this: pyramid schemes are temporal, and when they finally die, all they’ve achieved is merely a redistribution of money. A few people come out ahead, but the majority come out behind (aka suckered).
So is Market America a pyramid scheme? No, it’s just a pyramid. It is actually sustainable believe it or not. They’ll defend their pyramidal traits by comparing themselves to other businesses, but here’s the big difference: MLM’s pyramid is a seller’s pyramid, whereas a corporation’s pyramid is a managerial pyramid. (A managerial pyramid is just beurocracy and is understandably necessary.) MLM may even compare their pyramid to the middle-manned process of factory-to-supermarket. But the factory-to-supermarket line is usually short and one of necessity. Bottom line: a pyramid is just a shape. Analogies using shapes are weak at best.
So how is Market America sustainable? You have to see the big picture once again. Product exchanges hand rather inefficiently down the pyramid, yes, but it ultimately gets sold! If you produce XXXX units of product_x, generally speaking, XXXX people will ultimately buy it. That net profit is real, although the profit gets distributed oddly.
It’s in every member’s best interest to keep the demand for their products high, so I suppose the top-level members survey their minions and have their brain-trusts come up with new high-demand products. I’ll give the brain-trust credit, the products will sell well (big-picture-wise). Hence the company will sustain itself.
As long as the product is in high-demand, every member will be busy pushing the stuff down the pyramid and to customers – making money in the process. The people at the very bottom will vary though. Some will sell well, but since they’re at the bottom, they’ll still make zilch. Others will just not be business oriented enough to sell and will lose money. That’s just life I guess.
So in summary, the pyramid is actually inefficient, but product will get sold, and therefore money will come in. The entrepreneurial qualities of the sellers are necessary for the multilevel marketing to sustain itself. That’s probably why they recruit the way they do. They need to weed out the pessimists, to give potential sellers a carrot, and to advance their own number of underlings.
The only way to get burned is to buy more product than you can sell, or to sell LESS than the upkeep required to stay a member. It takes work to stay in, although going in is like turning to the dark side.
I see MLM as an entrepreneurial outlet for the average joe. Joe doesn’t need to put down hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a resturant or business anymore. Instead he can put in a lesser share, and reap what he sows.
So that’s the big picure. I wonder if I see it right.
It’s not easy to get rich here. It takes optimism, marketing skills, and the right mindset to achieve
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That’s just three, but the link that I found these at are in the sources. There are 37 pages worth of conversation on market america. You can also look up other work at home businesses on here. It’s a wonderful resource to have and it saves you money. I hope this helped.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!