Chapter 2. A Brief History of Multi-Level
Marketing
If you are one of the people who think that multi-level marketing is
something that has only emerged around ten to thirty years ago, you would
belong to the majority.
However, multi-level marketing has actually been around for a much longer
time than we know.
MLM companies have actually been around since the dawn of the twentieth
century, and due to its popularity with both the companies who use this
system as well as with the employees who work with these companies, it has
endured the test of time and continues to be one of the most successful
methods of doing business in the world today.
In the olden days, companies often sold only what the people needed at that
time and did not really care for methods of advertisement. Often, the people
who make the products or those who invent their own, sell them directly to
the customers.
However, as these people became successful after they experienced a huge
demand for their products, they hired the help of manufacturing companies to
help them produce their products, and therefore keep businesses booming.
Still by this time, little attention was given to sales propaganda, since the
products have been considered to sell themselves due to massive popularity,
and the fact that only one company or one person sells a specific product
within a certain area, so competition does not often occur.
However, by the middle of the 19th century, more and more companies
began to sell the same product. For instance, by the 1800s there have been at
least three to ten competing cigarette brands in the United States.
Therefore, simply relying on the products to sell by themselves without the
help of human intervention has become ineffective.
It was during the 1860s that companies began to hire the help of men who
could sell products on the company’s behalf.
These salespeople eventually began to become the very center of every
business’ success story.