Has it occurred to anyone but me that affiliate marketing is just multi level marketing in the digital age? Back in the olden days before the Internet bubble popped I was involved with two MLM “opportunities”. One, pre-paid phone cards, I jettisoned the effort very quickly. The other, Primerica, I spent a little more effort trying to make something of it. I even got my series 63 license so I could sell mutual funds. The idea with Primerica was to find people to get them out of their whole life insurance policy and into a term life insurance policy with the savings going into a mutual fund. Commissions all around. Given that it was MLM if you could get people working for you, you’d get a cut of their juice as well. People were making money and actually helping dumbasses in whole life insurance. The problem was two-fold: You ran out of friends and relatives to bother to either be an associate or sell the shit to or you had to have the balls to call up complete strangers and sell to them. It sucked all around for me so I bailed. I found the whole enterprise embarrassing.
To me, virtually the same thing goes on with the guberus in Internet marketing. These people would do just as well in MLM as they would in IM. They may not have multiple downlines but they do end up with massive “sidelines”. The affiliate marketers. If they have their own product they can amass huge numbers of other guberus to pimp their product for them. If they choose to pimp another guberus crap they can send out the suggestion to their massive list. Quite the profitable circle jerk.
When I was with Primerica, my “trainer” suggested I tool around grocery stores or other similar places and start talking to folks. Ask them if they are employed and if they like what they are doing. If not, or even if so, would they like to make extra money? Then pitch them this bullshit. The same thing is what these folks are doing in IM but digitally.
The thing that makes IM much better than MLM is that when you have a list you can continually suck out of the well. You don’t have to depend on downlines to sell crap because you have a continual source of suckers willing to buy crap from the email list. Make sense? And your sideline will be more than happy to pimp your crap to their list as well.
It’s like a supercharged MLM-like scheme. I wonder how many of these guberus are refugees from the MLM community. They think like those tools that I knew in MLM. They act like them. They market like them. I’m pretty sure it’s why I don’t participate. It’s too much like the douchebags in MLM. But for successful MLM folks, affiliate marketing must seem like a selling breeze.
No reason why I bring this up other than I have observed similarities that I found interesting. There is no real difference in a slimy Internet marketing tool and one in MLM.
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I was just thinking the same thing yesterday. It seems like you can make a 5 figure income every month if you resell the same ‘secret’ to making a 5 figure income to other gullible idiots who also desire a 5 figure monthly income. MLM at it’s worst. Or best depending on your perspective. Its a snakeoil peddling fractal of losers.
If I recall, Frank Kern is a former MLM’er. In fact, I think he did a lot of his recruiting online.
I’m a former MLM survivor as well and I do see a lot of similarities in the emails I receive and what I learned in “training” back in the day.
B