MLM Business

New to MLM? As you get your business rolling, you're bound to encounter many unfamiliar words. You've got your uplines, downlines, and matrix cycles – but what does it all mean? Use this glossary as your guide and you'll be talking like an MLM expert in no time.

 

 

Affiliate – In internet marketing, an affiliate is one who helps generate a sale for someone else, earning him a commission on the sale, or a unique payout based on the action taken (a form being filled out, an ad being clicked, etc.)

 

Autoresponder – An email sent automatically to a prospect in an attempt to promote a product, service or opportunity. Autoresponders are generally sent to someone after they have filled out a landing page form online; and they generally come in a series of 3 or more.

 

Bizopp – Abridged version of the term: business opportunity.

 

Cold market – Prospects who you do not know personally; such as anyone outside of your family and friends.

 

Comp plan – Abridged version of the term: compensation plan. Compensation plans are set by the MLM company itself, and they define exactly how a distributor earns from the sales of products in his organization. Comp plans generally outline the various commission percentages allowed, as well as bonuses, at each level of activity.

 

Distributor – An individual MLM business-owner who sells products for the company that produces them. Distributors may also be referred to as representatives, affiliates, members, and associates.

 

Downline – The group of people who sign up under a distributor. e.g. When someone starts their own MLM business, any person who joins that initial distributor to start their own business becomes part of that distributor's downline.

 

Executive Bonuses – Bonus commissions for MLM distributors who exceed a sales quota – generally given to distributors who consistently sell an exceptionally high volume of product from month to month.

 

Landing page – In internet marketing, a landing page is the website where a prospect “lands” after clicking a link or responding to an ad. In general, landing pages are brief, one-page sites, designed for the purpose of collecting a name, email, phone and/or address from interested prospects.

 

Leader – An individual distributor who provides support, direction, and motivation to the members in his downline.

 

Levels - The so-called “vertical” lines of an MLM distributor team (or compensation plan). For example, a person you directly recruit is on the first level. When someone on the first level recruits another, that new recruit is on the second level.

 

Leads – Names and additional contact information for people who have expressed interest in starting an MLM business. A lead can be as simple as a business card given to someone else for the purposes of following up. However, in MLM, there are many lead-generation companies who generate leads in bulk with online landing pages. Often, these leads can be custom-generated by gender, geographic location, age, and more.

 

Matrix – A compensation plan that limits the width (the number of immediate direct sales) of each level in a distributor's group, thereby forcing distributors to pile ("spillover") their recruits under other distributors who were not involved in sponsoring the new recruits.

 

MLM – Acronym for multilevel marketing; also referred to as network marketing. Used to describe the marketing of products based on word of mouth and direct sales, with home-based distributors earning commissions on the sales they generate, as well as the sales of people they recruit into the business.

 

Party plan – Usually an in-home gathering, hosted by an MLM distributor, intended to promote and sell an MLM company's products, or introduce the business opportunity.

 

Prospect – An individual who expresses interest in a product, service or opportunity. Prospects are potential customers or potential MLM business-owners.

 

Residuals – Income earned indirectly as product is sold by other distributors in an MLM organization. For example, a distributor might earn 3% residual commissions from the sales of another distributor who is 3 levels beneath him in the downline.

 

Sizzle call – A phone- or web-based conference call, generally provided to prospects early on in the prospecting cycle, intended to provide a high-level overview of the business opportunity and to excite prospects into joining.

 

Sponsor – The individual who introduced you to an MLM and got you to join. In an upline, this is the individual directly above you.

 

Upline – The group of people positioned above new MLM business-owners – the opposite of a downline. e.g. When someone joins an MLM business, all the connected distributors above them (those who have already joined previously) make up that person's upline.