Network Marketing and Door to Door Sales

Network Marketing has been around much longer than the internet. Network Marketing (formerly called MLM) actually got its start back in the late 1940's with the precursor to Amway. In those days door to door salespeople were actually quite common. Door to door selling is a method of selling that has all but disappeared. It hasn't disappeared due to the availability of online information, but rather primarily because of people's fear of opening their doors to total strangers. In fact, many residential buildings built in the past 30 years have been built with barrier security so door to door sales is not even possible.

In a time when door to door sales was more prevalent, it was common to trust the person knocking on the door. I would imagine even then, even the best salesperson would have had many doors slammed shut in his face during the course of one day. Network Marketing (NM) has its roots in this time period and many NM companies really haven't moved on.

They often still prescribe selling products to your friends and family members (the warm market) even though it's pretty much been shown that it's not an effective way to sell. In fact, it's only a notch above door to door sales. At least with friends, family, and so on, the people know you and might give you an ear when you talk to them about your company.

Even closer to the door to door sales technique is the "3 Foot Rule". That says that you should talk to everyone you come close to (within 3 foot as a metaphor) about your product and your opportunity. This works about as well as door to door selling because most of the people you talk to are simply not looking for such a thing.

Why some NM companies still promote Warm Markets and 3 Foot Rule methodologies is questionable. In this day and age, people are simply not going to listen any old person talking about his or her business opportunity. People are simply too guarded nowadays to open themselves up like that. The door to door sales age is over and done; perhaps for good. It's time for Network Marketing companies to also move on accordingly.