Pattern description

Multi-level marketing, abbreviated as MLM, also called pyramid selling network marketing, and referral marketing, is a controversial marketing strategy for the sale of products and/or services where the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce (also called participants, and variously known as "salespeople", "distributors", "consultants", "promoters", "independent business owners", etc) selling the company's products/services, while the earnings of the participants is derived from a pyramid-shaped commission system.

Although each MLM company dictates its own specific "compensation plan" for the payout of any earnings to their respective participants, the common feature which is found across all MLMs is that the compensation plans theoretically pay out to participants only from the two potential revenue streams. The first stream of compensation can be paid out from commissions of sales made by the participants directly to their own retail customers. The second stream of compensation can be paid out from commissions based on the sales made by other distributors below the participant who had recruited those other participants into the MLM; in the organizational hierarchy of MLMs, these participants are referred to as one's “down line” distributors.

MLM salespeople are, therefore, expected to sell products directly to end-user retail consumers by means of relationship referrals and word of mouth marketing, but most importantly they are incentivized to recruit others to join the company as fellow salespeople so that these can become their down line distributors.

Inventive problems

References

Wikipedia. Multi-level marketing.