Redefining Network Marketing to Embrace Collaboration

Multi-level marketing (MLM) came on the scene with a whisper, and has seemingly gone out with a roar. With an over 80 percent down line attrition rate, networking marketing distributors are grasping for solutions that can both keep their businesses afloat and empower their associates to create sustainable home businesses.The silver lining in the network marketing cloud is that the global economic meltdown has caused more people than ever before to seek out an MLM opportunity to supplement their current income, or to replace income lost from being laid off. In other words, there's never been a better time to be an MLM distributor, and to lay the foundation for a new kind of success.In this second decade of the 21st century, network marketers must rely on collaboration as a cornerstone on which to build their businesses. This concept of collaboration may be counterintuitive to those who have spent years honing their competitive instincts, but when you take a step back, it's easy to see how working together with other MLM professionals can be mutually beneficial.Imagine for a moment that you're a member of a private MLM club. Think of it as an MLM friends platinum club. Your "friends" may be successfully involved in a wide variety of network marketing opportunities - opportunities that are very different from yours, but that draw on similar skills and utilize similar tools. Imagine the wealth of information that would be available to you. This information and knowledge would go beyond that provided by your company, and would prevent you from having to reinvent the wheel every time you wanted to try something new. Imagine how you could maximize your own income stream by networking with other entrepreneurs who have similar goals and dreams.When it comes to collaborative MLM, the key is to streamline resources and operations and transform your individual business into one that's both fulfilling and profitable. After all, you're sitting in a competitive market space (there are more than 500 different network marketing opportunities), which means that you need to work smarter, not harder. The best way to do this is through collaboration.There are some online professional networks created especially for people involved in MLMs, but not all are created equal. If you're ready to embrace this new paradigm of collaboration, it's important to separate the best from the rest. What constitutes the best? First, it really should be a private members' club that serves as an umbrella for a number of features and services. It should, for example, contain a social networking component to smooth collaboration, an integrated MLM directory that can provide you with the big picture of the network marketing landscape, and a wealth of resource information that can help you grow your down line. Most importantly, it should provide you with concrete tools to grow your business, whether within your current company or by branching out to diversify your revenue streams. These concrete tools should include everything from a knowledge sharing forum and splash pages to those pertaining to lead management and benchmarking.Remember the old adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The same is true for network marketing. Healthy competition is good, but the new face of MLM has collaboration written all over it.