MLM Analyst

In my last post, Why I’m Blogging About Network Marketing, I mentioned hearing about the MLM 500 Top Earners list from a soccer teammate. He was excited because it seemed to be evidence that the MLM company he’s associated with was one that produced an inordinate number of top earners. It made me suspicious. So I decided to look into it.

Here’s some of what I’ve found so far. The people producing the list are certainly not doing so for altruistic reasons. You can see from their site that accessing it now requires a subscription. That’s fine. Capitalism is a good thing. But did they purposely disseminate inaccurate information in order to create an uproar and then profit from it? Don’t know. More on that later.

I found the list posted elsewhere. Right at first glance you can see some issues. Of the top 20, 9 are from MonaVie and 6 are from Amway.Those 2 companies have produced 15 of the top 20 earners? Really? Want to guess how many of the top 65 are from MonaVie? Why, 46 of course.

Is it at all disconcerting that from number 29 through 65, every earner is from MonaVie? Umm, yes. Consider the block of Amway distributors that monopolize all but 3 of the 60 positions from #77 to #137. Statistically speaking, how does that happen?

Is there any possible way that this data could be legit? I’m pretty sure there’s not – partly because while I was viewing the list my college statistics professor came back from the grave and began screaming at me to close my web browser before he died a second death.

Even without a ghostly visit, or a college degree, or a 7th grade math class for that matter, any rational person would toss the list out as meaningless.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice a few more oddities:

• Usana shows up only 4 times in the top 150?
• There’s only 1 Herbalife distributor in the top 100?
• There are only 2 Xango distributors in the top 100?
• Nu Skin only shows up 6 times out of 500 and not until #158.
• There is only 1 Melaleuca distributor in the entire top 500?

Ok. So the list is clearly bogus. The people putting it together either didn’t even try or perhaps had ulterior motives. I think that deserves some analysis.

Uh oh, I think I just felt my ethics professor roll over in his grave. Gotta run. I’ll be back with more later.

My analysis of the top MLM earners list continues in this post about motivations behind such a list.

If you wonder, like I do, why an MLM company would publish their top earners’ numbers, and why a typical distributor would publicize that, you might find this article interesting: Which MLM Comp Plans Screw the Typical Distributor?.