Ever thought of trying to start a business that uses a multi-level marketing (MLM) plan?
Here’s the story of one guy, Josh Day from Australia, who tried to sell Herbalife.
I asked permission from Josh to share his story.
So over the years I’ve tried all sorts of different business ideas and the first one that Ii really lost any money on was when I tried to sell Herbalife. If you don’t know, Herbalife is a weight loss product with an MLM (multi-level marketing) type structure of selling. I was 17 and decided that if it was to make some serious money I’d have to invest so I started talking to a Herbalife distributor and after a couple of weeks I paid him the $550 to get started in the business.
I’m a good sales person and I’ve always know that, so I thought I could sell anything. Well, being a 17 year old who has never even come close to being overweight makes it very difficult to sell weight loss products, especially since most of their marketing ideas are about sharing your own stories and being a success story of the product.
So after a few weeks of trying to sell off this product I only ended up making around $300 in sales (which was only around $100 profit) and I had exhausted all the ways I knew possible to sell this product.
The lesson I learned here is that just because it’s a highly sort after item, doesn’t mean its going to sell easily unless you know how to market it. I’m sure if I tried to get into it again being older and knowing a different crowd I’d probably be more successful, but to make back that $550 would be quite a task.
I met Josh on the Teen Business Forum, a great website for serious teen entrepreneurs. Check it out.
If Josh had created a marketing plan, as I show in Starting a Micro Business, he might have chosen a different product to sell as a 17 year old.
Grab a copy of Starting a Micro Business today and avoid the mistakes Josh made.
