How Can Network Marketing Fix Its Bad Reputation?

I was talking to someone the other day who lamented the fact that he kept getting bombarded by Network Marketing (MLM) offers. One of the offenders plucked his resume from an online resume site and used that information to approach him. (There was nothing in my friend's resume to indicate he was interested in a home based business).  Another offender was shoving flyers in everyone's mailbox in his neighborhood. No wonder MLM has earned such a bad reputation!

This kind of thing has been going on for decades in Network Marketing. It's often referred to as the "any warm body will do" approach to getting people into the business.  People that take this approach think that they're "working the numbers" and eventually will find people who will make good business partners.

But there are several problems with this approach.  First, the network marketer is wasting lots of time on people who have little or no interest in a home based business.  Second, because of this "any warm body" approach, they irritate loads of people; hence adding to the reputation problem of Network Marketing.

To be fair, some network marketing companies do try to guide their people to better recruiting practices.  However, as long as network marketing companies continue to pay 'sign up' bonuses to reward recruiting, this "any warm body" approach will not go away.  Perhaps network marketing companies should downplay recruiting bonuses and starting focusing more on performance based bonuses - preferably based on performance over time. When they stop rewarding the "any warm body" approach, the reputation of network marketing might just improve.