MLM has always required its workers to be bold and aggressive. Let's face it. Unless you were willing to approach George at work and Aunt Nellie at the bridge club with your sales pitch, your retail sales and downline development were never going to go anywhere.  More than a few people have gotten into MLM, realized that their shyness level was higher than they thought, and quietly gave up. Months later they were haunted by a garage still full of product. 

All that is changing thanks to the Internet.  You can now be a runaway success in the MLM of your choice without ever even telling your friends, family, or neighbors. I can already hear the MLM old-timers groaning. "Why that attitude is against everything we've ever been taught. Shrinking violets have no place in network marketing!" 

Think again. Remember the teenage nerd who couldn't get a date because he always had his nose stuck in a computer?  Today that 25 year-old is president of his own million dollar software firm. Doing business in the new Internet order doesn't require the same talents that the business  world used to demand. Keep your head stuck  in a monitor and never mind the doorbell.  Thanks to the miracle of e-mail, anyone, without leaving their easy chair, can communicate with hundreds, thousands, even millions of others with the click of a key. 

E-mail can be tightly targeted, only connecting you with others who share your interest.  There are no frightening long distance bills, hours licking rolls of 32 cent stamps, or driving across town to knock on doors.  E-mail is cheap, it's effective, it's open equally to everyone, and it's making huge waves in MLM. 

One current example is Dr. Jeffrey Lant's foray into Oxyfresh. Lant, a well-known marketer, wisely saw the opportunity and efficiency that the Internet offers MLM.

Within days of launching his e-mail assault to thousands of known opportunity seekers, his downline had grown eight levels deep. 

Email not only gave Lant and his downline a powerful and inexpensive tool for prospecting, it also provided for  unprecedented sponsor support. By connecting his down-line to a list server (a large e-mail mailing list), he supplies his distributors each day with state-of-the-art sales letters.  As Lant points out, all they have to do is re-mail the letters to expand sales and membership. For the distributor, it is a simple process of re-addressing the letter with her own mailing list addresses (a three second operation), and instantly sending them out. As responses come back, the distributor can immediately reply. 

No doubt, it is a method that many other MLM complanies will begin to use to expand at a much faster rate. 

Stephen Day, an international marketing expert working with Lant, said, "I'm hearing from people who tell me that they hated telemarketing and opportunity meetings, but are really excited by the Internet method. These techniques are really revolutionizing prospecting." 

Days, weeks, even months are shaved off the recruitment process. In the Oxyfresh program, hundreds of members were brought in within weeks. To adequately train new distributors, Lant directed them to his Oxyfresh website where new recruits could learn the e-mail method, purchase email services and equipment, and download the latest sales letters. (See the site at http://www.oxyfreshprofit.com ) 

Lant told me, "I've created a 'machine' which is what I've always wanted to do with MLM. It's absolutely unrivaled in the world." That may not be the case for long. Other MLM's are watching and taking notes, some with interesting innovations of their own. 

With each new generation of new media, there are those who first discover that media's special characteristics.  These initial discoverers get rich, often becoming the wealthiest women and men of their era. MLM e-mail marketing is capitalizing on the very personal, equality-for-all nature of the Internet. It doesn't matter whether you are the President of General Motors or a janitor in Yuma, Arizona. The Net is free, it's powerful, and your success in making it work is only limited by your creativity and your desire to do what ever it takes to make it big. 

Will the Internet always be this way?   Early indications are that  it might. Because of the almost chaotic way that the  Internet is put together--functioning like a huge electronic nervous system that defies explanation--it could be a long time before anyone begins to monopolize it. This is a golden era for the individual with ambition. Never before have we seen a powerful new mass media, open to all, and virtually free. 

The beauty of multi-level marketing is how it combines individual people into massive distribution networks. By joining hands, millions of individual distributors can go toe to toe with the Walmarts of the world. It used to be that the little guys were stopped dead by their inability to communicate quickly to large organizations.

Email and the Internet have changed that. The janitor in Yuma now CAN pass information back and forth over a huge network consisting of thousands of associates, merely by dialing his modem into the local Internet provider. His access to large stores of cash and transportation are no longer an issue.  His only limitations are his creativity and desire to make it happen. 

Given this new paradigm of Internet operation, MLM is changing rapidly. Gone are the days when you had to hound an uninterested neighbor into attending an uneasy party in your living room. Today's e-mail MLMer is busy creating virtual communities of super-charged believers. Network marketing, once looked down upon by many traditional business people, is now turning out to be the organizational structure of choice on the Internet.  The independence and freedom of MLM distribution networks fit hand-in-glove with what the Internet does best.

Kevin Nunley provides marketing advice and copy writing for businesses and organizations. Read all his money-saving marketing tips at http://DrNunley.com/  Reach him at kevin@drnunley.com  or (801)253-4536.