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It's Raining ... It's Pouring
NOTE: This article is part of the free eBooks, "The MLM Files." and "I'm Falling, and You Can't Make Me Get Up!"

The Truth About The "Spillover" Myth Of MLM

Spillover is the big promise of some MLMs. You know the pitch. Do nothing, sponsor no one, we'll do it for you. This one's going to _e_x_p_l_o_d_e_. The spillover will be tremendous. So, you join, but where's this elusive spillover?

In the early days of online MLM's, one of the major sales pitches was to "get in early" because the spillover would be incredible. I used to get emails all the time from people claiming to be only a few levels below a heavy hitter. I would be able to do nothing and get rich from the spillover.

One person told me, "I'm only on the 8th level" of the programs originator. People failed to realize, even if a dozen of so heavy hitters drive 20,000 into a particular program, you're not going to get any significant spillover unless, you are on one of the very early levels. Look at this chart of 3x7 matrix. (Limit of 3 people on each person's first level, seven levels deep)

As you can see, if you are the 82nd person sponsored by a heavy hitter, you are on that persons 4th level. As that levels fills, your spillover will become one in 120. Your heavy hitter will need to sponsor another 1,500 in order for your 2nd level to fill. To fill your 3rd level, this person will need to sponsor about 4500.

Now, let's look at the same numbers in a 5x5 matrix. (Limit of 5 wide on the first level)

In this matrix, you can be that 82nd person, and be on your super-sponsors 3rd level, along with 155 other people. You now get 1 out of every 155 people your heavy hitter sponsors as spillover. He will need to sponsor 4650 more people after you in order for your 2nd level to fill from spillover.

As you can see, there may be some tremendous spillover with some programs. But, if you are not on a very high level of a heavy hitters matrix, that spillover will not help you very much. Odds are, unless you join within the first hour after your heavy-hitter sends out his email, you will be so many levels down - you may never see any spillover.

Now, it's true that some of the people sponsored before you will also do some sponsoring that will help with the spillover. But, most of the people above you joined on the same premise that you did. They are told that they do not have to do any sponsoring. It would be done for them. And, when it's not, a lot of them will drop out.

As a personal example: I joined a downline building club somewhere about May 1999. At this time, that would be a bit more than 3 years ago. The pitch was, "do nothing, make money." The premise was that all of the "heavy hitters" and super recruiters would create so much spillover, that anyone could make money by doing nothing. Of course, they usually ran a disclaimer that stated if you did recruiting yourself - you could make money faster.

I put a link or two on my website for this club, but did nothing else. In 3 years, I had recruited 38 people for my downline by doing "next to nothing." Of course, all these people were 'seduced' by the clubs claims about making money by doing nothing. And, that's what these people did. Nothing. These 38 recruited not one person.

At the end of 3 years, all but 2 of these 38 had quit because they were not making any money. The only spillover they had was from me. How much spillover did I receive? One person. Let me repeat. The club that was going to build my downline for me - gave me ONE person in spillover in three years time. Total money I made in three years - zero - nothing - nada - zip!

Now, in all fairness, sometimes spillover does work. But, you must have people above you in the business who are actively recruiting people who will actively recruit. This is rare, but it does happen. Usually, in the older, more established businesses where there are many people making good money. And, they usually don't promote themselves by promising spillover. It just happens.

Anyway, in my opinion, the best way to earn money in an MLM is to do the recruiting yourself. It's a lot easier to personally recruit 10 or 15 people than it is to count on getting 10 or 15 in spillover.
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Until next time,