Let me guess, somebody has just approached you and asked you to join their network marketing business and your instant thought was - is this one of those pyramid scams?

You made the right decision to do some research and be concerned, because pyramid schemes are illegal and can put you in to a lot of trouble. The good news is that network marketing or multi-level marketing is a legitimate and legal business model. On this page we will help you to identify the differences between network marketing and pyramid schemes, including a checklist of things to look for.

Network Marketing, also known as Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is a legitimate business model that uses direct selling and relationship referrals as a method of selling a company’s products or services. In a typical networking model, individual associates (often referred to as distributors) essentially contract or act like a franchisee to the parent company and are paid a commission based on the volume of product or services that are sold as a result of their own organisation’s efforts.