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UPC Newsletters>
The Coming Network / Affiliate Marketing Boom!
December 31, 2004
The Coming Network / Affiliate Marketing Boom!
Eight Reasons Why You Are in For the Ride of Your Life
“Network / Affiliate marketing is exploding all around the
world!”
“Fortune 500 companies are going MLM….”
“More millionaires will be made in Network / Affiliate
marketing than in any other business….”
“Network / Affiliate marketing is reaching critical mass!”
“Network / Affiliate marketing is achieving momentum—now!”
“Network / Affiliate marketing is the wave of the
future—you better get in today!”
Are you ready for the “coming boom”? From the sound of all
that amazing enthusiasm, you’d better be, or you’ll be
missing out, big-time! Or is all of that just the choir
singing hopefully and hysterically to itself? Just more of
the same old Network / Affiliate marketer’s hype and
hustle? In my dozen-plus years as an author and editor in
Network / Affiliate marketing, I’ve heard these rallying
cries thousands of times. And I sure would love to believe
them—but I don’t…
…or didn’t, anyway. Until now.
Whenever I want the TRUTH about Network / Affiliate
marketing, I ask Leonard Clements. An acclaimed author and
industry analyst, Len founded the highly regarded
“watchdog” publication MarketWave. In my opinion (and
experience), he is the most honest and knowledgeable
Network / Affiliate marketing industry expert we have. I
ask Len because I know he does his homework. He is both
advocate and devil’s advocate; he believes only what he
sees in black and white.
Len had an idea for an exposé that would tear apart those
excited headlines and hysteric hyperbole—tear ‘em apart
with Len’s favorite tool, the facts. He was on a mission to
expose these gross exaggerations, distortions and
fabrications. Why? Because Len loves this industry and its
people, and is convinced that such lies will destroy us—if
lies they be.
So Len dove in to set the record straight.
You’ll never guess what happened.
He changed his mind: 180 degrees!
Not only did Len establish the proof of the truth of those
“Network / Affiliate Marketing is about to explode!”
claims, his research also dug up more and better reasons
than ever before to show that Network / Affiliate marketers
are in fact in for the ride of their lives!
Is this like buying gold at $43 an ounce? Getting in early
on those real estate explosions? Buying dot-com and tech
stocks in the early 90s?
Listen to Len—and judge for yourself.
— John Milton Fogg
For the first time in history there are solid, logical,
verifiable, reasons for you to believe in a forthcoming
Network / Affiliate marketing boom. Eight reasons, in
fact—any one of which could result in a significant
expansion of Network / Affiliate marketing in the US alone
over the next few years. And these eight factors will soon
be coming together to create a “perfect storm”—the
convergence of powerful economic, demographic and
psychological factors all hitting at the exact same time
and place.
Finally, you and I can honestly make the claim that there
really IS a “Network / Affiliate marketing explosion” on
the horizon. It absolutely will happen, and here’s why:
The Eight Reasons
#1: The Economy. What’s bad economic news to most people is
good news to Network / Affiliate marketers. And there’s a
lot of “good news” today.
#2: Demographics. Not only is the pool of eligible
prospects increasing at unprecedented levels, but that
segment of society most ready, willing and able to pursue
Network / Affiliate marketing is also exploding.
#3: Wall Street. Securities investors look for companies
and industries that are about to rise up fast, and they are
looking closely at Network / Affiliate marketing right now.
#4: Supply and Demand. The greatest inhibitor of our
industry’s growth the last few years has been a huge
supply-side glut of Network / Affiliateing opportunities.
That’s already changed.
#5: New Blood. Our entire industry is about to go into
momentum for the same reason individual Network /
Affiliateing companies enter momentum: a massive influx of
folks who’ve never been in Network / Affiliate marketing
before.
#6: Positive Media Exposure. If the mainstream media could
only find a way to make money from this typically
non-advertising industry, would they have a much greater
incentive to promote the positive side? Yes, they would.
They’ve found a way.
#7: Federal Regulation. I know it sounds scary; it’s not.
In fact, more and better laws will be the #1 legitimizing
catalyst to the Network / Affiliate marketing explosion.
#8: Current Trends. The current, positive and powerful
growth trends of the Network / Affiliate marketing industry
itself.
Interesting? Exciting? You bet!
Let’s look at each of these eight solid reasons in detail.
1 The Economy
What’s bad economic news to most people is good news to
Network / Affiliate marketers. And there’s a lot of “good
news” today. I’ve always believed that, sure, the state of
the economy exerts some influence on our business—but not
significantly. (I mean, was there ever an economy where
people didn’t want more money and free time?) When I began
to do some digging to support my contrarian position, I
soon learned I was wrong. First clue: one of the strongest
growth phases in Network / Affiliate marketing history
occurred from 1990 to ‘92—coinciding with the last economic
recession. And there was so much more.
Comparing the popularity trends of Network / Affiliate
marketing to unemployment rates, on a semi-decade basis,
yields some exciting revelations.
Network / Affiliate marketing was born in the 1930s—perhaps
significantly, in the midst of the Great Depression—but it
began in earnest in the 1950s. It was far more popular in
the second half of the 50’s than the first. Not a single
company of consequence launched from 1950 to 1955, yet the
following four years saw the birth of industry giants
Shaklee, NeoLife, and Amway. In the first half of the
decade, unemployment averaged four percent, reaching 2.9
percent in 1953—the second lowest in US history. In the
second half of the decade, it averaged 5.3 percent,
reaching its highest level since the Great Depression (6.8
percent in 1958).
[Network / Affiliateing Times has an editorial policy of
not using Network / Affiliateing company names in our
coverage. We felt that the historical references in Len’s
cover story demanded an exception to this rule—Ed.]
In the first half of the 60’s all types of direct sales
continued to flourish. Mary Kay Cosmetics started in 1963;
Avon, Fuller Brush and Tupperware all achieved momentum.
The industry continued to grow from ’65 to ’69, but not
nearly at the same pace. And guess what? The unemployment
rate of the first half-decade was significantly higher than
that of the second, when 2.5 million unemployed people went
back to work.
Network / Affiliate marketing was thriving during the first
half of the 1980’s, as unemployment continued to rise. In
1982 unemployment was at its highest level in 40 years (9.7
percent). During the later 80’s, an era of MLM “slump,”
unemployment dropped considerably; by decade’s end the
number of those out of work was barely half what it was at
the decade’s beginning.
What’s bad economic news to most people is good news to
Network / Affiliate marketers. And there’s a lot of “good
news” today.
The 1990’s saw perhaps the clearest distinction between
halves of any decade. The first half saw more major company
launches and more companies going into momentum than any
other time in history. There was also more wealth being
created through Network / Affiliate marketing from 1990 to
1994 than in any other five-year period.
The second half was not exactly the best of times for
Network / Affiliate marketing. If there is such a thing as
an “MLM recession,” we had one from 1996 through 1999. Why?
The very high unemployment rate from 1990 to ’94 dropped
sharply during the second half of the decade, hitting a
30-year low at 4.2 percent in 1999.
The only exception to this half-century-long pattern is the
1970’s, but that was an exceptional decade for this
industry.
Remember the last half of the 60’s? Industry growth slowed
as unemployment dropped to a post-war low. During the first
half of the 70’s, Network / Affiliate marketing started
rocking as unemployment rates jumped. Unfortunately, all
that rocking rocked some boats. The result: more than five
times as many MLM-related lawsuits from 1970 to 1974 than
in all of the 50’s and 60’s combined. 1975 saw a federal
action that essentially questioned the legality of Network
/ Affiliate marketing itself.
Fortunately, one company, Amway, had the financial ability
to defend itself and the entire multilevel marketing
industry. The case lasted until late 1979, when the court
ruled in favor of Amway. As a result, there was—for the
first time ever—a clear delineation between illegal
pyramids and legitimate Network / Affiliate marketing
companies. A fairly dark cloud hung over the industry for
the last half of the 70’s, and there was not much
expansion, despite even higher unemployment rates.
The last and arguably greatest Network / Affiliate
marketing growth phase began in 1990, the same year the US
went into our last economic recession.
1980 to ’84 were boom years for Network / Affiliate
marketing; we experienced recessions in 1980, part of ’81
and most of ’82.
1970 to ’74 were also boom years for our business; the
economy was in recession for almost all of 1970 and 1974.
The last half of the 50’s and into the early 60’s were
years of great MLM expansion; the country was in recession
from ’57 to ’58 and most of 1960.
Most recessions last 12 to 18 months; however, the end of a
recession doesn’t necessarily mean the end of a slumping
economy or high unemployment. We’ve had eight recessions in
the last 50 years; during the 12 months immediately
following the “end” of each, unemployment actually rose!
Every severe economic downturn in the last 50 years has
been during or immediately preceding every period of
substantial Network / Affiliate marketing expansion.
Strong evidence. And we’re only on Reason Number One! Let’s
talk about an even more powerful justification to believe
in a coming Network / Affiliate marketing explosion.
2 Demographics
Not only is the pool of eligible prospects increasing at
unprecedented levels; that segment of society most ready,
willing and able to pursue Network / Affiliateing is also
exploding. There were about 76 million babies born between
1946 and 1964, at the time accounting for almost one-third
of the entire US population. Since then, it has been
glaringly obvious exactly where this giant bubble in the
population is at any moment in time, simply by looking at
what products are most popular.
When it comes to charting the market size for what most
Network / Affiliate marketing companies offer, we’re not
even half-way up the Baby Boom curve yet! The market for
products that will make us look and feel younger is going
to continue to expand most dramatically over the next five
to 10 years, as the Boomers reach their 50s and 60s.
The Baby Boom is exciting for an altogether different
reason, too. Virtually all Network / Affiliate marketing
companies require distributors to be at least 18 years old.
Guess what happened about 25 years after the baby boom?
Those 76 million Boomers had about 75 million babies. About
41 million of them will turn 18 over the next seven years.
At no other time in history, other than the original Baby
Boom itself, have this many people been added to the body
of eligible Network / Affiliate marketing prospects in this
short a period of time.
Of course, the people eligible to join is not as important
as the number who actually join. The Direct Selling
Association (DSA) conducts an annual survey of salespeople
in the industry. (Roughly two-thirds of “direct sellers”
are Network / Affiliate marketers.) According to their
figures, there was a net gain of 400,000 direct sellers
from 1997 to ’98; a 600,000 net gain from ’98 to ’99; and a
700,000-distributor gain from ’99 to 2000. Not only is the
number of people increasing, but the increase is
increasing!
Extend current growth for another 10 years and you end up
with 4.7 million additional Network / Affiliate marketers.
It took Network / Affiliate marketing over 50 years to grow
to 7.5 million—and we are conservatively projecting an
additional 4.7 million in just the next 10 years! (By the
way, that also means the average Network / Affiliateing
organization will be 37 percent larger!)
According to Gallup Polls, Americans first decide to invest
in a residual income-producing vehicle, such as stocks,
bonds, real estate, or perhaps in a business venture, at
the average age of 42. The average age when we invest the
most into such devices is 47. Graph the number of 42- to
47-year-olds in the US and you find that starting about
1988, the line begins to point upward at almost a 45º angle
as the Boomers started turning 42—and that line continues
to rise at a level never before seen in history all the way
to the year 2009.
We are barely past the halfway point of that dramatic
upward curve!
Does this really benefit us as Network / Affiliate
marketers? Are 40-somethings more open to Network /
Affiliate marketing opportunities?
The average American is 36 years old. According to a
MarketWave survey of over 6000 Network / Affiliate
marketers from 1990 to 2000, the average Network /
Affiliate marketer is 38.6, and that number has
consistently risen over the years. An exceptional number of
those over 40 do participate in Network / Affiliate
marketing, and this segment of the population which is most
ready, willing and able to invest in a residual income
business venture is going to continue to increase
dramatically for another seven years!
3 Wall Street
Securities investors look for companies and industries that
are about to rise up fast; thousands of analysts are
looking closely at Network / Affiliate marketing right now.
Professional investors are a pretty savvy group of people.
Based on their due diligence, they eventually invest their
funds in companies whose growth (and profits) they expect
to go up. What do they see when they turn their magnifying
glass on Network / Affiliate marketing companies?
There are over 20 publicly traded Network / Affiliate
marketing companies, but the bottom third are so small I’ll
focus on the top 12 well-established companies. If you were
to chart their stock price over the last five years,
starting with December 1996, in almost every case you’d see
a line that looks a lot like the path of an airplane—coming
in for a landing. With few exceptions, Network / Affiliate
marketing company stock values flattened at their all-time
lows and stayed there for about two to three years.
Clearly, Wall Street was not impressed with Network /
Affiliate marketing’s growth potential during the last half
of the 90’s.
What do they see now?
The benchmark S&P 500 reached its peak in September of
2000; by mid-December 2001, it was down by 23 percent. Over
the exact same period our index of the top 12 Network /
Affiliate marketing companies was up by 7.3 percent! And
all of a sudden, in the last 12 months, these Network /
Affiliate marketing companies are outperforming the overall
stock market by over 30 percent. That level of performance
really gets investors’ attention!
4 Supply and Demand
The greatest inhibitor of growth the last few years has
been a huge supply-side glut of Network / Affiliateing
opportunities. That’s already changing. Anyone with even a
C in Economics 101 can tell you about “supply and demand”:
an industry booms when demand dramatically increases.
Tremendous increase in supply results in a down-turn. Sure
enough, during the massive proliferation of Network /
Affiliate marketing companies in the latter 90’s, we had a
deep industry slump.
Based on a survey of Network / Affiliate marketing company
software suppliers, over 4900 Network / Affiliate marketing
companies opened from 1994 to 1997; there is anecdotal
evidence to show that there were about 3600 start-ups in
1998 and 1999 alone. Even more troubling, perhaps half of
all start-ups don’t go to the major software houses, but
rather hire in-house programmers—so the actual number of
start-ups could have been double these figures.
Bottom line: as many as 13,000 Network / Affiliate
marketing companies may have launched from 1994 through
1999; there were at least 8000. But we had a net gain of
only about 600 companies—from 900 to 1500. (Have you ever
heard the claim that 95 percent of all Network / Affiliate
marketing companies fail in their first two years? I
thought that was a scare tactic spread by older companies,
but these surveys say it’s true.)
Since the beginning of 2000 the number of start-up
companies has declined significantly. This, along with the
increasing number of company mergers and acquisitions, will
only make the industry stronger.
During this same time period, the number of Network /
Affiliate marketers in the US increased from about 5
million to 7.5 million. The number of distributors went up
about 50 percent—but the number of companies increased by
three times that much! This means that the average Network
/ Affiliateing downline actually shrunk by 40 percent. No
doubt about it: in the last half of the 90’s, the supply of
opportunities far exceeded demand.
What’s the good news? First, since the beginning of 2000
the number of start-up companies has declined
significantly. This, along with the increasing number of
company mergers and acquisitions, will only make the
industry stronger. When more and more companies were
entering the market, the available distributor base was
spread thinner and thinner, resulting in smaller downline
organizations, higher attrition, and generally far fewer
success stories. But think about this: if there were just
as many distributors but half as many companies, the
average downline would be twice as big!
I’m not suggesting the number of companies will contract to
half, but any reduction in supply will certainly help
increase demand, which will then expand the number of those
men and women getting into profit and reaching their income
goals. The more success stories we have, the more
motivation and less resistance we have to building our
organizations even larger—and the cycle continues upward,
rather than down or flat as it has in the past.
5 New Blood
Our entire industry is about to go into momentum for the
same reason individual Network / Affiliate marketing
companies enter momentum: a massive influx of folks who’ve
never been in Network / Affiliate marketing before. Almost
every Network / Affiliate marketing company today would
like to think they are about to “go into momentum.”
Momentum, as it applies to Network / Affiliate marketing,
is the stage in a company’s growth cycle where sales volume
begins to increase geometrically and the company doubles,
triples, and perhaps even quadruples in size in a very
short period of time. Most momentum phases last about six
to 24 months.
Much like buying a stock right before it goes up in price,
most Network / Affiliateers want to attach themselves to a
company right before it explodes. Thus, practically every
distributor will try to make a case that their company is
“about to go into momentum.”
How do they know?
They don’t. No one knows exactly when the momentum phase
will kick in, but much like stock picking, we can look for
clues—historical trends and patterns to help us make better
guesses.
An analysis of all the successful major Network / Affiliate
marketing companies shows that every momentum phase in
corporate history was facilitated by massive numbers of
people moving into the opportunity—either as reps or
customers—who had never been involved in Network /
Affiliate marketing before. Momentum is never the result of
people moving from one company to another; it is caused
only by a massive injection of new blood.
Where will this new blood come from? Today in the US, a
little over seven million people participate in Network /
Affiliate marketing—which means that about 270 million
don’t! How are we going to reach those massive numbers of
people we’ve never been able to reach in the past? The
Internet.
Our entire industry is about to go into momentum for the
same reason individual Network / Affiliate marketing
companies enter momentum: a massive influx of folks who’ve
never been in Network / Affiliate marketing before.
The Internet began to come into its own around 1996; by
1998 the number of people on the Net had almost tripled.
Today over 60 percent of adults are online; experts predict
that virtually all Americans will be using the Internet in
some capacity by the year 2010.
The Network / Affiliate marketing industry cut its Internet
teeth painfully from about 1997 to early 2000. As with so
many other industries, there were a lot of Network /
Affiliate marketing dot-com failures. Some were ugly; legal
abuses resulted in several well-publicized closures.
For the most part, Networkers / Affiliates were a little
over-zealous with this amazing new technology, in a
magical-mystical attempt to have it build our Network for
us. The result was big recruiting numbers, but very little
sales volume and overwhelming attrition.
As the smoke clears, what is emerging is what the
responsible, visionary companies knew all along: the
awesome power of the Internet lies not in having it do all
the work for us, but in having it help us present our
products and opportunities faster, less expensively, and to
far, far greater numbers of people.
New people—people who’ve never been exposed to Network /
Affiliate marketing before.
6 Positive Media Exposure
If the mainstream media were to find a way to make money
from this typically non-advertising industry, would they
have a much greater incentive to promote the positive side?
Yes, they would. They’ve found a way. Radio, television,
magazines and newspapers all exist primarily on advertising
dollars. But Network / Affiliate marketing doesn’t
advertise in the mainstream media. (After all, we’re the
“word of mouth” business.) Not only has the media had no
financial incentive to promote Network / Affiliate
marketing, it actually has a financial incentive not to.
Now that, too, is changing. The mainstream media is
discovering how to cash in on Network / Affiliate
marketing.
The first big step in this direction was back in 1994, when
Success magazine published a lengthy and extremely positive
cover story about our industry and its people. The people
of this credibility-starved industry sold out the entire
run of that issue; Success broke their all-time
single-issue sales record by almost double! The result was
a lot more positive portrayals of Network / Affiliate
marketing companies in future issues. But even this isn’t
where the greatest promise lies in terms of positive media
exposure.
Picture this: instead of paying for an advertisement, what
if a Network / Affiliate marketer worked out an arrangement
where he sponsored the publication itself, got the ad for
free and the resulting sales volume and downline
commissions that were generated from the ad went to the
magazine? They could potentially make far more income from
overrides than from ad fees, even long after the ads stop
running. It’s more than just a win-win scenario—we get the
positive press and the media gets even more money than if
they charged us for the ads. But would it work?
It’s already working. Slowly, quietly, such a movement is
taking place. More than 100 radio stations in the US are
currently attempting such a plan; some are succeeding
admirably. Virtually the entire Network / Affiliate
marketing industry is oblivious to the fact that this is
happening, but it’s simply a matter of time until the media
grapevine picks up on this phenomenal new ad revenue
resource.
Let’s not overlook the public image boost we’re getting
from the various athletes, celebrities, political figures
and medical authorities whom Network / Affiliate marketing
is attracting like never before. Not all are paid
endorsers. Many have careers based on their reputation and
positive image and they’ve openly and willingly attached
their good names to Network / Affiliate marketing. What’s
more, well-respected mainstream authors and keynote
speakers, such as Richard Poe, Paul Zane Pilzer, Mark
Victor Hansen, Brian Tracy and Robert Kiyosaki, are now
extolling the virtues of Network / Affiliate marketing.
This kind of powerful, third-party validation has never
happened before. It’s just starting, and it’s growing fast!
7 Federal Regulation
I know it sounds scary; it’s not. In fact, more and better
laws will be the principal legitimizing catalyst of the
Network / Affiliate marketing explosion. Recall that in the
first half of each decade, Network / Affiliate marketing
historically outperforms the second half. That’s been the
case for the last 40 years, and there were more than purely
economic reasons for this. The regulatory climate has also
effected the performance of the industry, the most obvious
example being the famous slew of federal actions back in
the 70’s.
Legal attacks by state or federal authorities on
high-profile Network / Affiliate marketing companies do
occur from time to time. (Curiously, they seem to peak in
pre-election years—surely just a coincidence.) Most of
those larger companies, by the way, not only survive the
attack but also come to be considered models of legality
whose policies and enforcement systems are emulated by
younger companies.
There have been many instances of true pyramid schemes
being shut down. Typically the action is described as,
“this Network / Affiliate marketing company was shut down
because it was an illegal pyramid scheme.” It drives me
nuts when I hear someone say that. It’s like saying, “This
really honest man was exposed as a liar.” Well, then he
wasn’t an honest man, was he? Either you’re an illegal
pyramid scheme, or you’re a Network / Affiliate marketing
company. You can’t be both.
I want to make this very clear: Illegal pyramid schemes
often try to disguise themselves as Network / Affiliate
marketing companies, because they want to appear legal.
Unfortunately, when the press reports on illegal pyramid
schemes, we all suffer guilt by association, and that does
have an effect on our ability to retain good people and
acquire new ones, at least temporarily.
No one knows exactly when; it could be next month, it could
be next year. It could be any time in the first half of
this decade. All I know for sure is this: if you get
involved now and stay involved, you will be there when it
happens.
The good news is that in the last few years, we’ve seen no
significant legal attacks on Network / Affiliate marketing
companies, and several closures of illegal schemes. Not
only does this make the industry stronger due to a smaller,
higher quality pool of legal opportunities, but it also
increases our ability to build businesses because we don’t
have the negative public stigma creating greater resistance
toward the industry and its opportunities. It also
demonstrates a greater ability among regulators to
delineate between pyramids and legitimate Network /
Affiliate marketing programs. This is especially
encouraging and comforting to those Networkers / Affiliates
who’ve built substantial incomes in “high profile”
opportunities, or those who intend to.
Once again, I’ve saved the best news for last: There is
active, professional lobbying going on right now by the
Direct Selling Association (DSA) and others to enact
legislation that will create federal regulation of Network
/ Affiliate marketing.
Right now, operating a Network / Affiliate marketing
company in the United States is something like trying to do
business in 50 different countries. Each state has its own
set of laws pertaining to business opportunities, some
specifically about Network / Affiliate marketing, and all
have statutes pertaining to pyramid schemes. For the most
part, each state’s definition of an illegal pyramid is
consistent with the other 49—but the interpretation and
application of those laws has been somewhat haphazard and
arbitrary over the years.
It’s true that there was a significant legal precedent
created by the federal court’s decision in the Amway case
in 1979, but still, enforcement actions have been
inconsistent, not only between state and federal precedent,
but from state to state—sometimes even from case to case
within the same state.
(Many of these cases involve judicial opinions as to
whether a distributor’s personally consumed products should
be recognized as legally commissionable sales. This is the
focus of the federal legislation currently being proposed;
several states, including Texas and California, have
already recognized such volume as bona fide.)
Not only will unified federal regulation create a clear,
consistent path for all Network / Affiliate marketing
companies and state regulators to follow, but also, much
like the federal regulation of franchising back in the
60’s, it eventually will require true and full disclosure.
If this does come to pass, and many believe it will, it
will absolutely be a good thing—very good. Not only will it
tremendously strengthen the industry by weeding out the bad
apples; it will also cause the massive turnover rate among
start-up companies to drop to a fraction of the current
level. They won’t start up in the first place—and the ones
that do launch will have to be serious players with solid
backing. More distributors will be involved in fewer
companies, and those businesses will be only the highest
quality opportunities. Federal regulation will also greatly
increase the respect and credibility of our industry. This
will create a tremendous boost to all established US-based
Network / Affiliate marketing companies.
Some people are apprehensive about the prospect of federal
regulation. They fear regulators may throw their
entrepreneurial baby out with the legal bath-water. Not a
chance. Not only are there over 1500 Network / Affiliate
marketing companies in this country, employing tens of
thousands of taxpayers and generating billions in sales and
corporate tax revenue, there are also about five million
Network / Affiliate marketers who are also registered
voters. Not a huge percentage, perhaps, but as the 2000
Presidential election clearly demonstrated, it’s enough to
make a huge difference in who has the political power in
this country.
I’ve heard the argument made that back in 1963, Congress
came within 11 votes of outlawing franchising. Not only did
they not do so, but the post-regulatory era of franchising,
in fact, created an industry that now moves over one-third
of all the goods and services in this country! Federal
regulation was the catalyst to the biggest boom in
entrepreneurial history.
Not only do I not fear the concept of federal regulation, I
find the vision of this new era of Network / Affiliate
marketing to be absolutely exhilarating!
8 Current Growth Trends
The top 12 publicly traded Network / Affiliate marketing
companies provide the most reliable information, and they
make up the majority of the largest, most well-established
companies; so I’ll again direct my analysis towards them.
(An informal survey of un-audited data provided by private
Network / Affiliate marketing companies also reinforced the
following results.) From 1990 to 1995, annual industry
sales growth averaged about 16 percent, and some years was
as high as 30 percent. From 1996 to 2000, average annual
sales growth of these public companies—based on US revenue
only—was only 8.7 percent, with a low of just over 6
percent from 1999 to 2000. The entire direct selling
industry’s growth rate dropped to a 10-year low of 4.5. It
seemed industry growth was about to come to a grinding
halt.
Instead, the growth rate of these companies from 2000 to
2001 was 14.6 percent—more than double the previous year’s
rate! The slowing trend of the latter 90’s has
unquestionably reversed. This is by far the strongest
signal of coming momentum: not just an increase in growth,
but an increase in the rate of increase.
One year of doubling growth rates certainly does not
guarantee a boom. However, one thing is certain: every
company momentum phase throughout Network / Affiliate
marketing history began with that first exciting period of
doubling growth rates. What are the chances that the same
phenomenon holds true for the entire industry?
There you have it, folks: not one, not two, but eight
solid, powerful indicators of a forthcoming Network /
Affiliate marketing explosion.
No one knows exactly when; it could be next month, it could
be next year. It could be any time in the first half of
this decade. All I know for sure is this: if you get
involved now and stay involved, you will be there when it
happens. So hop on, strap yourself in, and get ready for
the ride of your life. It’s gonna be a blast! 
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