The History of Network Marketing (Part 1)

As participants in Liberty League International, we are a part of the network marketing industry, and the network marketing industry has quite a storied history. And being a part of network marketing can be a cause of some anxiety for people.

What about you?

Do you find yourself sometimes feeling embarrassed to admit you are in network marketing or, if you’re not in it yet, are you embarrassed to admit you are seriously considering it?

If so … why?

What is it about your beliefs around network marketing that lead you to have these feelings?

Network marketing today

Network marketing is a +$100 billion dollar per year industry which represents an accessible way for the average person to launch a legitimate business with the potential of generating very substantial income.

It offers the opportunity to launch a business on a part-time basis, and then growing that into a full-time (or more) income. And it requires the least amount of start-up capital and ongoing operating expense of virtually any legitimate business model.

It is responsible for enabling the creation of an untold number of millionaires.

Paul Zane Pilzer, a world renowned economist and college professor, goes so far as to predict that over 10 million new millionaires will be created through network marketing over the next 10 years.

If this is true, why on earth would you feel ashamed or embarrassed to be part of this industry?

Well, there’s a lot history behind network marketing. So let’s review that history for a few moments and perhaps it will shed some light on where a lot of your feelings and attitudes around the industry may have come from.

The History of Network Marketing

Network Marketing as a means of product distribution – which is really all that it is – has been around literally forever.

You can go back through history and the establishment of trade routes and find examples of traders who distributed goods, food, and fur, face-to-face, on behalf of various backers. Sometimes these backers were rulers of a country, sometimes they were powerful individuals, and sometimes they were large businesses or companies.

The North American history of the notion of direct selling can be traced back to the 1600’s. For example, the Voyageurs established fur trading routes and posts on behalf of the Hudson Bay Company. The Hudson Bay Company itself relied upon the influence of Prince Rupert, who was the cousin of King Charles II, to acquire the Royal Charter which, in May, 1670 granted the lands of the Hudson Bay watershed to "the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay."

In New England, in the mid 1700’s, began the phenomenon of the Yankee Peddler, in which peddlers would travel in their cart home to home throughout the countryside, selling their wares.

From there evolved the concept of the door-to-door salesman. The Watkins Company was launched in 1868, selling a popular liniment. The late 1800s saw the spawning of new companies employing door-to-door salesmen to distribute bibles, books, spices, remedies, perfumes, tonics and the like. The California Perfume Company, which later became better known as Avon, was founded in the late 1800s.

The Fuller Brush Company debuted in the early 1900s and it was Alfred Fuller who is credited with transforming door-to-door direct selling into something different. Rather than positioning himself as a salesman who sold brushes and focusing on the features of the brushes, he instead focused his attention on selling the benefits of his brushes to the consumers.

This is referred to as “empowering the consumer”.

His entire company vision was crafted in the context of the service he was able to provide to his customer. The approach was revolutionary.

The early 1900’s also saw the emergence of vacuum cleaner and encyclopedia companies such as Electrolux, World Book and Britannica.

It was a new age.

And that's where we'll pick up the story in Part 2.

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