Network Marketing in Asia

Many network marketers are looking to Asia as a place where they can look into to grow their business. This indeed is a smart move for a whole lot of reasons. Afterall, the countries with the world’s largest populations - China and India, are both in Asia.

In doing so however, business builders must also note the cultural differences between Asian and Western countries, and this does have effect in the way the MLM business is run in the two different regions. Just as an example, the people in Asia stay closer to their families than those in the Western countries. It is common practice in Western countries that children live away from their parents when they go to college, or graduate from college. But in countries like Singapore and Malaysia, we stick on with our parents for as long as we can… until we finally find a partner and get married.

So what does this mean?

This means that the people in Asia might be exposed to more family influence than those staying in the Western regions and the first consumers of the distributed product which a mid-twenty aged distributor brings home will most probably be the parents, and his or her siblings.

This also means that the first opinion about that the new distributors will get is from these people. In fact, one might be so eager to want to share the business plan with his or her family members, even before learning how to present the plan well. This might be good if the family is open to business of such nature, and really disasterous if not!

How do you overcome this?

I’ve always believed that network marketing is not a distribution business, but a training business. The right education is essential and in fact, critical, for the success of a team. Before your new distributor goes home on the day he signs up, be sure to properly prepare him with a plan, and tell him what to expect!