Many marketers involved in an MLM opportunity make the big mistake of discounting the value of customers to their business and instead concentrate 100% on amassing a huge downline. This tactic besides bringing a bad name to the whole industry can hurt the distributors who practice it, both short and long-term, in their efforts to succeed. If you incorporate product sales to you business model there are a lot of advantages that a customer base can bring.

It's easier to sell the product than the opportunity.

100% of the people are buying products while only a small percentage may be interested in starting their own business. Those who say otherwise probably never tried to sell one.

You have less competition.

Since most distributors are putting almost a 100% of their effort into recruiting new members into their organization forgetting about the sales, practically you won't have any competition when you try to push the product.

It brings more stability to your income.

These days, with all those opportunity seekers hopping from one opportunity to another chasing the next big thing, to try to build an organization is like trying to fill a bucket full of holes. On the other hand it's easier to acquire loyal customers, despite the big number of products that are chasing his wallet, than to retain a distributor. What's more it's even easier to build a stream of traffic on the web that you can convert to sales without worrying to much about the performance of your downline.

It gives you credibility.

Imagine someone trying to persuade you to join his business opportunity promising you that he would help you to make money and become financially free and all you have to do is to let him teach you. Yet he doesn't still make a dime from his business. Would you let him teach you how to become successful like him?

It helps you to recruit more people.

Imagine two people trying to recruit you and while the first one still struggles without making any profit the second one has a nice income coming from his business to show off. Whom you would choose? If you only concentrate on getting distributors you can run into a paradox. If you have no downline you make no money and if you make no money no one would join under you. They only way to get out of it is by selling products.

You can better help those you sponsor.

Since you already make money from customers you can teach those you sponsor how to do so, helping them getting quicker into profits which leads to..

Your downline gets motivated.

Bringing your first dollar home is the turning point where your business gets into a self sustained motion and growth. The feeling you get from your small victory motivates you to work harder and as a result you become more successful and more motivated to keep on moving forward.

Less distributors would quit.

When you have motivated people in your downline that are making a profit the number of those who quit gets smaller. You no longer have to fight the attrition that is associated with the MLM industry. And finally..

You make more money.

What's better? 1000 distributors in your organization which are struggling to make a profit bringing you $10 each every month while you put most of your energy in trying to prevent them from quiting or 100 hard working self motivated ones bringing you $1000 each? Having a big downline with hundreds of distributors is no guarantee that you would make a lot of money. A smaller but more efficient team who knows what is doing is a better guarantee and can bring you more money while you won't have to worry for any dropouts.