彭博社：安利利用哈佛大学成就与中国的关系(8)

　　直销员
 

　　传统上，直销员通过跟消费者面对面销售货物，而不是通过商店。位于美国尤英的新泽西学院商学院院长Bill Keep说，“有许多这类公司采用一种叫做多层次营销（传销）的方式销售产品，他们的销售人员不仅通过销售产品赚钱，也通过招募位于其名下的新的销售人员获得报酬，取得基于其招募的人员所购买的产品而获得的奖金或者其他补偿”。

　　招聘和培训的负担落在了现在的销售人员身上，它实际上降低了母公司的固定成本，但是招募新人取得报酬的方式造成了金字塔传销形式的风险。

　　Bill Keep说，“这些都是在灰色区域，在合法营销方面，主要的目的是向消费者销售产品。在金字塔体系中，销售人员主要靠招募他人获得奖励。搞清楚销售人员的收入到底有多少是从销售给最终消费者这个渠道获取，还是从招募他人这个渠道获取，是区分这两种模式的关键。安利公司说他无法细分销售内容”。

　　Direct Sellers

　　Traditionally, direct sellers ply their wares to consumers face-to-face rather than through stores, says Bill Keep, dean of the business school at The College of New Jersey in Ewing. Many such companies employ something called multilevel marketing: Their salespeople earn money not only by selling products; they also get rewarded for recruiting more salespeople beneath them – – qualifying for bonuses or other compensation based on purchases made by those that they enlist, Keep says.

　　“The burden of recruiting and training is now on the salespeople, and it actually lowers fixed costs for the parent firm,” he says. “But that recruitment aspect of it carries the risk of pyramid-scheme behavior.”

　　Therein lies a gray area, Keep says. In legitimate marketing, the main purpose is to make sales to the consumer. In a pyramid scheme, salespeople are primarily rewarded for recruiting others, he says. Telling the difference between the two requires transparency about how much of salespeople’s earnings ultimately come from selling to consumers versus to recruits, he says. Amway says it doesn’t break down sales in that way.