It is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of the other salespeople that they recruit. This recruited sales force is reffered to as the participant's 'downline' , and can provide multiple levels of compensation. Other terms used for MLM include pyramid selling, network marketing and refferal marketing. Most commonly, the salespeople are expected to sell products directly to consumers by means of relationship referrals and word-of-mouth marketing.