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MLM: what does it really mean?

What exactly is an MLM? I’m here to give it to you straight: an MLM is a pyramid scheme, just slightly more legal. Here’s why MLM’s are so predatory.

One day last year I was out running, listening to podcasts as usual. I found a new one called The Dream, and holy shit did it grab my attention right from the beginning. A lot of what I write here will parallel the information discussed on the podcast, but this post is all born of my own experience. (Highly, highly recommend you listen to the podcast by the way)

Their research into the world of direct sales really hit home for me.

I was intrigued, because I had, embarrassingly, joined a network marketing company this past year in hopes that it would allow me to stay home with my kids.

I won’t ramble on and on, bore you with the details of why and how I joined. I am certain it was the exact same way you came to join a direct sales business, if you have. I will just say that I was fooled.

I was lured in with the promise of replacing my full time income (which, at the time was pretty good for someone my age. I had been promoted within my company 3 times in as many years, and was making a good living).

I was promised ‘the dream’. See what I did there?

As I am sure many of you were as well, if you too have been part of a direct sales company.

Mindset over Matter

From the very beginning, you are taught to ‘change your mindset’. Taught to believe in the power of manifestation, that you can achieve anything if you just want it badly enough.

If you just believe hard enough….

All you have to do is visualize it, and before you know it, you’re rich and skinny and your life is perfect.

But we all know that that isn’t true. If it were, America wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic. Or a poverty one, for that matter.

You’ll only fail if you don’t try.

These direct sales companies not only encourage you to seek out a higher mindset, they tell you that if you aren’t succeeding you just aren’t trying hard enough.

You’re just not reaching out to enough people. You aren’t messaging everyone you know on Facebook to see if they’re interested. Have you reached out to everyone in your contact list? How about those people who ‘liked’ your photo on Facebook?

Oh, this is my favorite technique that was taught to us in my company. They would present it as a “challenge”, to see who could get the most sales.

You were challenged to change your profile picture on Facebook, and then send a message to every single person who liked it asking them if they had any interest in the business or products.

Can you even imagine? Being that person? How about being on the receiving end of that?

Can you imagine if every time you liked someone’s profile picture, you got a message asking you to buy their products? Oh, wait. This has probably actually happened to you.

It’s all about the stories.

Part of the “sales training” done by women who are “successful” (in quotes because, most of these successes are women who joined the companies when they first began- thus, naturally, all of the consultants after them created this success for them just by signing up. So not by any hard work or entrepreneurial spirit), is to ‘tell good stories’.

They preach that instead of answering questions about the business directly, just ‘tell them a story about someone who has been successful’. Learn to be a great story teller, and you’re guaranteed to sign up hundreds of people in your downline.

You’re an Entrepreneur, baby.

The idea that if you join a network marketing company, you are now a business owner is just ludicrous to me.

You don’t own a business. You work for one.

I know that there are direct sales business, like a certain legging company, whose consultants invest tens of thousands of dollars on inventory and essentially own their own clothing boutiques.

I know that it might be easy to feel like you own a company if you’ve invested $10,000 and have a house full of clothes that you are now responsible for selling to make that money back.

I know it is easy to fall victim to the promise of owning your own business, because I did.

But, do you think that the owners of that legging company care if you ever sell one pair of those leggings? I would argue that they don’t.

They’ve already sold their product. To you. They’ve made their money, whether you ever sell one product.

That skincare company doesn’t care if you sell a single face wash, as long as you convince your friends and family to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the products or ‘business opportunity’, or both in most cases.

In the company that I was a part of, there was an option to sign up for $45. But, you were discouraged from doing so. You were discouraged from signing anyone onto the business with that $45 kit. I mean, that makes sense, because nobody is making any money off of a $45 kit.

You’re hardly making a commission on that, and the company is definitely not making any substantial money on that lower kit.

Instead, you’re encouraged to sign people up with the bigger kits. Convince them that they’ll make their money back, because they will just sell the contents of their kit. Easy peasy!

I spent $700 on my starter kit. I made back $200 of it. As soon as I got it in the mail, I peddled the ridiculous amount of products inside to all of my friends and family. Sending out message along the lines of “Hey! I have this top of the line skincare and I can offer it to you at a great discount!!”

My mom and aunt bought one thing each for $100 a pop. Those were the only two things I ever sold from that kit. I ended up keeping the rest, and it sat around on my shelf for 6 months before I traded it with another consultant for a different product. An even trade. No money was made there.

I always felt dirty trying to convince people to sign up with these bigger kits. I live in a small, rural area. We’re not brimming with millionaires in this town, that’s for sure. Who has that kind of cash to just throw down on some skincare or leggings? It seemed so backwards to me, which you can see even in that brainwashed article I wrote this past summer.

If you’re wanting to make extra money from home or replace the income you already have, why would it make sense that you have an extra $1000 lying around to play with?

I was always morally conflicted about this, so I never did sign anyone up under me. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell my friends and family that I was making ‘so much money’ with this company, or that it would change their lives. Because, I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t. It hadn’t changed my life, not in the way that they promised it would.

My biggest paycheck ever was for $264 dollars for the entire month.

And I hustled the shit out of that business for that paycheck. Which wasn’t even enough to cover my car payment, by the way.

Now, I’m not knocking $264. I paid a few small bills with it, which was helpful of course. But that isn’t ‘I can quit my job now’ kind of money by any means.

At this point, I’m about 8 months pregnant with my son. I have a daughter who’s about to turn five, and I’ve started a blog and graphic design business. I have a home, two vehicles, and a lot of bills to pay.

I had quit my real job back in February, convinced that this direct sales company was going to make me rich.

I was so sure of it, I walked away from my job just two weeks after signing up.

For perspective, here is the Income Disclosure Statement from my company in 2018. It’s shocking. (And if you’re wondering, almost all MLM companies have something called an Income Disclosure Statement that is available for public viewing. Just Google it!)

R+F Income Disclosure Statement

So, here I was- about to be a mom of two, with the same amount of bills I’d always had, but now half the income. We were living on just my husband’s income, until I started making money with my blog and design business.

During this time, we struggled. We struggled more than I’ll ever admit to anyone.

My husband makes good money, but our bills are high and we have children to care for. It was hard. Harder than I’d like to admit.

I am so embarrassed to talk about any of this, because I should have known better.

But I am going to talk about it, because it’s important.

It’s important to be educated on these direct sales businesses and the elaborate schemes they are running. It is so easy to fall victim, even for someone like me.

If I can be convinced that ‘this is direct sales, not a pyramid scheme’ then anyone can.

I consider myself a smart person. I’m educated, I have a lot of life experience. I knew all about pyramid schemes. Someone had once tried to convince me to join Amway years before. The biggest pyramid scheme of all time. But I was still lured in, I still tricked myself into believing that this was going to change my life.

It’s a common story, mine. But unfortunately, some people aren’t as lucky as I am to only have lost about $1,000. I’ve heard stories of women losing upwards of $50,000 to companies like these. It’s just absolute insanity that these kinds of scams are still abundant in 2018.

I hope that more people will start to speak out about this. I hope that more people will educate themselves about these ‘direct sales, mlm, network marketing’ companies and how they actually work.

If you liked this post, I’d love for you to share on Facebook!

Stay sexy and don’t join a pyramid scheme, friends! Hi, fellow murderinos! 😉

XO, M

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