I used to be a younique bot AMA

[HopelesslyHopeful87]

To my embarrassment, I did a stint as a younique rep in 2018.

Feel free to ask away

I am no longer affiliated with them and stopped being a presenter after about 8 months when I saw the light.

I am now anti MLM.

Was there one thing or event in particular that made you see the light?

@PinkPlantCase

Is there anything anyone could have said that would have helped you stop sooner?

Hmm, that's an interesting question.

I think the thing that made me make the active decision to throw in the towel was watching the BBC documentary about MLMs but I was certainly doubting things before I watched it.

I don't think anyone I knew personally telling me bad things about MLMs really would have made me stop. It was more about my own level of comfort. I'm quite a private person and to see how much people share on Facebook made me uncomfortable and I knew I couldn't push the envelope with that in terms of my own family and my own privacy.

Should there be some kind of warnings about this out there?
Some campaigns? Debt charities?
Warnings by people who come into contact with potentially vulnerable new mums who may get sucked in?
Basically what do you think could be done to help prevent this happening to people?

The chart is really confusing! What’s the £2000 company wholesale - the down line sales? Is that every month!

What was your upline like?

I think I younique managed to do a number on many people by making out it was so ethical and saving abused women, also by making out that it's products were nothing short of a miracle when in reality it was utter crap. I didn't sell it myself but had friends that did and one got really obsessed and ended up owning every product they produced in every colour before the realisation hit and I bought some from another friend. Most was terrible but I did like the eyebrow pencils. Did you actually like and believe in the products or did you have to lie/exaggerate to sell them, and do you still use any?

Fascinating topic, thank you for posting.

Were you into/good at makeup to start with? Did you feel that you always needed to look flawless and perfectly made up everywhere you went, to be a good 'model' for the brand?

How many people did you recruit?

Do you think MSM should be banned?

@lastrolo10

Should there be some kind of warnings about this out there? Some campaigns? Debt charities? Warnings by people who come into contact with potentially vulnerable new mums who may get sucked in? Basically what do you think could be done to help prevent this happening to people?

Yes there should be but I don't know how that could be implemented or policed without the MLM companies suing these people creating the warnings. I think desperate people are preyed upon to join the businesses and I think even if there were warnings out there then maybe people wouldn't even listen to them.

The MLM companies actively encourage you to buy these products so I'd like to see a disclaimer on the checkout pages of the websites telling their presenters that if they are purchasing for themselves then to ensure they truly can financially afford it, a bit like on gambling sites: when the fun stops kind of thing.

Yes so the top line is personal sales. Then underneath is company wholesale so the entire team you've recruited including your own every month in order to requalify as that colour status.

If you don't requalify then you don't drop down a level and lose it, you stay recognised as that colour but the thrill of chasing a new colour status is a thing. It's an adrenaline rush especially on the last days of each month to see how close you are and subconsciously you set yourself targets to beat your last month all the time.

As you get further up the ranks you have to hit further targets by having a certain number of people on your team that have reached a certain level. So you can see it shows you need so many orange, green, purple underneath you to hit black etc.

@MusicTeacherSussex

What was your upline like?

Very different from me as a person. Very well off to begin with. My upline was at orange or green status when she recruited me, I can't remember which exactly and she clearly needed more people on her tram hitting pink and blue in order for her to progress to purple. It wasn't until I stopped doing it that the lighbulb switched on and I realised I was just more numbers for her. But on the flip side, she was poached by someone above her and hasn't seen the light. She genuinely believes the "opportunity" that was presented to her to join younique has changed her life.

I'm still friends with her on Facebook but I don't buy the products and she doesn't try to sell to me. I don't really interact with many of her posts because I can tell when she's trying to get more likes and comments.

She's a lovely enough person just seems very driven by making "friends" but I don't see how she can have that many genuine friendships.

@liveforsummer

I think I younique managed to do a number on many people by making out it was so ethical and saving abused women, also by making out that it's products were nothing short of a miracle when in reality it was utter crap. I didn't sell it myself but had friends that did and one got really obsessed and ended up owning every product they produced in every colour before the realisation hit and I bought some from another friend. Most was terrible but I did like the eyebrow pencils. Did you actually like and believe in the products or did you have to lie/exaggerate to sell them, and do you still use any?

The NYX micro brow pencil is better and cheaper if you want a high street alternative.

I did exaggerate the benefit of some of the products yes. For example, the mascara is meant to be a holy grail of mascaras and its marketed at curling and lifting and lengthening. I used to have to use a heated lash curler beforehand to even get it to show up on camera and lie that I didn't need to use a curler. I would often use another brand mascara underneath it to make it look better. The concealer is so cakey and heavy. The only product I liked was a powder foundation but its been discontinued since. I do not use any of the products at all now.

@Hoesbeforebroes

Fascinating topic, thank you for posting.

Were you into/good at makeup to start with? Did you feel that you always needed to look flawless and perfectly made up everywhere you went, to be a good 'model' for the brand?

I've always worn basic day to day makeup but no I wasn't very good at it before I joined, and still aren't now really. No I didn't need to look flawless all the time. As a presenter you're encouraged to show your natural, bare face a lot as then the transformation with their products, particularly the foundation, looks better on camera when you post a before and after.

@MimiDaisy11

How many people did you recruit?

Do you think MSM should be banned?

I think I recruited maybe 3 or 4 people but they didn't all actively sell. A lot of people buy the kit and then do nothing and sell nothing. They're referred to as kitnappers. I think only one that I recruited is still actively presenting but she doesn't do very well in sales.

Do/did you buy lots of make-up yourself (generally, not younique) before thinking about this? If you have to sell £125 a month and you have, what, say 12 friends as an estimate who might be regular purchasers- that's all of them having to spend at least £10 every single month.

When I buy a make-up product it usually lasts me several months so unless I was buying a whole range from Younique (foundation etc is v tricky/ personal as well) I would've stopped to think whether even the bare minimum was sustainable.

Did you estimate beforehand how many regular customers you might have, and how many did you actually have?

Ime lots of friends dutifully buy one mascara or something to be polite then don't want anything else.

And yes I do think it should be banned but they don't even call themselves MLMs. They refer to themselves as network marketers, like they've been and got a marketing degree or something. They're offered "training courses" to improve their marketing skills but I never did these and I can't imagine they teach any proper skills that would be transferable into an actual marketing job for a brand or company.

@LanaDelBoy

Do/did you buy lots of make-up yourself (generally, not younique) before thinking about this? If you have to sell £125 a month and you have, what, say 12 friends as an estimate who might be regular purchasers- that's all of them having to spend at least £10 every single month.

When I buy a make-up product it usually lasts me several months so unless I was buying a whole range from Younique (foundation etc is v tricky/ personal as well) I would've stopped to think whether even the bare minimum was sustainable.

Did you estimate beforehand how many regular customers you might have, and how many did you actually have?

Ime lots of friends dutifully buy one mascara or something to be polite then don't want anything else.

This is a good question because a lot of the time we would have little internal competitions within the group of presenters so who could sell the most mascaras in a month or who could sell ten of the monthly special bundles the quickest and they would win prizes from the uplines.

You won't find many products that are under £20. And you're actively encouraged to make as many friends as possible. So if I started out with ten friends, probably only one or two would buy from me so you start offering a free mascara if they host an online party. They invite all their friends to this party then as a presenter you interact with all their friends and make friends with them. You do this so many times a month and you're easily adding hundreds of new friends a month. Then you have to talk to them, interact with them, keep posting about the products and in time they might become a customer. You're right in that people might only buy one thing once out of courtesy so that's why you have to keep adding new people to keep that flow of purchases. It is A LOT of effort.

I did have regular customers who would buy the special bundles every month. And also you can break them down so if a bundle for example had a mascara, an eyeliner and a foundation in, they would be discounted into the bundle, not at their individual sale price so I could sell each item to one person, so three customers are getting a discount but I'm actually ordering one bundle. Or I did also do raffles where people send money to cover the price of tickets which add up to the total value of a bundle and the winner gets the bundle. So your personal sales go up that way. Raffles are actually banned in younique though so they were hush hush and not publicly advertised because I would have been removed as a presenter if the big bods found out I had done them but you get so desperate for sales you consider anything.

Do/did you have a partner who you effectively relied on financially? I think a lot of the time, they prey on sahms who have a working partner who can afford to take up the slack, or absorb any losses, so it's less noticeable that the seller isn't doing so well financially. If so, what did they think of it all?

Did you go to any big events where they make out everyone is super rich? There was one mentioned on here a few weeks ago about an MLM company who'd supposedly taken all their workers to the Maldives.

@APerfectSky

Do/did you have a partner who you effectively relied on financially? I think a lot of the time, they prey on sahms who have a working partner who can afford to take up the slack, or absorb any losses, so it's less noticeable that the seller isn't doing so well financially. If so, what did they think of it all?

Did you go to any big events where they make out everyone is super rich? There was one mentioned on here a few weeks ago about an MLM company who'd supposedly taken all their workers to the Maldives.

Yes at the time I had a partner. He "let" me get on with it and didn't say much about it tbh. That is definitely who they prey on. Youre told to try and recruit the SAHM who post on Facebook about how hard their kids are or how they want to go back to work but can't afford nursery fees etc and this is sold as an ideal way to "start your own business" from home and work around your children.

I never went to any events. They have day events, conventions, training days etc but I didn't go to them as they were always far away and my DD was a baby at the time.

The holidays are actually a thing. There is a qualifying period across the course of a year where you get points given to you for certain things. So many points for a new recruit, so many points for total sales, bundles sold etc. If you hit a certain number of points you qualify for the reward trip. I'd say you'd never see anyone below blue status on these trips because they rely heavily on so many sales and new recruits so by the time you've qualified for the trip you'll have gone up the colour ranks. They are not aimed at new recruits at all but the new recruits are told that if they work hard enough they could qualify for them. This is true in part, obviously, but they won't be new by the time they get to it.

The trips are marketed as all inclusive it I don't think they are. My upline won a couple of these a couple of years on the trot. 4 days cruise in cancun I think one was and I heard on the grapevine that she had to pay for her own flights and connections. The cruise itself was paid for and some meals but she would definitely have needed substantial spends while she was there. The whole thing looked horrendous to me and I would never have gone if I'd have won it.

@APerfectSky or another sideline

“Friend” of mine who allegedly is so successful due to a perfumes MLM scam bred her dog and sold several puppies. As she sold them at inflated lockdown dog prices she made several thousand

Yes the presenters often have another sideline that makes money or a partner that funds their lifestyle so they can pretend their income is coming from younique sales and show themselves paying for things with their 'purple card'. This attracts new recruits. The more new recruits they have that actively sell, the more money they make off their sales and thats where you start making money. I think once you get to pink status you earn 20% of your downline sales and i think it increases. I'll try and find the percentage chart for that.

A quick Google of the compensation plan churned up this very pro younique article but it explains it all. I never really got as far as earning money from my recruits so it never really went into my brain. It can be quite complicated.

charlottebakeronline.wordpress.com/tag/younique-compensation-plan/

[quote HopelesslyHopeful87]A quick Google of the compensation plan churned up this very pro younique article but it explains it all. I never really got as far as earning money from my recruits so it never really went into my brain. It can be quite complicated.

charlottebakeronline.wordpress.com/tag/younique-compensation-plan/[/quote]
Bloody hell, who can be arsed with all that?! You seem switched on and articulate, OP, so tbh I'm surprised you got into this in the first place! I can certainly see from that link the massive pressure ppl must feel to maintain a certain level and not get "terminated" - the temptation to buy your own stock must be incredible.

I am quite ashamed of myself 😂

Genuinely embarrassed tbh. I sent someone a genuine unrelated private message on Facebook the other week and I hadn't spoken to them for a couple years. Turns out the last message I sent them was trying to get them to buy some makeup and I cringed at myself.

I'm not judging, honest! Someone in my family did this for quite a while (wasn't pushy at all though, and seemed to like the products, did decent videos etc. But if I'm spending £20-30 on a makeup product it's gonna be Clinique or YSL or something!)