To ask how much you earned from a MLM?

[Cinderellashoes]

Not because I’m thinking of joining - I’ve read Elle Beau’s blog! But because I’ve had about ten people (no joke) message me over the last 2 weeks. Distant family members, ex colleagues and people I have on Facebook but haven’t spoken to for years!

I’ve been offered the body shop, Essens, FM perfumes, younique (which I didn’t even realise is still going!), some form of weight loss stuff and skin care stuff.

My sister in law is selling the perfumes. She’s just posted on Facebook that her extra income has paid for a new sofa yet I know her mom and dad brought it for her

So I was just wondering how much do these people actually earn? I can’t see her selling enough perfumes to pay for a £1000 sofa!!

So I was a Stella & Dot Stylist (have name changed for anonymity) for about 5 years. I definitely made money and I used to enjoy doing the parties. It got me out if the house and because I live next to an affluent area I did quite well. Lots of private schools and disposable income here.
The most I ever made a year was nearly 10k and most of that was near to Xmas. I’m good at sales though and in my opinion the jewellery and bags were nice, they had a good returns policy so if anything broke they would always replace with new.
Have to say I always liked pampered chef too still have loads of bits in my kitchen that lasted and are good quality.
I’ve read the MLM blogs and do agree that a lot of the time people are targeted and I don’t like the lying and the fake it until you make it rubbish.

my SIL ended up in minus figures, unsurprisingly

I'm being absolutely bombarded with Tropic at the moment. The products seem very nice, but it feels very MLM to me, even though the people I know who are involved all completely deny it.

Tropic is MLM. The only people making money out of it are Susie Ma and Alan Sugar, I suspect.

@Maireas where have you got a product lady 10 years from? I don't know what you're talking about.

Lasted

Someone on my Facebook has just started one selling children’s books
She just did a ‘raffle’ where you pay to enter and the prize is a gift voucher for her products.

The only people that entered were her immediate family and the person that won (her mum) spent £9 on raffle numbers to win a £10 voucher. Bargain.

Debbie was telling us she did an MLM ten years ago and still had some of the products. I thought it can't be cosmetics, so am guessing kitchen gear.

I made -£3,000 + over 3 years with Younique. Yes, that is MINUS more than 3K. But when it's spread over that length of time, it doesn't feel that much. I only worked it out when I was asked to after leaving and, because my Dad drummed into me to always keep receipts, I was able to see how much I spent on products, training and so on. While I was in it, I never thought to look at what I was spending to stay active vs what was actually coming in.

Jasmin that is shocking. It shows how easy it is not to be aware of the expense.

In recommend ‘The Dream’ podcast for an in-depth overview and history of MLM, also some undercover work as well.

Wow some really interesting replies!! I have asked my SIL how much she’s made but we aren’t close and she gave me an airy fairy answer about how she’s working more, fitting it round her proper job etc. It all just sounds a bit robotic because all the groups I’ve been added to in the last few weeks are saying the same thing! Been furloughed, just want some extra cash to treat yourself, etc etc. Free to join! Message me to find out how!!

She’s been running ‘raffles’ £2 a go, 50 numbers for a 20 quid bottle of perfume. Who pockets the £30 - SIL?

Sorry that’s £1 a go

You won't get an honest straight answer. If you've read Elle's blog you'll be familiar with their "fake it 'til you make it" mantra.

If you want to know about MLMs I suggest you read the MLM threads on Money Matters on here.

They will sell their soul to get a sale. My goddaughter's mother was approached by a friend, an MLM bot wanting to sell her aloe vera products. My friend explained she was too busy coping with her daughter who had been diagnosed with cancer. The MLM bot told her 'oh you need to buy my products, aloe vera cures cancer.' which is a blatant lie. I don't think you can go much lower than that.

My goddaughter died age 17 shortly after and I would have loved to contact that piece of shit and tell her what I think of her.

I did Kleeneze for nearly a year about 3 yrs ago. I didn't target any friends or family at all. I made approx £100-£150 per month after petrol costs. BUT the amount of time I put into it meant my hourly rate of pay was very very low

In precovid times I had stalls at craft/Christmas fairs, and hated being out next to MLMs as they were so hard sell, and would give everyone who walked past, the same spiel. Some of these fairs were 6 hours long, and it drive me mad.

The worst were Forever Living. I’ve no idea if they’re still around today, but the sellers would tell people they could cure everything, and people were happy to pay. It didn’t seem to matter what ailment the customer had (and I personally heard cancer, eczema, obesity, and adhd being talked about), this snake oil would definitely cure it. A box cost over £40, and some people bought bags full. I hope people who sold it feel ashamed now.

My DH is friends with a body shop rep on social media as they work together in a proper job. She put up loads of posts about how she’d treated herself to an expensive thing with her body shop bonus, and even had money left over after paying for it. Then the delivery of said expensive thing went wrong and she posted all of her conversations with the company, moaning about her lot, and accidentally including details of her ‘buy now, pay later in instalments’ plan she’d bought it on. And still people are falling for her ‘I’ll pm you hun’ bollocks. It’s infuriating.

A friend of mine quit her part-time job to do Younique. I don’t know if she actually made any money, but she always posted her sales on her FB and there weren’t many. I heard she quit to do another MLM with essential oils. The Younique look is terrible. It’s so harsh.

My nail tech has her own little salon next door to her house. Yesterday i had my nails done and there were loads of orders in row waiting for collection. She doesn’t have to work hard to get buyers as her clients buy lots. Ive bought FM from her and really do like them. She must be doing OK by the bags i saw, and she is a grafter.

I did Avon for a while when my kids were much younger and some months I would make £50/£60 but it was a lot of work for not much profit.
My friend does it still but she just sends out the online brochure and you can order direct so she doesn’t have to trudge round the streets delivering and collecting brochures (which cost you money anyway)
I did get a message in lockdown from someone I used to know about 8 yrs ago along the lines of ‘Hi, how are you?!! Been so long! Oh and here’s my Avon online brochure’
Yeah, erm don’t think so bruv.

Many years ago I did Virgin Vie cosmetics for a few months. In the end I broke even - I kept a meticulous spreadsheet of expenses versus sales - but as I loved cosmetics I was very happy with the huge hoard of products I also gained.

It also taught me to respect those who were gifted at selling.I wasn't but did reasonably well selling to friends and family to begin with. I gave up after a really tricky party of a friend of a friend - I hadn't tried the self tanner beforehand and it was a lot darker than I thought it would be so a bit unfortunate on the makeover and then trying to punt the spf for ski holidays on a definitely non ski holiday audience misfired.

My neighbour did Avon for a few years and I don't think of that as an MLM as it does seem to be more just around selling reasonably priced products.

I thought it was a bit dishonest of my SIL to use a photo of her new sofa in her ‘join my team’ posts which are pretty much daily! She specifically said she paid for it from her perfumes but I know for a fact it was a present! I thought why be dishonest? If you’re actually earning money be honest about what you earn?

Because they don’t make money, they lose money, and try to drag their friends/others down with them by looking as though they’re making money. Hence the sofa.

I got into Arbonne about 3-4 years ago. Made no money but lost over £800. Then I was pressured to spend more money about £800 every month in order to stay at district manager. I couldn’t recruit people, I’m not good at pressuring so when someone says no I leave them alone but my up line was constantly on my case. I realised very quickly it wasn’t for me and when I get too much pressure I lose interest so I was only involved for about 3 months or so. It isn’t for me. I did my research on MLM’s after all this and learnt that I had been in one lol

I think people could do well but only when willing to put in a lot of money and if you’re really good at convincing people to join your team. Once you get plenty of people in your team and spending money that basically starts paying your income.
You need to be pretty high up to actually earn a living though and when a pyramid scheme is pretty much established it’s very hard to get high up.

Loads of interesting videos about MLM’s on YT. There’s one called MLM Cults or something.

I used to do Pampered Chef but it was over 10 years ago. I think I used to make about £30-£50 a party after expenses. I never got to a point of wanting to recruit a team but they were always fairly honest that if you want to make full time money that’s what you needed to do. The person who recruited me did use to make about £2500 a month but showed me her figures and £500 was from selling and £2000 was from commission from her team. She had about 25 team members and also got commission from any of the people they went on to recruit. She was a bit like a cult leader though, very much “pampered chef saved my life”!!

To be fair although there stuff was expensive it’s good quality I still have and use all of the kitchen stuff from my kit and SIL still raves about her potato masher.