When people on here say they have their own business....

[CurlewKate]

.....do they always mean MLM? Or only usually....

I am so pleased to read all this. IRL I know so many people who are in the grip of MLMs. Particularly Juice Plus for some reason. It cheers me up to know that people are running proper businesses.

Ear wax removal

Like PP said, MN is very middle-class so I wouldn't expect too many people on here to be involved in MLM because those companies target women in more financially precarious positions who might not otherwise have any opportunities for business ownership.

I own/run a research consultancy company.
DP owns/runs a biotech firm

Dream job! As I always tell my son’s audiologist. So satisfying 😂

No and it pisses me off that this question is being asked on a predominantly female site. Newsflash, many women have successful businesses and careers.

Why would you assume that op? I'm not but in my immediate circle 4 run business, accountancy, a bakery, Hr consultancy and one in advertising. All successful and no MLMs.

I think the vast majority of us on here with our own businesses are not in MLM. I also wouldn't class someone in MLM as having their own business.

Own business/self employment very much the norm for my circle/area/friends. Only know one person that got sucked into MLM, I did try to tell her but she’s out of it now.

I have a very well established, profitable small business - premises, employees, and products. No MLM, no chain. I’m not likely to be the next Alan Sugar but the majority of businesses I use are small, local, or family run.

Nope. Run a successful will writing business.

I think that must be just your circle OP. In real life most people run actual businesses (ours has been going 30 years). MLM bashing used to go on a lot on here a couple of years or so back but in real life I don’t think any of my friends would have heard of it or have a clue what it is. Obviously people do do it of course but that is not usually what running your own business means.

I own a restaurant

My business is nothing to do with MLM and I have run it successfully for over 25 years. I have three female friends who also run their own businesses, none of them are MLMs either.

Our neighbour currently has a female plumber doing some work. It is her own business although she employs a man occasionally. There is also a female-owned tree surgery business in our town.

Yeah tbh. If they insist on messaging you about it without telling you what the small business is then that’s what I’d assume

Newsflash, many women have successful businesses and careers

And just as many boss babe huns join the latest mlm fad and then go on about their 'business'. Ime it's usually women, you see relatively few men by comparison - so I can't see the problem with the post on a mainly female site.

This thread is hardly going to be representative is it, as an estimate of how many women actually have businesses vs the mlm huns who seem to be bloody everywhere.

Interesting what can be described as “running your own business” tho. I know someone who is described as such when the reality is a few cash in hand jobs here and there

No ! Job 1 - tech recruiter, Job 2 - VA for tech start up. All via my Ltd Co.

Fundraising consultancy.

Although it is a ltd company I always feel like a twat saying I have a business when I'm a one man band.

A lot of the ones who come on and say they've just started running their own business, how exciting it all is, and have questions about this and that - yes, often MLM or similar.

Otherwise, nope - most of us only happen to mention we're self-employed if it is totally relevant to the thread, and we don't usually mention it otherwise.

I sold my business 8 years ago but it was a franchise running children's performing arts classes.

My husband is a self employed instrumental teacher.

It's a pretty insulting question tbh. MLM is not all that women can do!

I'm a self-employed lawyer.

Same and if someone said they ran their own business I don’t think it would occur to me they meant MLM

sole trader in the entertainment industry here

I never see any MLM about anymore, No friends / Family / Facebook / Insta mentions ever now! Maybe it's died off since life returned after Covid... Anyho, Own business between DH and I, in the Events industry.

I don't see much MLM these days. I'm quite often seeing life coaching/success coaching/other non-job form of "coaching" scams as a more modern take on the MLM model though. Same sales patter and rhetoric, same pictures of people sitting in a cheap hot tub captioned "look how well I'm doing, book onto my next fake seminar and I'll show you how to do it". And the fake seminar is always 30% "describe the pain points in acute detail" then 70% "buy my course/pay for me to coach you/join my membership" while solving nothing. The manifesting/failure is down to your mindset/no negativity vibe is just as bad as in typical MLMs too.

Another total swindle predominantly targeting women, but I'm not seeing the same daylight on the issue yet.

Mumsnet banned MLM on its site a while back and with long running threads in Money Matters this is a hostile environment for victims of MLM to try and ply their trade or try and defend MLM.
The site is littered with the carcasses of those that have tried to say MLM is legitimate.

It’s not doing as well as an “industry” as it was a few years ago (aside from a temporary boost in recruitment during Covid) but it’s still pulling in people with beguiling promises of flexible working, potential high income and/or a socially inclusive, supportive, egalitarian environment fully of “friends for life”. No one mentions that the engine is recruitment and almost all the products are sold within the scheme, with the rewards for uplines paid when their recruits purchase not when they sell product, nor do they mention that 99.6% of all sign ups to MLM end up losing money.

It’s a real scandal these companies are not seen as the damaging pyramid schemes they are. In fact they do more damage than obvious pyramid schemes because they’ve managed to hoodwink people that they’re all about the product. I suspect no one is fussed about tackling them because their victims are usually young women who don’t have many options who seem to be complicit in their own downfall but they are being tricked by a legalised scam.

It’s really not “just as many” and it’s certainly not “all or usually” as stated in the OP.

A rude and offensive question designed to put women down and frankly makes me wonder about the mindset of people who seem to think few women are capable of being legitimate business owners.