How much do people make from the MLM schemes?

[StunnerNotReally]

My facebook suddenly has loads of women doing these.
Body shop and Tropic and the perfume one.

There was a lady at soft playing selling Bodyshop at Home stuff a while ago. She came round all the tables and gave a spiel about how she used to do X job full time, and has made more money from body shop over a few hours a week than she did In her last full time job. She was giving away free samples in exchange for your email address where she would send you info on how to join. I felt a bit sorry for her as she was there for hours and no-one bought anything or seemed that interested, but it was also irritating- I was there on my own to let my 3 year old run off steam while I sat exhausted with the baby and drank coffee, and didn’t want to be hassled by her really. Though I was polite and said I wasn’t interested, and she did in fairness leave me alone. Honestly though, if you’re really making that much money selling product, then this whole recruitment drive would clearly not be necessary- so unless she’s brilliant at building her team, I don’t see how it could be true.

Our area is flooded with Body Shop consultants. I also know someone doing Scentsy and a few Avons.i just can't cope with the fake positive vibes, #bossbabe and the obvious lies about how well they're doing.

I also follow a travel one who is going on about the 'boom'. I don't know whether to be angry at her for trying to recruit people right now or pity her.

Just checked the young living, essential oils and it is an mlm. The first lady that promoted them strikes me as quite alternative so I didnt twig straight away as it seemed something she would be into. ....but when another one (that I dont know) popped up with the same spiel I got suspicious

My friend does Juice Plus, she has quite a few people in her team... she achieved a £2k bonus the other day.

I’ve wondered this a woman on my Facebook has done it for ages, she started juice plus and now does one about weight loss coffee or some crap.
She posts new designer handbags she bought a new car was saving for an apartment. Then before Xmas she wrote a long status saying she had to move back in with her mom because of a relationship problem. Understandable. But I feel she posts online her bags she’s bought with I suspect uni money (she’s studying) and her big shopping sprees and it just felt like she had added up debt and couldn’t afford rent but fuck knows

Obviously there are some people making good money.

I don't do any of these but a close friend is a Tropic "Ambassador" and does really well out of it, earns around £1.3k a month from it which isn't bad for a side hustle.

If you are expecting to become a millionaire from one of these things I think you would do best to think up your own business idea

@RonObvious you’re right, those Arbonne earnings are shockingly low, though I’m not so sure that Arbonne is that open. Those income disclosures only show the figures for active distributors so there are a whole heap of people who lost money signing up to Arbonne and dropped out within a year who aren’t showing. These numbers are before expenses too. When the people losing money early are added to the active people losing money, breaking even or making small amounts then the percentage of those losing rises above 99% (see the work of Jon Taylor www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2006/07/522418-12585.pdf

@lockdownalli is your Tropic friend doing it as an aside to another business, for example owning a beauty salon and selling/using Tropic there? How long has she been doing it?

Obviously there are some people making good money.

Obviously there are some people SAYING they make good money.
Obviously there are some people confusing sales with profit.
Obviously there are some downright liars.

The obvious thing is that 99% of people DON'T make anything like "good money". They break even, or lose, or make less than £50 a year.

It's unlikely that by a fluke everyone on MN knows people in that 1%. Draw your own conclusions.

One of the more successful bots I know from Arbonne has started putting a disclaimer at the bottom of her posts about how amazing her lifestyle is. 'there are no guarantees, results are different for everyone, annual typical earnings statement available at ...'. hmmm, methinks someone got into trouble at Arbonne for promising the world

@Constantlurker Arbonne HQ got into trouble with the Federal Trade Commission in the US and have received a letter to tell them to stop making false claims. There’s some desperate firefighting going on within Arbonne. I think Arbonne U.K. is in trouble, they are 9 months past their accounting deadline with HMRC and were late delivering their confirmation statement. Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve gone tits up.

@MulticolourMophead here’s a list of MLM
mlmtruth.org/master-list/

[quote YouokHun]@lockdownalli is your Tropic friend doing it as an aside to another business, for example owning a beauty salon and selling/using Tropic there? How long has she been doing it?[/quote]
Sort of. She has three jobs.

One normal part time employed post.
One SE job which involves various types of therapy.
The Tropic ambassador stuff.

Her main income is from the employed post which has absolutely nothing to do with that kind of business, but does mean she has regular contact with potential clients of the other two businesses I guess.

@SockYarn
I can't speak for others, and I agree there are probably loads who claim to earn £10k a month from MLM. However, I do know for a fact that £1.3k is my friend's average earnings from Tropic. I have provided a financial service to her which involved me having evidence of her income.

Sorry - forgot to add, she has been doing it for about three years and has a "Team" working under her. Not sure if that's the right terminology

What’s an “SE” job? @lockdownalli ? By therapy do you mean psychotherapy - I hope not as getting MLM clients from that world is very unethical! I have noticed that Tropic seems to operate in a similar world to Arbonne in that it’s done by people with reasonable financial standing and they often have a social network of people who will drop £80 on a face cream so it can be quite successful early on, though of course those people may not want or need product on a consistent basis, so it does tend to tail off after a few months. The only way to make bigger sums in a somewhat consistent way is to build a large downline. Your friend has likely started to build a team who are boosting her income through their purchases. She’s still propping up the MLM by finding contacts through other jobs and I wonder whether her network would be enough without this piggybacking iyswim.

Cross post LockdownAlli!

[quote YouokHun]@MulticolourMophead here’s a list of MLM
mlmtruth.org/master-list/[/quote]
Thanks for this. I knew the list was out there but couldn't find it.

Self Employed

Don't want to say any more as worried about "outing" her but it's not psychotherapy. Think whale music......

Yeah, I would say most of her friends buy from her as we all love the products, although I am probably not quite as wealthy as some so tend to mix my purchases with stuff from Superdrug, Body Shop, Wherever.

I am not really concerned about the MLM side of it. I just buy it because it is great for my skin.

I never understand how this model works in this day and age, why would I buy something from a bodyshop representative rather than just buying it online from the body shop, or going into a store? It feels very old-fashioned

I am not really concerned about the MLM side of it. I just buy it because it is great for my skin.

The problem with this is that, as long as people are willing to ignore the exploitative business model (that targets primarily women, often in vulnerable circumstances), MLM businesses (the top umbrella business not the reps) will be able to continue to operate and profit. It is the existence of product which some external customers do buy (even though that's not where most of the money comes from) that keeps them just on the right side of legal.

Just seen this on Facebook from an Inteletravel bot. Pandemic? What pandemic

I can't believe Cambridge diet is an MLM

@TazSyd

The Arbonne White Mercedes got me. Apparently you sign a lease and pay for it each month - so not really a perk if you’re paying for it yourself.

From what i have seen from people i know who have the car, when you get to the third level you get an additional 500 quid from arbonne in your paycheck to take out the lease, that you dont get until you reach that level

The only way to make money is to 'recruit' others and gouge a percentage of their profits.

I know someone who has made some money out of one( the Forever aloe Vera stuff ) though a lot less than she presents to the world BUT a) she has been doing it for years and has lots of downline reports which is the only way to actually make money b) has the hide of a rhino about exploiting and alienating friends , acquaintance, contacts , anything that lives and breathes ) a background in straight sales d) two other income streams.

She’s an old friend from before she started on this malarkey and we ( others in this group) have had to say very forcefully to stop trying to push it if she wants to stay friends with us.

Steer clear.