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.

UW reps never just say they do UW - it’s always “I help people to fulfil their dreams through low-cost telecommunications and other utilities” or similar.

A UW rep posted on a fb town page about how she "wanted to help the community by offering a great opportunity". Me and a few others cottoned on immediately and started gently ribbing her, while pointing out the MLM risks.

She only went and made a personalised video to us!!! Saying how she was sorry we were in so much pain we needed to lash out at those trying to help others...but can't stop, need to dash off and help loads and loads of people who are waiting to live the UW dream! She then added #BeKind to the end.

More front than Blackpool!! It made my night!

My friend does body shop along side a proper job. I think she make a few hundred a month but it look like a lot of work. On FB daily, ordering stock, posting or driving to deliver it. So if you had the time and masses of effort I guess it works out around £10 ph ish which is ok to fit around kids and a FT job but it's hardly life changing

@Legoandloldolls you’re right, it’s a lot of effort. I reckon you’re being extremely generous in saying c.£10 an hour. Somewhere, I can’t remember where, a calculation was done that worked out that most distributors earn about 50 pence an hour once the true time cost is worked out and the real expenses factored in. There needs to be some account taken of the inconsistency of earnings. A £50 bonanza in one hour at some party followed by no sales for a week but still the same time spent slogging away. I think the ones consistently clearing £200 a month are working their socks off, especially as they’re usually working It around a legit job (With the legit job Very often propping up the MLM purchases I have found).

Travel Counsellors is the biggest

I don't get how this works. Is it just some bod sat on their computer searching deals for you?

I also find the name teethclenchingly bad. Why do I need "counselling" to book a holiday?

Why is Joe Bloggs sat at home a better bet than, say, Trailfinders who have staff who have actually travelled?

Minus zero.

People are turning to MLMs because they think it will make them extra money in lockdown. It won't.

Oh - what happened to Jamberry? (The nail stickers)

• A friend in Oz got caught up in that a few years ago (she has a ft job in banking so not sure why!) and I thought it seemed like a fun product.

And is Thermomix a mlm or a cult or what?
I don't want one but people who have them seem super-obsessed with trying to make everyone they know buy one too!

If it was just a case of selling a few bits part time and making some money then there wouldnt be a problem.

You have to question why these companies dont operate this way - why dont they employ people to do this on a commission basis or on a franchise style basis?

Why does their business model depend on recruiting more people to try to sell the same product to the same group of people you are trying to sell to?

@BuzzShitbagBobbly I don’t know much about Travel Counsellors (shit name!). With Inteletravel they are linked to another company called PlanNet Marketing which is a pure recruiting device for Inteletravel. It’s not about selling travel, it’s about selling the opportunity to be a travel agents. The last two “agents” I spoke two; one had never owned a passport the other had a passport but had never been to London let alone abroad, but that doesn’t matter, all that matters is that they sign up, pay their money, pay for their website, pay for training, pay an annual membership et etc. They ones allegedly doing well in Inteletravel recruit for PlanNet. They are recruiting quite a few victims by promising them there’s about to be a “travel boom” - it seems unlikely doesn’t it?!

There's an excellent podcast called 'The Dream' - its first season was all about MLMs, it goes into the history of them, right back to when pyramid schemes were a thing. The people working the pyramid schemes used the exact same methods of recruitment as MLMs do now. And they used the exact same 'reasons' on those at the bottom of the pyramid who lost money.

Think about it - no salesperson wants to lose market share by recruiting more salespeople in an area of limited demand.

But what if the 'product' is only there as a cover for what is really making the money? You earn 'commission' from your downlines. The further your downline stretches, the more you earn. It is mor eimportant to have a large downline than it is to sell product. This is a pyramid scheme.

99 per cent of people lose money in MLMs. You can make money in exactly the same way as you would make money in a pyramid scheme. Get in early and recruit - then encourage your recruits to recruit. Of course, this requires you to not care that these people will lose money so that you can make it.

If someone in your area is wanting you to join an MLM - you are not in early enough to make money, even if this was a morally acceptable way to do so.

Most boss babes make very little, otherwise why would so many of them end up working NMW paying jobs after?

Just as an aside as I've seen previous posters mentioning it, I've never lost money and don't have any stock, let alone a spare room full! But then I don't do parties or Xmas fairs and the like so its not needed.

I don’t think there will be a travel boom. Most people I know are struggling to get refunds from cancelled holidays and aren’t booking anything until they have received the money.

DP and I had this conversation a few weeks ago - we don’t want to risk being in the same situation again (being owed a grand for a cancelled holiday) or worse, get stuck abroad in another lockdown (especially as new insurance policies won’t cover corona related disturbances).

The only thing we are likely to book (if we are welcome in tourist areas) is something in the U.K. that we can drive to. We’ll also pay the slightly higher refundable rate for accommodation.

Travel Counsellors are largely people with travel industry experience who want to be self employed rather than work for a high street chain. The UK travel industry is run on a consortia model so independent agencies are members of large buying groups so they get great commercial terms. They have their own tour operation (as do lots of others) so can tailor make holidays and ATOL protect them.

It's a common myth on MN that its always cheaper to DIY holidays but it really isn't always the case. Large operations like these get preferential rates with hotels, airlines etc. There are also some great tour operators who dont sell direct to customers. Most independent agents are well travelled as they make their money from having great knowledge - MLM recruits think it's easy as they know how to use Sky Scanner. To give an example I'm on the supplier side of the industry. The price we give agents is the same as the price of booking direct, but we pay between 16-20% commission to agents. Most agents will be able to significantly undercut our direct price and still earn good commission. Inteletravel don't have these agreements on place so their 'agents' realise really quickly that they aren't competitive.

@Legoandloldolls It’s certainly a lot of hassle for very little reward.

@YouokHun you’re right: £10 an hour is a very generous estimate. Recent research (quoted in the article below) shows that the average MLM bot earns about 70 cents an hour, which is about 55p in English money before business expenses, including all the tax they’re obviously declaring to a HMRC because bots are such honest people who never tell lies.

www.talentedladiesclub.com/articles/is-it-really-possible-to-make-money-in-an-mlm-we-do-the-sums/

Wow. I had no idea these MLM were so ruthless. Ive avoided shit like this from friends and acquaintances and am so glad. Poor women being fooled into this bulshit. That blog was eye opening to say the least.

Don't get involved. You always get to hear about the rep that has it as her full time job and got her latest car out of it. Load of BS. What you don't see is all the people that have been suckered in to flog this stuff that are out of pocket because they can't get enough people involved and Menaimum is right, they have to pay for the trips themselves.
Remember if it sounds too good to be true.. it usually is!...

Years and years ago I did Ann summers parties. To be honest I never wanted to recruit anyway and I was happy to just do a party a week. I made between £30 and £150 per party. It was just some extra cash.

I did Avon at a different time too. Just my small estate and workplace. People asked for catalogues. I never pushed and if people said they didn't want one I never dropped one at their house again. I enjoyed the mooching around and chatting to people and to be honest it kept me fit. I never made a fortune. Maybe between £50 to £100 per catalogue but I saved the money towards my wedding.

I never recruited anyone though. I just did my thing and enjoyed it.

That said I really dislike juice plus and all that inspirational crap.
I have a friend that does bodyshop and she again doesn't push. I just order when I need to top up on something. She also occasionally runs raffles and I take part.

I've never done it myself, but from observing a couple of friends, I'd guess the amount is close to "naff all".

Over maybe the past 10 years, a friend of mine has done at least 4 or 5 different ones, and the fact that she's tried so many suggests that none of them have earned her a penny.

Last I heard, she's flogging some sort of cold brew tea... In the past she's done perfume, nail stuff, jewellery, clothing... None have lasted long.

@Ratbagcatbag your friend needs a Gaming Licence if she wants to run raffles and such like!

I made an absolute fortune, but I was near the start of the scheme. It was that perfume that smells like leading brands.
I had parties all over the NW, it can work if you know the limits and aren't too far up. All these well known ones are a complete waste of time and the market is flooded. I wouldn't do it now, but it was a great earner at 18.

I've wondered about thermomix too. I know someone who has one and is always using hash tags, but then she stated the other day that she's not a rep (no surprise, she's very much retired)
Then I looked at the price and I wonder if she's just justifying the cost to herself. It's the most expensive kitchen gadget of all time

Behind the scenes of an Arbonne bot's zoom meeting. Disturbing.

@Dumbie there was a thread on MN the other day about “the Thermomix Cult”. I know someone who has signed up to it to “earn her own Thermomix”; so she’s paid to join and now has to sell 6 very expensive pieces of kit to get one for herself. I know in Australia where it was/is big they earn about $230 dollars commission per sale and about $320 if they sell over a certain amount. It can’t be easy though - how many people are going to have c£1000 to buy one of those (even if they are a good product)? The person I know doing it has lots of monied friends but they’re not buying.

When the person I know joined I looked in Vorwerk (the parent company) and they are reporting a decline in a number of their businesses with Thermomix suffering. It wasn’t easy but from what I gather my friend (an economist) did some number crunching from the figures they could find and estimated the average distributor without a team makes c.£2k pa before expenses. I can’t remember the details but it just remember it was not great.

Here's another disturbing MLM video. It's a cult. Beware.

@Devlesko

I made an absolute fortune, but I was near the start of the scheme. It was that perfume that smells like leading brands. I had parties all over the NW, it can work if you know the limits and aren't too far up. All these well known ones are a complete waste of time and the market is flooded. I wouldn't do it now, but it was a great earner at 18.

Do you ever wonder about the people below you in the pyramid who lost money to enable your "fortune", @Devlesko?