To ask for MLM success stories?

[TheLoudGobbyOne]

This is not a TAAT so please don’t report this for that. But its inspired by the ongoing MLM thread where a friend of the OP who is/was a teacher has/is giving it up to work for an MLM scheme.

And I was just wondering: does anyone know anyone who has had success from this? There are countless horror stories and warnings to make it obvious MLMs are more scams than successes but surely they are benefitting some people out there otherwise they would not exist?

I am not asking this because I am questioning joining one or remotely tempted or intrigued by it before anyone asks! Just purely wondered if there is anyone who knows someone who has been successful in these and how much work they put into it

A friend did Neal's yard. She was at a difficult time of her life with a debilitating health condition. We live in an affluent area and she's well liked with lots of friends. She didnt attempt to recruit anyone, I and many friends bought from her from time because we knew she was down on her luck and wanted to help her. Even with that she was only making pocket money - £2-300 a month. She probably considered it a success in that it topped up her finances and she didnt have to spend much time on it. She didnt do it long.

I know only one couple - some elderly relatives who made a lot of money out of Amway in the 1970s. I think they recruited a lot of people early on and had a big network of sales reps below them, then retired when they'd had enough and went on cruises.

@Thehop

There’s a girl on my Facebook who’s 22 and sells FM. She posts pictures of her account showing £5/6k a month going in from FM and drives a brand new Mercedes that they pay the monthly bill for.

This is an income claim and the MLM will come down hard on her for this, as they're not allowed to make income claims.

I despise MLMs and have 3 friends who've joined various ones in the past year. I refuse to buy from them because the business model is just awful.

And they always say they're business owners when they're not! They're salespeople! I'm a small business owner and have complete autonomy over everything. MLM reps are representatives of someone else's company and are just too idiotic to see it.

This is an income claim and the MLM will come down hard on her for this, as they're not allowed to make income claims.

No they won't because they don't care. If someone shops her to Facebook or whatever then they'll give her a wee rap across the knuckles and tell her not to be naughty. But the MLM really doesn't give a stuff about these tactics because at the end of the day if it encourages more people to sign up.

The mistake you're making is thinking the senior managers in these organizations are ethical.

I cant understand how anyone can consider themselves a decent human being if they are "successful" in a MLM as it means there will be many many many people under them who are losing money.

If you look at the statistics for each company there’s usually a small percentage of people who make money from doing it, I’m also intrigued as to who and how and why.

The vast majority make very, very little with many even losing money. I know several people who have attempted MLMs (a couple of people who sold forever living, a Herbalife sales rep, Younique makeup and nuskin and Usborne books) and none of them had any success at all. I don’t see how anyone starting new in this day and age could have any possibility of success tbh.

Someone I know makes a fair amount doing Body Shop - so much so her husband has scaled back his own business to part time and they spend a LOT of time in their newly-bought holiday home. I think she's some kind of manager now, I know she definitely recruits other sellers.

She's the only one I know of though - currently about 5 women I know are all selling the bloody Lumi Spa face cleaning gadget and the one I know best said she's sold one since she started 4 months ago, but has spent hundreds on the various cleansers and creams sold with it. But apparently 'once you get a few sales it gets easier', so she's sticking with it

Yes! I am not involved at all,aside from buying product sometimes because I like it, but my friend makes £1k - £1.5k a month from selling Tropic.

She has a normal part time job working for her local authority, and has a "team" of Tropic sellers under her. I know how much she earns because a mutual friend who acted as her mortgage advisor told me after seeing her bank statements etc

To be fair, she doesn't really go on about it lots, and seems really happy. She has been involved for a few years now. I suspect she has a strong SM presence around it but as I am not on any SM this doesn't affect me.

So, yeah. Tropic success story.

I have a colleague who was able to quit her job because she makes more on one day of Arbonne selling than five days in her £50k role. So she does well on that but she's lost a lot of friends and respect as a result.

@jagoda

Yes! I am not involved at all,aside from buying product sometimes because I like it, but my friend makes £1k - £1.5k a month from selling Tropic.

She has a normal part time job working for her local authority, and has a "team" of Tropic sellers under her. I know how much she earns because a mutual friend who acted as her mortgage advisor told me after seeing her bank statements etc

To be fair, she doesn't really go on about it lots, and seems really happy. She has been involved for a few years now. I suspect she has a strong SM presence around it but as I am not on any SM this doesn't affect me.

So, yeah. Tropic success story.

Success for her, but pressure and financial losses for her down lines unfortunately.

How do they lose money though? A mutual friend is a downseller just so she can get 25% off all the stuff she orders. All she had to do was buy a starter pack (which was all stuff she used anyway) and now when she orders, she gets 25% of it paid back into her bank account..........she doesn't bother selling to anyone else as far as I know.

Not saying other MLMs lead to losses but genuinely don't see how Tropic does. There is no investment aside from buying actual product you can use. I guess if you didn't want to use their stuff it would be a waste but then you probably wouldn't be interested anyway.

@WillSantaBeComingToTown

I have reported your post which breaks the posting guidelines.

The person above you will be a success story no doubt. My guess is they’re only viable if you’re willing to spam social media pages and offer the ‘opportunity’ 🤮😏 to all and sundry a good few hours every day. I suppose it’s a little bit like being a Jehovahs Witness, you need an abundance of blind faith and ability to knock on every door despite the knock backs.

DP has friends who were Forever disciples, you’d have thought they were offering everlasting life the way they spoke about C9 and Aloe Vera gloop. Fast-forward a few years and they’ve now gone back to the jobs they left after realising it was a pipe dream and their up line had over exaggerated their earnings potentials despite some limited success over a couple of years.

It’s sad watching another friend on Juiceplus+ give up her career to sell a pipe dream, of course she knows better 🙄....

Only person I know who's successful started off at the top of the pyramid (her mum brought Arbonne to the area). She's got a huge amount of people under her. I personally couldn't sleep easy knowing I was basically conning these people out of their savings but that's just me...

@jagoda from the blogs I’ve read a lot of new sales reps spend money on a starter pack but are then encouraged to buy more stock (to take to parties, to use in demo videos, to give away as prizes and so on) I would imagine a lot of the ‘uplines’ actually make their money recruiting downlines and selling them products for their ‘business’ than they do selling stuff to actual customers who use it.

Not in the one I worked with, @picklecustard. They were encouraged to keep only what they needed for tastings (food product) and no inventory. That was drop shipped from the warehouse.

It was a vital part of QC for the whole thing; after all, there was no way to control how individual reps stored the product and with food, that could have been a big problem.

[quote jagoda]@WillSantaBeComingToTown

I have reported your post which breaks the posting guidelines.[/quote]
because I suggested that the huns may be on here making up success stories?

quelle surprise

@jagoda

Yes! I am not involved at all,aside from buying product sometimes because I like it, but my friend makes £1k - £1.5k a month from selling Tropic.

She has a normal part time job working for her local authority, and has a "team" of Tropic sellers under her. I know how much she earns because a mutual friend who acted as her mortgage advisor told me after seeing her bank statements etc

To be fair, she doesn't really go on about it lots, and seems really happy. She has been involved for a few years now. I suspect she has a strong SM presence around it but as I am not on any SM this doesn't affect me.

So, yeah. Tropic success story.

I am very surprised that a mortgage adviser shared that information, they could use their licence

it is very easy to fabricate income for a self employed mortgage by fabricating sales or churning money through credits cards

no posting rules broken

I've followed a girl on Insta for ages. Lived in a nice small house, part time hairdresser modest lifestyle. She then started selling fm and in the last 6 month's she's bought a massive new build, new car, both her and hubby given up their jobs and she claims to warm 5 figures monthly and send swamped with orders. I just don't get it, they're selling cheap perfume with the claim 'it's inspired by' and exactly like Gucci, Tom Ford etc. Who is stupid enough to fall for this? Paying £25 for a cheap rip off?!

@Cleanmean but as a poster up thread mentioned, you need years of bank statements for a mortgage if self-employed. So is this her actual house? Is she renting? Using savings etc?

I was approached by a Forever Living person 13 years ago. I was a vulnerable target, a new Mum on mat leave really not wanting to leave my baby when I had to go back to work.

They game me a dvd to watch and it was full of people talking about how they became FL reps and how fantastically wealthy there now were, working hours which suited them.

I couldn't understand the business model at all. The rule I stick to is not to get involved with anything I don't understand (because there is always some sort of deception going on).

The FL rep got in touch a few times - the mantra seemed to be that if I committed to 'joining' then they would reveal the magic secret that would make me rich.

Eventually I said a hard no and that was that.

I eventually set up my own business working from home and can explain how I make money in under 30 seconds.

I used to work with a woman who did Avon. She left the catalogue with the tea things, people ordered stuff if they wanted, but she never, ever pressured anyone. At the time she was a lone parent, and Avon was extra ££ for treats for her young kids.

I’m in another job now, and she is married to a guy who is a pretty high earner, as well as her working full-time, but she still does Avon. That money is now her “nail, face, and tan” spending, and she enjoys it.

I too am amazed somebody thought it was OK for a mortgage advisor to share information in what is supposed to be a confidential form.

I came across one by chance the other day.
She was selling this juice stuff but linked to Patreon, so she had financial subscribers, her usual subscribers and followers were hundreds of thousands.
So more of an influencer than selling the juice or whatever it was.