To start the 1:1 diet (Cambridge Weight Plan) and then become a consultant to earn extra money

[cerealdieter]

Hello

Over the last 6 months, I have been changing my eating habits and exercising more. I lost 2 stone, I'm 5ft 8. I went from a size 16 to a size 12 (between August and December). I was trying to reach a size 10, but since Christmas, I haven't been eating healthily. However, I have carried on exercising (for mental and physical health).

I was talking to a friend online the other day and she had lost 4st with the 1:1 diet. She had also become a consultant and suggested that I could join and earn more money. Also, I thought I could get to a size 10 and earn extra money whilst doing so.

I currently work part time. DP said "you won't make any money and its just a scam". "You will put money in and never see it again". I liked the idea as I can work from home and earn some extra money.

Has anyone had any success with losing weight and keeping it off with 1:1 diet?

Has anyone made any money by becoming a 1:1 diet consultant?

I will speak to my friend and see what it involves and how much the setup cost is, once I've reached my goal

@Mylittlesandwich

I lost 8 stone with the Cambridge weight plan. Then I gained 9! Go me!

Seriously it works but it's not a long term fix.

Great results. Shame you didn't manage to keep it off. But still well done :)

@parietal

go ahead & use the plan to loose weight if you want.

but becoming a 'consultant' for the plan means that you only make money if you can recruit other people to join the plan. So that means that either (1) you spend all your time nagging your friends & family to join and they will all get annoyed or (2) you don't actually make any money. Or quite possibly both.

I want to do the plan to get myself down to a size 10.

I don't think i'm going to make any money from trying to sell it though

@cerealdieter

I will speak to my friend and see what it involves and how much the setup cost is, once I've reached my goal

Keep in mind her goal is to recruit you. So take what she says with a pinch of salt. How much initial outlay? How much profit? Hours spent on it?

Then halve the profit and double the time taken...

I will ask lots of questions @Beforethetakingoftoastandtea but only once I've slimmed down to a 10

Leaving aside the morality of recruiting others to the MLM...

It’s an absolute pisstake to set yourself up as a consultant for something you’ve only lost one stone on. Quite wrong of you. How can you possibly support and advise people through it with that level of inexperience? Ridiculous, and unfair. Take money off fools for the shitty products, fine, but I would sleep at night calling myself a “consultant” 🙄

Why don't you stick to what has been working so well for you?

A short-term loss based on artificial shakes might well remove pounds (a nasty bout of flu would probably do the same) but it might also mess with your metabolism and your attitude to food. These two things are reasons why people put weight back on just as quickly as they lost it... and why so many put on more!

Bodies are equipped to make up for short-term weight-loss (nature sends the occasional famine and illnesses so they have to be ready) and you can be sure that they work hard to get back a level of stores that seem safe. (You might heartily disagree with your body on the level of stores required.)

There's no real support- the sellers aren't trained in anything or than selling. It's an expensive MLM scheme, which costs a fortune for never really much benefit. If you enjoy trying to fleece your family and friends for a quick buck, or at least trying to, I'm sure it will all go fine

[quote cerealdieter]@Levirandal 7 consultants?! Wow thats a lot. Clearly not going to make much money are they. But the main one will take comission off them. Probably not worth getting involved with for making extra money.[/quote]
I agree with others: It’s a pyramid scheme hiding behind a product. Cambridge wants you to tap into your network and monetise your friends. Cambridge doesn’t care who signs up as a consultant so you have no territory and no control. You either compete in a saturated market or you recruit yet more people to compete in a saturated market. Those people may be your friends and they are likely to lose money too - are you prepared to manipulate and trick people you know?

The other reason Cambridge has gone down the MLM route is because it keeps their main customer (the consultant) in a purchasing relationship far longer than they might have done if they’d bought Product for a while then moved on to something else. In the village I live in (c4000 inhabitants) there are 5 Cambridge people that I know of, none of them get any engagement on social media either selling product or recruiting. Cambridge no longer has the major portion of the market anyway as there are now other companies like Shake that Weight or whoever, who sell much cheaper shakes. And do you want the responsibility of selling weight loss product? Are you going to know when the person you’re selling to has an eating disorder? Are you sure that VLCD are psychologically a healthy thing to do?

If you want to know more about the scam of MLM then have a look on BBC iPlayer at the documentary Secrets of the Multilevel Millionaires, it features Younique and NuSkin but the outcomes for sign ups to any MLM are pretty much the same across the board whoever you sign up with. There has been some pretty extensive research which shows that when taking account of every sign up including those that drop out within a year and taking into account the expenses/costs of doing MLM c99.6% of participants in MLM lose money - that is a shocking stat.

Have a look at MLMtruth.org

YABVVU it’s a MLM scam and the only way to make real money is do what your friend has done and con loads of your friends and family into being consultants so you take a cut of their earnings.

And @Beforethetakingoftoastandtea is right. You’re not going to get an honest appraisal of the “opportunity” from your friend because she needs to recruit you and she needs to appeal to your “why” (the vulnerability you have whether that’s feeling poor, needing social interaction etc), so she will downplay or obscure the negatives. Don’t bother trying to research via the Direct Selling Association either because they promote MLM and peddle a lot of fiction. You’re better off researching via antiMLM because those people have no vested interest in whether you sign up or not, so are likely to be far less biased.

Me, I lost my baby weight with Cambridge after having my last two children . I became a consultant to try and earn a bit of money on the side so I could retain to my retail job part time . It wasn't a hard sell, I was a walking example of the results . 7 years later I do thus full time and my husband now looks after our children whilst I run my business. Yes it's MLM but my stand alone income from the retail side of the business gives us more of an income than we can earn both working full time. The team building side is a nice extra bit but the main income is through direct selling side. As for spamming, my dad is now a consultant and retired early so he does the one day at a time to keep an income. I've helped friends lose weight for weddings , IVF , reversed type 2 diabetes ... I help ppl lose weight and feel better. There is no pyramid scheme here . I can't speak for other MLM as I have never or would never represent another brand as this is where my passion lies.

@Mumto3kiddies82

Me, I lost my baby weight with Cambridge after having my last two children . I became a consultant to try and earn a bit of money on the side so I could retain to my retail job part time . It wasn't a hard sell, I was a walking example of the results . 7 years later I do thus full time and my husband now looks after our children whilst I run my business. Yes it's MLM but my stand alone income from the retail side of the business gives us more of an income than we can earn both working full time. The team building side is a nice extra bit but the main income is through direct selling side. As for spamming, my dad is now a consultant and retired early so he does the one day at a time to keep an income. I've helped friends lose weight for weddings , IVF , reversed type 2 diabetes ... I help ppl lose weight and feel better. There is no pyramid scheme here . I can't speak for other MLM as I have never or would never represent another brand as this is where my passion lies.

Direct selling through people you’ve recruited. It’s still a business model that relies on recruiting.

Been on CD, there are a lot of issues i can forsee,
If you're using it to lose a stone you will be on it for 1 month tops, do you really feel you will be able to advise people how to get through the possibility of getting through 3/6/9/12 months on this diet?

What if you put the weight back on? Many do. Believe me it goes back on easier than it comes off. Won't you feel bad dishing out diet products? I ask because one of the CD consultants I saw was bigger than when she initially started.

On the websites it used to say how much a consultant had lost with CD. Are you prepared for people to be off put by you only having lost a stone or so whilst on the diet and to look for a counsellor who's lost more on the diet because they'll have more experience of actually having the diet work for them?

Are you prepared to go through training/set up costs etc for such a small return?

I'm shocked myself that CD are still in business when their products are expensive, more limited and less tasty than exante.

@Mumto3kiddies82

Me, I lost my baby weight with Cambridge after having my last two children . I became a consultant to try and earn a bit of money on the side so I could retain to my retail job part time . It wasn't a hard sell, I was a walking example of the results . 7 years later I do thus full time and my husband now looks after our children whilst I run my business. Yes it's MLM but my stand alone income from the retail side of the business gives us more of an income than we can earn both working full time. The team building side is a nice extra bit but the main income is through direct selling side. As for spamming, my dad is now a consultant and retired early so he does the one day at a time to keep an income. I've helped friends lose weight for weddings , IVF , reversed type 2 diabetes ... I help ppl lose weight and feel better. There is no pyramid scheme here . I can't speak for other MLM as I have never or would never represent another brand as this is where my passion lies.

Sure you did. That's why it's your only post on MN, eh

The MLM bot watch threads on MN's Money Matters forum are worth reading through.

Lots of good, eye-opening resources posted in the early posts here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/4169970-mlm-bot-watch-65-get-your-bikini-bod-for-your-inteletravel-holiday-here

@Inpersuitofhappiness I was hoping to do the diet and by making it a "job" it might help me stay slimmer. Obviously I'd have to work at it, but its a motivator. I wasn't aware so many consultants were back to/bigger than before they started.

Yes I do agree. If I only lose 1 stone, how can it be relatable to a persepctive client who has 5stone to lose etc.

100% disagree. U can buy at cost and sell at retail . Only a very small percentage of consultants build teams . Regardless of the company's business model there is no pressure to build teams , as a matter of fact you can build a team till you do more training. It's not a given

Lol. What has me posting on here previously got to do with my perspective! Sorry didn't realise I had to have opinions on things I had no useful experience on ? Maybe you should heed your own advice eh ! Ps I'm forever on here looking for advice and opinions, just didn't stick my tuppence in for the sake of it like some !😊

@MadeOfStarStuff

YABVVU it’s a MLM scam and the only way to make real money is do what your friend has done and con loads of your friends and family into being consultants so you take a cut of their earnings.

Oh I see ok :)

This is really off putting
I rather foolishly had assumed that a consultant would be someone with long term experience of the programme

@RuggeryBuggery but can't I learn over time?

@1WayOrAnother2

Why don't you stick to what has been working so well for you?

A short-term loss based on artificial shakes might well remove pounds (a nasty bout of flu would probably do the same) but it might also mess with your metabolism and your attitude to food. These two things are reasons why people put weight back on just as quickly as they lost it... and why so many put on more!

Bodies are equipped to make up for short-term weight-loss (nature sends the occasional famine and illnesses so they have to be ready) and you can be sure that they work hard to get back a level of stores that seem safe. (You might heartily disagree with your body on the level of stores required.)

I thought it might help me reset my eating habits.

Might be worth having a look at long term results too (I speak as someone who has done it, lost weight and put it back on) and e success rate. For example, sw has a success rate of something like 5% of people still being at target after 5 years (my percentage might be off but it’s not a lot)
It’s a fad, it’s an unhealthy way to lose weight and it’s damaging for children to see you having a shake or a cardboard bar instead of actual food

Of course it won’t help you reset your eating habits. It’s drinking shakes, eating bars and powder dinners