MLM-Bot Watch SIX - Juice+, Forever Living, Younique, Arbonne, newbie ARIIX, and our own Parslai-powered Timeless Vie

[stopfaffing]

Here it is!

Thread 5

stop when will people see what really goes on?

My fb is full of the FL rubbish again despite the bot saying she doesn't want to spam anyone....

I read Become a Network Marketing Superstar and Become a Recruiting Superstar by Mary Christensen last night. So many 'gems' in there, heres the first one. The old, ' you only have to follow the the plan'. Now we now know that not to be true, that only 0.4% will break even. That even if you do get some good distributers under you they may be taken to prop up the poster girls downline so she can be 'amazing' or 'incredible' and 'smash that promotion', in record time.

Then there was this gem. Heh.

sminky it was drummed into me that the ones who follow the plan are the ones who succeed. If I was ever struggling with contacting and ask for advice, I would be asked if I was following the plan and filling in my activity sheets. If my score was low then that's why I was failing, I wasn't following the plan. But I just wasn't hardcore, I couldn't contact everyone I know about the business, even though I had scripts for every answer. I just felt it wasn't coming from my heart. It felt fake.

Thetruthisere - please spill!

I've long suspected CS and her hubby have not been entirely honest with the truth of their lifestyle and don't even get me started on her being nominated (or was that nominating herself??) for Worcestershire Businesswoman of the Year.

She is also part of the upline of someone I know who has been recruited under the saddest of circumstances.

thetruthisere would love to know what happened at MK product centre too.......

Are you an exceptionally fast reader sminky or are all these books really short? You're getting through them at a rate of knots!

That 'holiday' itinerary! At 8am on holiday I like to be fast asleep not at a product launch.... The bot in question is going on about how it is their first holiday of the year not first international training event (possibly the more accurate description).

ray Totally agree. I recall worrying about certain new recruits to other bots particularly when they told their stories so many focused on physical & mental ill-health and now after drinking super gloop they were cured, such vulnerability.

Also... Although some of eyes posts are hard core, for me they are crucial to understanding the nature of the brainwashing that goes on and on and on. I thought I couldn't be 'had' but I joined. Felt a little embarrassed once I started to discover the cracks in the facade. Now I'm sad and angry but so, so pleased for mumsnet threads. Keep researching, unearthing and posting, it's Diamond stuff ( no pun intended
I hope that any bots reading this and other threads can step back to appraise. I'm not a hater just concerned for people. It's a vile business that preys on vulnerability.

Oh, whole sub culture around the industry!! just type in network marketing and take cover.

I'm curious why, if the super-bots (EC , CS etc ) are soooo successful they never go on a normal holiday, they just go on their "freebie" brainwashing events. Surely if they are raking it in like they claim they could take the odd week properly "off off"

waits for CS to announce she's just booked a package holiday with thompsons or similar

darcybussell yes I can speed read. But these ones have worksheets where youcan write down the colour of the bog seat of your dreams that will be in the bathroom of your dreams. You have to be specific for your dream to come true. All those years my mother had a pin up of Barry Manilow and she never got to shag him. Its such a game of make believe isn't it?

throwingpebbles I know, right? I'm in the freelance world where travelling for three months isn't unusual. My landscaper friend is in France with little girl and wife. Spent a month in Ibiza with friends for xmas. My carpenter friend has been in Vietnam last two months. My boatbuilder friend has been in Cambodia since November. My boat broker friend has been in France fir at least a month. I usually bugger off travelling for a few months a year and take the laptop with me (five months in total last year). Its not expensive to do this anymore either. I just can't see much evidence of this amazing travelling lifestyle that the bots say you can have. I travelled more when I had a j.o.b.

sminkypink - The ritual praying/meditating/self-hypnosis techniques peddled in all these books, have been taken straight from 'Name it and Claim it Prosperity Gospel Churches,' but they've been rewritten in the 'Visualise Your Dreams and Goals' jargon.

So there is a subculture of freelancers who travel and have a laptop lifestyle but none of us I know who do it work in mlm and none are rich, because you don't need to be. You don't even need to be rich to have a yacht. We've had them before. My friend sold a second hand car, bought a yacht and sailed round Greece one summer. So it makes me want to scream, 'you don't need to do this, you're doing it wrong!' When they have their photos taken infront of that yacht photo at the success day.

What happened at MK? Enquiring minds want to know.

Here's a question for ex-bots: how long were you involved with these schemes before you smelt bullshit and got out? I'm trying to figure out if there's an average time.

They will recruit any dreg of society....

Re: holidays

Are they scared that if they stop "working" and let their guard down a bit then some other unscrupulous bot is going to muscle in on their downline? Or that their downline will wake-up to the reality of their shit situation and then jump ship if they're not constantly praised and motivated every 2 mins?

I know that last year my bot was working from her laptop every day of her family holiday - laptop by the pool pictures, laptop by a glass of wine pictures, extolling the virtues of FL suncream, motivational quotes etc. same shit, different location.

BSintolerant There is a lot of data available showing the catastrophic retention rates in 'MLM' rackets. Take 'Herbalife,' where more than 90% of adherents fail to renew their first annual contract. The percentage who remain for more than 3 years, is under 5%, but the percentage who remain for more than 5 years is virtually non-existent.

All this key-information has been deliberately withheld from the public, or published in a form which is so mystifying that it cannot be readily understood by ordinary people.

My bot is bragging about having a personal shopper (its free as part of the service dumb f##k to make you spend your money) saying how she feels like shes in sex and city. Nope they all had their own style in satc and they didn't post pics of it all happening. Everytime she goes shopping she takes pics of herself in the mall.......with the same crinkled selfridges carrier bag she takes everywhere. So sad.

BS - About a year. Last straw was when I was shouted at by a highish bot for trying to help, and I got some shitty text message from them. That was the last straw.

BS

I have to say, for me it was a gradual realisation. I joined only to make about £200 per month and had a good bit of success just selling the products. Early on, a friend of mine signed as my down line. Carried away by stories from the top bot here, she declared she wanted to be rich, quit her job and do Forever full time. My immediate up line was the same. So I was sandwiched between 2 people thinking Forever was "it" for them, whereas for me it was only extra cash. But I thought "hey, if my downline does well, I do well". My downline quit after 6 months having failed to sign anyone in. At that stage I hated going to training and success days, hearing all the same phrases and "inspirational quotes" over and over and going on webinars late at night. I realised that even those people I knew who had quit their job to do Forever had no security of income and in all cases their other half still had a full time job. I got really annoyed (sounds silly) when it was announced that there would no longer be complimentary tea or coffee at success days (multi billion dollar company?!) then stumbled across TV, which made me really look into the whole thing. At Christmas we were told to "take time and really think about our business." I did, and realised it was a crock of shit 😀 so, to answer your question, I was always a bit iffy about it but it was about 10 months before the whole house of cards really fell apart for me.

dadandmum
Yes the exact same thing has just happened to my upline. She's really upset about it but still can't see the "business" for what it is.

Lovewineandchocs That's very interesting, because you probably would have quit by yourself, but you almost certainly would never have worked out what you were really involved in by yourself.

Many people have said that Internet will eventually destroy 'MLM' cultism.

Lovewineandchocs - Can I ask you, did you suspect that 'FLP' is a cult at any time prior to your finding TV and the MN threads?

The way that Google works, now, will help kill it too. It is far less easy to con than it used to be. Google likes compelling, interesting original, relevant, content. I.e. This thread.