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

[stopfaffing]

Here it is!

Thread 5

eyes
Kind of, but I probably didn't really take the thought seriously. The training was the same thing all the time so I did suspect an attempt at indoctrination-and telling people to lie about their lifestyle on FB as "people buy people" was v dodgy. However, they are clever as they make jokes about people thinking it is a cult, saying those people just don't understand, so it is a kind of reverse psychology. So I probably felt in my heart that it had some cultish aspects but didn't understand the full extent until I saw TV and Bot Watch and really started to analyse what was going on. My husband did say that "global rally" sound very cult-like

Lovewineandchocs It's been very much the same with the use reverse psychology to dispell any accusation that 'MLMs' are pyramid schemes.

When I've commented on the Seeking Alpha threads discussing 'Herbalife,' any suggestion that 'MLM' is cultic and totalitarian (no matter how well-informed) has been systematically met with scripted-ridicule by the resident 'Herbalife' claque. The general tone has been that Brainwashing is comic-book science-fiction and anyone saying that MLMs are cults is a crack-pot conspiracy-theorist living in a puerile fantasy world.

eyes

Yes in respect of both the "pyramid scheme" and "cult" accusations levelled at MLM's they respond with either insults or fake pity, rather than providing any empirical evidence. Or they post simplistic and flawed models like my screenshot a few pages back, "demonstrating" how it is really companies that are the true pyramid schemes

Been skimming this thread. I have a mum friend posting about jp and just feel so sad for her. She's even apparently giving it to her daughter who has skin problems (serious ones). This is her meme today and she's doing the classic 'inbox booming', 'thanks everyone for all your orders', 'working 35+ hours for someone else blah blah, I know I prefer to stay home and look after my kid' (she's never worked a day in her life bar the things she says she's an expert at making each month and never sticks at).

She's a young mum, broke and drifting. She's someone if I see out I'll talk to for however long but not a close friend, would you say anything or just skirt around it politely? She has three groups on fb she keeps adding me to and it's driving me insane!

Lovewineandchocs The narrative which controls all 'MLM' cults is almost 100% predictable and this is its greatest weakness.

It won't be long before MN and TV will be accused of being the cult.

Last month she was also in hospital and spent two days talking about how impressed the doctors were that she's doing jp and it's the greatest thing, so healthy etc.

Hello Twinklefuck - It's difficult to know what the reaction of a particular 'MLM' adherent will be if you start to challenge their belief. It has been said before on these threads, but 'MLM' adherents are very much like persons who have fallen head over heels in love with an abusive partner. In general, it's best to tread carefully and to ask thought provoking questions which demonstrate that you have knowledge of what they are being taught. This technique can somtimes get the adherent to stop and think.

The list of questions at the end of this article might help you.

mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2015/06/forever-living-products-flp-cult-secte.html

Have been asked to post some FL 'inside info'. I have 2 different sources so have indicated where things stack up, and have tried to put a real life slant on it.

From a certain 'upline' trying to show her team the 'potential for growth' in the UK:

860,000 orders were placed in the UK in 2015, with an average business owner order being £128, and an average direct retail website order being £49.

61,000 assistant supervisers joined in 2015.

5000 supervisers were 'promoted', 1200 assistant managers were 'promoted'

740 managers promoted in 2015.

Just over 6000 distributors are 4cc active in 2015. [the upline then said 'UK is a 62 million population - still a massively untapped market' - showing clearly the objective is to get everyone to be a distributor!]

Both the total order number and the total 4cc active number stack up from what I have been told by another source (where the context was not trying to recruit to the business).

Note that the total number of 'promotions' is higher than the total 4cc active people - showing what a huge turnover there is.

I have been trying to make sense of the numbers a bit. And anyone on that uplines team who tried to think about it may well realise that a few things don't stack up!

What jumps out at me most is that the 'average business order' is actually below the '1cc personal use requirement' which is about £160.

It appears there are an average of 71,600 orders a month, at an average price somewhere between £128 and £49. Call it £100. The commission paid appears to be 18%, split between managers and their downline in various ways. On a retail order no commission would need to be paid. So FL expect to pay out on average somewhere under £200 a month per 4cc distributor. But that distributor would need to buy £160 of products themselves to satisfy the 1cc personal use!

To become an assistant superviser (which you need to do to earn anything at all) you need to place 2 months of orders at 2ccs. So of total sales of around £100m, AT LEAST £40m of those sales were from people essentially buying the start up packs!

More snippets: like every other network marketing 'training' book I've read, this one trots out the same bullshit, that network marketing is the future, that it's growing, that immigrants and robots will steal everyones normal jobs so if you have any sense at all, you'll do mlm.
But the truth is: the percentage of women in j.o.b.s. worldwide is going up, network marketing is flat. We know that Pampered Chef closed in the UK, Avon is struggling worldwide and that Juice Plus is in debt. Nu Skin lost a lot off their shares. Whilst normal business is expanding into China, mlms cannot as it is banned there.

Whoops wrong link

Two links as to why you should not host or attend parties, engage in any way whatsoever with an mlm and you are fair game as a prospect.

Who is pregnant.???

I know, right?

FLhahaha

61,000 supervisors eh? I think they mean 61,000 customers.

To put this in context, Boots has 2,500 stores in the UK. Superdrug has 900.

So anyone considering joining up should ask themselves if this is really about selling #aloeshite or recruitment?

I'm just wondering if any of them ever give out 'freebies'? I can see a number of benefits to doing that - as a one-off- so I suspect it's something to be watched out for.

Wow sminky that who thing should just be entitled 'how to spot a victim'. It's disgusting.

What enrages me most is the fact that when recruiting they KNOW most people won't be able to stick it out (all valid reasons) and yet they still try to get them to join purely for the CCs. And then of course it's that persons fault for not doing X, Y and Z.

Forget that the person is throwing £200+ down the drain. It's very selfish business.

It seems most people who drop out do so for this very reason, they can't hack treating people like victims prospects.

Yup cozie , pregnant women seen as an absolutely top "targets"

As soon as any of the women in my extended family announced their pregnancy our Forever Living bot would be on the phone to us telling us how much she would like to "help" us work flexibly around our child

The point made previously about not wanting to go on holiday in case all the balls drop to the floor is a very good one.

The other day a grab was posted about one of the going shopping, but wasn't it great as she could take her tablet and still be working. Actually no that isn't aspirational and isn't standard healthy behaviour but it must be so exhausting to feel that you constantly have to be watching those balls in the air.

I guess they do have to and it is exhausting.

It's a game of opposites.
They say they cut people out of their life for 'being too negative,' whilst at the same time, labelling people who aren't in mlm (i.e most people) as losers, uncreative, playing it safe etc. I mean how negative is that to slander anyone who isn't in your cult?
They label people who drop out as losers, or say, 'they didn't work hard enough,' when the truth is, the dropouts were lucky enough to not be too brainwashed that they still retained some compassion, some integrity, that they still viewed others as human beings, not numbers, not prospects. I think if anyone who drops out does it for such noble reasons as caring about others and not wanting to treat people in this way, then, this is to be celebrated, not slandered.
So, once again well done to everyone who left, you are the incredible ones!

EC has apparently booked a trip to Disney (which Disney is not specified). If it happens it will be interesting to see how much of that "trip" is spent working.

thetruthisere sounds like you and me should swap MK product centre stories! I used to live in Milton Keynes and spent a lot of time dodging the Stepford Wives as those us not in the cult of forever used to call them. I heard some scary stories about that place.

I've been reading the arbonne 'successplan' (it's very long and boring with lots of numbers and percentages but I think I've got it now) and it seems to be totally rigged so that when you promote you automatically get paid less than before you promoted. When someone gets to the 'Mercedes' level they get given a Mercedes payment each month (provided they meet the targets) but that doesn't even touch the loss of commission, because that HALVES after you get promoted. I've just done a spreadsheet (loser I know) with the same amount of 'sales' both before and after the promotion and the income is quite a bit lower after.