MLM Bot Watch 18- chat about Utah based tragicomic cultastic racketeering scamalangadingdongs like Forever Living, Ariix, Herbalife, Younique, Juiceplus etc etc etc

[chuckingstones]

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Oh and we've had 18 threads so we have had plenty of people come on to present the other side of the story. Some of them were doing really well out of it, even if they did have to work 19 hours a day. They didn't persuade us unfortunately even though some of them seemed to be very nice people.

Hi all, I don't want to try to persuade anyone as I believe each to their own but I am in an MLM and making money from it.
I am an intelligent woman, I have a first class honours degree and was in my previous career for 10 years. The reason I started with the company I'm with is because I had two children close together and childcare was €1970 per month. I hardly seen my kids and by the time I took commuting (and the money commuting cost me) into account I wasn't happy with my work / life balance. So I decided to give this a go to allow me to be at home.
I have been in the company for almost two years. I'm not a great "high flyer" I made manager in 1 year, my income the last few months has been €2,400 it was a little higher but dropped back a bit after Xmas. I don't feel pressured to stay in the company. I don't spam my social media about the company, in fact I too get annoyed when people say "buy this from me" or "join my team" CRINGE!!! I help those I have brought into the company and I would coach them NOT to be spamming people and medical claims are a big no no. I am a stickler for compliance.
I definitely don't work 19 hour days lol! And I haven't paid for a training event since January when I paid £20 for an event and coupled the event with a trip to my UK in laws.
I have an accountant and pay tax.
I do use the products but because I genuinely love them not because I have to hit targets.
I'll likely regret commenting as I expect to be called a liar and torn to strips but I just wanted to say that there is good and bad to everything. I do think you seem to be spending a lot of time and energy focusing on this and that I don't understand to be honest. Live and let live.

Any joy on that, Toobusy?

Welcome to the thread Jod and don't worry if you haven't lied you won't get called a lier.

Welcome emma and jod

I will try to explain briefly why I don't like MLMs. Firstly, I have a problem with people making illegal medical claims. Botwatch (see link above) is rife with them. I am sure you don't, always a few bad apples etc. But particularly the 'health' type MLMs seem not to discourage that as firmly as they might.

Secondly, I think MLMs damage relationships. In my view the products are overpriced. That is the primary reason they are not sold in shops. They are sold in a 'friendly' environment by someone justifying the price by telling you how special they are. To start with a lot of friends and family of the new MLMer will buy the products to help the individual, even though they privately think they are overpriced. Then most people will not want to buy any more. And this will lead to relationships being destroyed as people avoid the MLMer as they don't want to buy the products.

And that is before we even get to the recruiting side of things. I won't say much about that as it has been covered above, but I will just say that I find it very strange that all the training is 'how to get people to join' i.e. what pushes their buttons etc. rather than 'this is the sort of person who would be excellent for our business'. I think a lot of people who are recruited are completely unsuitable, and I think it is immoral to recruit them, but the business model makes even a 'rubbish' recruit better than no recruit (and that is because you are primarily recruiting a customer, not a salesperson).

Firstly, I find the term 'bots' insulting.

Secondly, I haven't seen people openly lying on social media about what they earn - do they do that? Maybe we are referring to different companies. I assume they're not all the same?

Thirdly, I notice that most of my last post has been ignored.

Anyone else sensing a connection to a certain shopping related mlm here? I dont know, but I am certainly curious 🤔, Anyway... Welcome Emma and Joy, there are many many threads to read through and some helpful links that others have already pointed you too that make essential reading for anyone researching MLMs, I would highly recommend you read through them 😊

Sorry, to not too

FLhahaha I actually agree to an extent to your points!
Medical claims are definitely a big NO. I'm not a doctor. I agree that some people likely do turn a blind eye to propel on their team who make claims. I don't.
I can see why for some their relationships may be affected too. I actually have more friends now than ever simply because I have time to see them. When I worked I left the house at 6:45am and got home at 7:30pm. I have friends who buy from me and others who don't. I don't ask them to buy often they ask me to try and go on to buy some times. My marriage is great too. We have decided to try for another baby as again (thus why I am on MN) I am at home so this will allow us to do that.

Lastly your point about recruiting I agree with! Not everyone is suited. I have a small team (as I don't recruit for the sake of it) of mainly mobile hairdressers, beauticians, another stay at home mum, a childminder and a recruiter. The hairdressers and beauticians are people I used myself and they asked me about joining to retail the products as this would supplement their income. They simply retail product to clients (nothing sinister there) and the beauticians use the products in their salons as well as retailing it.

melaw I have read them and they are certainly interesting reading!

I am not with the shopping MLM if you are referring to me.

Could you and Emma name the MLM's you are in?

Yes Melaw. A different tact to the last time when they sent in the big guns

As I said I'm not trying to persuade anyone. I have read the thread myself and I can see you aren't going to be persuaded but I guess I just thought it was very one sided and I seen Emma comment and wanted to back her up.
I have not been "sent" by anyone either.

Also I have feelings too and like Emma I hate being called a BOT. As I said I am a well educated woman and I too know my own mind and my life is not fake or controlled by anyone.

I'm with FLP.

Has anyone got that link for the review of the new film at Tribeca?

What has your level of education got to do with it Jod? Are you saying you are less gullible as you are an 'educated woman'?

Thank you Jod. It is just interesting to know which MLM's people are in because quite a few that come here to defend, will not say which one. That makes one feel suspicious that all is not so wonderful.

It is not asking for names etc, just the MLM in question.

twoodle you are correct it has nothing to do with it. What i should have said was I am not gullible as that is the point I was indeed trying to stress

Could someone remind me of the 'churn rate' in MLMs over, say, a 5 year period?

Sorry - I should probably refer to that, more correctly, as 'distributor turnover rate'.

Thank you Jod for the backup! I ended up here by mistake after reading an article on that anti-mlm site they all harp on about here. I just think it's down to the individual to choose what they want to do - like I said some it will work for, some it won't.

To whoever asked - the companies I left are Herbalife, Oriflame, Betterware and Younique. I left Herbalife and Oriflame because I was so agoraphobic at the time that I couldn't get out there to network (no internet then). I left Betterware because I had a baby and so the whole door to door thing didn't work anymore. I left Younique because I don't like the way the company is run.

Thank you Emma, and which MLM are you with now?

Did you make money from the other 4? A little, or enough to actually live on a sole income from? i.e mortgage/rent and all bills, holidays etc?

Cozie, The churn rate for MLMs is 90% over a year. Over 5 years I imagine there would be hardly anyone left. Just the people they recruited. Who will then recruit more before leaving themselves.

Education has nothing to do with anything in MLM. Except that educated people are more likely to think they can't be conned and are not vulnerable. And this makes them more likely to be caught out and get recruited. They probably think they understand 'the system' and can make it work. No one can beat the system though. Unless you make a big enough name for yourself and people queue up to be in your team.

Cozie, I read your links on the income disclosure con which was interesting. Will go and look up the insurance side of things now.

Oh I have no doubt it is high and the reason is likely because as FLhahaha said because some people recruit lots of unsuitable people or they don't help the people they recruit.
I often hear people saying "this business is suitable for anyone" and that's simply not the case.
Not everyone leaves because they hate the company or something has "gone wrong" though. There are other reasons for leaving.

Thank you Toobusy. It's difficult to obtain direct organisational stats now since the MLMs - the prominent ones at least - stopped publishing figures they weren't required by law to publish - in 2005 and 2006 was it? It's useful that there are people around to work out what they can from those figures which are still available. (Hence that 'little local difficulty' which one prominent MLM is currently experiencing.)

I didn't make anything with Herbalife or Oriflame. I was about 18 at the time. I'm 40 now. I was completely incapable of doing it at the time, and the people who recruited me should have known that. As you say there are plenty of sharks in MLM as there are in ANY business and indeed in ANY area of life!!

Betterware was great for me at the time - got me out which was what I needed. I just did a couple of hours a day delivery and collecting brochures and made a bit of pocket money really. My husband was in full time work so it gave me something to do in the mornings really as I couldn't function in an office environment at the time due to anxiety.

Younique is a completely saturated market, which is why (as I said earlier) I wish these companies would cap the number of distributors. I made whatever the commission is on around £1800 in sales, which is all I sold. I run 2 other businesses so it was very part time and mostly to get cheap and free makeup :) The company is a disgrace though - not for me!