Octang Frye

Does anyone here have any experience - either personally or through friends - with multi level marketing/direct sales? Would you be willing to talk about it?

Particularly interested in:
LuLaRoe
ItWorks!
Scentsy
DoTerra
Younique
HerbalLife
LipSense
Amway/Quixtar
BeachBody
Young Living
Nuskin
Mary Kay
Pure Romance
World Financial Group
Rodan + Fields
JamBerry
PamperedChef
Primerica
Auto Club of America

excpomea

Always anoyed when friends subscribe then hit you up for a contribution.

Leslie

I'm being stalked by a woman who is trying to get me to sign up for a different electricity provider and then start signing up other people too. I'm probably going to end up smashing her face in.

Lion in Winter

Pyramid schemes. You won't make any money from the products once you run out of family and friends to sell to, you only make money fromrecruiting people to sell from whom you take a cut. I would never join one.

Lion in Winter

Try calling her back repeatedly at unsociable hours of the night.

Jimmysforeveryone

Greed is exalted so it's still possible to find people to rope into these schemes.

GeoffM

Wife has done a few. Mary Kay was okay, just selling to a handful of people - not much effort, saved a few pennies on normal retail price. Current one is Yoli but only as a customer.

We went to a Saladmaster presentation in the UK, not without much resistance from myself but it was a free meal (with pressure sales, of course). One or two fell for it but I was armed with Google and real world facts. The hostess gave up trying to sell her dodgy saucepans after about a minute with me and my facts. Short summary: the saucepans are actually fairly good and have reasonable reviews, but they're way overpriced, especially from an agent. You can get cheaper and better rated cookware (not just reviews but in tech specs) in even Debenhams etc.

petitefrancaise

Herbalife - 2 friends did this. Otherwise intelligent women who bought into all the hype. After 2 years, they'd (literally) exhausted all their friends,made not much money at all and had gone back to their real jobs. Note - both were science grads (one a Biochemistry PhD) and were hooked in.
Not to be recommended - slightly sinister if you ask me.

Octang Frye

This is what fascinates me. A very good friend - a former maths teacher - and a first rate software engineer would always get sucked in.
Someone sold her a 1970s-era technology vacuum for 2 grand.
She did Herbalife. Bought a timeshare...
She did the Magic Water / Kangam thing.

Another sys admin guy I know - again, really smart - bought into Amway back in the UK.

My big pet peeve is with LuLaRoe and ItWorks! 5k buy-in "starter kit" from LuLa. Remember, you're your own CEO! A small business owner. Hashtag bossbabe! Hey, Hun!!! You're so cute, I've been following you on facebook!!!! emoji emoji

Inbox me! PM me! emoji

The whole thing is fascinating to watch. Well, a combination of fascination and horror. But they are predatory and exploit (usually) women who are SAHMs. They isolate you from critics/haters. Pure cult tactics. You're not your own boss when you're paying to work for a company, and getting no benefits. LuLaRoe has 100,000 "consultants" shilling their "buttery soft" leggings. I don't understand how people can't understand the market is saturated and you're competing against each other. Crazy.

Have a good read here:
reddit.com/r/antimlm

Pom_Chch

I personally think it's all a crock of sh1t.

Some of my friends have been sucked into it and once they're in it's almost like they are brainwashed into believing that MLM is the best thing since sliced bread. Then ultimately somewhere around the 6 months to 1 year mark they realize they aren't making money, have lost money and gradually come back into the real world. I find it all slightly amusing but also barefaced lying. For the past x number of weeks or months they've been telling people how easy they make money, how they can work from anywhere, look how crap a 9-5 job is compared to mine, look how amazing my products are blah blah blah and then only to turn around in the not so distant future and say they aren't doing it any more because it didn't work!

scrubbedexpat099

If this is not a good reason to stay clear I have no idea what is.

There was a thread recently about those tight leggings for really fat ladies in many colours, I can understand getting involved if you are at the top of the tree, they feed of the rest until most go boom.

tom169

All I've heard is that LuLaRoe quality sucks.

MsElui

im signed up as a doterra distributor. mainly to get the discounted oils for myself. My friend who i am a rep under is actively trying to grow HER tree so she has signed up people under me. (initially i was just signed as a person under her on my own) i dont know who they are - have never met them, dont even know their names. IF they buy stuff i may make some commission. if they sign people up under themselves id make even more. But its my friend doing it all - im just a cog that helps her meet the target/structure that has been set. (something like have x number of people under you - each with x number of people under them). I was very clear with her that i wasnt really interested in selling, it just helps her for me to layer in there. It didnt cost me anything more to change to the level that allows others to be set up under me.

me - i just buy my own oils and dabble. no intention of ever selling to others. If it helps my friend grow her income now that shes a single mum thats fine by me, if i get any kind of commission id proably use it to buy oils instead of putting my own money on making it self funding

Former Lancastrian

At first glance at the thread title I was going to ask Do you eat the red ones last but then saw it wasn't about M & M's.

GeoffM

I have a lot of skepticism for these powder miracle mixes now. I have IBS and read a lot about the gut - and there is a sheet load of crap on the internet so one has to filter somewhat. But anyway, seems a lot of these powders may contain calcium, vitamins, minerals etc en masse, but the body can't always absorb them so they're wasted. Even stuff like Almond Milk, which has to have calcium artificially added (and is mostly water, gum, with a handful of nuts if you're lucky) is fairly nutritionally poor compared to good old fashioned cows' milk despite what the label claims.

Don't even get me started on western Tofu.

So now I just aim to just eat more healthily: more fruit and veg in their natural form, not processed into veggie burgers or "to****erey" - and I have lost weight in doing so!

Sorry, bit of a rant