#multilevelmarketing

Goodbye instagram hello Tumblr

Went to a local craft fair today, a woman had a whole booth of JUST things like Swiftie friendship bracelets and shirts made with a cricket machine. Whatever, not my circus not my monkeys, get your bag. Try to walk by without saying anything or making eye contact.

Booth owner: see anything ya like?

Me: oh haha I’m not really a Swift fan haha but thank you

Big mistake. Suddenly this woman goes full Jehovah’s Witness on me, dropping everything she’s doing to start lecturing me about the good word of TayTay. “Oh but she’s such a good artist! How could you not like her?! What kind of music do you like? I’m sure there’s an album that could appeal to you!”

Contrary to what I’m sure is popular belief I don’t actually like lecturing these people in real life so I don’t say anything back. I kinda just slunk away and let some other customers take my place while I faded into the crowd.

1.) You’ll often see long Facebook posts from a person involved that make excessive use of emojis (this point might sound silly but it’s very, very relevant). The Facebook posts originating from this person are almost never sad and never delve into their mental health because they simply aren’t allowed to act that way. The posts need to be cheery because they’re often forced into making a positive representation of the MLM they work for. “How can you be sad when you’re working for a company as amazing as Plexus?”

2.) The posts they make will more often focus on the money to be made working for the company, rather than the products you’ll be selling. MLMs have a habit of preying on people who are struggling financially, most notably college students, single mothers and military wives. I myself have been approached by representatives from Plexus and ItWorks with the promise of making more money. “Do you want financial freedom? Do you want to be able quit your 9-5 job and stay home with your kids?’

3. When you join, you’ll likely have to buy some sort of “starter kit” as a fee for joining (for reference, NO LEGITIMATE BUSINESS will ask you to make any form of payment when signing up to work. If they do, it’s more than likely a scam).

4. You’ll likely have something called an “upline” who benefit from your sales and the sales of people below you. Before pyramid schemes were criminalized, their practices were the same, and the ONLY difference with MLMs is the involvement of a product/products: the only way for a new recruit to turn any sort of profit is by recruiting more people to sell, forming a “downline”. The more people you recruit and the more people your recruits recruit, the more money you make. However, the people at the bottom of the line will always face the same situation of not turning a profit. The only way to escape this, again, is to get people to join below you, and the cycle repeats itself.

5. You may get messages from people involved in MLMs that either undermine or boost your confidence as a selling point for their products, things like, “Hey girl! I’m so happy for you and congratulations on your new baby. Are you looking to lose your baby weight? ItWorks has some amazing products that I think you should try.” (Yes, this was a real message that a friend of mine got). You’ll get stuff from people you used to attend high school with that haven’t spoken to you in years.

6. When someone you know involved in an MLM makes a post about it, check the profiles of people who make positive and encouraging comments. The majority (if not all of them) are also ambassadors for the same MLM. Whereas you would expect ordinary people to find the post uninteresting and ignore it, these people will leave feedback in order to give the impression that the person involved is doing well and finding success.

7. If the MLM is health/nutrition/supplement based, the person will all of a sudden become an anatomy and health expert. They may post some gross pictures and discuss them in detail, or start talking about the science behind losing weight and getting in shape (and sometimes these posts are excruciatingly long) in order to give the products they sell an aura of scientific legitimacy. However, I have yet to see a post that scientifically explains what the products created by these MLMs do to help people. (This point wouldn’t apply to jewelry or clothing MLMs like LulaRoe).