"You cannot finish your job, but your job can finish you."
Motivated enough? These are the facebook statuses of the MLM junkies. That positive vibe, hype and energy! Oh can you feel it?! Job, rat race, focus, failure, champion. Do you see the relevance of these root words here? In a nutshell, they were trying to imply that your job is just temporary. That later on you will lose your job, you will never get out of the rat race and you will be a failure... if you will not do MLM! That is the clear message. How to be a champion? Join MLM, stay focused, never quit and diss your JOB. The job that brings food to your table, pay for your child's education, gave you medical insurance, prepares you for your retirement and your source of savings for your contingent needs. How can you exchange your JOB for MLM then? What does MLM can give you? Fixed earnings? Passive income? Insurance? Time freedom?
"We make things happen."
"The goal is to get out of the rat race!"
"Stay focused. The minute you lose focus you will also be losing your momentum."
"You're failure is temporary because you are created a champion!"
Well, let me enumerate the "benefits" that MLM was trying to offer:
1) Fixed earnings - On your JOB, you will have your monthly income credited to your bank account. No questions asked as long as you completed your working days. You will have this income for as long as you work with your company as you are sharing a mutual benefit. Your services in exchange of wages. In MLM, you have to recruit people, use and sell the products to get commission - which is not FIXED even if you work to the best of your effort and most of your time. Because if you weren't able to convince people to join, that's the end of it. No questions asked.
2) Passive income - On your, JOB you can save your extra earnings on the bank, open a time deposit, or invest in stocks, which can give you a passive income through interest. Or if you are having a bit more savings, you can invest on properties and buy land because its value appreciates over time. In MLM, you have to recruit people, use and sell the product to get commission - which is not passive income because you still have to work for that. - PAINSTAKINGLY
3) Insurance - On your JOB, most likely the company provides for your medical insurance, offers you a retirement benefit, bonuses based on your performance and other employee benefits. In MLM, you are not insured! They may say you have a personal accident insurance for this so and so company but how can you vouch on that? You are not their staff and they have no obligations to you. You are just a mere "commissioned salesman". Can you claim on that in the future? Another thing, the amount of the insurance is not significant enough to secure you in the near future taking into consideration the time value of money and inflation as this a fixed amount.
4) Time Freedom - On your JOB, you work an 8 am to 5 pm shift. An average of let's say 10 hours a day inclusive of break time. Most are free in the evening after work. You can catch up with your friends over a cup of coffee, have dinner with your family, or even a movie date with your significant other. Plus in the weekend, you have a choice to either just stay at home and rest, or if you want to have more fun you can have weekend getaway on nearby places or just simply stroll somewhere. In MLM, you are on call 24/7. Meetings and rallies here and there. You are up all night, you have a lot of appointments to sell your pitch and you have to go to a lot of places - using your own hard earned money from where else? Your JOB! You have to pass up birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and other important celebrations of your life! It's because you have to put on your priorities these MLM activities because of your commitment. Where is the time freedom here??
These are just some of the benefits that the MLM is trying to put as a bait to their prospects. In every motivational messages that they are trying to impose, there's a hidden meaning behind it. My then upline told me that once you are in MLM there's no way out. What?? Is this a syndicate or something? He told me that if you are a networker and you have no results for the first two years you have to try more. And on the fourth year you have not made it yet, well try harder. On the fifth year you are still struggling, don't even dare to quit! You had already invested 5 years of life. Are you going to throw it away just like that? What is his point? Never ever quit till your last breath! What does he want me to become? A poor old person swamped with huge debt on my death bed? Just the mere thought of it brings shiver down my spine! I proved him wrong though. I quit, and I'm doing even better. Even BETTER now on my JOB!
(Well I heard my upline still drives around his fancy car. His sports car which is still on loan from this very moment. And his debt is piling up... enough to build a wall around his dream mansion! Lol!)
Can anyone actually name a couple of people who did MLM, retired at age 29 and never had to work again because residual MLM income rolls in?
ReplyDeleteAnyone wonder why the mega triple ripple diamonds are all still working?
Exactly! Even the grandest of the grandest upline still has to work his butt off. Most were telling they were just sharing the business in order to help more people succeed. That was the most hypocrite thing I've ever heard! Why can't they just be true to themselves and say, "Even if I have this super mega title I still have to fool more people so I can have money for MYSELF!" End of story!
DeleteTo Joecool: Ty Bennett, Laura Kall, Jonathan Budd, Mark Hoverson...etc. the list is endless :)29 is not the magic number though. MLM real magic is at the end of the journey. By the way, I used to be a Management Executive at Chevron so I value good jobs as well but NEVER had the time for my kids! Most people fail in MLMs for 2 reasons: no qualified leads to talk to and they don't know how to put a lucrative sales funnel online.
DeleteTo Niveen: Why do most MLM companies projects that MLM can be done by anyone so easily during their presentation? The reasons you have stated were not being advice from the first meeting itself. Everything is positive at the start. Most were just advising the cons of the business after sign-ups! Meaning they have already collected the fee and poor prospect has to struggle to find their leads, purchase products from themselves (even if no orders from outsiders yet)and pay fees for meetings here and there. Good for you if you are successful to your MLM biz. Bad for most who shelled out their money to pay for your commission.
DeleteYour list of what is endless? You have no way of knowing if these folks retired for good with MLM income rolling in.
DeleteDepends on how the MLM is built up, and which products they got.
ReplyDeleteI'm working with Europes leading coffee producer, the hard work here is exactly how you describe freedom: "You can catch up with your friends over a cup of coffee". They like it, they buy it, no need to convince them as they can taste the quality.
Passiv income? Oh yes, the customers set up a coffee subscription (which gives them lifetime guarantee on the machine), customers can also have their coffee for free by recommending it to 4 friends.
The best part, we get our bonus from selling machines, but we also get our walk-away residual income from the massive amount of coffee subscriptions from our customers, our customers customers and our partners customers :)
How can you make this a bad deal?
Because no matter what your doing, you have to do something? And give it a shot for a year, we can guarantee succsess :)
It seems like you have a finality on your wordings saying that you can guarantee success... and for a year huh?! Maybe too much coffee has already affected and clouded your mind. Wow what an incentive! Free coffee after referring four of your friends (which needs to invest obviously). I can fix for my own coffee at home the way I like it for free! Bet this is another case of miracle coffee with this and that ingredients that is good for this and that and so it is OVERPRICED.
DeleteHow can I make this a bad deal? Believe me, the residual income that you are saying was just mere a fantasy. I wonder if you can make break even from this.
Well goodluck on beating Starbucks :)
and for a year huh?!
Delete:::Follow the system, work productive 10-15 hours a week, within a year you should at least be 5000$ / month with residual income.
Free coffee after referring four of your friends (which needs to invest obviously). I can fix for my own coffee at home the way I like it for free!
:::It's a way we can reward our customers who help us promote the product, other customers pay the regular price of course.
Bet this is another case of miracle coffee with this and that ingredients that is good for this and that and so it is OVERPRICED.
:::Nothing unusual with this coffee, but its top quality gourmet coffee, the same coffee is sold for about 14€ at exclusive european restaurants, like the ones in the Michelin Guide.
The price per cup is about the same as our"competitors", just that we use top quality coffee and make real Espressos, not freeze-dried coffee like Nespresso.
How can I make this a bad deal? Believe me, the residual income that you are saying was just mere a fantasy. I wonder if you can make break even from this.
::: How can you say? Theres almost no customers droping out, our stock market increased by more than 600% in 3 months. By the time i recruited 10 customers, my team had 100 and still counting, my team will always work, they dont care about what i earn, they want to earn the same or more. Theres no stopping, its growing like a charm, I only work to increase the growth rate. I earn money while im asleep, i earn money while im on vacation, and theres nothing that decreases my income, my monthly income increase for every single month, and will do as long as people drink coffee :) And because the distribution allows higher quality coffee, at the same price as our "competitors" with low quality coffee, i will become rich many times before coffee should get "unpopular" :)
Well goodluck on beating Starbucks :)
:::We dont need to beat them, we like our competitors, as they made the home café market, now we can serve the market a coffee of higher quality for the same price. – Theres no competition ;)
ExMLMJunkie
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I would like to say that I am in admiration of any individual who has the courage openly to face up to the ego-destroying reality that he/she was once duped by the Utopian 'MLM' fairy story.
Your new Blog is already attracting the usual tedious little flock of reality-denying 'MLM' believers and propagandists.
Ignoring all their precisely-worded, anecdotal claims of being witnesses to 'Success, Passive Income, Retirement, Financial Freedom,' etc., the common-sense questions which no bleating 'MLM' adherent or propagandist wants to address are as follows:
1. Since your so-called 'Income Opportunity's' instigation, exactly how many people have signed-up for it and exactly how many of these so-called 'Independent Business Owners' have got back more money than they paid in?
What independent quantifiable evidence can you supply which would prove that your so-called 'Income Opportunity' has had any significant and sustainable revenue other than that deriving from a never-ending chain of losing participants?
David Brear (copyright 2012)
It will take courage to accept you were duped but the important part of this is the realization and the concern to warn other people into falling in the same scheme. I may not change the past but I can be an instrument through this blog to help those struggling with their decisions. Hope my pesonal experiences help them see the light.
DeletePeople who have come out of 'MLM' cults and then put a significant effort into warning others not to get involved, have been quite rare. So, I'd like to thank-you.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, the majority of persons remain convinced that they, and their relatives, are all far too worldly-wise to be deceived by a cult. That said, if you prevent anyone at all from falling for the 'MLM' version of the cultic trap, then your effort will have been worthwhile.
If you want to contact me directly, just leave your e-mail address on my Blog (MLM The American Dream Made Nightmare) in the form of a comment. Your confidentiality will be respected. I'd particularly like to know if you have made any form of complaint to regulators, law enforcement agents, legislators, journalists, etc.
David, the reason why people come back and start warning about others is possibly based on couple of things. I do come from a moderate background and, I have a culture not to lie, not to deceive and I am ready to do anything it takes to succeed in my life. Even before Amway I knew what is a goal in life, what is discipline and so on. I did not even worry becoming a platinum but I wanted money that can at least take care of monthly expenses so that I can save my income from job for the future. Instead I ended up becoming mentally and physically drained. And you know everyone loses money in Amway but thankfully my upbringing helped me to remain in a limited loss and I also kept my job well. Mostly because of these things people do get hurt and they start writing in blogs about the harm inflicted by MLMs.
DeleteWe might have different reasons in creating blogs about MLM but we have a common goal, which is to warn the public of the financial and social harms that MLM might cause them. Our earnings and savings are hard-earned so we have all the right to safeguard our assets for ourselves and for our family. So friends, beware of cunning people!
ReplyDeleteHear! Hear! ExMLMjunkie - dig it and dig it deep. If you need help I know where I can find a good bobcat.
ReplyDeleteMay I be so kind to suggest - MLM Island Survivor - only top 1% can compete; the prize would be some new patented breakthrough product something something. Send the SEC, FTC and the FDA in to referee (only because they claim to be the legitimate bodies of knowledge all things MLM yet do nothing about it). Fight to the death. It would be AWESOME!! I will bring the popcorn.
And MLMsers...save that crazy ass, MLM SUPER DUPER jive talking, side stepping pathology for the island :) It will be full of people just dying (no pun intended)to hear all about your infinite wisdom!!!! Oh I am so excited!
What the hell r u doing on the last 5 years in MLM and not succeded??? Do you even understand what MLM is?
ReplyDeleteThere are 4 layers of MLM level .
1st layer is ur self as a member (buy the products)
2nd layer is making your self as a salesman where you introduce your business to say at least 5 person that would do the business ( Come and stay)
3rd layer is making your self as a sales manager, which you train your 5 friends into a salesman like you.
4th layer is a sales director, which you train your 5 friend into a sales manager just like you.
Now imagine if starting from you each month everyone creates an income as little as 150 dollars
1st layer 1 x 150 =150
2nd layer 5 x 150 = 750
3rd layer 25x 150 = 3750
4th layer 125 x 150 = 18.750
total of USD 23.400 a month , nice?
Well problem with most people they never get to reach 2nd or 3rd level because they're too busy to sell products instead of build their network. hence they give up and say MLM is not possible. Well of course being a sales man wont get you rich.
The point is when you are on the firs & second layer you are still doing active income, then passive income will be tasted after you reach 3rd layer. and when you get to 4th layer your financial freedom is predictable, since every 1 person invited to your network would double your income.
That is MLM. please tell me if you have reach the 4th layer and you quit because there is no money? and you cant sell a product to earn you a USD 150 a month? i think youre such a loser.
" i think youre such a loser." That is one of the code words of the MLMbots "loser". That must be one of the first things they teach the MLMBots when they join the Cult.
Delete"2nd layer is making your self as a salesman where you introduce your business to say at least 5 person that would do the business ( Come and stay)"
AND THAT is the entire problem of MLM. The incessant need to keep infecting new hosts, errrr i mean "recruiting" more and more people in to this. The entire business model is just recruiting more MLMbots into the organization to make these "levels"
In other words, a pyramid scheme.
DeleteSounds like someone had a bad experience in the past with MLM and instead of taking it as a loss and owning up to their own failure, they'd rather make a blog to demoralize and blame the industry as a whole. Typical mindset and reaction if a failure. Back to the rat race you GO!
ReplyDelete"rat race" - ah the MLM CultBots reply!!
DeleteDear Ex MLM Junkie
ReplyDeleteI am truth finder also.
I was distributer at Team Effort International/Network American California Based company.
I am in the process of fileing a case against the in the Police.
and I a big Fan of David Brear. MLM The American Dream Made nightmare Blog.
I invited everyone to have a look at his Professional Blog and learn the truth of MLM for their self.
MLM is the one of the worst experiences i ever had in my life. I was one of the very few lucky people to not lose a friend. but i lost a lot of money.
I agree, MLM is usually worse than haviong a JOB. I put my arguments here
ReplyDeletehttp://mlm-scam.info/mlm/mlm-versus-the-job/ , please see and tell me your thoughts.
Great page Lancaster. You got all the points. The whole sneering and disdain towards regular employment makes me sick
DeleteGreat article and so true. the biggest thing that i hate about MLM is the mockery and disdain of standard employment. "just over broke" - blah blah blah. Well i have one for you MLM - Morons Losing Money.
ReplyDeleteI've joined 2 of them in the past, went nowhere with them, listen to all the hype.
Great Content here, I totally Agree having a network marketing business is way better than 9 to 6 - Many people approached by MLM sellers hear about the comparison between MLM and a job. - http://mlm-scam.info/mlm/mlm-versus-the-job/
ReplyDeleteMany don't know that Network Marketing is better than a job so more people should get educated on it.
ReplyDeleteThe average mlmer makes only about 20,000 a year before all possible expenses. Add in monthly fees, convention fees, meeting fees, learning fees, mentorship fees, youll see 99% operate at a net loss. And no its not because they were losers and didnt work hard, its because the math isnt in their favor. It works off of an exponential theorem, it's cashflow is pyramid shaped, it's not a pyramid scheme because of the "service" it provides being products (usually glorified shit), its pyramid structure is designed so ppl fail, it needs ppl to mathematically. This makes it literally impossible to become an mlm millionare or even somewhat financially independent. So you may ask ... But..but..uh .. my.. mentor is making bank and ive seen people making a lot of money.. so your lying arent you? sadly not my friend most of the time mentors arent even as wealthy as the local 7/11 clerk, and nobody got rich in the last 3 decades off of working the mlm system, they knew somebody, or provided a service to the mlm higherups. So please buddy educate yourself.
DeleteI was in Amway for quite a few years, actually an embarrassingly long time. In all that time, and up to now, I have never seen an Amway big pin that actually was able to walk away from the daily grind of the Amway business, and have secure freedom (perhaps except for the few that got in in the 1970's and early 1980's). In fact, what I experienced was that the big pins have to keep on hustling the business day in and day out forever in order to not lose what they have, and possibly keep growing. They went from a 8-5 JOB (and time with family and money to do stuff), to a 24-hours-a-day/7-days-a-week constant never ending job of recruiting, selling, and motivating (with very little time for family (quality time any way) and sometimes money, but not secure without endless great effort to maintain it).
ReplyDeleteI saw a few go emerald or diamond, but miss out on the best years of their children's lives, because they had to leave the house in the evenings and weekends to "show the plan", make contacts, and hustle the business. Because they were dedicated to the business, with some dream of time in the future with family, which may have come, but far too late to enjoy it with the kids anymore. You know, the kids are at school during the day, and the dad is out building the business at night and on weekends, so where is all that free time with the kids.
I saw very sharp, well spoken Emeralds quit their jobs (dancing on the Board Room table on their "retirement" day)to be full time in Amway, and then, a few years later either go back to a job or start another "regular" business, to make enough money to live again. And face the embarrassment and disappointment of that in front of their children. My gosh. And I've seen Diamonds, move out of the smaller house in a very expensive neighborhood, to a larger house, but way out in an inexpensive suburb, and claim it was the Amway income that let them get this "dream house", which was actually less expensive than the smaller house in the awesome neighborhood.
In Amway, you will be living a "smoke and mirrors" life, with a never ending job of contacting, recruiting, and selling.
There may be money.....maybe. But endless secure freedom, not on your life.
Respect and that i have a nifty present: What Do House Renovations Cost house renovation companies near me
ReplyDelete