The MLM "Girl Boss" Narrative is a Lie

hey hon how are you by the way you seem like a great fit for an amazing opportunity would you like to be able to work from home and become a boss babe [Music] what is this opportunity I'll explain everything just come to my party this week it'll be fun so many of us have experienced this conversation usually on Facebook probably more than once welcome to internet analysis MLM and this has been a very highly requested topic I'm sure that a lot of you already know about MLM but for those of you who don't I will be explaining things generally there is so much to be said about MLM it would be impossible for me to cover it all in this one video there are literally entire podcasts and documentaries focused on this topic so I'm gonna do my best to give a good overall representation and I've collected this information from articles videos the anti MLM reddit page so hopefully it's well rounded by the way this is not meant to be mean or make fun of anyone who is part of an MLM or who has been to be honest I feel bad for anybody involved in an MLM but I think generally a lot of the anti MLM content online is there to educate and inform people and hopefully stop people from getting involved with these companies so let's jump in MLM stands for multi-level marketing what is an MLM the idea behind MLM is that people pay to become distributors of a product typically you get recruited by someone you become part of their team and then you are supposed to recruit people and then help those people recruit more people sound like a pyramid scheme yeah pretty much to be fair there is some distinction between what is a pyramid scheme and what is an MLM but honestly I feel like there's a lot of overlap people who are fans of network marketing okay MLMs will say that pyramid schemes are illegal so this can't be a pyramid scheme but they do have a lot of things in common and many MLM companies have been sued for essentially being pyramid schemes so in this video I'm kind of gonna walk through and give examples of the entire process of being recruited into an MLM along with just some of the horrible things about them so I expect this to be a long video I hope you guys are down for the ride before I jump in I've got to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor which is a me now I've partnered with them this summer to create a series for their app the series is called life after high school it's about basically all of the different college and career options that you have after high school hello and that's kind of funny because it's like after high school you can either take a gap year or go to a trade school or you can join an MLM and harass everybody from your hometown my latest episode was about community college sometimes going straight to a four-year university can be a bit of a shock Community College helps you get used to the workload and schedule of college plus you probably still living at home which gives you some familiarity and comfort that was my third of six episodes that I will be posting total this summer so make sure you guys download their app look me up my username is Tiffany Ferg you can follow me leave me a comment and stay tuned for future Amino episodes okay let's get into it why in the world would anyone join an MLM I think it all comes down to the promise of uncapped earning potential you can work for yourself from home own your own business sell amazing products that you believe in and get a discount for yourself help other bots babes own their own businesses you can make thousands per month actually there's no limit the amount that you can earn plus when you reach a higher rank you get a free company car but you have to move fast the sooner you get in the more successful you can be the perfect boss babe life MLMs are notorious for promoting this boss babe lifestyle especially because 75% of MLM distributors are women so a lot of these companies are products for women or at least mostly targeted at women but the ideas of working from home being your own boss having flexible hours are attractive to a lot of people but especially to two particular groups that MLM target moms we all know how expensive childcare in the u.s. is so in many family the moms end up having to stay home with the kids but many moms would like to be able to earn some money for their family so having an opportunity to earn good money while being able to work from your phone is ideal also targeted our military spouses the unemployment rate for military spouses over the past decade has hovered between twenty and twenty-five percent four times the rate for adult women so there are a lot of reasons for the unemployment and underemployment of military spouses but here are a few mainly stemming from the fact that military spouses have to move around a lot with their partners military bases are often located more than 50 miles from major cities effectively limiting both the quantity and types of jobs available according to the Department of Defense it can be very difficult to get hired if your employer knows that you're a military spouse because they expect you to not stick around for a long time you in general MLM recruiters will approach anyone and everyone they are predatory however the people most likely to be preyed upon are already vulnerable recruiters often tend to target low-income people or people who are desperate for work hence why they would be willing to take the risk of joining an MLM because they're pretty much out of options anyway we will discuss the reality of this bus babe lifestyle and how much people can actually earn in MLMs later in this video let's continue walking through the process okay okay how can I get started just sign up under me and buy your starter kit I have to buy something how much is it no worries babe anyone starting their own business needs to invest a little bit of their own money but it's all good you'll earn it back so fast by the way the more well-stocked you are the more you can sell so I recommend buying the biggest starter kit I don't have a lot of extra money right now that's kind of why I'm looking for a side hustle you have a credit card right man just put it on that so this is where [ __ ] gets messy in most situations if you have to pay to be able to start a job it's probably not legit remember MLMs do not pay any wages or salary so the only thing that you can earn is commission either from your sales or recruits and the sales that they generate we'll talk more about that whole team structure in a bit but first here are some example starter packs from a few MLMs our bond starter kit is $79 plus an annual renewal fee of $30 and that does not include any of the products and then there's lularoe on the high end of the spectrum which is honestly one of the worst MLM there are so many things to say about that company but they are just horrific according to this mom blog the lularoe start-up kit is approximately five to six thousand dollars which includes some initial inventory and then other costs such as clothing racks business cards or your website so from what I've seen in most MLM s the distributor has to buy the products at cost or wholesale whatever they want to call it and then they have to you know ship or send it out to the customers directly and then obviously the difference would be their profit or their Commission there are also monthly quotas that you have to hit in order to stay active as a seller so sometimes if someone's not selling well and they want to make sure they hit their quota they will order things for themselves just to hit that number I just have to emphasize again that many people joining MLMs do not have any money saved they don't have money to spare for this so-called investment so a lot of people end up going into debt just to get started in an MLM ok let's continue with some sales strategies once you join an MLM what is next how do you end up making money great question honestly babe just fake it till you make it you post about the product on social media everything you post should be all about success and freedom and happiness you straight up want people to see what you're doing and be jealous of you wanna be you it's more than just selling products you're selling the dream as you'll see the actual products in most MLM are pretty irrelevant to really get successful and actually earn money you need to build a team because you can rely on the commission of the people below you so you recruit a few people and then you help them bring in a few people under their teams and then you'll have all of those people essentially working for you or that's at least how it's supposed to work so people pay for their starter kit then they have to buy their stock plus samples and whenever new products come out they have to buy those to get familiar with them so that they can sell them so if you're not carefully keeping track of your accounting you know your expenses versus your revenue it might be easy to think that a lot of money is coming in when actually you're breaking even or maybe even losing money so naturally for selling and recruiting people reach out to their network which is people that they know in real life or online Facebook Facebook is the ultimate hellhole of MLMs I don't know if it's just cuz people who are still in their hometown are the people most likely to use Facebook not talking [ __ ] I still use Facebook I don't know why I really should get off it no but really there is a practical reason for this because Facebook as a platform gives a lot of the news so to speak for people to establish their MLM business so they will create a Facebook group for their company and invite everyone on their friends list to it and then they'll send messages out to everyone and often MLMs will share these like copy/paste messages with their distributors like oh it's so quick and easy you just make sure you personalize it and make it sound really friendly but sometimes they mess up and they leave the copy-paste info in there and that's pretty funny obviously on the receiving end this is very annoying to have somebody message you out of the blue hey how are you will you buy my product or join my team you're like what so usually people just leave the Facebook groups or ignore the messages then there are the parties the infamous parties how dare you call them parties distributors host parties with the general premise of letting people try samples of their product but then it ends up just being like hours of them giving presentations about the product in the company and trying to convince people to buy the product or join their team my first experience with an MLM was when I was about 16 my friend had a lady approached her in the restaurant that she was working in and invite her to try out some skin care for something and I don't know why we went but we did she made us meet her at her neighborhood pool which was weird but I guess better than going in her apartment and she started to put like cream on our hands it was like we realized that she was trying to sell us stuff but it literally took I think hours for us to get away because we were just too polite to be like peace [ __ ] now we had to block her number and hope that she didn't go into my friends restaurant again but seriously who approaches literal children I just don't understand also another thing about the parties is weirdly that sometimes people in MLMs will approach you and ask if you're willing to host a party like why would I want to bring people to my place invite my friends to this party so that you can sell these products to them I feel like the entire like party premise is just based upon social norms and people are all being too polite to say no like oh I guess I'll go and then you show up there and you're like well I guess I'll try the product and then you're like up I'm buying $100 worth of the product that I don't want we have to learn to say no you guys I've also seen people get guilted by the party host or the salesperson whatever they'll be like oh my god I spent so much money on these snacks you're gonna drink my free alcohol and you're not even gonna buy anything it's like you offered to have a party I didn't know I was gonna buy something it's like hey lady how about done for these parties and spend money get a different job anyway when sellers are messaging potential customers or recruits they will use any strategy possible they will specifically target your insecurities to try to reel you in gained a bit of weight why don't you try Shakeology and Beachbody you literally just gave birth try my product join my team oh your grandma's in the hospital by my Essential Oils no seriously this is a post on reddit where this girl's grandma fell and fractured her hip and she gets a message from an old friend you know sending thoughts and prayers how nice oh how are you oh I'm good thanks so I see you're looking to make some money did you know you can make up to $2,000 a month or you could purchase some essential oils for your nan will help her recovery for sure that's pretty insensitive don't you think thanks but no thanks hmm guess you don't really want to help your nan are you kidding me they have no shame also of course one very entertaining feature of these messages is all the emojis they just go overboard with the emojis to try to pump up the positivity it is pretty entertaining though like how they will try to like slyly sneak in there as if it's lie to be like oh your grandma's sick these essential oils could help her saw your post about anxiety and depression oh that's a bummer why don't you try these essential oils these tactics are just so manipulative and as I mentioned before moms are targeted especially often and I've seen a lot of posts saying that moms will get messages like hey babe see that you've got kids and you work out of the home that's so sad don't you want to work at home and be able to stay with your kids I feel so bad if I left my kids with somebody else all day like their guilt-tripping these moms who are just working to pay their bills for their family their guilt-tripping them for going to work how dare you not join my MLM I'm offering you financial freedom and unlimited time with your family you won't accept it you're a bad parent the audacity recruiters also take advantage of the fact that a lot of stay-at-home moms are pretty lonely you know if you spend most of your day everyday just with your kids you need a little adult friend time this doesn't just apply to moms it also applies again to military spouses specifically because when you move to a new base you know no people you're brand new you want to make friends there you go so these MLM girlboss squads offer not only a job opportunity but also the chance to have some new friends and go to these parties even if you are just being forced to listen to presentations about other products at least you're socializing right we are all just so desperate for human interaction no but really in the marketing of this you know they promote this as an opportunity to have this really loving and supportive friend group but it's all [ __ ] speaking of [ __ ] there are many many insidious marketing tactics distributors are often encouraged to straight-up lie they always say fake it till you make it I've seen people encouraged to post photos of fake orders like oh so-and-so ordered this I'm setting it out today hope you love the package babe or they literally post fake reviews from customers this was the worst fail by the way this person tried to make it seem like that was a text but it's their own text box try harder there's so much technology these days could be easy to fake text they also encourage distributors to post pictures like of them getting their nails done you know treat yourself prove to other people that you clearly have enough money to spend on yourself you want to create the image of this very like luxurious relaxed successful lifestyle post things like oh so glad I can work from home so glad I can stay home with my kids and earn money and then there's also an element of artificially inflated social media attention and engagement so like of course they'll be supportive and comment on each other's posts but also I've seen videos of people literally promoting buying Instagram followers buying likes to try to make it seem again like you're very successful you have a nice Instagram that's getting a lot of comments and followers it's a sham you're building a lie and that is all for appearance that's so in case you actually do get a real person looking at your page so go oh this looks legit even though obviously all of those fake followers will do nothing in terms of like actually getting sales or even other recruits so again a lot of this is just about the process of selling and recruiting but not much about the actual products are they even worth buying are they good quality do they do what they promised to do I feel like really the products are not the main focus in an MLM which is crazy but still the distributor's do have to use certain tactics to promote the products which usually ends up meaning spreading complete misinformation and lies this product is a miracle this makeup is better than Mac these essential oils cure cancer I can make a whole video focusing on the specific claims of all of these different MLM products but to me I feel like if a product was really that good really that amazing and incredible and high quality it would just be sold in stores or at least online I know that obviously direct sales is like a gimmick it's supposed to create this like exclusive video you can only get it through me get it while it's hot but I can't think of any real situation where a legitimately good product would best be sold in this way let me know what you think so after all of this imagine you've gone through this process you've ordered your kit you've tried to start selling you've gone to parties hosted parties you've messaged everybody you know you've put in a lot of money and time and energy people on social media have probably deleted you or muted you or just avoid you like the plague which by the way that is a huge negative impact of being in an MLM because a lot of people have relationships suffer because of MLM s naturally you are relying on those people closest to you to be supportive of you you know I've got my own business mom and best friends and cousins aren't you gonna be supportive of me and buy my product and maybe even join my team so yes some of your loved ones may either out of pity or out of support by your product or even join your team but it can really cause some awkwardness in a relationship to say the least and it really is offensive to get a message out of nowhere you know from an old friend or something or even somebody you barely knew in high school and you're like hey maybe they're reaching out because they like want to rekindle our friendship oh no they're just trying to sell me [ __ ] great it just really cheapens those relationships and it makes people distrust you so throughout this whole process your upline is consistently encouraging you to continue always telling you to try harder keep pushing and by the way the upline relationship by nature is pretty manipulative I mean this person literally directly profits from you and the people in your team so naturally they want to do everything they can to push you to keep making money so that they can continue making money from you even if your upline was once a friend once it becomes like a business relationship it literally becomes transactional and they're not gonna care as much about your actual well-being or the fact that you're putting your finances and your relationships on the line it can become really toxic really fast if you aren't making money or not making enough money you are blamed for not trying hard enough baby you just need more sales and more recruits you're not being positive enough it's all about the law of attraction you have to believe that you're rich and independent and successful and you will be and in the back of your head you might still believe it a little bit you hold on to that hope and think maybe I still can be one of the lucky ones if I keep going and that thought can get you trapped in this cycle ultimately the perfect boss babe life is a lie I've already mentioned the fact that distributors are encouraged to create basically a fake life online to make it look like they're killing it and that's gotta make you wonder is anyone actually killing it or is everybody doing as badly as I am how many of these people are genuinely doing well well folks here is the reality the only people making massive amounts of money in are the small amount of people at the very top and those are pretty much the people who got in the earliest if you get into an MLM after the very beginning it's very unlikely that you'll be able to make a good amount of money from it so yes there are real people who are making five or six figures a month they have the company car they're going on trips their life looks amazing and their feet is poppin but that is not at all the reality or even possible for the vast majority of people who join in MLM according to some studies 99 percent of people who join in MLM never even make back their initial investment that is absolutely insane so to accompany that I have some income disclosures which I think legally all MLMs have to put this on their website but I don't think that people look at it because I feel like if you were interested in joining and check this out you would realize hmm doesn't sound like a great deal but let's look at this this is one from it works in 2016 and these numbers by the way do not factor in the expenses that people have had to invest 6.5 percent of distributors received no income 78 percent of distributors in the very lowest starter rank averaged 50 dollars in a month before taxes meaning if you were spending more than seven hours the entire month you're making less than minimum wage likely you're working maybe 10 hours a week at least which is 40 hours a month and you're making basically a dollar an hour now some people might say yeah but that's just at the beginning and then after that if you work hard your income is gonna go up exponentially okay we'll see the next rank averages 219 dollars a month the third rank averages 474 dollars a month which hey it sounds a lot better than 50 dollars but it's still less than five hundred dollars in a month the federal minimum wage is 725 you could work 16 hours a week and earn that $475 again before taxes if your wages 10 dollars an hour you could work 12 hours a week to earn that the next few ranks that make up only 4% of the come name average between nine hundred and forty five hundred dollars so you have to be basically in the top five percent of the company to even average you know nine hundred dollars a month then the top third of one percent of the company makes an average of over 8,000 per month the overall monthly average of all distributors is two hundred and fifteen dollars so obviously looking at averages is usually not helpful because they can be skewed by really large numbers they can be skewed by really small numbers it's a lot better I guess more realistic to look at a median but either way even with that tiny tiny handful of people earning five figures a month the average of all distributors is still only $200 a month and some people might say oh maybe people aren't putting in a lot of work they don't want to earn a full-time wage they're probably just doing it for a little little side cash yeah tell that to the 78% of people who only earned fifty dollars in a month I'm just saying it does not make sense for anyone to put in that amount of work let alone the actual initial investment to only earn that amount of money in a month so I don't know exactly what MLMs tell their recruits in terms of their potential earnings clearly they try to bait you in with that you could earn unlimited amounts of money you could earn tens of thousands of dollars a month but I don't know like what they actually tell them in terms of what's realistic I think if they were honest and said likely you'll make almost no money people wouldn't join so I guess they're not saying that so clearly the vast majority of people joining in MLM do have that hope and that belief that there is a chance that they actually could be one of those top earners all you got to do is have the fire baby you got to believe it right but literally in this business model it is literally impossible for a large number of people to make that amount of money there are actually not enough people on the planet let alone actual customers of this product to be able to support that so basically MLM exists with thousands and thousands and even millions of people getting involved just to enrich the people at the very very top and hell yeah they're making a lot of money so for the vast majority of people you would be lucky if after you dabble within MLM you make back that initial investment but for a lot of people their time with an MLM finally closes and they are literally in debt after working and putting in time and effort for months it's crazy for people who joined a company like lularoe that has such an expensive inventory cost there are people who have stock that they cannot sell that's a whole other story but basically lularoe sends such low quality leggings and clothing that things are ripped and mildewy and disgusting and unsellable by the time they arrive to the seller so obviously they can't get rid of it and they don't allow people to sell it back to the company so you're screwed so if you find yourself in this situation you either continue somehow to try to sell the products try to you know make back your losses or continue to recruit people because at least then you have a chance of making back a little bit of money through them even though you've already realized how impossible this is how unlikely it is to be successful do you really want to get other people involved put them in the same situation that you're in you literally have to pull people down into the abyss that you're trying to pull yourself out of but still you look I have those super successful people in the company the founders the people at the top of people leading the summits and they're all doing amazing and that tiny shred of hope is still there you still kind of believe that that should be you that could be you if you could just keep working but even if you could somehow make it to the top or if you are one of these lucky people who is there at the beginning of an MLM it is at the expense of other people you are literally making money by wasting other people's time and putting them in debt and that just seems super unethical to me the majority of revenue within an MLM actually comes from the people who work for it the distributors the distributors buying their own starter packs or their own stock that's where the purchases are coming from for the most part very little of their revenue actually comes from organic genuine customers it's crazy any way to close this long long video MLM czar a major scam and nobody should get involved with them they literally ruin lives but again I get it people are desperate for jobs a lot of the time that's how people get stuck in really shady situations people need a job they need a way to make money but instead of trying to join an MLM try to seek out like legitimate flexible work opportunities the gig economy can be pretty savage but at least you will actually be able to earn money you know delivering for post mates that's not a complete and utter scam you just can't bet everything on this unrealistic idea that you can join this group and ascend to the top and be making you know six figures a month there are tons of blogs and videos dedicated to the question how can I make money online how can I make money at home how can I be self-employed how can I have a passive income stream but none of them are really easy you know you could do transcription or fill out surveys do you dog walking maybe start your own blog and hope that you could get enough traffic to earn some revenue if you're good at art open an Etsy store if you have some kind of a skill or something to teach maybe be a tutor literally any of those things or any other job that pays you an actual wage would be better than spending any time or money in an MLM whoa that was exhausting all right I feel like it still barely scratched the surface so make sure you guys leave me a comment tell me what your experiences with MLM s have been if you've ever been encountered or been recruited or maybe you've literally are in an MLM right now tell me about it and once again make sure you guys check out amino if you're interested go watch my little series they're really short so you won't have to spend another hour watching me you guys can follow me on Instagram for some mediocre pics if I do say so myself not to brag but my pics are kind of lame ok I'm going crazy my feet are asleep as always and I will see you guys next time for another Internet analysis video ok thanks bye stay strong my boss babes live your dream live a lot of Attraction you can do anything dream in big big life fake it till evening okay bye [Music]

Channel: tiffanyferg

Views: 1,207,919

Keywords: Tiffany Ferguson, tiffanyferg, internet analysis, commentary, video essay, MLMs, MLM, anti-MLM, r/antimlm, arbonne, It Works, Lularoe, scam, girl boss, boss babe, multi level marketing, network marketing, pyramid scheme

Id: E3FzGJMFO7I

Length: 30min 6sec (1806 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2019