One other recruiting tactic to be aware of is some wellness MLM companies will host things like weight loss challenges, maybe using a personal trainer or gym they found who is willing to go along with it. It might not always be evident it’s a MLM behind it. They’ll host meetings and weekly weigh ins for progress and encouragement, but during these you’ll realize information suggested to help is based from the MLM and they encourage purchasing their products to help with your weight loss efforts. A personal trainer I used to work with got involved with this ploy and it turned out it was hosted by Herbalife.
Some MLM companies may genuinely have better products, be eco conscious, work with charities or present fair trade work opportunities in poorer nations. For example, Beautycounter offers really clean beauty products and cosmetics made without toxic ingredients. Noonday sells jewelry made and designed by mostly women in poor countries which gives them a chance to work making products for fair trade wages, helping improve their living situation or communities.
Also, MLM’s often operate with a couple of things I’m not sure were mentioned. They usually have groups of upline people who are ranked with certain titles of sales levels achievements. To maintain their titled status, the upline person usually has to meet a certain criteria of sales volume and recruitment activity in their downline each year to requalify at that same level..
Second, they are offered different rewards and Perks from the parent MLM company for meeting and maintaining these goals. I had a friend who sold Mary Kay who was given a free car to use (but not one of their signature pink ones). I had another friend who had some success with partylite selling candles and went on a few free cruises with her husband.
It’s possible MLM”s lately target mostly women as mentioned, but from personal experience, early in my relationship, my husband was introduced and decided to join Amway from another male friend he respected a lot. He became convinced it would be his and our ticket to financial freedom, and I got involved by default. (My family hasn’t been involved for many years. A volatile situation between some upline groups trying to change tactics they were using in attempts to be more successful, caused a big feud and blowout with the parent company, which created a ton of fallout, including my husband when he realized how bad things were).
From personal experience during those years, I can share these additional things to be aware of:
1. You were advised by upline how to dress for better success. There were specific recommendations for males and females.
2. Besides only using their vast array of branded products, to be successful, you were encourage to purchase “business training materials” on a monthly/weekly basis. These were often not from the parent company, but generated from very high upline people. They chose specific books and recorded meetings or conferences that they produced as CDs (back then). The upline made an additional pyramid income stream from the sales of these materials, aside from what Amway volume of product was sold. This added additional expense output for the hopeful recruit trying to be successful with it.
3. Amway’s recruiting techniques were often very subtle and manipulative. Amway had gained a terrible reputation (rightfully so), and even tried rebranding their company as Quixtar for a time. Usually they encouraged you to write a list of every contact you knew, pick some names, and gave subtle ways to spark interest in meeting to discuss a new business opportunity. They had this system of explaining the business concept, often referred to as “the plan” or “showing the plan”. Often until enough positive sounding hooks were offered, and you hopefully got someone interested, is when they would eventually divulge that it was in fact Amway.
4. They had the tiered levels of upline success, with titles like diamond (double, triple), sapphire, emerald and such. There were rewards at each level and perks such as highest levels got exclusive vacations and conference opportunities.
5. You were encouraged to attend a monthly meeting with more successful people giving a talk and tips (this was mostly married couples who were speakers). You were encouraged to bring people who had showed interest from “the plan” to such meetings, and invite them to talk to the speakers to further encourage them to sign up. These meetings were often a few hours or more drive for various people attending. These meetings were no cost to the people you brought as guests, but may have cost a fee to attend, but you were highly encouraged to do so for success. Then there were a few major conferences throughout the year that the really higher upline put on. You were especially encouraged to attend these. These were held in specific parts of the country, and often included further travel by flight. You also may have additional expense for hotel stays (some hotels offered discounted group rates) or rental cars. Some groups encouraged travel together with their downline to save money. These meetings were very charged to hype people up to go out and do the work to be successful.
6.“Dream building” was encouraged to motivate you further. They encouraged you to look at luxury houses, cars, etc, or whatever might motivate you to put more effort in. Many successful people had stories of scheduling many evening meetings, driving their cars (and bodies) into the ground, even with a full work schedule during the day. Exhausting themselves and often sacrificing time with their family and kids, just so later they would earn the time and financial freedom to have that later.
7. There was definitely collective ideologies within the tiers of the top leadership. Many were religious (typcially christian or mormon). Many, even speaking in the big conferences, extolled very right wing political beliefs and idealogy. Amongst groups of different ranks and people, I heard so much of this in conversations at events. The big conferences also included an optional Sunday non-denominational “church” like service for those of faith (usually christian).Other ideologies and viewpoints could often be judged or looked at negatively in private conversations. Not speaking for all here, but this was my general experience with a lot of what I saw.
One last thing, watch out for subtle ads or opportunities advertised as work from home jobs, especially during this time of Covid 19. Many have sadly lost their jobs or reduced hours and looking for opportunities. People trying to recruit for MLM’s will often post they work for a company “that has a few spots”, or are “hiring”. You may be referred to a website to watch a video presentation, and then check back with the person who referred you to the site. Others may leave ads or descriptions of a job opportunity that sounds good, almost legit, but vague on more details. I’m seeing an increase in this right now. These ads could be for MLM’s, or other types of jobs that just recruit for sales jobs that pay no salary but offer sales commissions only, which is another different category from MLM.
The biggest takeaway I can give is the fact that more people lose money, some quite a bit, from being involved with MLM business models. There are people who have been able to be successful and earned those wonderful perks, but at the expense of MANY below them who lost way more money than they ever made putting in all the time and effort just trying to succeed. If you like a product offered and want to buy it from an MLM, that’s up to you. Some people will only join an MLM just to get products at discount, but don’t want to sell and recruit. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of MLM fallout, not just from Amway, but other friends and people trying all kinds of these different systems. I think MLM’s are a real issue, and a strong way to lose money rather than gain it.
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