Hmm... this article is interesting, to me. I hope if anyone has been considering an MLM, that they think twice.
I appreciate the culture + enthusiasm of SOME companies where people think for themselves, act for themselves, are entrepreneurial, and view themselves as marching to the beat of a different drum. I like people like that. I have recognized these people in some MLM's, and while I like a person as a person, MLM's have been on my No List since 1999, immediately after I first learned about them.
My perspective, is that they are a form of MODERN DAY SLAVERY, where the company may be committing tax evasion or exploiting tax loopholes, and manipulating the individuals who are working for them. This is my general opinion, which is chunking up, and is NOT specific.
Normal healthy people, we help others when we can, when it's sensible. However, we are assuming we're helping someone who is like us, another Frog.
Similiar to The Emperor's New Clothes, if you're living something, you're on the inside, and Human's are myopic. We have to get outside of ourselves and our lense, to see it how other's do.
A lie may not be able to be seen, unless we change our vantage, create healthy emotional distance, take a look at our blind spots, and also remove all variables "binding" us. A man I met who meditates on neutrality, and the profound ability to create when you drop attachments, taught me some aspects of this, which I value. What I found to be the most relatable, is as Jocko Willink teaches. No one is perfect. We all have some bias. But we CAN see clearly, if we change where we are standing.
If you're living in it, within a group or company, the damage that is being done, may not be able to be seen, until the invidual becomes the casualty, or the Attorney General has indicted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
Besides questionable corporate structure, in MLM's, I also see over-priced products, which pains me because of how they're sold. It's not about the margins nor the product, it's about corruption in the sale.
Margins in retail, well they depend. But very very loosely, something is marked up to a price where the profit is 50-200% (8x+ with things like soda), and then profits lower from there (i.e. on Clearance, "everybody" is losing money [well, wholesale brokers can profit with clearance]).
With one MLM in Reno, the product sold to the consumers, The Pitch (THE LIE) was that the buyer was saving money since the sale was "Direct". But the product mark-up was 400% with profits going to the (a) Rep, (b) their Manager, and (c) their Director, in a pyramid scheme of commissions. The company was overcharging consumers by at least 300%.
Let's explain it, in a different way. If the product cost the company $250, and it was being sold to consumers claiming a Direct/Wholesale rate, then a consumer is thinking that they'd pay $500 in store, and that they're only paying 10-50% more than wholesale to buy it direct, which is $275-$375. However, their price tag is $1,000 if they pay outright, or higher if they select a payment plan.
If it wasn't a tiered commission scheme, then the consumer is actually paying $250 in commission to the rep, $250 to the rep's Manager, $250 to the rep's Director. They're buying a $250 peice of equipment, for $1,000.
The consumer is being lied to. They think they're buying something at a Wholesale/Direct rate of $1,000, where the value of the equipment, would be $500-$900 - but it's only worth $250. Bottom line, this is consumer fraud, ethics violations, more.
The 2018 MLM man I met, believed his company was good. I felt that he, and it, was deeply wrong. In fact, that criminal, was operating a shell company with his father, and using it to launder profits from their actions related to trafficking with convicted Clare Bronfman.
(I reported the son in 2018, and later on, when I was traveling, Clare herself came out to Arkansas with a Caravan of her followers, to intimidate me. It was telling as to her level of perceived threat assessment; I'm a nobody; and her followers, have nothing to do with me. My work, is more State and Federal level, and I could care less about her. I have no time nor energy for people nor operations like what her case files read, which I ended up reading, related to my 2018 case on a Cyber Threat Actor.)
It's strange to me, the parelells that a lifetime in industry provide.
SIDEBAR: I'm living to be healthy & athletic into my 100's with biohacking plus ancient wisdom of the Ojibwe. I'm only 40% through my life.
In 1999, the brother of Dr. Danielle Roberts, a NXIVM member connected to Clare, wanted me to join a derivative of Amway.
Back then, I went to one meeting with her brother, after he refused to honor my "NO", pressing me to go (his behavior was wrong).
SIDEBAR: Within several years of that, I learned how to say NO forcefully & professionally, to all people who violated boundaries like him.
(Several times, I also said NO in ways I was not proud of, in the moment. Yet a decade or more later, when I read about company indictments, I was GLAD I said NO in the way I had, as the person or company, ended up being criminal.)
In 1999, I went to an "introduction meeting/seminar", hosted at a Golf Club in Santa Cruz, and I thought the business was wrong, with people working for free.
I'm not a sales person. I've always reported finance. Half of my career, I've also worked with managing employees or B2B customers. Her brother through marriage, "Jay" (nickname), did NOT care about me, who I was, what I did, what my strengths, weaknesses, preferences, wants, nor desires were. He only cared about himself, his sister's cult, and Their Machine.
After meeting the Direct Sales MLM members, I called a business man who had been involved in my adoption, and asked him what he thought about that particular Amway derivative. He told me those companies were corrupt in general, that they were bad business, and that while some members could profit, that it would most certainly tarnish my reputation, the reputation of my family, and hurt my ability to gain reputable clients in finance & government reporting, or any other respectable industry. He said to NEVER engage. I took his advice in 1999, and have avoided all MLM's since.
MLM's have been getting a lot of news coverage over the last some years. I believe they are damaging, and commit versions of tax evasion + violate employment laws. I see them utilize language models to manipulate. I think it's very sad. I want all people, to be free, safe, and paid for their time.
If you're part of an MLM or Direct Sales company, I'm not against you. I'm FOR all humans (if your brain is scanned and your empathy lobe lights up, you're human to me). I'm for structures that are good, and that help people completely. I'm against all fraud, all corruption, and things that hurt/damage including lies, theft, manipulation. I've also never walked in your shoes, and I don't know your life, your reasons, nor your results.
I'm simply against the corporate model. Not you, but the way the company is practicing, recruiting, selling, and reporting their wages paid to consultants & employees. They're avoiding paying state and federal taxes on the misclassified consultant and failing to pay the individual for all of their time. The hire, will often see the benefit of this, if they want freedom in their role. Yet if you crunch the numbers over a the span of employment, say, a year or ten years or twenty, the company is saving millions, and the consultant doesn't get paid back for Social Security, Paid Family Leave, COVID relief, Unemployment, other. I'm against THAT model.
