Why I stopped recruiting for MLMs after 2 years

This post is made for entertainment purposes only. All the opinions stated are my own and are based on research and personal experience. I do not condone bullying or cyberbullying. This content is compliant with the freedom of expression act.

Multi-level marketing (MLM) goes by many names. Some common ones are direct selling, network marketing, or social selling.

It’s simply a system of direct selling where companies advertise & distribute their products through people called distributors, reps, consultants, coaches, or stylists.

And the said people don’t get paid a salary or wage, but they receive a commission when you buy products using their special link.

Is it affiliate marketing?

It’s different from affiliate marketing in the sense that these reps/distributors can recruit other people to become reps under them, and in turn build ‘teams’ or ‘organizations’.

And the bigger the team, the bigger the cheque for whoever’s at the top of the chain, hence the multi-level aspect of it.

Meanwhile with affiliate marketing, you also get a special link, but you don’t need to recruit anyone to join whatever company you are promoting, or engage in other activities like you would in MLMs.

For the purpose of this article, recruiters will be referred to as ‘reps’ and the industry will be referred to as ‘MLM’ or network marketing.

MY INVOLVEMENT 

I was actively involved in the industry for 2 years. And in that time, I was a distributor for 2 companies.

I have recruited no one for over 7 months at the publishing of this article, and I don’t intend to ever do so ever again for the reasons I’ll expand on below.

However, my accounts with both companies are still active, but I’ll eventually cut ties altogether.

My decision to stop recruiting/selling’s not unique, people join and leave these companies daily.

All you have to do is lookup anti-MLM videos ‘Why I quit……(insert company) on YouTube to see other people’s stories and experiences.

Wanna check if a company’s an MLM? Click Here.

How do people end up joining these companies?

According to Steven Hassan, most people that end up being recruited into MLMs have at some point seen someone they know involved – a parent, friend, teacher, relative, involved, etc.

So it validates the legitimacy of the profession.

I know this was true for me. In those moments of doubt, I kept going because some people I trusted were involved.

Plus, I wasn’t sure why these companies would be allowed to operate by governments if they were illegal? But I’m better informed about the origins and influences behind this industry now, so I understand why.

I also know that my involvement probably legitimized it for some people, so it’s better to share my experience about why I’m not recruiting anymore.

I’m not here to tell anyone to leave, join or not join. But I believe in informed consent and due diligence, especially when you are investing time, energy, and financial resources.

So I’m hoping that my experience will provide a comprehensive resource for these different groups.

HOW I GOT INTO THE INDUSTRY

Everyone has a story of how they got into network marketing. And it’s often through a friend, relative, co-worker, social media influencer.

Except sometimes where they are messaged by a random stranger on the internet.

A lady from church recruited me. She contacted me through Facebook and asked to give me samples of the products, which I agreed to because I was working with different brands at the time as an influencer, so I assumed that it was a similar type of arrangement. I’d just moved to Canada a few months before.

Most people that join this industry are usually going through some struggle in their life that makes them vulnerable.

Some common struggles include:

  • death of a loved one
  • divorce
  • financial struggles
  • new motherhood
  • loneliness
  • health challenges
  • job dissatisfaction
  • health struggles

Stay-at-home mothers, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and immigrants are frequent targets. Those who appear to be on a search for psychospiritual meaning are also particularly vulnerable to joining MLMs.

Haley C. O’Bryan

A part of me believes that this is a big reason MLMs thrive in pandemics, recessions.

They sell hope. The hope of a better life, freedom from chronic pain, transformation, financial freedom, empowerment. All in a kit or box or whatever sign up amount you have to pay.

Personally, I’d just uprooted my entire life with the relocation, and I was also in that ‘what’s next’ time in my career. My husband had also just got laid off from his job.

I’d initially gotten the products to help with my hair and I hadn’t considered selling at all. But with all that was going on, I desperately felt the need to help pay bills while he was looking for another job (I couldn’t work yet because of my status in my new country).

I was also attracted to the idea of helping others, especially women, better their lives. And to make an income from home recommending products I was using anyway. It seemed straightforward enough.

Before moving to Canada, I had had very little experience with MLMs – I didn’t know what they were, their un/popularity and how they operated.

WHY I STOPPED PROMOTING

1. EPITOME OF HUSTLE CULTURE/CAPITALISM

Despite what you are told about creating passive/residual income, I feel like with network marketing it just never stops.

There’s always something to do, someone to talk to, a post to write, a call to attend, a ‘big’ goal to work towards. You work hard for one month, and when next month rolls again, you start all over again, from zero.

I’ll always remember my first experience of seeing the back office of my website. I couldn’t believe that all my hard work was gone, just like that 🙂.

I consider myself to be an ambitious person, so I adapted quickly. But even with this drive, it all became too much.

Of course, it eventually gets easier as you get better at talking to people and you have a ‘team’, but there’s never an end goal.

That’s why MLMs have million dollar clubs, then 5 million dollar clubs, a trip to here, a retreat to there, a nice car, an even nicer car. And even the recruiters that achieve these are still working as hard and ‘leading by example.’

Also, I found that MLMs thrive on victim blaming. Did you decide to stop? You are a quitter. You speak out about some of your unpleasant experiences–you are a hater. 74% lose money in MLMs? They didn’t work hard enough.

There’s the top list of this and that, best in this and that, and those that top these lists are paraded on stages as examples of what can happen when you ‘work hard enough’.

I won’t lie, I dreamt and planned on walking the stage one day, and I probably would have if I’d stayed long enough.

While I treasure individual responsibility, I also come from a culture that respects and upholds the collective. I’m not an island, and my actions affect others.

So even if I really believed the dream and I had the best intentions when I was recruiting them, at the end of the day I would. And I did.

To get to the top, I would have to step on some backs & collect the dollars from a lot more people.

And this didn’t sit right with me.

2. A LACK OF BOUNDARIES

Defining and keeping your boundaries in all aspects of life is important, but for some reason, boundaries don’t exist once you join an MLM.

And it starts small.

Here are some examples:

  • Putting purchases on a credit card (when you know you can’t afford to)
  • Working all hours of the day
  • Indiscriminately adding strangers on social media in the hopes that you can recruit them at some point
  • Replacing your cabinet/pantry with your MLM products, wearing clothing branded with your MLM
  • Changing your social media presence to talk your ‘biz’ daily (guilty)
  • Giving recommendations/consultations in fields you aren’t certified in

Shall I go on?

The companies themselves don’t require you to do these things, but they don’t discourage it either. So before you know it, you are eating, breathing and shouting whatever company you are a rep for.

Blurring the line between work & life creeps up on you.

A big attraction for Moms like myself when it comes to MLMs is that you can work from home/anywhere.

But the truth is, if you have kids at home you, know that there’s very little time to catch your breath during the day. Add trying to hit sales targets, it becomes one big mess.

It’s not uncommon to see women working late nights, on hospital beds, through contractions, on camping trips, during school pickups, just so they can make a commission.

And because the competition’s fierce, you HAVE to, otherwise you’ll lose the sale.

I’ve no problem with showing up & working hard, unfortunately most women are WAY underpaid for all they sacrifice.

So the more I got clear about my boundaries, the more I realized that my involvement with MLMs did not support this value of having firm boundaries.

I know that this is not a big deal for some people as they have great boundaries.

3. BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS

Even though I strived to not be pushy as a distributor, or be spammy, somehow the fact that I was involved in an MLM always made relationships weird.

And that’s the price you pay when your relationships become transactional than more than relational.

When you are in an MLM, you are encouraged to always be looking for opportunities to talk about your product/opportunities – church, mall, your kid’s school, parks, hospital, in your Uber, online. Just wherever there’s someone 3-feet from you.

And people that seem to recruit effortlessly are celebrated bigly.

So it’s not surprising that you’ll turn people off in person and even on social medial because who likes being around someone that’s always ready to pitch?

Another level of possible broken relationships is with your co-recruiters. It’s not uncommon to hear of horror stories and smear campaigns once someone chooses to leave, especially when they speak out about their experience. 

Even though I was involved with my first MLM for over a year, when I left for this other one, most of the ‘friendships’ disintegrated.

Did this hurt? Definitely, I had a few therapy session to process it all.

But I don’t think the experiences in the relationships were fake, they were as real as they can be, and we had TONS of fun.

I’ve actually been surprised when I heard the treatment of some people in other teams because most of the people I was with were really sweet.

But there’s always a danger of fallout when the lines between business and leisure and identity are interconnected.

For me at the end of the day I know that even if I don’t have anything else, I can have good friends.

So I wanted to spend my time and energy investing in real friendships not based on any sales or the direction I decided to take my career.

4. DISCOVERING WHAT IT REALLY TAKES

When you are recruited into an MLM, a recruiter will often say things like ‘the product sells itself’ or ‘anyone can do this’ or ‘we’ll show you what to do’ or ‘you set your hours based on your income goals’.

I know this because I’ve said these things to others, and at the time I really believed it.

However, the more I stayed in, the more I discovered that it was WAY more work than it was sold, at least if you want to make a decent income.

Yes, you do it on your own time, and yes you can work from wherever, as long as you have a phone or laptop.

But based on what I’ve seen, it’s not impossible to ‘work’ between 8-10 hours a day, while juggling kids and errands other things you need to do as a person.

It was only in the second company that I joined that the leader was honest about what it REALLY takes.

This happened by pure accident, or maybe I was ready for the information. It was during a team training call and she asked someone that was doing well how many people they spoke to in a day. 

And the shining recruiter’s number of conversations she had in a day?

She spoke to at least 70 people a day! Like wtf?!

She did this on Facebook in case you were wondering.

It’s a miracle if I can speak to 5 people a day, and even that number stresses me out.

I’ve done a lot of hard things, including shooting 12 hour weddings and breastfeeding during breaks in church parking lots, but this was a different type of hard.

And it was then that I knew that I was NOT cut out for this, especially when results were not guaranteed.

So how do people do well in MLMs then?

You CAN make money in an MLM, and some people do change their financial situations around. But it comes at a price.

From what I’ve seen, here’s how some people (top 1%) make it to the top:

  • They got in early. That’s why MLM veterans are always after ‘groundfloor’ opportunities.
  • They have a big network. In-person/online. That’s why teachers, pastors, pastor’s wives, fitness instructors, celebrities, realtors, influencers are in demand.
  • They have influence over their network. People in their network trust their opinion and listen when they speak, hence the list above.
  • They have a partner supporting them, so they are able to stick through the first few tough years of losing money if they don’t rank up quickly.
  • They are selling courses/coaching/resources to people desperate to ‘make it’ in their network marketing business. This way they are able to 1) increase their perceived value and build their influence 2) Have income to pump into ads and other targeted forms of marketing.
  • They are charismatic. This industry’s not for everyone, no matter what you are led to believe. Just like any other industry isn’t for everyone.

So no, you are NOT a bad leader for failing to ‘duplicate’, the system’s working exactly the way it should.

4. MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

Mental health struggles are REAL, and the more I speak to people, the more I realize just how many are fighting some sort of invisible battle.

I’ve tried to bring this up a few times with leaders in MLMs, and they take it to mean that you are giving ‘excuses’.

A recommendation I once got? Do more personal development, control your thoughts, set a routine & do some mindset work.

Hear me right, there’s some value in doing these activities. But for people struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD and other mental health issues, working an MLM business can make the struggle worse because of the constant hustle, rejection and just the general feeling of never being enough.

I had undiagnosed depression and anxiety for years, and I’ve no doubt that my involvement in MLMs made it worse. Now that I’m diagnosed and I’m on meds, I know that I need a lot of rest, downtime and to eliminate stressors in my life.

I’ve seen some people claim to have mental health struggles and do well in MLMs (at least on the outside), and I really don’t know how they do it.

5. NO EXPERTISE NECESSARY

The shiny object syndrome is real in MLMs. From products to trainings to platforms and software.

While it’s a good thing that you can recruit and sell however you want, it also leaves the door for opportunists with the latest ‘blueprint’ of how to recruit and rank up faster.

These gurus will promise you that if you use their latest method, buy their latest book, enter their membership circle, use this new platform – you’ll finally reach your financial dreams.

And they’ll charge you exorbitant amounts for this sacred knowledge.

If you fail? It’s your fault – you didn’t follow the steps, talk to enough people, believe enough.

Another way I’ve seen the lack of expertise manifest is in that you don’t need to be ‘an expert’ to recommend anything in an MLM.

Vitamins, shakes, hair products, makeup, clothing – it doesn’t matter. Who needs cosmetology, dietician, or physical trainer, aromatherapy certification when you can just have access to people by virtue of purchasing a starter kit?

While I have no problem with being self-taught, I know that not having training can also be dangerous not just for you, but for the people you are recommending stuff to too.

You are at the mercy of 2nd hand information, and it usually gets diluted the further down it goes. Ever seen distributors do some out-there experiments all in an effort to prove the efficacy of whatever products they are promoting? Yea.

You just slowly get trained to throw out critical thinking, which’s important for helping you navigate what’s real and what’s not, especially in this age of disinformation.

I personally did not want to be liable for any issues that might arise from me recommending products I had no place recommending, especially since I was an independent contractor (which you are as a distributor, not a business owner).

And I was also tired of bleeding money into coaching, resources, company conventions and events.

6. DO THE MATH

Stats show that most people (about 99%) of distributors will likely lose money in MLMs. 

I kept a record of my income and expenditure, and so out of curiosity, I did the math in 2020.

I was surprised to discover that even though I’d had some money come in, I’d barely made minimum wage once I subtracted expenses from the net income.

And this did not even factor in the time I spent doing distributor related activities.

I did not like this one bit.

Another thing I noticed in the community, in general, was the seemingly reckless spending. I mean, I didn’t know what all everyone made, but we definitely had no problem buying stuff.

That’s why you’ll see MLMers elbowing each other and crashing sites to buy that new product that’s been released.

An expensive lifestyle full of designer bags, clothing, beauty treatments, cars, private jets, vacations seems to be no problem at all. And showing the lifestyle on social media in order to attract new recruits.

And yes, I do know that this isn’t everyone. 

It was only a few months after I stopped selling/recruiting altogether that I realized that I was trained to purchase something every month to contribute to my personal volume.

I found myself scrolling through the site wondering what I could buy when I realized that I really didn’t NEED anything.

7. PROFIT OVER PEOPLE

2020 was a year of reckoning on many fronts for everyone.

But most MLM companies were recording ‘momentum’ and more ‘growth’ than ever.

Their efforts to address racial inequality and speak out for marginalized communities were at most, performative.

Some of their top earners spewed divisive and even hateful rhetoric and they stood by and watched. All because it didn’t affect their bottom line.

I was in one of the ‘guru’ groups and they literally said, ‘What does people protesting and marching have to do with your business?’

This was in response to people feeling conflicted about prospecting and promoting their business at such an emotionally heavy time.

And this seemed to be the spirit of the different groups and chats that I was a part of, not just this particular one.

I decided there and then that I wouldn’t allow myself to become that person that chose to sell popsicles to my neighbors while they were trying to put out a raging fire.

As uncomfortable as addressing internalized racism, biases, homophobia, and prejudice would be, I would sit there with my neighbors, listen and learn.

CONCLUSION

There’s a lot of shame that comes with quitting network marketing because you’ll be ostracized and called a ‘quitter’ by your former colleagues. 

And you’ll feel ashamed of all the people you took advantage of or demonized when you were at the height of your career.

You were simply doing what you though was best.

MLMs aren’t illegal, and the people in them are usually nice. So I don’t think they’ll be going away anytime soon. 

But are they ethical? 

We cannot talk about ‘empowering women’ without talking about equity, justice and really listening to those that have been harmed, and making changes to recruiting policies and compliance for better accountability.

Otherwise this cycle of harm will keep being perpetuated.

FURTHER READING/RESEARCH

BOOKS

  1. Combatting Cult Mind Control – Steven Hassan
  2. Ponzinomics, the untold Story of Multi-level Marketing – Robert L. FitzPatrick
  3. False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-level marketing and Pyramid Schemes – Joyce K. Reynolds, Robert L. FitzPatrick

YOUTUBE VIDEOS

DOCUMENTARIES

Have you had any experience with MLMs? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

 

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