Why Americans Can’t Resist Multilevel Marketing Schemes

Artful Living ^ | September 21, 2022 | Marisa Petrarca

[HartleyMBaldwin]

My wife has gone to Pampered Chef “parties” a few times, and even bought a few gadgets. She has more sense than to join up, though. I think the PC stuff is mostly worthless, especially a kitchen knife that I threw away because it wouldn’t hold an edge at all. Worst knife ever.

[Right Wing Vegan]

The saddest part of MLMs is that it turns otherwise normal people into fanatics—they can ruin all friendships because they demand the friend do business with them—it turns a positive relationship into a “user” one.

So true. At times I am startled by which of my friends have fallen to it. Suddenly an old friend of many years goes at it and when confronted directly about it just responds according to a script obviously provided by the MLM for just that scenario. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

[noiseman]

When I was in college I was approached by someone trying to recruit me into Amway. Of course, he didn’t mention the name “Amway” at all (that should tell you all you need to know - name is too toxic, so they have to hide it). He simply kept referring to his “business.” For whatever reason, temporary insanity or maybe morbid curiosity, I let him talk me into attending some kind of regional meeting they were having a week or so later. When I got there, I met up with him and he was so hyped up he was spinning like a top. Kept telling me about this awesome guest speaker they had there that night, and how lucky I was to be there that night to hear him.

Well, after sitting down in the hotel ballroom with hundreds of other equally manic attendees, the show began. I had never heard of this guy in my life, yet the Amway zombies were nearly fainting in his presence. Regardless, I awaited the stupendously insightful wisdom I was promised he was about to bestow upon us. He put on quite a show, with tons of unnatural enthusiasm and hyperactive jibber-jabber, but it quickly became apparent that while this guy was spewing words like a verbal machine gun, he wasn’t actually saying anything at all. There was precisely zero substance to anything he said. It was all emotional manipulation designed to whip the audience into a frenzy, and it worked very, very well. In response to this chatty empty suit, the audience members were positively enraptured. This wasn’t any kind of business meeting, it was nothing less than a full-blown cult.

After it was over, I told the guy who invited me exactly what I thought of the whole thing and left. The last I recall is seeing him speechless, looking stunned that someone couldn’t see the obvious brilliance of this “business opportunity”, as I walked away.

[alexander_busek]

[...] the loser will start in on his (seems to be mostly makes from what I gather) speech.

Huh?!

Regards,

[Gene Eric]

slang for pretending to be

[Bullish]

It’s all an act with those people, even the responses to questions and criticism are scripted. Typical high pressure sales tactics.

[21twelve]

Years ago I bought the $100 starter kit or whatever it was from Amway. It really is/was good stuff. But of course the guy wasn’t truthful to get me to his first meeting. He covered it by saying “Well, if I was completely truthful you wouldn’t have come - would you? And missed out on these great products!”

My wife and I refused to lie to our friends about the Amway sales pitch we were going to have at our house when we invited them.

Nobody came! The couple that got me into it were nice folks, and he ended up doing well with it. Not my style though.

[ronniesgal]

i was approached to sell Mary Kay, wife of husbands buddy.
She and her boss worked me, but it’s not my thing- not my personality.
They wanted $$ up front of course and would not hear me saying NO thanks.

[A_perfect_lady]

You have to pay for rah-rah sessions, conferences and motivational seminars and spend more and more time parroting that on your social media.

I can see where that would leach away at your profits. I wish the article explained in more detail why some people manage to make money off of these models, and others don't.

[A_perfect_lady]

Just to be clear, multi-level marketing is when you buy inventory from the person above you in the pyramid, and then you have to resell that inventory through sales parties and recruiting new people below you who get their inventory from you.

So theoretically, the same items could be bought and sold dozens of times before finally being actually used?

[Political Junkie Too]

In the old days, yes, but as inventory. The manufacturers didn't have to warehouse the inventory, they sold it to the top level person, who then resold it down, and so on until someone sold it to a consumer. The commission got smaller and smaller until the person at the bottom was making very little money and was stuck with the product.

Today, it's called "direct sales," because the salesperson doesn't physically touch the product.

-PJ

[ViLaLuz]

My best friend from high school got sucked into the NuSkin cult. It ruined our friendship.

[FoxInSocks]

Probably a typo for “males.”