[nwrep]

Because many people, especially suburban Christian housewives, are gullible and buy into the “you can be your own boss by selling this great product” scam.

[Chode]

remember the “Airplane Rides”?

[Jonty30]

I wouldn’t join an MLM to make money, but I might join one to purchase their products directly for myself.

[Repeal The 17th]

There’s a sucker born every minute; and two to take him.

[Deaf Smith]

Back in the mid eighties, I had a job interview with a Dallas based oil company.

Downtown offices and on the upper floors of a very tall building, I was dressed properly and had all my documents for the job I was applying for.

Turns out the executive was “interviewing” for Amway sales and using his company office for recruitment. There also was never a job position to be filled at that company.

I was very pissed and let him know as I was leaving.

[ptsal]

Bkmk

[HYPOCRACY]

I thought Tupperware parties were for swingers.

[Fury]

It’s not just the US, they are big in Japan. Losers will troll matchmaking sites such as Pairs and arrange to meet up with someone. When the two people meet, the loser will start in on his (seems to be mostly makes from what I gather) speech. Totally acting in bad faith.

[Political Junkie Too]

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.

The industry moved to a direct sales model where the person gets a commission on sales and a cut of sales people below them, but the inventory is direct shipped from the manufacturer.

The sales people are not personally responsible for buying and storing inventory from above. That's where they pyramid scheme lived.

-PJ

[metmom]

Greed.

[bella1]

I consider them a right of passage. Try one or two just to get it out of your system and then you're over it.

[Nifster]

MLMs are a lot of hard work.

You will probably lose friends and family

[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.

[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.