SPEAKER: Becky Beach.
Duration :23:50
00:00
Did you know you have the power to change your life? It all depends on your beliefs. If you have limiting beliefs, you’re limit yourself. I’m Becky Beach. I’m here to help you overcome your limiting beliefs. So, you can design your dream life. This is the Becky Beach show.
00:15
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Becky Beach show. I’m Becky Beach and today I wanted to talk about MLMs.
00:25
I used to be a part of lots of MLMs, that was a serial MLM, if you recall it, it was always doing all these MLM all the time, and it make up our family go crazy. They kept telling, saying, “Tell me more stuff, you’re selling me all this stuff”, and I kept feeling like I had to pressure them to sell all my MLM products.
00:42
I’ve been a part of doTERRA, Pampered Chef, Farmacy, and also Mary Kay. I’ve sold for MLMs in my life. Every time I started a new MLM my family and friends be like, “‘ I don’t want to buy any of it”, so I felt kind of bad. Because I felt like bad girl, like, I was pressuring my family and friends to sell my MLM products. I felt pressure to buy them. I also have these uplines and upline is someone that you join under, in the uplines pressure you to sell the MLM products, and you’re called a downline. So that’s how it is, it’s kind of like a pyramid. So, there’s like people higher than you, and they make money every time you make money, they’ll make money too.
01:23
In order to get really good to make tons and tons of money at these MLMs you have to be very high up in the pyramid because you’re getting money from everybody under you. So, the more people you get under you, the more money you’re going to make, that could be pretty bad because I got into lots of debt over these MLMs like when I joined Pampered Chef, I spent over $800 and when I joined Farmacy, I spent over like, $300, just on makeup. I never earned any of it back when it was just really difficult because nobody would buy the makeup from me. Then I would just try and try, and no friends or family would buy anything, but I did get some success with Pampered Chef a little bit.
01:58
I ended up making like $400 that I just couldn’t do anymore because I felt pressured to cold message on Facebook. So, I would be friend to all these strange people. So now my friends list has like 2000 people, because I constantly be friended people I didn’t know, then I’ll send my messages, “Hey, girl…”, and I’ll copy/paste the messages, I won’t even use her name because that’s why you get those “Hey, girl” messages because they do not put their name because that way you want them to spend time, like putting everybody’s name and then copy pasting. I always used copy/paste. “Hey, girl” so I was that girl doing it. so, you could be mad at me, because I was one of those people doing it but then I saw the error of my ways. I got so much rejection and so much anger directed at me. I end up crying one night, because I had sent all these cold messages to people trying to get them to sign up for a Pampered Chef party. And I just got so upset, I became very emotional and just broke down and cried. And I said, “I just can’t do this anymore, can’t keep cold messaging people don’t know”.
02:55
I felt so pressured and there was a meeting for like, one of the MLMs I was in, like there were a coach that was head of everybody that head up liner, she will tell everybody below her to at least get 50 People like every week to message them. And I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t book any parties. I tried to book some parties and that it was just so difficult to get people to book parties. I ended up just booking three parties with Pampered Chef, it’s just so difficult.
03:20
MLMs are not easy at all. it’s also kind of preys on women I think because these people above you they’re making all the money and then you’re not making hardly anything and they’re pressuring you to keep spending more money especially with doTERRA I kept spending more and more money on my doTERRA oils so now I have tons and tons of oils and I just feel so awful that I have all the stuff laying around, all these Pampered Chef products. I got all this Farmacy makeup and all this Mary Kay makeup laying around I don’t even use it and I need to throw it out. I just spent so much money I just can’t bear this to get rid of it because I just look at it, I see just wasted money. It was just so hard for me to make any sales and I think of myself as a pretty good saleswoman I haven’t tried to use my blog Mombeach to sell some of the Pampered Chef and doTERRA oils but still nobody would buy anything like, I don’t know what I did wrong, nobody would join under me, when I tried to get people to join under me. I was also being pressured by my upline to get people joining under me too because if there’s people under me then she gets higher in the company if she has people that are under her that get people under them that she becomes higher in the pyramid so she’ll get more money so she kept pressuring me to get people under me on all the MLM companies I was working for the upline kept pressuring me to get people under me and I just couldn’t get anybody under me. Like I don’t know why nobody wanted to be under me. It wasn’t my fault.
04:40
So, I just was just really stressed out. it was just a very stressful experience being in these MLM. So, I just don’t recommend them. I know you see a lot of it on Facebook. You know, at Tik Tok, they actually banned promoting your MLM, but I still see a lot of people doing it. But on Facebook, I don’t know if they are going to ban or not, but right now they have not banned since I am promoting MLM on Facebook, but I think they might eventually because as I just think of as a scam because you can barely make any money hardly and hardly people make money at all.
05:14
A lot of people just never want to go into debt like I did. like I got until this debt. I got these products that I can’t sell, so I just don’t recommend anybody join MLM if you’re listening. when you join an MLM you usually will lose money and there’s all these disclaimers that say, only 1% of people are actually making any money and a lot of these MLMs and I just think MLM were just so stressful for me, like I just wasn’t very successful at it. And don’t get me wrong. I did try. I tried and tried, because a lot of people will say, “Well, maybe you didn’t try hard enough”, but I did try.
05:46
I was spending hours and hours cold messaging people on Facebook that did not know. But still, none of them would join my party. So, it’s not my fault. I’m just couldn’t get anybody to join my party and a party as you make a Facebook event, you invite people that you don’t know, off your friends list. That’s why they tell you to get lots and lots of friends on your list. I just kept befriending all these people. I don’t know and I still don’t know who they are. And they’re on my list still, but I just kept friending all these people. I just can’t believe that I have friended like 2000 people, the maximum friends you can get it’s 5000 people. And even to this day, I’ll get you know, people friending me out of the blue and I don’t know, then they’ll send me a cold message asking me to join their MLM or they’ll ask me to buy a product from their MLM or a party. So, I was getting all the time. if you ever get these messages yourself but I just kept getting all these messages for people to sign up for their MLM and join their MLM party or their MLM product and I got all these requests to parties still on my Facebook, I haven’t gone through. I just ignoring them because I’ve been there like I don’t not want to get into MLMs anymore. I’ve already done four MLMs, I already done four MLM I’m done. I’m done with these MLM I’m not going to go into anymore, I promise.
07:01
It’s very tempting because you hear about all this money that you could make with this MLM all I got to do is give like, $20 to Farmacy, I think for paper check was like $100 or so. They give me products for that money. And then I almost went into Scentsy, there was this Scentsy lady that was trying to get me to join Scentsy. And Scentsy, I really liked their products, I always had them in my house they smelled really good. So, I thought maybe actually join Scentsy and make some money too, because I was just really upset during COVID Because I thought I was going to lose my job. I was worried that I was going to lose it. Because all these people were getting laid off, like 30% of people got laid off at my company. So, I thought that I was next. So, I just had to do something, I felt like I had to join all these MLMs in order to make any money.
07:46
So that’s when I joined the Pampered Chef during this time and it just wasn’t what I thought it was, at all and I just felt very pressured to message people I did not know. I just didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t a good experience. I just don’t think that you should join one or either any MLMs because you got well, if you do, you just kind of go in it do not expect it to make all this money because that’s what these uplines, this whole day, they try to convince you that you’re going to make all this money. But in reality, you really don’t, you have to actually use a lot of your money, you can go into debt, like serious debt, there’s been like lots of women that got into so much debt because of these MLMs.
08:26
Especially if the MLMs are requiring them to you buy certain products every month, a certain amount product and if they do, they’ll go into debt. Because if they imagine having to spend like $100 a month just to keep current, like that’s what happens in some of these MLMs you have to spend money in order to stay in the MLM.
08:42
Especially in doTERRA you got to spend money to keep in the MLM, because I think I’m probably out of it, because I haven’t been buying anything. So, I got to renew it. I got to spend $50 to just a renew to being in MLM. It’s and also amount of membership, I haven’t been selling anything for them. Because you have to keep selling in order to stay in the MLM.
09:02
And plus, the friendships, somebody get about the friendships like that. [sysco 09:05] Do you think these people are your friends? They’re in the MLM with you. Like, I thought I had so many friends. I just felt this camaraderie with people because I’m really shy person. It’s really hard for me to make friends. I’m very introverted. You know, I just want to curl up in a ball and just cry sometimes because I just can’t make friends it’s very hard for me. So, when I got involved with MLMs I just made all these friends and everybody was always texting me and asking how I was and asking about my family and I felt like I had so many friends, then when I started feeling upset, that I couldn’t do this anymore that I couldn’t cold message people every day and because they were telling me I had to cold message at least 50 people every single day.
09:44
So, I decided I just couldn’t do this especially when I was breaking down and cried. I could not message all these strange people because I was getting so much rejection. All these people were angry at me for cold messaging them they didn’t want anything to do with me. I had people unfriend me they would block me I felt so upset. I just couldn’t do this. So, I had to go to my upline and say, “Hey, I just can’t do this anymore. This is not for me, I just can’t do the cold messaging anymore” and guess what, he never spoke to me again. They dropped me like a hot potato. Like they just dropped me like I was just some kind of hot potato, and they didn’t want to hold on to me anymore. So, I just lost all my friends. It was awful and I felt so alone.
10:22
So alone, like I felt tempted to join the MLM again, to get back into it just to get the friends but something inside me said, “No, this isn’t for you, this isn’t a good business to be in, it’s very predatory”. Like, I just felt like I was being used by these people, and they were not my friends at all. So, I just couldn’t do anymore. It just wasn’t pleasant for me. So, luckily, my business took off during COVID You know, so I was able to make extra money even from there. Now I make six figures with my business. So, I actually have a legit small business because that’s what also get with these MLM, like they’re telling you got a small business, but you really don’t, you’re just a low paid sales rep. Basically, like you’re a low paid sales rep.
11:03
But if you’re like an upline or you’re have these people under you, the people under you think of them like they’re probably making hardly anything. they’re probably going into debt, under you. How’s that going to make you feel? How can you sleep at night? If you’re like, have all these people under you in debt? Like how can you sleep at night? Like I know you’re making a lot money yourself, like $20,000 a month or something like that, but there’s people under you, they’re barely scraping by and they’re spending all their money to keep active in the MLM and you’re pressuring them to cold message people or and do god knows what, like message their family and friends and a lot of these, these women end up isolated, because their family friends no longer want anything to do with them because they’re just pressuring them to buy with their MLM so much and it’s really saturated too, like, especially because you have to convince customers to join under you, that’s your customers you’re making your customers into under your competitors. so that’s just not the way a company ought to be. I would never do that as I have my own small business, but I would never try to convince my customers to sell the same stuff I do. you’ll really mess my business up, that would be a bad business.
12:11
So, I just don’t recommend anybody get in and get involved in MLM and if you have been involved in MLM probably know what I’m talking about. you probably know where I’m coming from. So, I’m not crazy, because there’s a lot of people that feel the same way I do that do not like MLMs and actually, I had friends you know, when I was trying to sell them MLM products, they’ll tell me that they were not interested in MLMs because they preying on women and they told me that you barely make any money, the income disclosure is always you say like, 3% of people in MLM will make any money or 1%. so, it’s just a very low threshold to make any money in these MLMs.
12:49
I just really don’t like to recommend anybody listening to get started in MLM if you haven’t already, because any job that makes you spend money to make money, like that’s outrageous, it’s not even a business. They say it’s a small business, but it really is, and you’re just a sales rep. And the businesses are not small, like Scentsy they have a huge headquarters, they’re by no means a small business, Farmacy has a million-dollar, office building, there’s no way they’re a small business, they’re a million-dollar company. They’re growing so much. I feel like a billion-dollar makeup company by now. I just don’t recommend anybody here getting involved. it’s not the way to be like there’s other ways to make extra money.
13:30
I sell printables online, I sell printables in my Shopify store, and also an Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers, it’s a store. So, I sell printables and I use PLR, which stands for “Private Label Rights”. And I use those, I customize the printables then I sell them on my stores, so it’s super easy, the printables already done for me, that’s like a lot easier than join an MLM it’s been all this money and having to spend money to keep current, like, is just so much better. I’m just so lucky that I found this printables business and anybody can get started. And it’s just so easy to do, you should check out my other episodes where I talked to other people selling printables because you can make a lot of money selling them and you should not get yourself involved in an MLM just because you want to make extra money. So, I know how hard it can be like, I used to live paycheck to paycheck I could barely make ends meet. I couldn’t even afford lunch. I thought I was going to lose my house. I thought I was going to be homeless. I just felt like I had to do something, anything.
14:29
The MLM seemed like a great option for me, but I ended up losing money. I end up going into debt and ended up buying all this stuff that I did not need, I still don’t use, and I don’t know what to do with. so now I got all this extra stuff laying around that that’s just collecting dust because I have no use for it. it’s unbelievable how these MLMs, try to trick you and trick you to think that you’re going to make all this money, that you going to end up being some kind of multimillionaire or you really are and going to make hardly anything. unless you get people under you. It’s all building a pyramid.
14:58
There was a show called LuLaRich, that was a crazy show. It was on Netflix. It was about these women and LuLaRoe. And I was watching that, and it was so hysterical, like, these women were just crazy. I couldn’t believe it. Even the owner was, she seemed like a big nut job. I couldn’t believe that, and I was just watching it I spent I watched all the episodes I binged it completely. it was just the crazy, show is a big mess of a show and these women they had lost so much money they were going into debt because they had to keep up this lifestyle even though they [inaudible 15:30] up liner. They had all these people under them, they’re making lots of money in the company, they had to keep a lifestyle, so they were going into debt over their lifestyle this one woman lost all her money when she was just so miserable, she says she is bankrupt now. And she had lost her house and lost all their cars because that’s why the MLMs do sometimes they’ll offer you a car if you make a lot of money for them, so you’ll get a car but it’s actually a lease. a leased vehicle you don’t really own the vehicle. It’s leased. So, it’s a leased vehicle and as long as you keep in the MLM and keep it current because you start from scratch every single month in these MLMs and each month you got to build up your sales in order to keep current and keep your rank because there’s these ranks in MLMs [inaudible 16:11] the more directors you know and that people under them.
16:16
So, it was your goal to get most people you could join under you and try to con them and scam them into join under you. they are promising them all this money they’re going to make but in reality, a lot of people don’t make anything from MLM they just end up losing money where people end up losing money and then not making money, I think it’s a big scam.
16:35
I learned the hard way, I was involved in four and I just couldn’t stop because I thought maybe the next one will be my chance, then maybe that will be better than the next one. The next one will be better, and I just kept thinking that that I was going to be better in the next MLM the more MLMs I was in. At one point I was in two MLMs, I was in doTERRA and Farmacy at once and [inaudible 16:55] doing all this spam. I was spamming so much on Facebook I was spamming all my friends and family and spamming people I didn’t even know and giving them cold messages and then I would just get all these blocks. A lot of people cursed me out and told me to get the fuck out of here, it was awful. the rejection and negativity and I felt so bad I hated the toxicity and just felt like shit basically I just felt so bad, after I would cold message these people. And I didn’t know them, and I just felt horrible and fake, I had to act like I was their friend, so I was even told to do like a relationship building, I was told to build them up first like first act like their friend and after talking to them for like a few weeks then ask them to they want to do a party. It was just terrible. I felt so horrible doing this.
17:44
It was just the worst feeling. I don’t like to put this on my worst in me this feeling [sysco 17:47] it was just horrible. I felt so bad because I got a conscious, I can’t go around doing something like that acting like I’m someone’s friend, especially when it’s really hard for me to make friends myself. I can’t just go up to somebody and act like I’m their friend and be like some kind fake b*tch for them and then I ended up selling them something like I was encouraged to do this. Like what kind of business would do this to somebody? What kind of business would encourage people to do this? It’s just outrageous.
18:09
You see so much more of this stuff all these tactics, these predatory tactics and it’s just no way to earn extra money at all. It’s just a really horrible way and it just eats at your soul and yours in this fake environment while these people that you think they’re your friends, but they’re really not. They only care about you as long as you’re making them money in MLM as soon as you stop making them money, they’re going to turn their back on you. So, what happened me they turn their backs on they wouldn’t be my friend after I stopped being in MLM it was so such a horrible sad feeling like I just felt so miserable, stressed, and depressed after I like lost the MLM friends because I no longer wanted to sell for the MLM anymore I decided that I didn’t want to so every time I did, I’ll lose friends
18:52
There was that one person that it was in the MLM, that I thought was a really good friend like I would talk to her all the time I go to her house, and I thought she was like really good best friend. But then when I stopped being able to sell, I stopped booking parties, she just ignored me no one even speak to me like it was awful because it’s all these fake friendships are in these MLMs. I just don’t recommend you getting into one. I said that before but I really don’t just because you think you might earn all these friends you think you might earn all this money and all this status like what the ranks because it feels good if they tell you you’re a director, that’s a good feeling but think about all the people under you that are like scraping by and get into debt and living paycheck to paycheck there’s these people under you that you convince to join under you and they’re hardly make any money. Even they make something that you get something because you’re higher than them. So, whatever they make, you’re going to make too. So, it’s just horrible.
19:46
It’s a horrible business model. You know, it’s just the worst and like a lot of them will say that the corporate America is kind of like a pyramid but really isn’t like in a job. if you go to a job, they’re not going to try to convince you to hire people under you and then like whatever the employee under you makes and you’re going to make more money. That’s not how it works at a corporate America job. This is just a crazy business model. And it’s been going on for years. since like the 70s I think Amway was one of the first MLM and I know the Tupperware is a prominent MLM that was around forever. Mary Kay has been around a long time, and I used to sell Mary Kay products like I would actually go door to door selling them. I was in like art college, and I would go to people’s houses and try to convince him to buy makeup all the time. And I would just get the door like shutting on my face.
20:35
One time I went up to this lady, I was at a grocery store, and I was just really horrible. Like, my problem was this MLM was just eating out my soul and making me into this vicious person. So, I went to this lady and asked her what kind of skin cream she use, I couldn’t believe I did that. I felt so horrible that I did this to somebody else. And her face fell like then I just, I don’t know my problem was, but I kept trying to convince her to buy this MLM I had this Mary Kay product. And she just felt so miserable. I can just see the look in her eyes I just couldn’t believe it. Then From then on, I kind of thought well, I’ve kind of took a step back. I was like, “What am I doing? What am I doing to other people” I’m trying to get them to buy these MLM products and they don’t want to, because [inaudible 21:16] MLM products, you can get anything at the store? Now you can go get makeup at the store, like there’s not really a reason to have these MLM products. That’s why they’re so hard to sell because people could not get things anywhere. They can go on Amazon and buy stuff. You can even buy the same products, the MLM sells on Amazon for less money.
21:32
So, I just felt so horrible, all the stuff that I used to do to get people to buy my MLM stuff, it was just horrible. I remember like the first four [inaudible 21:42] into MLM, like this one lady was telling me that I need to lose weight, because I just now had my baby. And she was trying to get me to buy Plexus this pink drink. And she kept telling me every time I saw her at church, she would tell me that I should buy some Plexus from her it was like $100 a month about this Plexus. And at the time, we were barely making ends meet there’s no way I could afford to buy some pink drink from somebody I don’t even know. It was just awful and so I just kept saying no, I’m not going to buy this I don’t have enough money, but she kept telling me and then this other lady, when I went to this other church, they kept telling me to buy this herbal life. It’s like this other MLM. And she kept telling me that it was helping her lose weight and she was like automatically telling me that I needed to lose weight even though she didn’t even know me, and I was kind of overweight but like telling someone that they need to lose weight they don’t even know it that’s just horrible. So, in churches especially you get run into a lot of people selling MLM and they try to convince you and they try to act like they’re going to be your friend, but they’re really not going to be your friend. They’re just going to sell and it’s going to make you sell for them and if you sell for them, you make the money they’ll act like your friend but when you stop selling and you stop making money, that’s when they’re going to turn their backs on you and say goodbye, Adios, amigo. you never hear from them again.
22:49
So, I just do not recommend anybody get involved in MLMs, it’s just no way to live. Like especially if you get people under you and your upline is still bad because there’s people under you, they’re living paycheck to paycheck and I can go on and on, but I probably like said enough. Anyway, again, just like just do not join MLM You’ll thank me later. It’s just no way to do any business and it’s not a small business. You’re just a glorified sales rep.
23:17
Okay, well check out the show notes at www.mombeach.com/podcast hope everyone has a great day. Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening to the Becky beach show. Please go to www.mombeach.com/podcast to learn more about my podcast and for show notes. if you want a 2023 free printable gold planner, please go to www.mombeach.com/subscribe. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Have a great day. Goodbye.
Transcribed by Neeraj_Chand
