Amway Global, Mona Vie, and others

[stagemanager0610]

Hi everyone!

I know the subject of Amway and other network marketing businesses have been mentioned in previous threads, but I wanted to hear everyone's opinion and experiences with them, if any.

My reason for posting is because I've been to two different "presentations" one from Amway and one from Mona Vie, both of which were nearly identical. Here are the facts that both companies played up in the "presentations:"

-90% of all new businesses fail within the first 2 years of starting.
-98% of all the people in the world are on a "hamster wheel payroll"
-This 98% of all people make only 20% of all the income in the world
-We are "programmed" as a society by big corporations to get degrees, including ones as high as PHDs
-Only through their business models can you multiply the amount of work you do in 8 hours, a.k.a. on their business plan 8 hours turns into way more, instead of how the rest of us work on a linear scale.
-It's never about selling the products but rather spreading the information
-Even though the seminars were meant to recruit new people, they both claimed that "We are not here to recruit"
-Both companies that are distributing the products were known as something with the word Leadership.

And various other things. My entrepreneurship class textbook, Entrepreneurial Small Business 2e, disproves a portion of this. I'm quite upset that these companies claim that my education is a waste of money since it's all about programming me to work for the "greedy fatcats" to be put on a hamster payroll.

Since we all love links, here's a few:

Amway global site
MonaVie Site
Fake it till you make it

So what do we all know about these Multi-Level Marketing "business models?" Is it really worth trying, or should I just run away? The reason I am borderline ranting is because one of these people tried to get me through my mother, who is confused as heck about all of it.

[fitz1980]

I've had two experiences with multi-level marketing myself. Both were young working guys who weren't happy with their current incomes. Both also dumped hundreds into something that they thought would give them a big return when they were lucky to even break even a the end.

[Starla]

Amway and the like are also big companies that have their workers running around like hamsters on a wheel. Only you have even less job & income stability.

It is extremely rare for one to become self-supporting with a MLM job. Interestingly enough, the few people I know who did really well with them were college educated and had experience in business.

[GalateaDancer]

I've had several friends and family members who have been burned by MLM's - most notably Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Lia Sophia and Avon. All of them have joined, put in scads of money and time, and come out on the other end with absolutely nothing to show for it. My one friend who has stuck with her MLM, I rarely speak to anymore because every conversation we have ends up with her trying to recriut me.

There's a lot of good information here: http://www.mlm-thetruth.com You and your mom should run as far and as fast as you can from anyone trying to suck you into an MLM.

[Auntie Witch]

I'd say only get sucked in if it's a product you believe in. I know someone who sells makeup, but she uses massive amounts of it herself, and would buy her minimum sales requirement each month anyway. So for her, she's saving money by being a sales rep, and if she makes a sale on top of it, it's a bonus for her. Another friend sells bath products, and she made sure she had enough of a loyal following before signing on.

If it's not something that you already know you can sell, without any "I think" about it, then stay far, far away.

[Il-Mari]

Originally Posted by stagemanager0610

-It's never about selling the products but rather spreading the information
-Even though the seminars were meant to recruit new people, they both claimed that "We are not here to recruit"

I just want to say that getting involved with these can also be a great way to lose friends fast.

I really hate it when people involved inevitably try to sell me on the model, and some of your acquaintances will inevitably feel like you're trying to take advantage of them if you try to market the goods or the concept to them.

- Il-Mari

[woodness03]

I've tried several and have learned many things about the MLM businesses. In theory, it really is a good business and there is no ceiling so to say. But you truly only make it if you can build a team around you and those build teams around them and so on. It looks great on paper, but it is really tough to do and you can spend a lot of time and money on it and get no where fast.

These MLM businesses will tell you that you first need to create lists, typically 3. An 'A' list is your close friends and family. A 'B' list for good friends and acquaintences. A 'C' list for those you haven't met yet.

They tell you to go hard after your 'A' and 'B' lists because it is easier to talk to people you already know and 'convince' them that they should not only buy your products, but also join their team. This is where a lot of MLM business owners destroy their relationships with friends and families.

After you have exhausted your 'A' and 'B' lists, they then tell you you need to go out and contact people. Walk through the mall, strike up innocent conversations, and finally get to the point of asking them a question like, "Do you keep your options open?" If they say yes, you then invite them to a business presentation to gather information only.

I could go on, and will if you like, but I was involved in MLMs for about 5 years. The biggest thing I found out is while some people are able to establish teams around them, most of the true money is made on the system. I even had some friends create their own system and have people buy join in on their system of which my friends now make a decent income off of the system they created, not the product line they sell.

I still use some products from my Amway business because there are some great products. I still have some customers that buy things off of me (and I roughly make about $50-100 a month - but it took me about 3 years before I got to that point), but I am no longer an active MLM business owner because I found myself spending way too much time trying to build my business with little success and I was missing out on my life and destroying the friendships I already had.

[mags]

Originally Posted by woodness03

I've tried several and have learned many things about the MLM businesses. In theory, it really is a good business and there is no ceiling so to say. But you truly only make it if you can build a team around you and those build teams around them and so on. It looks great on paper, but it is really tough to do and you can spend a lot of time and money on it and get no where fast.

In other words, as a business model, it's only one step away from a pyramid scheme (selling something for a ridiculously overpriced amount, if you are to even make back what you paid for it), or a chain letter (get ten other people involved, and they'll each get ten people involved, and you'll get ten billion pretty panties from the pretty panty club!).

My aunt tried Mary Kay a few years ago (and made me look like a whore IMHO doing my makeup to take a picture to use in her sample book) and was disgusted that the cosmetics were selling for quite a bit cheaper on ebay than she could even buy them as a representative. I was glad she realized this fairly quickly, because I don't use makeup and it was beginning to strain our relationship that she tried to sell it to me every time I saw her.

It's not impossible to make money through MLMs, but for anyone to make money (by climbing the ranks and becoming distributors), there have to be multitudes of suckers who are only there to lose money. Those people are usually desperate and/or extremely gullible.

My great-aunt had a fairly nice career of selling tupperware. It's not actually a MLM, but it does involve parties, so often it can annoy family members because conversations often revolve around trying to get you to host a sales party. She was selling things that were actually useful and not ridiculously overpriced vs. their actual value, so it was nice to have a source in the family, and attend a party on occasion.

[CSGirl]

I worked for a MLM- Vector Marketing, selling Cutco. I only did it for a summer, part time, but I made quite a bit of money. Being able to make my own schedule was a major plus.

But- there was a core group of us that stuck it out. Most people didn't make it. First of all you need to be able to sell something- not everyone is able to do that when there are real people in front of you, and you need to be able to convince them to buy. Not that you should be pushy, but if you're too passive you won't make sales, either.

Plus you need to be able to be motivated. There was a real time commitment to booking appointments. There were people who would make 5 phone calls, not get anywhere, and whine because they couldn't get any demos that week.

I think it would depend on the up-front cost, as well. I didn't have to put much money in, and in fact was able to have it taken out of my first few checks instead of paying up-front, which made a big difference.

[snapdragonfly]

In my opinion, most of the time the products these companies sell are fairly good quality. They might be more expensive than the same quality at a traditional retail outlet or they might be about the same, but it's decent enough stuff.

The problem is that they won't be happy with you just selling the stuff, (and at the commission you get from them, after you deduct all your expenses they come up with including an endless parade of promotional items and "seminars", it's really hard to make much money anyway once you figure how many hours you put into it.) But that's okay because no matter what they say, they want you to recruit. Recruit recruit recruit. Which means you have to annoy and alienate all your family and friends and drag them all into it.

I've sold Mary Kay but I didn't recruit, except for a couple customers who bought so much makeup they were better off being consultants themselves. But then that screwed up *my* sales and I didn't sell enough volume to make it worth while. At least Mary Kay has an actual (and good) product and at least they are quite upfront and honest about the fact that if you want to make the big money you have to recruit. Or they should be, that's the official corporate stance and anyone telling otherwise is being bad.

I have nothing to say good about Amway. They seem to me to be the worst as far as dishonest manipulative recruiting techniques. The only one worse was some stupid company I cannot quite remember the name, had a racetrack/Americana theme and it didn't even have a product! You recruited people to recruit basically! Oh, there was a "membership" to some buying club, total load of pure horse shit. We were (very unwillingly) dragged to a presentation by our former (yes I said former) good friends and they had a parade of sort of pathetic, crazy eyed people giving bragadacio testimonials about how they "saved" thousands of dollars on diamond jewelery ("Any of you ladies like jewelry?" PULEEEZE could you be any more insulting, sexist and condesending. OH JEWELRY let's sign up NOW. Right.), big ugly furniture and appliances, and all sorts of big ticket expensive items that you had to buy from their specially selected merchants.

Yeah. Like we buy that stuff all the time and like their two thousand dollar earrings that they bought for only 1200 aren't actually 200 dollar earrings in the first place and as if they would have anything *I* like, what with my bohemian tastes and absolute abhorance of anything mainstream or popular. And it was ridiculously expensive to join, options ranging from (I think it was) quite a few hundred dollars into a couple thousand.

I stay far far far away from anything like that.

Pampered Chef might be fun to do if you don't really need much money, because everyone likes food, and you can add booze to the parties and have a good time. I've known some people with a natural gift for comedy who have been a lot of fun to attend their parties, but the notion that anyone who can read a script can do a good job of this is wrong.

[snapdragonfly]

Originally Posted by mags

My aunt tried Mary Kay a few years ago (and made me look like a whore IMHO doing my makeup to take a picture to use in her sample book) and was disgusted that the cosmetics were selling for quite a bit cheaper on ebay than she could even buy them as a representative. I was glad she realized this fairly quickly, because I don't use makeup and it was beginning to strain our relationship that she tried to sell it to me every time I saw her.
(snip)


My great-aunt had a fairly nice career of selling tupperware. It's not actually a MLM, but it does involve parties, so often it can annoy family members because conversations often revolve around trying to get you to host a sales party. She was selling things that were actually useful and not ridiculously overpriced vs. their actual value, so it was nice to have a source in the family, and attend a party on occasion.

I bet your great aunt did it before Ebay. I sold MK before Ebay too. I bet Ebay is putting a real cramp in everyone selling products at home parties now.

[fitz1980]

Originally Posted by snapdragonfly

Pampered Chef might be fun to do if you don't really need much money, because everyone likes food, and you can add booze to the parties and have a good time. I've known some people with a natural gift for comedy who have been a lot of fun to attend their parties, but the notion that anyone who can read a script can do a good job of this is wrong.

Pampered Chef isn't multi-level marketing, nor is Tupperware. They're using a marketing system called the "party plan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_plan

Sales reps for those companies are all about direct selling products at those parties. In multi-level marketing the sales reps are constantly trying to introduce other sales reps under them so that they can get money for sales that these other folks make.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing

I knew a girl who was a sales rep for a company that sells sex toys and lingerie using the party plan, like Pampered Chef or Tupperware. She had fun hosting the parties and the women had fun attending because it's an excuse to get together, have some drinks and be naughty with your girlfriends. Lots of people like sex toys & lingerie and buying them in a naughty social event with your friends is more fun than going to one of those skeezy XXX stores in a bad area of town by yourself.

[mags]

Originally Posted by snapdragonfly

I bet your great aunt did it before Ebay. I sold MK before Ebay too. I bet Ebay is putting a real cramp in everyone selling products at home parties now.

The thing that really killed it for her, actually, was Gladware. She actually mentioned the product specifically at the last party that I went to before she retired. It's so cheap, people were having a harder time investing in Tupperware. I don't think it's possible for anyone within Tupperware to buy the products cheaply enough to make it particularly profitable on eBay. Being able to actually see the products and demonstrations at a party is one of the major reasons anyone is able to sell Tupperware. They're good quality, and have a lot of innovation and convenience, but not to the point most people would think to even look for them on eBay.

I do love a lot of things about Tupperware, but it is so nice to be able to throw out the mystery food that got shoved to the back of the fridge and is now moldy, rather than having to face it to save the bowl it's in. Gladware doesn't work as well (the seals are pretty crappy) but the price and convenience have made it so I use them more often than my Tupperware. There are a few things I would probably buy from Tupperware if she was still selling, though.

[DawnStorm]

About 9 years ago, I tried to sell Avon. However, I don't know a lot of people, I'm not pushy and quite frankly I couldn't sell a starving man a Big Mac. I still can't see how anyone can make money selling Avon, considering the stuff you have to buy to get people to buy. I don't even think I broke even.

[lyra_silvertongue]

I've ranted on here about it before, but my mom gets involved in any MLM nonsense that comes her way. She's still involved in one right now selling Magic Vitamin Powder ("it just gets your body working how it's supposed to") and if she isn't talking to me about church/Jesus, she's talking to me about that. She couldn't afford to get me anything for Christmas this last year, which was perfectly fine, but she gave me a bunch of MVP, along with an "energy booster" which listed sugar as the first ingredient. I was fine with recieving no gift, I was kind of insulted to have the MVP forced on me, especially since I had already politely declined it on many previous occasions.

When I was a kid my parents were involved in Amway for a couple years. They lost an awful lot of money. At least one family vacation of ours was partly planned around them attending a huge Amway conference in Minneapolis (they had these huge conferences like 4 times a year). When we were in the car, if we weren't listening to Rush Limbaugh, we were listening to Amway motivational tapes and success stories. We would spend afternoons "dream building" (this was very encouraged by the company) and going to look at houses/boats/cars we couldn't afford. Even as a kid I could sense that all of my parents friends and fellow church members were sick to death of hearing about Amway. It was sad when they finally realized it wasn't going to get them anywhere. Unfortunately no lesson was learned and my mom has continued to try to sell/get other people to sell various vitamins, lawyer insurance, make-up and I don't even know what else.

[DawnStorm]

Originally Posted by lyra_silvertongue

, we were listening to Amway motivational tapes and success stories. .

Sounds like audio glurge.

[Arriah]

Originally Posted by fitz1980

Pampered Chef isn't multi-level marketing, nor is Tupperware. They're using a marketing system called the "party plan."

I can't speak for Tupperware, but dispite using a party plan, Pampered Chef is MLM. I've sold it twice now, both times because I wanted their products. It is possible to make money just by selling but nearly all of the PC reps that are making good money are making it off of their downline. The training meetings and website go into great detail about how much more money you can make by recruiting than just by selling. Recently they changed the tone of the recruiting suggestions in a way that made me incredibly uncomfortable as well. The focus changed from "who do you know that could benefit from this" to "tell everyone because it's not up to you who wants to change their life." To me, it started sounding more like religious proselitizing than choosing business partners.

[GalateaDancer]

Originally Posted by mags

My aunt tried Mary Kay a few years ago (and made me look like a whore IMHO doing my makeup to take a picture to use in her sample book) and was disgusted that the cosmetics were selling for quite a bit cheaper on ebay than she could even buy them as a representative. I was glad she realized this fairly quickly, because I don't use makeup and it was beginning to strain our relationship that she tried to sell it to me every time I saw her.

There are also online liquidators like Touch of Pink Cosmetics that buy unused inventory from fleeing consultants and resell them cheaply.

Another thing that I think has been a major nail in the Mary Kay coffin is the availability of quality, non-drugstore makeup to the average consumer now. Why in the world would I go to a Mary Kay party, when I can walk into any Sephora or Ulta and try on all the makeup I like without the pressure of a sales or recruitment pitch? And even drugstore brand makeup has come a long way - I have a lot of dancer friends who say L'Oreal's H.I.P. line is just as good for stage as as MAC, Urban Decay or other high-end, highly pigmented makeup.

mags, did your aunt actually put the makeup on you? Mary Kay consultants are not supposed to actually touch anyone's face unless they are a licensed esthetician (which is not something you get through Mary Kay). Which is one of the reasons I when my friend goes on and on about being a "professional beauty consultant" who "provides facials and skin care classes".

[GalateaDancer]

Originally Posted by Arriah

I can't speak for Tupperware, but dispite using a party plan, Pampered Chef is MLM.

It sure is. (click on the Build Your Income button)

[Sooeygun]

Originally Posted by GalateaDancer

I've had several friends and family members who have been burned by MLM's - most notably Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Lia Sophia and Avon.

My mom sold Avon for 30 years or so and just retired. It certainly doesn't fall into the MLM category based on pyramid selling, at least not for the 30 odd years she did it. All you got for recruiting someone was a crappy prize, certainly not a share of their sales.

My mom didn't get rich selling, but she did make enough money to supplement the household income and to fund Christmas shopping. To do well, she had to keep her sales up to a certainly yearly level to stay in the "President's Club." That meant that she got her products at a lower cost that non-Pres Club members (with Avon, you place an order with the company, they ship it to you and then when you place you next order you send them a cheque for the previous order).

She also used it as a lower cost way to get perfumes, jewellery, clothing, giftware, etc. for the family and herself.