Friends and MLM recruitment. HELP!

The bottom line is the vast majority of people who get involved with MLM wind up with less money than they started with. Many see the pitch and get hypnotized for a while and then when reality sets in, they slink off and do nothing. Not much lost except a few bucks and some time. Some fall hook like and sinker and put much time and money and effort and still end up losing money.

Overall, MLM folks are predatory and often recruit people "in need".

The more insidious ones will exploit that need and sell these folks "valuable tools" that usually end up making the upline rich while financially harming the ones who "believe" and buy the tools.

Overall I believe MLM does more harm than good to people overall, as well as the local economies who lose sales dollars and money going out of state to enrich the hucksters who sell the tools.
 
I don't know why people fall for these scams when it is totally obvious that you can buy the same product with the exact same quality/ingredients at Target, Walmart, Wallgreens or CVS for much, much less.

Do these folks really think they have figured out something "better"?
 
Alt+F4 said:
He,he,he. :)

No, I'm doing fine as middle-aged chick, making a nice living...honestly. I just asked because it seems to me that if this woman is the epitome of the wealth that can come from being an MLMer (especially at a young age) she would be their spokesperson.
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She's what's called in Amway jargon an "emerald", there are thousands of Amway "emeralds" and thousands more with much larger businesses. Amway themselves don't market the business opportunity through spokespersons, when they use them they focus on promoting the brands and products. This doesn't fit in to the critics narrative so it's explained away as "cover". :rolleyes:
 
Alt+F4 said:
I don't know why people fall for these scams when it is totally obvious that you can buy the same product with the exact same quality/ingredients at Target, Walmart, Wallgreens or CVS for much, much less.

Do these folks really think they have figured out something "better"?
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I asked earlier for your input on conducting price comparisons, you haven't yet replied. What methodology do you suggest?
 
A bit more on Amway:

http://skepdic.com/amway.html

One main point to take away from that article, is that Amway's claim to have eliminated the middle man is nonsense. Your upstream rep is your middle man. They are taking a cut just like any other middle man.
 
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icerat said:
I asked earlier for your input on conducting price comparisons, you haven't yet replied. What methodology do you suggest?
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Ingredients vs. price vs. Amway vs. non-convince stores.
 
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halleyscomet said:
A bit more on Amway:

http://skepdic.com/amway.html
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Are yes, that would be the guy who refuses to accept email pointing out his errors.

One main point to take away from that article, is that Amway's claim to have eliminated the middle man is nonsense. Your upstream rep is your middle man. They are taking a cut just like any other middle man.
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That would be one of the errors - Amway has never claimed to "cut out the middle man" indeed it's exactly as you say, that's how the reps make the money, they are the middleman.

(which isn't to say some of the many millions of people who have been reps haven't said wrong or dumb things)
 
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icerat said:
Are yes, that would be the guy who refuses to accept email pointing out his errors.

That would be one of the errors - Amway has never claimed to "cut out the middle man" indeed it's exactly as you say, that's how the reps make the money, they are the middleman.

(which isn't to say some of the many millions of people who have been reps haven't said wrong or dumb things)
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Do YOU work as part of a MLM structure?

If so, how much have you made?

How much have you spent?

If you work for Amway, how do you justify the massive price difference between the Amway product and the competition available in the store?
 
icerat said:
Amway has never claimed to "cut out the middle man" indeed it's exactly as you say, that's how the reps make the money, they are the middleman.
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Target, CVS, Wallgreens, etc. are also middlemen but they do it cheaper than Amway and they have much more overhead.
 
icerat said:
Nobody at "the bottom" of a coca-cola distribution chain is making money either!
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There are two ways to take this:

1) Most MLM reps are really just customers who want a discount. (I think the DSA works hard to make sure that their members do not collect any data that could show this to be true.Because then it is just a discount club and not a distribution chain.) In which case, when I buy a coke at Walmart I am not a customer, but just the "bottom" of the distribution chain.

or

2) Walmart doesn't make any money off the coke I buy there. I find that hard to believe. In fact, I think Walmart is the "bottom" of the distribution chain and I think they make tons of money from that very position.
 
Alt+F4 said:
Target, CVS, Wallgreens, etc. are also middlemen but they do it cheaper than Amway and they have much more overhead.
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Ultimately an MLM program is going have a LOT of trouble competing on price with a brick and mortar store. Chain stores have a lot of distribution advantages over a distributed system like MLM. Since each level in an MLM is expecting an ever increasing slice of the pie, that cost bloat has to be passed on to someone. I'm not surprised the research I linked to had the Amway products often costing twice or more what similarly ranked products sold for at a store.
 
halleyscomet said:
Do YOU work as part of a MLM structure?

If so, how much have you made?

How much have you spent?
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I built an Amway business many years ago on the other side of the world. I made a decent profit.

If you work for Amway, how do you justify the massive price difference between the Amway product and the competition available in the store?
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I don't work for Amway. I still buy Amway products, whenever I've done price comparisons they've been more than competitive on most products. Nothing like "massive price difference".
 
It seems to me that the major attraction of MLMs such as Amway is to "be your own boss!" In reality it's being someone elses slave and working much longer than the average work week.

Think of it from a practical perspective. A parent stops by Target after work, tired as can be and still has to cook dinner for the family then help all his or her annoying kids with their homework. Which do you really think this person wants.....to throw a container of Tide in the shopping cart or have an Ambot stop buy trying to selling them crappy Amway detergent for 30 minutes?
 
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Alt+F4 said:
Their "unique approach" is not unique at all. MLMs also pitch to high school students, that is something your friends should know.

I agree with another poster who basically said, "No thanks, it's not for me".
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I already posted that Marcus is coming around. I felt it was a duty as his friend to at least attempt to "save" him and it seems to have worked.

No one had been marketing this at our university so that is what I meant by unique. They wanted to form a 3 person sales force and work together. Marcus and I already run our own businesses and Jesus is full time employed so they thought we would divide the labor.

halleyscomet said:
Ask him to sit down and run the numbers to see how much he'd have to move in order to actually turn a profit. Then ask him to think long and hard about the amount of work needed to achieve it and what his hourly pay would end up being.

I also recommend the following Skeptoid episodes:

Network Marketing

Bend Over and Own Your Own Business - Skeptoid

MonaVie and Other "Superfruit" Juices

As far as the Nutrilite and Amway defenses go, the fact that the company at the top can thrive does not mean the bottom level suckers are doing the same. Once an MLM scheme is old enough, it has enough name recognition to keep suckering in the next generation.
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Thanks for those links! Very helpful.

For the sake of clarity I would state that I think that all pyramid scams are MLM but not all MLM are pyramid scams. I still think there are fundamental flaws in even the legitimate MLM models.
 
halleyscomet said:
Since each level in an MLM is expecting an ever increasing slice of the pie
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This is false. Again, this myth was addressed in the FTC's investigation more than 30 years ago! News travels slow in some parts

I'm not surprised the research I linked to had the Amway products often costing twice or more what similarly ranked products sold for at a store.
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Rarely do you see sensibly down price comparisons. A common starting point is to take non-Amway products that are available through Amway as a convenience for members for their own use (ie they're not "the business", there's no profit in them) and then take the full retail price rather than the price that members get.

Another common error is to completely ignore usage. I saw one evaluation of an Amway dish washing product then ranked it as very expensive. It seemed wrong to me, then I saw an asterisk and some fine print - they actively ignored the usage instructions because they didn't believe anyone would follow them, apparently oblivious to the fact that Amway reps offer a special pump to ensure correct dosage.

I saw one online price comparison that compared Amway kitchen cleaner with competitors. They compared the direct price of Amway's cleaner with a competitor, ml for ml. They ignored the fact that Amway's cleaner is a concentrate that is supposed to be blended with water 4:1 first, which means it's actually much cheaper than the competition they selected.

In another case they compared water filters. The actually ranked the Amway one the best, but marked it down on price. The thing is there's two versions of the filter, one with a UV light and the other without. The stated they didn't evaluate the UV light because no competitors had them. Then they compared the price of the device with the UV light rather than the one without.

Another common tactic I think is unfair is to compare Amway recommended retail price with CostCo member price - when Amway membership is actually cheaper. A fair comparison would obviously compare members pricing to members pricing.

Quick online comparisons often compare Amway's full retail price with "specials", which ignores the fact that Amway reps can (and do) offer specials up to half off.

Another thing I've seen done - this commonly happens with nutritional supplement comparisons - is to take the most expensive variant of a product Amway offers and compare it with the cheapest variant from another supplier - and ignore the fact Amway offers a that is often still a better product than than from the competitor - but cheaper.

Here's one analysis of an Amway critics price comparisons.
 
Alt+F4 said:
It seems to me that the major attraction of MLMs such as Amway is to "be your own boss!" In reality it's being someone elses slave and working much longer than the average work week.
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Seriously, where do you get your information?

66% of direct sellers spend less than 10 hours a week on their business, and only 12% spend more than 20 hours.

Think of it from a practical perspective. A parent stops by Target after work, tired as can be and still has to cook dinner for the family then help all his or her annoying kids with their homework. Which do you really think this person wants.....to throw a container of Tide in the shopping cart or have an Ambot stop buy trying to selling them crappy Amway detergent for 30 minutes?
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Would that be this Amway detergent that Consumer Reports ranked 99 out of 100 when comparing environmentally friendly detergents?

I've been buying Amway detergent for 15 years, and I've never once had some "Ambot" in my house trying to sell it to me.

But yes, lets think of it from a practical perspective. With the aid of usage charts for different family sizes, adjusting over time for your own use, you can sit in front of a website and program in all the boring regular (and often bulky) purchases (like detergent) and have them shipped directly to your doorstep automatically at regular intervals. Does that really sound so horrible to you?
 
Nutritional supplements are a pretty bad example, since they're mostly the same value (zero) no matter what brand you buy.
 
Stomatopoda said:
Nutritional supplements are a pretty bad example, since they're mostly the same value (zero) no matter what brand you buy.
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That's a whole other discussion. For the purpose of this one all that matters is whether there's legitimate market demand for the products in question.

With World Ventures I'm personally of the opinion there is very little, if any.

With products from many other MLM companies I believe there clearly is.
 
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