Multi - Time to Prepare

With survival games in high demand, the development of new software used to generate artificial intelligence and give players an immersive experience.
The recent surge in popularity has sparked a lot of questions about whether or not this type of gaming can be classified as gambling.

The word “multi” has many meanings. The most common meaning of the word is that it can mean a number of people, things, or events. Read more in detail here: multi meaning.

You get a call from a college pal you haven’t spoken to in years, asking if you want to meet for lunch. Of course you would! It’s fantastic that he thought to contact you.

So you meet up with a friend at a burger establishment. You play catch-up and reflect about the past. You seem to be having a great time. But then he discusses this nutrition firm for which he’s just begun marketing. He claims that he is only getting started, but that there is a lot of money to be made. In fact, he knows someone who worked for this firm and paid off his mortgage. Because you exercise weights and are motivated, he believes you’d make an excellent distributor.

What started off as a great evening spent catching up with an old buddy has become uncomfortable. You’re starting to feel… abused.

You’ve undoubtedly been in a scenario like this before. Or, at the very least, you know someone who has. If you haven’t had this kind of pitch in person, you’ve probably seen old high school buddies or an aunt post on Facebook or Instagram about a fantastic business opportunity that includes selling eyelashes, health pills, or essential oils for a “multi-level marketing organization.”

While there are lots of guys that join MLMs, women account for 75% of all members. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to know how MLMs operate if you’re a guy, since there’s a potential your wife may approach you with the notion of joining one. Hopefully, you’ll have a discussion about it with her, and you’ll be able to convince her that it’s a poor decision for her and your family using the arguments we’ve laid out below.

Because, despite the increasing prevalence of wonderful testimonials and aspirational lifestyle articles around multi-level marketing, the reality of MLMs is very different. If you or your wife are thinking of joining one, you owe it to yourself to learn about the other, darker, bleaker side of things.

What is Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) and how does it work?

Multi-level marketing is defined in a variety of ways and is referred to by several names. As a result, it might be difficult to identify whether a firm matches that classification or not, at least at first.

To begin, multi-level marketing is referred to as network marketing (the most prevalent), direct sales, affiliate marketing, referral marketing, dual-level marketing, consumer-direct marketing, home-based company franchising, home-based business opportunity, and inline marketing.

If you hear one of the following words used to describe a business concept, you can bet it’s a multi-level marketing company. But keep in mind that just because a company employs one of the aforementioned labels doesn’t indicate it’s an MLM. As we’ll see later, a company that relies on direct sales to provide items or services to customers isn’t always an MLM.

So now we know the terminology that may be used to describe a multi-level marketing company. How does this business model operate in practice?

MLMs are defined as follows by the Federal Trade Commission:

“Multi-level marketing is a kind of direct selling that refers to a business model in which a corporation distributes items via a network of distributors who profit from both their own retail sales and the retail sales of the distributors’ direct and indirect recruits. Each MLM network member has an incentive to continue recruiting other sales representatives into their ‘downlines’ since they receive a commission from the sales their recruits make.

This is a good explanation, but you need to witness an MLM “in action” to really grasp what it is. I’ll guide you through the operation of a fictional MLM named Company A in the following sections. While each MLM operates in a somewhat different way, they all follow the same fundamental structure.

Weight loss shakes are sold by Company A. Rather of placing them on shop shelves or selling them directly to customers through an internet store, they hire “distributors” to sell the shakes on their behalf.

A person must purchase a distributor beginning pack from Company A in order to become a distributor. It costs $75 and includes pamphlets on the product as well as information on how distributors may profit from the firm. It also includes a few product samples that the prospective distributor might distribute to assist promote the goods.

A buddy who is currently a distributor for Company A approaches Jim about becoming one as well. Jim’s buddy says it’s a “great business opportunity” that he’s only telling him about since he’s the kind of entrepreneur who could make it work. Other distributors have been able to pay off college debt and buy a second vehicle because to the money they’ve made selling shakes, according to the buddy. He doesn’t say much about the product itself, other than that it’s great and nearly sells itself.

Jim completes the application for Company A distributorship and purchases the $75 beginning kit. Jim may now purchase Company A’s shakes at a 25% discount and resell them at full retail price to friends and family while keeping the profit. This is a fantastic idea.

But then Jim notices something in the beginning brochure: instead of merely purchasing enough shakes to meet demand among his friends and family, Company A demands Jim to spend $100 worth of shakes every month to keep his distributor position. According to the corporation, you must do this so that you have enough inventory to sell to others and that you may utilize the product yourself.

Jim signs up for an auto delivery service, which charges his credit card $100 per month and sends him merchandise every month. He’s concerned about the $100 monthly fee, but the shakes should sell themselves, right? He’ll be able to recoup his losses. Definitely.

Jim begins to sell the shakes to his friends and family. He makes a sale (thanks to his mother), but that’s all. The majority of folks are just disinterested. Selling these shakes is a lot more difficult than he anticipated.

Jim’s buddy, who brought him into the firm, tells him that the best way to start earning money with Company A is to recruit others to sell shakes under you. “When you sign someone up,” Jim’s pal continues, “you’ll start collecting a 10% commission on the goods your recruit has to purchase from Company A to qualify as a distributor.” If you can get three individuals to join up, you’ll receive a 10% commission on all of the merchandise those three recruits are obligated to buy, plus anything they buy after that.”

“Hmm, this implies this buddy of mine is earning 10% on the shakes I’m obligated to purchase from Company A,” Jim muses. That’s fascinating.”

“It gets better!” says the pal. If those three recruits each bring in three new individuals, you’ll get a 5% commission on the goods they purchase from the firm. At this time, you’ll be a ‘Gold Star’ level distributor, and you’ll be able to purchase merchandise from the firm at a 30% discount. To keep this status, your group of 12 recruits must collectively purchase $1,200 in merchandise from the firm each month.”

“And if each of those 12 recruits hires three distributors, you’ll get a 5% commission on the goods they have to purchase from the firm.” You’ll be a ‘Double Gold Star’ distributor at this time. Your ‘downline’ is made up of these recruits and sub-recruits. The more people you have in your downline, the more passive money you may earn. What a fantastic opportunity!”

We can observe the characteristics that distinguish multi-level marketing from this scenario; after investigating over 600 different MLM organizations, consumer advocate Jon Taylor summarized these characteristics as follows:

Incentives for the firm to hire new distributors. Jim gets paid a commission on the products purchased from the main firm by the distributors below him.
Recruitment, rather than appointment, is used to advance in the sales hierarchy. “We believe you’d make a good executive distributor,” someone further up in the sales hierarchy can’t say to Jim, “We think you’d make a good executive distributor.” It’s solely based on how many people he recruits and how many people his sub-recruits recruit.
Participants are the major customers, and “incentiveized purchases” and/or recruiting minimums are used to meet “pay to play” criteria. Jim had to purchase a beginning kit in order to become a distributor. To keep his distributorship, he must acquire a certain amount of product each month.
The overall compensation (in commissions and incentives) for all upline participants per sale is equal to or greater than the payout for the individual selling the product, resulting in an insufficient incentive to retail and an excessive motivation to recruit. Jim may earn more money from commissions on the goods that distributors below him are forced to purchase from the firm than he can by selling the shakes at retail to people outside of the corporation.

The fact that the major clients of the firm’s goods are not unrelated people outside the organization, but its distributors, is perhaps the most distinguishing element of an MLM.

Here’s an excellent video that explains how multilevel marketing works:

1-1 Counter-Rebuttals to Common Counter-Rebuttals

“MLM items are of exceptional quality and uniqueness. That’s why they’re only available via a distributor.”

If the items are as good as the MLM parent businesses promise, they should sell well on real and virtual stores alongside other products. If the items really have a competitive edge, the corporation would want to make them accessible to as large a market and customer base as feasible.

The truth is that the products MLM businesses offer aren’t very noteworthy. Whey protein and meal replacement smoothies may be found at CVS or online. Essential oils are available at Whole Foods and Amazon. Ulta, Walgreens, and online are all good places for your wife to get high-quality cosmetics and skincare. Even when your MLM distributor discount is taken into account, you can acquire almost everything an MLM offers for a lot less (see the next section). Except for the marketing and branding, MLM items are identical to other types of products.

Take, for example, Rodan+Fields, a skincare product founded by the doctors behind Proactive. It’s intended to be top-of-the-line material. They took the typical retail method when they first debuted the product. Following that, Estee Lauder purchased the firm for an unknown sum and continued to distribute it via standard retail channels. Rodan+Fields’ sales were disappointingly low, so the company’s old owners acquired it back and introduced the MLM model. The product’s sales soared to over a billion dollars. They’d say it was because of the word-of-mouth marketing that MLMs enable. I’m guessing it has more to do with the fact that they have a captive consumer base among the hundreds of thousands of distributors who are obliged to make minimum monthly purchases and recruit other distributors who will be required to make minimum monthly purchases as well.

MLM firms, on the other hand, don’t have a strong motivation to make their goods the best since, recall, their major clients are distributors who already work inside the MLM and are forced to purchase their items.

“I just joined the MLM to receive a discount on the product.” It’s similar to joining a Costco or Sam’s Club.”

I can see this as a legitimate reason to join an MLM; if you enjoy a certain brand and use it regularly enough, the 25% discount for being a member of the MLM may be worth it.

But you have to ask yourself: can I buy a comparable quality product for less money outside of the MLM than the discount I’d receive for becoming a member of the MLM?

The answer is almost certainly yes.

For example, I compared the price per serving of Advocare’s whey protein ($2.55 per serving) to the price per serving of the whey protein I get from Bodybuilding.com ($0.85). Even with Advocare’s member discount, Cellucor whey protein is less expensive at retail (and likely about the same quality, as just explained above).

The same may be said for most other items sold by an MLM. You name it: essential oils, make-up, kitchen items, candles, leggings, and so on.

And here’s the thing: there’s a catch. To receive the low price I pay, I don’t have to pay a monthly fee or purchase a certain quantity of whey protein from Bodybuilding.com. I only purchase it when I need it.

However, if I joined an MLM, I’d have to purchase a specific quantity of whey protein (or pay a monthly fee) to keep my not-so-great discount, even if I didn’t need any more.

This monthly minimum requirement that MLMs demand on their members often leads in wasted goods being stored in basements and garages, which is referred to as “Garage Qualified” by those who have worked in the MLM industry.

Bottom line: if you joined an MLM only for the purpose of receiving a discount, you’re probably not saving money. It’s preferable to be able to purchase just what you need, when you require it, and to browse around like any other clever shopper.

Wait. This has the appearance of a pyramid scheme. Isn’t it true that pyramid schemes are against the law?

“This sounds an awful lot like a pyramid scam,” Jim comments after hearing his friend’s presentation. Isn’t it true that pyramid schemes are illegal?”

For those who are unfamiliar with the term “pyramid scheme,” it is an unlawful business model in which investors are promised big returns based solely on recruiting others to join their program rather than the actual selling of products to customers.

Pyramid schemes exist in a variety of shapes and sizes. Those chain letter things where you receive a letter with seven names and addresses are a basic example. You were expected to send a dollar to each of the people on the list. After that, you were instructed to scribble your name at the bottom of the list and mail the letter to at least seven individuals. This is said to be a way to earn tens of thousands of dollars in only a few weeks.

When I was a youngster in the early 1990s, I had one of these. You were meant to send out a baseball card instead of a dollar. In principle, you were meant to get tens of thousands of free baseball cards in exchange. However, I never received a single response.

Pyramid schemes are prohibited in all 50 states as well as the majority of nations throughout the globe. They’re prohibited because they promise enormous profits based on an unsustainable system that will inevitably collapse. Pyramid plans need an unlimited number of recruits to survive. They inevitably come apart because there aren’t an endless number of individuals, leaving the people at the bottom of the system with empty pockets.

It’s difficult not to notice that our hypothetical MLM operates similarly to a pyramid scheme: you get money by recruiting people below you. Rather than providing you and the people above you money to join the MLM, as in a classic pyramid scheme, you (and the people above you) get a commission from the product purchases that the recruits below you are compelled to make from the MLM. Selling stuff to individuals outside the corporation earns distributors little to no money.

The true clients in an MLM are, once again, the individuals who work for the MLM.

So why isn’t our hypothetical MLM illegal if it operates similarly to a pyramid scheme?

It’s all owing to a legal quirk, which you can learn more about here.

The bottom line is that as long as an MLM can demonstrate that its main aim is to sell merchandise (even to individuals inside the MLM) rather than recruit distributors, it is regarded a legitimate business and not a pyramid scheme by the courts. However, this border is blurry, and law enforcement authorities make little to no effort to require corporations to establish that they prioritize retail above recruiting.

As a result, MLMs may function just like an unlawful pyramid scheme without being classified as such.

How Have Some MLMs Survived and Grown to Be Billion-Dollar Businesses If They Are Essentially Legal Pyramid Schemes?

Pyramid schemes are designed in such a manner that they must continually attract new members. However, this is unsustainable since you eventually run out of fresh recruits, either because 1) no one is interested in joining, or 2) everyone on the planet has joined the pyramid scheme. The pyramid falls when you run out of fresh recruits, leaving those at the bottom with a loss.

How have firms like Herbalife and Advocare continued to develop and expand if MLMs are basically legal pyramid schemes?

Because they’re continually expanding into new foreign areas, like as Latin America and India, where the notion of multilevel marketing is still relatively new. They may restart the whole pyramid-building process in these nations. MLMs will ultimately reach a point where they can no longer attract new individuals into the scheme, even if they have a global reach. Even billion-dollar organizations will eventually fail.

Common Rebuttals 1-2 Rebuttals

“Every company is shaped like a pyramid.”

Yes, most firms and organizations have a pyramid-shaped structure. There’s a CEO at the top, with a few vice presidents below him, and the vice presidents each have a few managers below them, and the managers have a few people below them.

What distinguishes a pyramid scheme? The most important aspect of a pyramid system is its pyramidal structure, not its form. When you apply for a job at Walmart, you are not required to purchase $50 worth of merchandise before being hired. And after you start working for them, you are not required to make $100 in purchases from them every month in order to maintain your employment. An MLM, on the other hand, does.

Furthermore, when you work at Walmart, your boss will not continually pressurize you to recruit your friends and family members to work for the company. If you’re a member of an MLM, you’ll feel the strain.

While Walmart’s (or any other legal corporation) organizational structure is built like a pyramid, it is not a pyramid scheme in the sense that an MLM is.

“Network marketing is basically direct sales – like traveling encyclopedia or insurance salesman.” It’s as authentically American as apple pie. You Commie pinko, do you despise America, free capitalism, and apple pie?”

For centuries, direct sales have been an important part of the American economy; Yankee peddlers and door-to-door vacuum salesmen are classic American archetypes, and legitimate direct selling continues today in the form of dudes canvassing neighborhoods pitching pesticide treatment, satellite dishes, and home security systems, among other things.

MLMs seem to follow this similar concept at first glance. They’re selling things to consumers directly.

However, if you understand how conventional direct selling worked before MLMs, you’ll discover that they’re not in the direct selling business at all. Whether your grandfather used to sell encyclopedia sets door-to-door while he was in college, inquire if he had to purchase the sets himself in order to sell them to others. Inquire whether he was required to buy a specific number of encyclopedias every month or year in order to retain his employment. Then inquire as to whether he was urged to hire additional salespeople under him. All of those queries will be answered with a resounding no. He didn’t earn money by hiring salespeople; instead, he made money by selling encyclopedias to housewives.

True direct sellers vary from MLMs in that the latter’s major clients aren’t people outside the firm, but rather those inside it.

“Buying a company franchise is similar to network marketing.”

When you ask an MLMer whether they have to spend a lot of money to be a part of an MLM firm, they’ll usually respond something along the lines of, “Well, this is just like owning a McDonald’s franchise.” When you acquire a McDonald’s franchise, you must first pay a substantial franchise fee to the firm and then purchase McDonald’s products (fries, burger patties, and Flurry mix).”

This is exactly how franchises operate. To operate a franchise, you must pay a fee to the parent firm and purchase stuff directly from them to keep it running. Traditional franchise companies (McDonald’s, Taco Bell, GNC, KFC, and so on) and MLMs, on the other hand, have some significant distinctions.

The first major distinction is that the parent firm takes great care to ensure that a market does not become unduly crowded with franchisees.

When you purchase a Jamba Juice franchise, for example, you are purchasing the right to be the sole franchisee in a certain geographic region. They don’t offer twenty franchises in the same city to twenty separate company owners. This would result in twenty different persons owning Jamba Juices on every street corner, all vying to sell the same product, reducing the revenues of all franchisees. No one in their right mind would acquire a franchise in a firm that disregarded supply and demand as a fundamental economic premise.

MLMs, on the other hand, do just that. In fact, their whole business strategy promotes market saturation. Sales representatives are rewarded for recruiting as many sales reps from their own networks as possible. As a result, dozens or even hundreds of individuals in the same city may be vying for the same goods. I’ve seen half-dozen ladies selling for the same MLM in church groups. Do you believe they were all successful in selling essential oils to members of the congregation? Nope. Because of the law of supply and demand.

However, because of the second major distinction between a standard franchise and an MLM “franchise,” MLMs may get away with it: The final client in a standard franchise is the consumer, however in an MLM, you make money by recruiting other salespeople and earning commissions on the goods they’re obligated to buy from the parent firm.

That’s why MLMs can get away with ignoring supply and demand: you may have 100 women selling make-up in the same town because they’re not trying to sell make-up to outside customers; they’re trying to recruit as many sales agents as possible.

Another distinction between regular franchises and MLMs is that you are not required to recruit other individuals to become fellow franchisees when you own a traditional franchise. In fact, doing so may jeopardize your economic success since you’d be vying for the same clientele with many company owners. That would also be a prohibited franchise pyramid scheme.

So, although there are some parallels between an MLM and a legitimate franchise, they are not the same thing.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Joining a Multi-Level Marketing Company

Hopefully, I’ve persuaded you that, although not legally illegal, multi-level marketing is built on an unsustainable, morally dubious business model that will ultimately lead to the company’s demise.

However, you may not be worried about a company’s long-term prospects or its dubious business plan. You just want to earn some money and are more concerned with the immediate benefits of joining an MLM.

However, you should think carefully before being involved in one since we still need to go through the two most important reasons to avoid them:

1. You’ll Almost Certainly Lose Money

Three-quarters of multi-level marketers are women, as we said in the outset. Why? To begin, MLM businesses often offer things that appeal to women, such as make-up, weight-loss pills, eyelash extensions, skincare products, essential oils, and so on.

Second, women have a larger, more powerful social network than males, which makes them a more effective conduit for sales and recruiting.

Most notably, MLMs appeal to women who are mothers looking for a method to supplement their income while still being able to remain at home with their children.

I completely understand your goal. Many people are suffering financially; Dad’s pay isn’t enough to support the family (or he’s out of work entirely), and Mom obtaining a job may not be much of a help once childcare costs are taken into account. Furthermore, many mothers choose to remain at home with their children rather than sending them to daycare.

Multi-level marketing may seem to many women to be just what they’re searching for — a way to make money while staying at home with their children.

The recruiting distributor will conduct what is known as “selling the dream” while pitching someone to join an MLM. They’ll stress how much money you can earn as a distributor. They’ll show video testimonials from distributors discussing how they paid off their debts, purchased a great automobile, and took their family on wonderful trips every year. (Notice how you’ll have to constantly reminding yourself that this is a pitch for an essential oils MLM while you watch this soaring, uplifting film.) The salesperson will show you charts that demonstrate how much money you can make after you acquire a particular number of individuals. And, best of all, they’ll tell you that all of this money is earned passively. Yes, you’ll have to put in a lot of effort at first, but you’ll ultimately reach a point when money arrives in your bank account without your intervention.

It’s a mother’s dream come true to be able to remain at home with her children.

What most distributors won’t tell you (and what the parent business does a wonderful job of keeping out of the spotlight) is that most individuals who join an MLM earn zero to a few hundred dollars in commission checks per year from the firm.

Most MLM distributors, by the way, range from 90 to 99 percent. After reviewing over 600 MLM compensation disclosure forms, consumer advocate Jon Taylor arrived to this conclusion. Examine the revenue disclosure statements of firms like Herbalife, Advocare, Rodan+Fields, and DoTerra to do the same analysis.

As you read these disclosure statements, bear in mind that the corporations are doing all they can to portray a positive image of your earning potential. Rather of providing you exact numbers, they’ll give you percentages and percentages of percentages. There’s a lot of deliberate obfuscation going on here. To really comprehend what the numbers imply, you must use your mathematics skills. We spent hours carefully reviewing the aforementioned disclosure statements and calculating the data ourselves to confirm Taylor’s conclusion that 90-99 percent of distributors in each MLM only received a few hundred dollars in commissions each year. And it’s completely accurate.

Plus — and this is critical — these commission figures are before you include in the price of joining the MLM, the minimum monthly purchases necessary, and taxes. When all of that is taken into account, 90 percent to 99 percent of all MLMers are most likely losing money by participating in this “business opportunity.”

“Well, those 90+ percent didn’t try or work hard enough,” an MLMer will likely answer. You can succeed if you put in the work!”

It’s very possible that you’ll succeed. It’s not out of the range of possibilities. However, as even MLM businesses grudgingly disclose in their financial filings, this is not likely.

Why isn’t it a possibility? It isn’t because folks are slackers. It’s due to the way MLMs operate. Remember that, although MLMs aren’t technically a pyramid scam, they work in the same way. You have to join in on a pyramid scheme early to earn money. You must be at the very top. Yes, you may earn a lot of money if you are.

However, if you’re a latecomer and are at the bottom of the food chain — as the great majority of people will be — your prospects of generating money are essentially nil, since recruiting enough individuals underneath you to produce a substantial income will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. There’s a chance, but it’s a remote one.

“Well, there’s a possibility!” says the narrator. And the only way to gain that opportunity is to join!”

There’s also a possibility you’ll win the $500 million Powerball, but no sane financial consultant would encourage someone to purchase $100 worth of lottery tickets every month in the hopes of securing their financial future with a jackpot.

In the end, the goal of earning a sizable passive income is more fantasy than reality. An MLMer is significantly more likely to lose money (on the range of 1-9 percent versus 90-99 percent) than to win money.

What might your wife do instead if she has to earn money for your family? Do you like to work evenings or weekends? Find a paid job that you can perform from home (there are real firms that employ stay-at-home mothers as customer service representatives, transcriptionists, and other positions, but there are also lots of frauds that advertise as such, so be cautious)? Start a side business as a freelancer?

All of these solutions have drawbacks, but they all provide fixed incomes or genuine business chances for your wife to totally own and manage, enabling her to properly claim the title of #bossbabe.

2. Your Relationships Will Be Ruined

When you read the testimonials of women who work for multi-level marketing organizations, you’ll notice that many of them mention how it’s been a terrific opportunity for them to meet new people. This is a significant appeal in a culture that is getting more alienated and lonely.

Because you have the MLM in common with other members, it’s easy to feel like you’re making friends. Every MLM has its own jargon and hashtags on Instagram. During livestream “parties,” members of the same MLM leave good comments on one other’s social media postings and provide support. They may then meet these individuals in person at large “extravaganzas” — conferences where people dress up, dance to “Despacito,” and listen to motivational speakers. That sounds fairly wonderful to a stay-at-home parent who spends her days debating which Paw Patrol dog is the best.

Unfortunately, these MLM “friends” seldom prove to be real or long-lasting. Your wife is very certainly merely a commission payment to her “upline.” Those “friends” will most likely cease communicating with her if she decides to leave the MLM.

Worse, your wife will certainly become estranged from her genuine friends and family if she joins an MLM.

When you join an MLM, you’ll be urged to use your social network to market the product to your friends and family, and to encourage others to become distributors as well. Your MLM recruiter will encourage you to start with your “warm leads,” who are your relatives and close friends. They’ll advise you to reach out to coworkers and even old high school friends once you’ve done that. They advise you to start pitching to random individuals in person or on the internet after you’ve exhausted that vein. That is why it is referred to as network marketing.

But here’s the thing: there’s a catch. You pollute such ties with commercialization by recruiting close family members or friends into your downline. You take all of the good will you’ve built up with someone over months and years and invest it in getting them to work for you as a commission. The individual won’t be able to distinguish whether your overtures toward closeness are real or an attempt to persuade you to purchase or distribute a product from that point forward. Even more tragically, you may lose your capacity to distinguish between the two.

Hearing and rejecting your pitches will be difficult for your buddies. They’ll quit picking up your calls. They will no longer invite you to get out with them.

Coworkers you used to get along with will attempt to avoid you at the water cooler.

Gatherings of the family will generate an unusual tension. Even if you successfully recruit a parent or sibling to become distributors, you may quarrel about who gets first go at recruiting a common friend or family member, and who receives credit for making them a distributor.

When selling individuals face to face fails, you move online and start constantly posting about the MLM. You use the company’s suggested formula: one post on the brand, then one about your family, then one about your lifestyle, and finally one about the brand again. However, you realize that no one responds to your postings or likes them. Your Instagram follower count has decreased. Finally, a buddy DMs you to inform you that many people on Facebook have banned you.

Let’s imagine you’re successful in persuading someone to join. What happens to your relationship if they fail and lose money (which is nearly a certain conclusion)? They’re probably not going to want to be friends with you any longer. They’ll feel abused, which is understandable.

Even if the pyramidal structure of multi-level marketing companies doesn’t bother you or your wife, and even if you could make a lot of money working for one, you shouldn’t do it for this one reason alone: you shouldn’t ever want to commodify the sacrality of your relationships; you shouldn’t trade genuine bonds of love for cold economics of exchange.

Additional Reading

Here are a few places to look at if you want to learn more about multilevel marketing:

Jon M. Taylor’s MLM Unmasked is a book on multilevel marketing. As a sales representative for NuSkin, a multi-level marketing organization, Taylor lost a lot of money and almost lost his wife. Since then, he’s turned into a consumer advocate who warns people about MLMs. His free booklet, MLM Unmasked, is quite helpful.

Warning: Pyramid Scheme. Robert FitzPatrick, another consumer advocate, is in charge of the organization.

The Talented Ladies Club is a group of women with a lot of talent. They’ve looked at pretty much every MLM out there and calculated how much money you can earn. Not much, to be honest.

I’m putting my money on zero. Bill Ackman’s billion-dollar short on Herbalife stock is the subject of a documentary. Does a wonderful job of describing how multilevel marketing works.

MLMs This Week Tonight is a show about multi-level marketing. MLMs are the subject of a segment by John Oliver. A little arrogant and rude, but a good introduction to MLMs.

MLMs oriented at women are discussed in a Quartz article.

LuLaroe and MLMs in general are discussed in a Bloomberg story.

Your best buddy is Google. Simply Google “can you earn money with [insert MLM]” to obtain a plethora of detailed and comprehensive research on how and why individuals often lose money working for that firm.

Watch This Video-

The “multi or multi” is a game mode in the survival game. The goal of the game is to survive as long as possible while also trying to kill other players.