Ancient Egypt isn't the only place pyramids exist. They also operate on the Interwebs.
Where representatives once went door-to-door, preying on friendship groups and hosting parties to rope in members, the practice has taken over online. Instagram is the new vehicle for retail selling, with the ability to slide into anyone's DMs and offer them a once in a lifetime opportunity. Posts are littered with comments of you being 'the perfect fit' to market fashion brands, diet supplements, beauty products: the list is endless.
Multi-Level Marketing (MLMs) otherwise known as Network Marketing companies, utilise direct sales of products to customers and they are thought of, by many, as equal to pyramid schemes. Although unlike pyramid schemes, they actually sell real products. They encourage existing distributors to recruit new members who are then paid a percentage of their recruits' sales. The main company aim is to increase the sales force in order to boost revenue. Commission is based on the total volume of sales garnered and is paid across the various levels. But instead of a trickle down effect, it is rather a trickle UP outcome, whereby the people at the top make the most money, often at the expense of those in their teams at the bottom. Recruits are therefore inspired to achieve more sales in order to work up the levels and gain more commission, often through recruiting people themselves. The focus is not solely on the products as it is in other business practices.
It is this reliance on recruiting rather than direct retail selling that make MLMs controversial. In 2003, Bill Ackman launched a class action suit against Herbalife, a global MLM corporation that develops and sells dietary supplements. The main claim that Ackman made was that Herbalife is a "predatory pyramid scheme designed to fail." He argued that “Herbalife inflates the suggested retail price (SRP) of its products and overstates ‘Retail Sales’ in its public filings to conceal the fact that Recruitment Rewards earned by distributors are substantially greater than the Retail Profit they generate.” In 2017, after a settlement with the FDC, it was ruled that Herbalife would pay $200 million and fundamentally restructure its business "so that participants are rewarded for what they sell, not how many people they recruit,” the FTC Chairwoman Ramirez promised. How much this has happened is disputed.
One major condemnation of MLMs by the anti-MLM community, and rightly so, is the fact that MLM consultants often target vulnerable people and those of lower educated or lower economic backgrounds. This is largely because the dream of making it big can seem unattainable for people without access to higher education, which typically affords a higher salary and therefore, the money to fund their dream lifestyle. The consultants pitch is therefore easier placed within these sectors. They are bound to have more interest and take up.
However, a friend of mine, who joined the MLM Arbonne in October 2019 was a recent University graduate just looking to supplement her income. She made it to the first level of District Manager and then drastically quit the company recently. The reason I knew that she had left the company was because I noticed that her Arbonne website had been deleted from her Instagram profile and I asked another friend who confirmed she had split ways with the brand. Quite the Sherlock Holmes, I know! As a concerned and frankly nosy friend, I reached out and asked if she might tell me a bit about her experience inside one of the top MLMs.
How did you get involved with Arbonne?
It all started on Instagram, as these things normally do, and I saw this girl who was a friend of someone I followed. I just loved her feed. She was kind of this person who was #goals as it were: body goals, photo goals... just goals. A very attractive, aesthetically pleasing person with generally good vibes, so I followed her and I liked some of her photos, and then she actually liked and commented on some of mine. We just got talking. I thought she was really cool and we hit it off. We met up for dinner and she talked about the business a little bit, but it wasn't until maybe a month and a half later that I actually bit the bullet and joined because of 30 Days to Healthy Living, the company's main programme that promises long lasting weight loss.
What attracted you to the brand?
Basically, I have always had a problem with my body, and the 30 Days to Healthy Living programme was showing amazing results for people. A lot of the before and after photos were legit, and I even saw in person the effects that the programmes had. It was about losing weight sustainably and the focus was on gut health. The products were also vegan, non-GMO, and all this good stuff, so I just thought "wow, this is amazing." I had always wanted to make the switch to veganism and more sustainable products. The possibility of earning money on the side by promoting these was just the cherry on top (of the worst cake ever, but y’know, we live and learn).
How did you create a client base?
They make it very clear that it is network marketing, so I would message a bunch of people that I already knew that I followed on Instagram and, later, people who would interact with my posts, whether that was on my profile or on my Instagram stories. I would just send these really cringe voice messages or just long, long messages, basically being like "Hey, I have a great opportunity, I think you would be great."
What impact did joining Arbonne have on your life?
In short, a pretty shitty one.
I joined Arbonne at the height of my desperation, after I graduated uni. I had been looking for a job and I didn't find one quick enough. I needed something to fill my time.
In terms of my personal relationships, it did cause some arguments, some tension with people. I remember I had an argument with a really good friend of mine. We're luckily still friends, but I tried to get her to buy the 30 Days programme, which has a retail value of about £500 pounds, but I was like "Hey, listen you can get it for £170, which is basically a bargain." I mean, in terms of the difference in price, it's a bargain, but £170 is not considered cheap for most people, and so understandably, at the time, she didn't want to buy it. I took that for her not wanting to support me. So it was those kinds of little rifts that were caused by Arbonne.
I'm also fairly confident that my social media following went down, or that at least some people stopped following my stories. I didn't really keep track of that part to be honest.
But as for my mental health, ummm... well, we would have these training calls, and they would insinuate to the people that weren't doing as well that we just simply weren't putting the work in. When in fact, how well you do at convincing people to buy the product isn't really up to you. It's up to the people who are receiving the messages and how they respond to them. So we were being blamed for things that were completely out of our control, and that was absolutely AWFUL for my mental health. I was like "Oh, I need to try harder. This is why I'm not succeeding", when actually the system is built for people to fail, especially for those on the bottom, and for people on the top to thrive.
What did you think of the products?
Frankly, the reason why I stayed so long, apart from the friends I made, was the products. On the business side of things, I was having a terrible time, but I absolutely loved the products. I loved the protein powder, I loved the fizz sticks, I loved the skincare. They were of a really high quality and standard. If you know anything about Arbonne, you'll know that they are owned by the Groupe Rocher, which is a French company who also manufacture brands like Yves Rocher and Petit Bateau. The products obviously won't work for everybody, such is the nature of skincare and health products, but I honestly thought that they were incredible.
With all of these MLMs, or legal pyramid schemes, how making money works isn't actually through recruiting people, which is a very common misconception and one that I want to put to bed right now. You make money if people buy directly through your store. This increases the amount of points you get in the point system and the higher the levels you reach, the more rewards you get.
However, recruiting people will help you more easily reach a higher marker because everyone below you who makes sales contributes to the points that you receive. So it's in your best interest to have a larger team. (I had a team of around 5 below me.) But, just the ACT of recruiting people doesn't actually get you those points: your recruits have to actually MAKE sales.
The bigger your team is, the more likely it was for you to have a steady stream of income. I have to say that the people at the third or fourth level of Arbonne, if they have a big team, become absolutely loaded. It's not even a joke. You also receive enough money to rent a Mercedes-Benz when you reach level three, but the car HAS to be white AND have the Arbonne branding on it: free advertising... we love to see it.
In terms of how much money I made, particularly in conjunction with how much I spent, I didn’t even break even. Not even close. I earned about £25 per month once I was promoted to District Manager, but I spent MUCH more on the products themselves. The disparity between the two figures is depressing, so I won’t disclose it, but by God, to anyone who has read this far who is STILL thinking of joining an MLM... girl, why?
Do you think Arbonne delivers on their core values: Empowerment, Transparency and Sustainability?
Yes and no.
Empowerment- I really don't believe they are particularly empowering. Companies like Arbonne prey on people in vulnerable situations, particularly jobless or low-income women and single mothers. Once they join the team, they try and call it empowering when really its like "Hey, try and make money by recruiting people". That's not empowerment. Also, as a feminist, I find this whole 'Boss Babe' narrative so harmful. It's so patronising to women: why do they need to be called a 'Boss Babe' to be successful? It's just a bit of a joke.
Transparency- yes, on the ingredients front and how the business worked. But in terms of NDAs, they weren't transparent about that at all. That was very much in the small print.
Sustainability- yes, absolutely. They have a deal with TerraCycle whereby you send back empty pots/containers and those get recycled and they use really lovely ingredients.
Some people in the anti-MLM community relate conditional friendships within their company. Did you experience this at Arbonne?
Okay here's the thing: I am still friends with some people in Arbonne, but I have noticed that since leaving, they talk to me a lot less. So while we can be friendly with each other and we can hang out occasionally, I have noticed that they engage with me much less. Is that a conditional friendship? I would say so, in a couple of respects. I don't think it's conscious on their part, and that kind of makes it worse to be honest. It shows that they are able to shut people who are not in Arbonne out of their lives without even realising it. But I would never actually tell the people involved that.
As an Instagram follower of yours, I noticed a few of your stories when you worked for the company. You made comments and had to defend Arbonne when people asked about it being a pyramid scheme. Is there any form of NDA when you work for them?
The stories I made defending Arbonne as a pyramid scheme, that kind of was just me getting defensive about it.
I actually didn't notice the NDA until things were pointed out to me in anti-MLM videos. You're not technically allowed to slander Arbonne until at least a year after you quit, because they can come after you legally, which is why you're probably going to have to omit my name when you put this article up.
Whilst working for Arbonne, presumably you heard about horror stories from the anti-MLM community. How and why did you dismiss these stories?
I was looking at the success of the other people and the #goals person who recruited me. I thought if these people have managed to do this, then I can too, and so it doesn't really matter what people say. I really believed I could make it happen for myself. I also thought very toxically at the time, I'll admit, that the people who failed obviously didn't try hard enough. They were losers and I wasn't going to be loser.
When in fact, if you don't succeed, that does NOT mean that you're a loser. If you fail at an MLM, it's because they are designed for most people to fail. I think the statistic is about 80% or even 90% of people not even making a profit after joining.
But I dismissed these stories because as I say, I really thought I could make it happen for myself, but I quickly found out my success had very little to do with me and had everything to do with people agreeing to do this thing with me. I discovered that pretty often, I couldn't change people's minds.
Throughout my Arbonne "career" as it were, I was always watching anti-MLM videos. First, I watched them to make fun of them. But I think subconsciously, I always believed that what I was doing was sus and I was trying to convince myself otherwise.
But, in the end, something triggered me to leave and then finally, all the information in the anti-MLM videos just started to make complete sense. It just clicked in my brain and then, I wasn't making fun of them anymore. I couldn't continue taking myself seriously because I believed everything that the people in these videos were saying.
Why did you decide to leave?
There was a huge launch of some new products some months ago, including a new protein powder. It was mint chocolate chip flavour, but it was very limited edition and so, in order to get it, you had to buy two sets of these brand new products. Together these cost £500, and even if you didn't want everything in the set, that was the only way you could get the new protein powder.
Obviously, I looked at that and I was like "no, thats f*****, I shouldn't have to spend £500 on things that are part of a set that I don't even want just to get this protein powder." How ridiculous is that? So that just didn't sit well with me at all. I then dared to point this out in the Arbonne group chat and the leader was like "Oh well, you obviously don't take your business seriously enough" and I was like "Excuse me, I beg your pardon, but most people don't have £500 to spend full stop, let alone on things that they don't need." That experience for me was instrumental in my leaving Arbonne and taking in the truths that people were telling me. The red flags finally begin to wave.
Have you had any backlash for leaving?
Not really, not overtly.
I'm sure that people have spoken about me in private. Especially since I gave a girl who really isn't doing well in the company a hard time about still being in Arbonne, in the interest of helping her of course, but we got into quite a heated argument about it. She didn't want to admit that she has lost more money than she has made and that she should quit while she is still ahead.
What would you tell other people thinking about joining an MLM?
Don't.
Do not. Unless you want to be gaslighted. Unless you want to lose money.
You're taking a huge gamble on something that may or may not work. Just get a normal job like most people. You may believe that it really will work for you, and you know, the people who have made it work for them, kudos to them. But the average person will not succeed in an MLM, so just don't try it. You will lose money at one point or another. You will be made to feel like you're not working hard enough, so just don't and save yourself the grief.
The purpose of this article is not to make fun of those who are or have been involved with MLMs. In my research, I have found that some advocates of the anti-MLM community who have not been directly involved with an MLM themselves, condemn the stupidity of someone joining. However, it is my belief that those involved are victims of a booby-trapped system and are indoctrinated by the companies' sale of the potential lifestyle they might achieve, if only they can work hard enough.
My friend's account is by no means the worst I have heard, and is but a drop in the ocean of the MLM malcontent. The naysayers may argue that her fault was not sticking at it: many work at it for years and still fail. But you don’t have to have failed at an MLM to take issue with them. You could have reached the top level like Not The Good Girl and still have a lot of tea to spill on the problematic world of MLMs.
With the full impact of lockdown and the lessening of the job retention scheme, the already saturated MLM industry will continue to gain even more new recruits as more people face redundancy. Avon has already reported a 114% rise in recruits during lockdown (according to TIME). In the past, recessions have also proven great fodder for MLM success with members signing up in their millions. The 2020 recession is bound to follow the same surge. It is mine and my anonymous friend's hope that this article will serve as a warning about joining similar companies. You could stand to lose a lot more than just money.
