why evangelicals are drawn to MLM (article)

[silverspoons]

I am so sick of MLM in Utah. It seems like my child doesn't have any friend whose parents aren't trying to sell me something.

I think it for a few reasons that is so popular here. Mormon missionaries training goes through building relationships of trust (BRT) and then selling the investigator on the religion. 2 years of your life when most people are in college learning about what they what to do as a career are spent with these men and women learning sales techniques. The missionary zone meeting are all about numbers so it really is a business model these missionaries.

Then you come back from your mission. get married and need money and fall into MLM. It is so common , when my daughter took a required middle school career awareness class, MLM or what kids refer to as network marketing was the top choice in careers! My daughter at 12 knew MLM was a scam but didn't want to hurt her classmates feelings. There was one classmate who had a parent deep in lifevantage and the way this parent used their kids to sell was abused IMO.

I also have heard MLM and other informericals scams come to Utah for 2 reasons. One is cheap educated workforce that are clean cut and there are laws protecting them (as well as we have had 2 corrupt AG recently protecting these businesses). Remember Armondo Montalongo (sp?) and those real estate ads and seminars where he was getting people to pay 50k to spend 2 days with him? His headquarters were in Utah. I talked to a few of his employees. They were torn. they knew the upselling and levels and coaching services and pressure was wrong but they also had families and no real marketable skills.

Both NuSkin and infamous Jeremy Johnson lived in my old neighborhood, well they lived on the other side of the creek in massive walled compounds. No lie, the treehouses for the kids were nicer then my house. I remember when I first moved in, I said what a lovely park across the creek and was corrected that it was the Nuskin owners back yard.

 

People also seem to trust without question anyone of their faith. My daughter has a friend who has a relative who is in jail for scamming many people in their LDS stake out of money. People blinded trusted the man because he was a church leader. It was only after a few brave people stepped forward the person went to jail because people were embaressed they got scammed. One was a prominent educated man in our community that lost a high 6 figure amount.

Sorry to ramble but I could tell numberous stories of MLM scams and abuse in Utah. Utah county is just full of companies, you pass at least 15 major MLM headquarters on 1-15 driving to SLC.  When I lived in NY, I never had anyone ask me to join MLM's and in MA, maybe every few years and it was mostly vitamins. From crafts, water, health care, skin care, and coaching Utah is the place for MLM. Curious if anything will change after the whole messy AG scandals are behind the state and if new people are elected in November.

[TeddyBonkers]

The spouse's club has a holiday bazaar as part of their fundraising for scholarships. Last year was the first year I participated, and it was HARD keeping out all the MLMs. Every single booth featured items from local artisans, but we had to be really bitchy to a lot of people.

"Oh, I AM local business!!" 

No. No you're not, Plexus lady.

Side note: my aunt and cousins are deep in to the Plexus woo. So far, it has cured MS, "leaky gut", and Crohn's disease. kaythen.

[AuLait]

I have a friend that started with "It Works!" a year ago (we are both part of a Christian homeschooling group... A demographic heavily influenced by MLM). The amount of sad sack posts I've had to endure, the overwhelming number of posts that are made and their manipulative tone or outright lies ("our kids can get ice cream/toys/clothes now" "even my 2 year old like to tell others about wraps!"), the constant meme posting. She used to be religious but I feel like this is now her religion. I once liked a cute pic of her kid drinking Greens and got FB messages for like a week about my "interest". It got to be that anything she asked me I felt was maybe a way to sell me something. And it all clearly is due to some marketing class/book they must be required to go through because it's identical to other IW sellers.

You are not an entrepreneur. You are not a small business owner. You are a reseller with a fancy title to make you feel more empowered. This lady has 7 children. The goal of her AND her husband being able to "stay home with the kids and make money off your smart phone" in a saturated market is not realistic. Plus, she is not more present with her kids than when she worked part time. She has all these meetings to go to and constantly has to cancel plans to do various things, her face is always in her phone,  and is always in sell mode. How is that better than having set hours and a schedule and knowing you can switch off when you clock out? 

It makes me mad because the clever marketing and prosperity message appeals to people who are downhearted, as she was. It's not sustainable except for a very select few and I know when it ends she will be hurt. Plus it annoys me that I have to wade through a bunch of muck to see her few real posts.

[myhobby]

@AuLait you have summed up so many of my thoughts!  

I have a ridiculous number of sellers in my social media feed,  but the most prolific posters are the shakeology people.   Nearly constant bombardment of nearly identical posts.  And they use their kids to sell the products.  I should un-follow, but I've become a weirdly fascinated with the sales pitches, transformations, and confidential medical information about their kids that shakeology will apparently aid in resolving.  (Not cure, they're very careful about that.)

[BlessedMajorNeglect]

I lost a bunch of weight over 6 months (using good old fashioned fork put downs, and get up and do mores) and posted a single before and after picture to my stupidly not locked down Instagram. A month later some stranger in a mom group I'm in on Facebook posted my before and after as part of her "ItWorks" spiel on the day we have a dedicated MLM thread for folks to shill their hearts out. She tried to call me a liar for calling it out and then said I was attacking her based on religion when she tried to say that as a Mormon, she would never lie. I mostly found it amusing but that's probably because she got booted from the group and pretty much no one took her side. 

I'll be honest though some MLM bothers me less. The "adult toys" people are way less pushy, as are the food ones like Pampered Chef, at least in my experience. And I've never encountered a Pampered Chef or adult toy seller claim their product can cure medical conditions. I tend to think they're all scams. In my opinion there's far more money to be made from say, a from-home internet based drop shipping business. But something like that requires more effort and intellectual involvement. I don't know that a lot of the types to get sucked into MLM have the self confidence to do something like that.

[sophie10130]

We need the social media version of a "No Soliciting" sign

[AuLait]

The worst part is that a reality check or perceived negativity or questions about the validity of product is written off as "haters" or people trying to stifle your dreams. And that message comes from the very top! How convienent that the people benefitting the most in these schemes are the biggest proponents of not listening to anyone who isn't kissing your butt. 

This friend of mine went to a training in Canada with a bunch of other ladies. They got a speeding ticket, which they documented and then hashtagged that the cop bought a wrap and what good business people they were. I don't even know if I can believe it's true but if it is, omg, how embarrassing to sales pitch a cop after breaking the law.

 

 

[zee_four]

On 6/1/2016 at 2:03 PM, silverspoons said:

I am so sick of MLM in Utah. It seems like my child doesn't have any friend whose parents aren't trying to sell me something.

I think it for a few reasons that is so popular here. Mormon missionaries training goes through building relationships of trust (BRT) and then selling the investigator on the religion. 2 years of your life when most people are in college learning about what they what to do as a career are spent with these men and women learning sales techniques. The missionary zone meeting are all about numbers so it really is a business model these missionaries.

Then you come back from your mission. get married and need money and fall into MLM. It is so common , when my daughter took a required middle school career awareness class, MLM or what kids refer to as network marketing was the top choice in careers! My daughter at 12 knew MLM was a scam but didn't want to hurt her classmates feelings. There was one classmate who had a parent deep in lifevantage and the way this parent used their kids to sell was abused IMO.

I also have heard MLM and other informericals scams come to Utah for 2 reasons. One is cheap educated workforce that are clean cut and there are laws protecting them (as well as we have had 2 corrupt AG recently protecting these businesses). Remember Armondo Montalongo (sp?) and those real estate ads and seminars where he was getting people to pay 50k to spend 2 days with him? His headquarters were in Utah. I talked to a few of his employees. They were torn. they knew the upselling and levels and coaching services and pressure was wrong but they also had families and no real marketable skills.

Both NuSkin and infamous Jeremy Johnson lived in my old neighborhood, well they lived on the other side of the creek in massive walled compounds. No lie, the treehouses for the kids were nicer then my house. I remember when I first moved in, I said what a lovely park across the creek and was corrected that it was the Nuskin owners back yard.

 

People also seem to trust without question anyone of their faith. My daughter has a friend who has a relative who is in jail for scamming many people in their LDS stake out of money. People blinded trusted the man because he was a church leader. It was only after a few brave people stepped forward the person went to jail because people were embaressed they got scammed. One was a prominent educated man in our community that lost a high 6 figure amount.

Sorry to ramble but I could tell numberous stories of MLM scams and abuse in Utah. Utah county is just full of companies, you pass at least 15 major MLM headquarters on 1-15 driving to SLC.  When I lived in NY, I never had anyone ask me to join MLM's and in MA, maybe every few years and it was mostly vitamins. From crafts, water, health care, skin care, and coaching Utah is the place for MLM. Curious if anything will change after the whole messy AG scandals are behind the state and if new people are elected in November.

I'm from Western CO and have definitely noticed this in UT. I bet loose business regulations and low costs via tax credits and CoL for businesses to be located in the state add to the MLM friendly LDS culture as the reason for this.

[Nashville92]

My office is mostly women so MLM gets peddled quite often. We've had Jamberry, pampered chef, scentsy, jewelry companies, food companies you name it it's been sold here. A few have done Plexus. One of my coworkers started selling It Works. They love it but the prices are way too high for me. I also don't feel like using those products. I do love Pampered Chef but it's quite pricey. I have some salt shakers but I got those at Goodwill

[Geechee Girl]

My fundy ex-MIL will jump on any MLM bandwagon. She's done Amway, Equinox, water filtration systems, and circled back to Amway again. She laid on the emotional manipulation with the gentleness of a sledgehammer. If I didn't buy or sign up:

I didn't support her.

I wasn't smart enough to see what a good deal these products were.

I lacked ambition.

I was too lazy to run my own business.

I didn't want her success.

I didn't want her financial freedom.

I didn't want her free to spread the Good word.

Satan was using me as her stumbling block. 

[19 cats and counting]

Even non fundies accuse you of not supporting them when it comes to MLM.

I once posted a FB status to tell people to stop adding me to MLM groups and/or tagging me in MLM pics and most of the responses were "Why don't you support my business?"

I haven't heard Satan being brought up on FB yet.  I wish Mark Zuckerberg would crack down on MLM people using their personal pages to hawk shit and make them register for business pages (and the assorted charges).  I think FB cracking down on the posts (and the ability to report them as spam) is the only way to stop the invasion of MLM.

[ScreamingIzzy]

I know someone doing ASN (I think that's what it is--a way to get telephone, cell phone, television service for cheap?). The guilt trips he would lay down on his fb page were horrible, "I'm selling something you are all already using! Why wouldn't you buy it from me? I'm trying to make a better life for myself and my family! If you don't buy from me, don't expect me to support you when you need help." etc. It was BAD. 

[notsocommon]

As a handmade crafter, the fair thing drives me completely nuts.

NONE of them are 'art' or 'craft' fairs anymore. They ALL are so full of MLM and any actual artist/ crafter is shoved in the back corner.

I used to actually make a living off of my hobby. Not anymore. :(.

I quit last summer and have a massive stockpile of things collecting dust and I can't even engage in my favorite hobbies because I paid out about $150 in booth fees without making a single sale. Oh, and I had to donate an auction item at a few of the fairs.

Tried Etsy, but even they are flooded with crap, now.

[nokidsmom]

On 6/1/2016 at 3:03 PM, silverspoons said:

I am so sick of MLM in Utah. It seems like my child doesn't have any friend whose parents aren't trying to sell me something.

I think it for a few reasons that is so popular here. Mormon missionaries training goes through building relationships of trust (BRT) and then selling the investigator on the religion. 2 years of your life when most people are in college learning about what they what to do as a career are spent with these men and women learning sales techniques. The missionary zone meeting are all about numbers so it really is a business model these missionaries.

Then you come back from your mission. get married and need money and fall into MLM. It is so common , when my daughter took a required middle school career awareness class, MLM or what kids refer to as network marketing was the top choice in careers! My daughter at 12 knew MLM was a scam but didn't want to hurt her classmates feelings. There was one classmate who had a parent deep in lifevantage and the way this parent used their kids to sell was abused IMO.

I also have heard MLM and other informericals scams come to Utah for 2 reasons. One is cheap educated workforce that are clean cut and there are laws protecting them (as well as we have had 2 corrupt AG recently protecting these businesses). Remember Armondo Montalongo (sp?) and those real estate ads and seminars where he was getting people to pay 50k to spend 2 days with him? His headquarters were in Utah. I talked to a few of his employees. They were torn. they knew the upselling and levels and coaching services and pressure was wrong but they also had families and no real marketable skills.

Both NuSkin and infamous Jeremy Johnson lived in my old neighborhood, well they lived on the other side of the creek in massive walled compounds. No lie, the treehouses for the kids were nicer then my house. I remember when I first moved in, I said what a lovely park across the creek and was corrected that it was the Nuskin owners back yard.

People also seem to trust without question anyone of their faith. My daughter has a friend who has a relative who is in jail for scamming many people in their LDS stake out of money. People blinded trusted the man because he was a church leader. It was only after a few brave people stepped forward the person went to jail because people were embaressed they got scammed. One was a prominent educated man in our community that lost a high 6 figure amount.

Sorry to ramble but I could tell numberous stories of MLM scams and abuse in Utah. Utah county is just full of companies, you pass at least 15 major MLM headquarters on 1-15 driving to SLC.  When I lived in NY, I never had anyone ask me to join MLM's and in MA, maybe every few years and it was mostly vitamins. From crafts, water, health care, skin care, and coaching Utah is the place for MLM. Curious if anything will change after the whole messy AG scandals are behind the state and if new people are elected in November.

Sister living in Utah says since moving there 15 years ago, she has never seen so many scams and personally got to know / work with people who were convicted and did time for fraud.   Within one year of her arrival she worked with a guy who was on work release from the local prison for financial fraud involving his LDS stake and her next door neighbor suddenly disappeared because he was serving time in NV for some shady financial stuff while he was working in Vegas.

Up until her move to UT, she lived in a city  / state well known for shady activity, so that she was a bit shocked at how much was going on in UT, this is really saying something.

[JesusCampSongs]

18 hours ago, 19 cats and counting said:

I haven't heard Satan being brought up on FB yet.  I wish Mark Zuckerberg would crack down on MLM people using their personal pages to hawk shit and make them register for business pages (and the assorted charges).  I think FB cracking down on the posts (and the ability to report them as spam) is the only way to stop the invasion of MLM.

From your lips to god's ears, SERIOUSLY. I don't want to unfollow my friends because I like their normal posts, but all the MLM shillposts are killing me. One of my coworkers is out on maternity leave, and she's still making multiple MLM posts a day. Like. Wat. 

[treehugger]

13 hours ago, notsocommon said:

As a handmade crafter, the fair thing drives me completely nuts.

NONE of them are 'art' or 'craft' fairs anymore. They ALL are so full of MLM and any actual artist/ crafter is shoved in the back corner.

I used to actually make a living off of my hobby. Not anymore. :(.

I quit last summer and have a massive stockpile of things collecting dust and I can't even engage in my favorite hobbies because I paid out about $150 in booth fees without making a single sale. Oh, and I had to donate an auction item at a few of the fairs.

Tried Etsy, but even they are flooded with crap, now.

I hear you!  I also do handmade crafts, and I have a table for my crafts at our local farmer's market - but people just race right past to go and hang out at the MLM tables :-(.  I can't sell something I spent several hours creating for the cost of my materials, but the YL rep right beside me is selling her overpriced oils at $40 a pop left right and center.  It's depressing.  

And Etsy has too many of the same things.  It is damn near impossible to sift through the thousands of pages of the same thing.  And it is really hard to find real skilled crafts on there anymore.  Most of them are things that are easily put together.  I keep looking for traditional, handmade quilts but the traditional patterns are getting harder and harder to find.  

[Loveday]

A very old friend of mine has just gotten sucked into Younique. She hasn't even received her 'presenter's kit' yet, and she's already talking about Younique on FB. I've been watching her posts and conversations the past few weeks, and it's been obvious all along that she's been groomed by her 'sponsor' for this. I just know she's going to start working on me. I'm doomed. I mean, she's seriously a sweet, wonderful person--how in the world do I say no to her in a way that she realises immediately that I MEAN it, without hurting her feelings? 

[Coy Koi]

41 minutes ago, Loveday said:

A very old friend of mine has just gotten sucked into Younique. She hasn't even received her 'presenter's kit' yet, and she's already talking about Younique on FB. I've been watching her posts and conversations the past few weeks, and it's been obvious all along that she's been groomed by her 'sponsor' for this. I just know she's going to start working on me. I'm doomed. I mean, she's seriously a sweet, wonderful person--how in the world do I say no to her in a way that she realises immediately that I MEAN it, without hurting her feelings? 

I think you just have to say "No thanks, I'm not interested" and leave it at that. Repeat as many times as necessary. Because if you give reasons why you aren't interested, that just gives her something to refute. If that upsets her then she needs to adjust her expectations because it's unreasonable to assume everyone will want to buy whatever crap you're selling, or that they should buy it even if they don't want to.

[Loveday]

16 minutes ago, Coy Koi said:

I think you just have to say "No thanks, I'm not interested" and leave it at that. Repeat as many times as necessary. Because if you give reasons why you aren't interested, that just gives her something to refute. If that upsets her then she needs to adjust her expectations because it's unreasonable to assume everyone will want to buy whatever crap you're selling, or that they should buy it even if they don't want to.

Yeah, that's my basic plan. I'm good at politely saying no the first time. It's when they come back at me again and again that I have a problem saying no, especially when it's someone I otherwise like and respect. If I did give her a reason, it would be that I've never spent more than $10 for a face cream or liquid foundation in my life, and I'm not going to start now. But then she'd probably tell me that if I joined the team, I could get massive discounts, so I'd  better not say that!  

[Walking Cat Bed]

5 hours ago, treehugger said:

I hear you!  I also do handmade crafts, and I have a table for my crafts at our local farmer's market - but people just race right past to go and hang out at the MLM tables :-(.  I can't sell something I spent several hours creating for the cost of my materials, but the YL rep right beside me is selling her overpriced oils at $40 a pop left right and center.  It's depressing.  

And Etsy has too many of the same things.  It is damn near impossible to sift through the thousands of pages of the same thing.  And it is really hard to find real skilled crafts on there anymore.  Most of them are things that are easily put together.  I keep looking for traditional, handmade quilts but the traditional patterns are getting harder and harder to find.  

I've had several friends switch to different websites once they have a following -- selz or bigcartel. 

[Loveday]

Okay, since yesterday she's made seven separate posts about Younique. She's having an online party. She hasn't got her kit yet but we can go to her new website and see what's on offer. She's offering a basic set and will work with us to get the right color combinations...et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I used to enjoy reading her posts, they were all about her real life. I've got a PM from her waiting to be read--I know it's about something else, but I'm sure that when I get to the bottom of it she'll say something about Younique, so I haven't opened it yet. 

Ugh. Friendships often seem difficult enough to maintain as it is, these days. Why do we have to have MLMs to make it even harder?

[louisa05]

On 6/3/2016 at 0:01 PM, Geechee Girl said:

My fundy ex-MIL will jump on any MLM bandwagon. She's done Amway, Equinox, water filtration systems, and circled back to Amway again. She laid on the emotional manipulation with the gentleness of a sledgehammer. If I didn't buy or sign up:

I didn't support her.

I wasn't smart enough to see what a good deal these products were.

I lacked ambition.

I was too lazy to run my own business.

I didn't want her success.

I didn't want her financial freedom.

I didn't want her free to spread the Good word.

Satan was using me as her stumbling block. 

That is all Equinox. Sounds exactly like my friend during the three years she spent in that company. 

[lilwriter85]

On 6/2/2016 at 9:20 PM, BlessedMajorNeglect said:

I lost a bunch of weight over 6 months (using good old fashioned fork put downs, and get up and do mores) and posted a single before and after picture to my stupidly not locked down Instagram. A month later some stranger in a mom group I'm in on Facebook posted my before and after as part of her "ItWorks" spiel on the day we have a dedicated MLM thread for folks to shill their hearts out. She tried to call me a liar for calling it out and then said I was attacking her based on religion when she tried to say that as a Mormon, she would never lie. I mostly found it amusing but that's probably because she got booted from the group and pretty much no one took her side. 

I'll be honest though some MLM bothers me less. The "adult toys" people are way less pushy, as are the food ones like Pampered Chef, at least in my experience. And I've never encountered a Pampered Chef or adult toy seller claim their product can cure medical conditions. I tend to think they're all scams. In my opinion there's far more money to be made from say, a from-home internet based drop shipping business. But something like that requires more effort and intellectual involvement. I don't know that a lot of the types to get sucked into MLM have the self confidence to do something like that.

That has been experience as well. We have a family friend who sells for Pampered Chef, it's mostly a side thing for her and she isn't pushy. She doesn't do a lot of parties these days due to caring for elderly parents. My friend's ex-girlfriend sold adult toys a few years back and wasn't pushy. I went to one of her parties and it was fun to laugh at the products. 

[Shoobydoo]

My aunt hosted her Pampered Chef practice party at our house. The only people there were me, my mom, and one of my dad's coworker's wife, who I think just showed up for the wine, as she got rather drunk. My mom bought some stuff at the party, but hasn't since. She got this fan shaped thing for opening jars? It works very well, which is nice for a baby-handed person like me, but I've never been able to find a cheap one at the store that actually works.

I don't know if my aunt still sells, or tries to sell, but if not that she probably sells something else. She does not have the greatest critical thinking skills, and sadly both she and her creeper husband and disabled. The sales pitch of "work and support yourself from home!" can be irresistible to some people who physically can't work outside the home and don't know what to do. It must be like shooting fish in a barrel. 

Although, at the party she made a delicious veggie pizza which is to date the only time I have ever eaten zucchini and not thought it was absolutely disgusting, so there's that?

[ADoyle90815]

On 6/2/2016 at 10:03 PM, sophie10130 said:

We need the social media version of a "No Soliciting" sign

I agree, the closest thing is "unfollow" but sometimes those people post stuff you would like to see, so clicking "unfollow" is a bit extreme. I guess I've been lucky that most of my FB friends aren't into the MLM stuff, but I've seen how big it is among Mormons and other religious groups because it's something women can do from home.