Wow, it’s been quite some time since there’s been an anti MLM Monday on my blog. I’ve written a few posts about MLMs in between, but nothing dedicated to Anti MLM Mondays. If you aren’t familiar with what multi level marketing is, I highly recommend reading this post I wrote last year. It gives a thorough break down of the industry and certain key things you should know when starting your education and research about these companies. Today, you’ll be reading about how MLM companies ruin relationships and friendships. A lot of times, we’ve seen MLM reps deny this and say that anti MLMers are just being over dramatic, that this doesn’t actually happen.
Plot twist, it does.
TESTIMONIALS & PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
If you’re new here, hi I’m Monica and I’m an ex hunbot, who is now severely anti MLM. Mary Kay was the first MLM I joined, while Beachbody was the second. I’m pretty sure I still have all of those blog posts praising those two companies buried somewhere in the archives of this blog. Because of my experiences, I have my own personal story as to how one upline of mine tried to separate me from my family. I had joined Beachbody and was experiencing a little bit of momentum where I was signing up people in my challenge groups left and right. Then, it slowed down, A LOT. Eventually it came to a standstill. I gave my parents samples of Shakeology but they weren’t huge fans of it and didn’t want to buy it and I was completely ok with it.
However, my upline somehow tried to tell me that I need to get rid of toxic people out of my life who aren’t supporting my “business.” She tried to tell me that my parents were toxic and negative for not purchasing Shakeology from me. Now, I do realize some might argue with me because of the title of this post. Some might say MLMs don’t ruin relationships, and it’s the reps who are part of the MLM that do that. I can agree with that, to a point. My reasoning behind this is because while yes, the individual has to take responsibility for their actions, the MLM company perpetuates bad behavior. MLM companies just want to make money, at the end of the day, it’s just business to them.
It goes deeper than just working for an MLM company. These companies use cult like tactics. Personal Development is heavily encouraged and Law of Attraction is huge within the MLM industry. If you’d like a video about The Law of Attraction and the book/movie The Secret, I made an entire deep dive into that.
Related: An Intro to the Anti MLM movement
IT GOES DEEPER THAN COLD MESSAGES THAT START WITH “HEY GIRL”
I’m sure most of us have gotten the “hey girl” “love your feed” messages from MLM reps. This is how they cold message, and just like regular cold calling, it’s annoying. Maybe an old friend of yours from high school found you on Facebook and is saying that they want to catch up. So you don’t think anything of it and grab lunch with them. However, this innocent catch up lunch turns into an MLM pitch. Now you’re stuck listening to this nonsense. Some may fall for it while others who are anti MLM may try to educate the person on the harms of MLM companies. These types of outings make a lot of us uncomfortable. It’s so awkward.
A RUN IN WITH MARY KAY
If you don’t know how I got pitched for Mary Kay, I’ll try to make this short. I was out for lunch with my coworkers from my “9-5” corporate job (I know most reps DESPISE those). A really sweet bubbly woman had offered us free facials and gave us her business card. Because I was tight on money at the time, I thought free facial? Heck yea! I called her up thinking I’d be going to a salon for this facial. We met up at Dunkin Donuts, and this woman whips out a bowl from her carry on luggage size bag with all of her Mary Kay stuff in it.
My free facial consisted of taking off my makeup with the MK makeup remover, then washing my face with this bowl filled with water from the Dunkin Donuts sink. However, this woman is REALLY good at what she does and she somehow got me roped into MK, with the largest starter kit (over $1000), and the MK Credit Card. She just made it seem like this was to financial freedom to pay off my $25,000 worth of credit card debt (at the time, it’s since been paid off, no thanks to the MLM), pay off my student loans, and quit my full time job to be my own boss. I drank the damn kool aid.
What I’m trying to get at here, is when you’re in a vulnerable state, it’s so easy to fall for these pitches. You see a light at the end of the tunnel, and the upline gives you that light, that out. They package the opportunity up in a big bright red bow. Your upline might say that you’ll have the greatest support system ever with your team. You’ll be surrounded by like minded individuals who will always be in your corner. Well, that is, until you speak out against the MLM if you decide to do that. The amount of people who unfriended and blocked me after I spoke out was actually refreshing, because I knew our friendship was fake.
Related: My first ever anti MLM post here where I finally let it all out.
A HUSBAND PLEADING FOR HELP TO SAVE HIS WIFE
There was a comment left on one of my older videos quite some time ago, of a man asking for help. This comment has stuck with me for the past year because it broke my heart. He stated that his wife had gotten involved in the MLM due to being taken advantage of. The name has been redacted, because even though this was left publicly, I do not want anyone seeking out this person if they are in the MLM, and come across this post for whatever reason. This man was pleading for help and stating that him and his wife had gotten into so many arguments about it. Could it have been a fake account? Possibly, but I have received so many comments and messages like this one throughout my time of creating anti MLM content on Youtube.
I responded to this very worried husband and tried to help as much as I could. Hopefully his wife got out.
SIGNED, A WORRIED MOM
Just the other day, I received an email from a very worried mother. I’ve redacted a lot of information so that the identity of the people involved are unknown, including some more personal information. However, as you can see from this email, this mother needs help and is very clearly worried about her daughter. Side note, I really can’t stand it when I see people dropping out of college for their MLM. This is all because they’ve been fed this narrative that you don’t need school, just the MLM. Anyway, an MLM that is mixing spirituality into their products/services?! Can we just start waving a huge red flag 🚩 ? I have not looked into this MLM thoroughly yet, but what I have read is that they mix spirituality with an MLM structure. It’s quite shocking and I would love to dive into it deeper one day.
Clearly, this woman’s daughter has been indoctrinated into this MLM. As for the crystal healing, I know plenty of people who use crystals and don’t act like this. The people I know who use crystal healing still believe in science and have full time jobs or legitimate businesses that aren’t MLM. They don’t walk around like zombies or almost in a zoned out state. I did let the mother know that speaking with a professional is something she should look into doing, but I gave her resources about cults and deprogramming. How can you read something like that or see evidence like this and be an MLM rep who says MLMs don’t ruin friendships and relationships?
OTHER PLACES TO READ ANTI MLM TESTIMONIALS
I run an anti MLM Facebook group, and within that group, there have been so many posts made by concerned friends and family members. People have shared anything as minuscule as a friend joined and they can’t get through to them so they just stopped talking to them, and go as extreme as a man thinking that divorce is the only option left because of how much debt his family is in. If you join any anti MLM group on Facebook, or even the anti MLM reddit, you’ll read more testimonials of people who have gotten divorced, lost their family members and closest friends to these MLMs.
Related: How a Monat rep targeted me for my prenatal hair thinning.
MLM Horror Stories like the one above by Selahna have become very popular on Youtube. This video in particular covers how MLMs damage marriages. In the worst case scenario, they can end marriages.
TOXIC POSITIVITY & CULT TACTICS
Sadly, people lose friends and family members to MLMs all the time. You may be wondering, how does this even happen to begin with? How does the MLM or maybe even the upline hold THIS much power over another person? There is a reason why MLM’s have been compared to cults, and some have called them commercial cults. When joining an MLM, for some, there may be indoctrination happening. If you’re unfamiliar with what indoctrination means, the definition of the word is the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. With MLMs, it may start off as something so simple such as always making sure there is a positive mindset. NO NEGATIVE VIBES! This is why MLMs are riddled with toxic positivity.
LOVE BOMBING
With that said, since you can’t have any negative vibes, the uplines will say that you need to get rid of toxic people out of your life. You need people who will be supportive of your new business. This is when an upline may do something called love bombing. Wikipedia’s definition of love bombing is the following:
Love bombing is an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and for either positive or negative purposes. Psychologists have identified love bombing as a possible part of a cycle of abuse and have warned against it.
This is just a way for the upline to show you that they are there for you whereas your friends and family who don’t support you are just “haters.” These people will try and make the fake MLM sisterhood look so much more supportive than your family. However, that sisterhood and friendship only exists because you’re making your upline money.
Related: The moment I put two and two together and compared MLMs to cults.
Alanda from The Recovering Hunbot has covered a lot about thought reform which ties into this topic as well. She’s another great anti MLM channel to watch.
MLM REPS BECOME THE MLM; THIS IS THEIR IDENTITY NOW
This may sound extreme, but before you roll your eyes at me, hear me out. When you watch your friends and family join an MLM, it starts off as just a few posts here and there on social media. They make a post introducing their new side hustle (some won’t say what company they are working for so keep this in mind). The post may talk about their “why.” This is common within MLM companies, I’ve reacted to many reps and their why they started, joined, or use the products.
I’M GUILTY OF THIS PRIOR TO BEING ANTI MLM
I’m guilty of posting this when I was in the MLM as well. However, then all of the sudden it turns into every single post or conversation you have with your friend/family member is about the MLM. After some time passes, they may start to shift who they are as a person. All of the sudden (sometimes it feels like it’s out of nowhere), the person you once knew is gone. Their life revolves around the MLM. They believe that everything they have is thanks to the MLM.
This kind of happened to me. At one point it felt like I was a Beachbody coach first, and Monica second. I was constantly thinking about Beachbody and working my “biz.” Everything in my life was put on the backburner, including my friends and family. I changed as a person. The Monica I became was not the person I wanted to continue being and I decided to leave. I snapped out of it, but not everyone does. How can anyone live like this though?
Related: How MLM reps used the pandemic as a way to manipulate you into joining.
Josie from Not the Good Girl on Youtube talks about her experience with losing her best friend of 8 years in the above video. She covers a lot of information about cults on her channel as well.
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT RANK YOU ARE
It doesn’t matter how high or low ranking you are in the MLM. There are people such as Josie from Not The Good Girl who were part of the elite as I like to call them. She was at the tippy top of the triangle like structure. It doesn’t matter. This “mean girls” mentality and indoctrination happens at all levels. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even worse at the top. A lot of times we see what happens when people finally have some money and they get greedy. Because with MLMs you’re not selling the product, you’re selling the lifestyle in order to recruit others, you have to have a persona to the public. How some of these reps are behind closed doors is just plain mean.
Related: Why I’m anti MLM not anti Hun.
MORE CULT EDUCATION
I’ve shared a very small amount of information about cults in this post. In the past I’ve spoken about Steven Hassan and his BITE Model, but it wasn’t until I spoke with Spike (video above) that I learned about Lifton’s 8 Criteria of Thought Reform. If you’re looking for more education on cults and why MLMs get called commercial cults a lot, I highly recommend watching the above video. Spike is an amazing person to talk to and she really knows how to captivate the audience.
Related: The BITE Model explained
FAKING FRIENDSHIPS FOR MLM RECRUITMENT
I came across a Paparazzi rep a few months ago on Youtube that I needed to react to. She was pretty much exposing herself and how she fakes friendships to recruit people. Unfortunately, due to the indoctrination that happens, most of her team watching probably doesn’t even realize that they too were duped. I’m hoping that the people on her team will eventually snap out of it and leave the MLM, but we can only hope. As for this rep, faking friendships to build your MLM team is nothing new.
This was something we were taught when I was in Beachbody. We were told to build a rapport with people and to wait to pitch them. Pitch them when you’ve earned their trust. The reasoning behind this is because if you just come at someone with a cold message they’re going to reject you. Whereas if you build trust and a bond first, it doesn’t feel as gross. Or at least that’s what these reps thinks. This approach is even more disgusting than just cold messaging. They will hide behind “just wanting to help others with this opportunity like it helped me” and that’s just not the case. Some of these reps might truly believe they are helping others, but they aren’t.
Related: How I paid off $25,000 worth of credit card debt without the “help” of an MLM.
I made a video over a year ago (so please excuse the quality) talking about how to help a friend or family member get out of an MLM.
HOW TO HELP A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER OUT OF AN MLM
I did add my older video above as a resource as to how to help a friend or family member out of an MLM. The reality is, sometimes, it is a lost cause and you just have to come to terms with that. You cannot make anyone do anything, especially when they are indoctrinated into the MLM, or if they are actually making money. The below are my top 3 things I always tell people, but watch my older video to see more ways to help a loved one get out.
THE KIND APPROACH
My rule of thumb has been to approach them with kindness. Not everyone agrees with this, and that’s ok. I know some people are better with the tough love approach, but this is my approach. The aggressive approach isn’t for me. In my opinion this just causes tension and the person can go into defense mode. They’re entitled to do that as well, because we have to remember, everyone’s feelings are valid.
SHOW THEM HOW TO TRACK THEIR ACTUAL PROFIT
Using facts is great, but sometimes facts don’t mean anything to your loved ones because they believe in this company and community of women so much. It’s almost like you have to treat these people like cult members. I like to tell people to also make an excel spreadsheet. Nothing fancy, and you can use the Google Docs excel spreadsheet. Have them put their income on one side, and their expenses on the other side. These expenses can include any taxes they pay, shipping fees, PV they need to keep, and maybe they even bought some office supplies.
Afterwards, have them subtract the expenses from the income to see what their actual take home is. Then, have them divide that by the total amount of hours worked. I can almost guarantee they’re not even making federal minimum wage. At the time of writing this on July 29th of 2021 the current U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. This may show them just how much they are losing and it might be a step in the right direction.
DON’T BE THE EPITOME OF WHAT THEIR UPLINE CALLS A HATER
No matter how much they annoy you, don’t show them that you’re the hater their upline is talking about. The moment you do anything remotely as the upline says, your loved one will be “proven right.” Try to keep in contact with them. Maybe ask to meet up with them for lunch or coffee here and there. When they start talking about the MLM, let them talk a little bit and then steer the conversation into a different direction to get them to realize they’re more than just the MLM.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T CALL IT A PYRAMID SCHEME
Your loved one will most likely go into defense mode. Their response might be something along the lines of “pyramid schemes are illegal, we’re not a pyramid scheme because we’re still operating.” We know that just because something is illegal, it doesn’t mean people won’t do it, or won’t walk fine lines. Substances and murder is illegal, but that doesn’t stop some people. While some MLM companies are very questionable, especially when their comp plan is set up to recruit people over selling the products or services due to bonuses, calling it a pyramid scheme won’t help the conversation.
Related: My response to an article titled “Anti MLMers are privileged.”
IN CONCLUSION
At the end of the day, until all MLMs are shut down, people will lose friendships and relationships as a result of these companies. I know someone who’s father has been involved in the MLM Isagenix for over 13 years. From what she knows, he still has not made the money he was promised he would in the beginning. Unfortunately, he is too far gone because even after all of her attempts to try and get through to her father, he refuses to leave. As much as we want to help our friends and family members, they need to be ready to leave the MLM. Sadly, this may mean that you will have to go your separate ways.
Disclaimer: This is all based on my opinion and research I have done. Please do your own research and fact checking. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use. Second Disclaimer: Anything said in this video is for entertainment purposes, and my opinions.
