Anybody do it? Just curious.

You mean that annoying pyramid scheme chit? Where you'd sell me "the kit" or "the plan" then, the few bottles of bullchit shampoo I sell to some other victim helps me pay you for my "plan"? Then I victimize the next sucker down the line with "the kit" of their own?


You mean that crap?

You gonna be a millionaire in six months? Hahahaha. Dream on hooker.

The vast majority of large companies are multi-level. And every one of them takes a cut. Even small companies use the system to get there product to a national market, except WalMart and other like them.

Nope, that ain't it.

Would you like a regular supply of shampoo conveniently delivered to your door each month?

My wife works an MLM business from home, done pretty well with it, been an interesting ride.

ha, mine too. I thought it was a scam and was annoyed by it, and then she told me how much she made last month and my attitude changed a bit...(grin) I've been looking into it and some people do really well with it into six figures year. She does the fitness coaching and helps ladies lose weight. Very successful at that.

it's a great system and quite a few folks do quite well at it.

the Amway crowd kinda soured some folks on the premise it seems.

but it's a great way to make some loot.

glad to hear the Mrs. is making some coin Calvin.

at the rate you're going you'll own more stocks than Buffet one of these days!

> Bernie Madoff < : Agreed!

add,

Just curious, but do you know the difference between what Bernie Madoff did and what MLM is?

You seem to be confused.

They can work if you are good at convincing other people that it can work, and then they sell the idea to other people and then those people do the same, and so on so on so forth. It is more about getting other people beneath you than about selling the products. The more people you recruit and the more those people recruit and so on so on so forth the more money you make, and you become an annoying SOB by trying to recruit everyone that you know. In the meantime the products cost way more than they should because everyone up that pyramid gets a cut of the profit from everything everyone they recruited sells and everyone those people recruited and so on so on so forth. There wasn't that annoying.

Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme. That's when they pay dividends to early investors from money by paid in by later investors. The early ones are told that their investment is paying off big money when it's actually coming from other investors. Keeping it going depends on getting more and more investors but sooner or later, the money runs out and the later investors get screwed.
MLM pays from actual sales, not from investors. If there are no sales, nobody gets paid.

What would I do with it. I shave my head.

Variation on theme...

Our daughter took a stab at this. The scam she fell for was a vacation "club". Within a week the little scumbag that suckered her into this BS was bugging her to sell more. He had her convinced that if she personally bought the services for "prospective" clients, her business would take off.

When I caught on to this I went looking for the little worm to have a little Come to Jesus with him. His bank got to him before I did, and he ended up fleeing the area with a hundred grand in defaulted loans. The little worm had time to take the tires and rims off his Escalade and sell them to a pawn shop. Apparently he didn't have enough money to repair the engine he blew up.

In short, no MLM for me. I just work hard and honestly for my money.

So do you really believe that a MLM is a variation on the theme of what Madoff did? Please, enlighten us more..(grin)

Not sure sure that was legit to begin with. Just sayin..

Wreaks of ignorance.

MLM is one of the most popular entrepreneurial business model in the country. It's like anything else, you get out of it what you put into it. If people worked their MLM like they do a real job they can be very successful and I know several people in the 6 figure income and a few in the 7 figure income. Problem is, most people treat it like a part time job, put very little effort into it and get disappointed then they don't get rich quickly. MLM is no a get rich quick scheme, it's a work hard and make a lot of money on your own schedule scheme. Don't expect to get more out of it than you put into it. IMO one of the best out there is Send Out Cards. If someone is interested in knowing more pm me. MLM is also not a ponzi or pyramid scheme. People that talk like that are just showing their ignorance.

MLM is bullshit.

If the product/service has merit, it can support the overhead necessary to function by selling the product/service to the public.

MLM markets less than competent products/services, not to the public, but to individuals who hope to profit from the public.

IOW, the profit comes from the dreams of the recruits, not the worthiness of the product/service.

Some vultures here already, claimin MLM is the schizz.

Maybe they'll have the balls to post what their "product" is, and why MLM is the "only" way it can be moved.

Thanks for chiming in. I'm just learning about it all since my wife jumped right in. I cannot believe the amount of work she puts into it, but the rewards are starting to show up. It took me a pile of cash to start my own fishing business and it's interesting how she could start a business with $140 and be getting close to paying the mortgage in under six months.

Can't make this chit up!

Well, for a $140 Beachbody workout dvd, my wife will coach a lady till she's skinny and in shape. That includes giving meal plans and educating on how to eat, encouragement, accountability, phone calls, etc. Probably the best deal out there that I can see. Not sure how that's a scam, but I'm all ears. Enlighten me.

add, you seem to be pretty confident in yourself. Why don't you share what you do for a living?

Is MLM all the chit house wives are doing on Facebook?

IOW, she has no real training, education or qualifications for the "training" she's offering.

It may just be that there's more to it than watchin a CD and connin people to pay you to hang out with em.

Does your wife claim any expertise in the area when signin up the trusting?

Does she tell em she knows nothin more than them bout the "training" other than what she's watched on some CDs she bought for $140?

Does she offer to just sell em the CDs, so they'll "know" as much as she does?

You've been enlightened more than her suckers weight will be, if you don't include their wallets.

Easily the most fit person I know. 3.5 year old and 2 year old kids and a six pack. Not sure who would be more qualified to teach nutrition and exercise than that. You think a fat gal who has a degree in exercise would be more qualified? Btw, he success rate is very good, and every gal who claims some sort of "issue" that won't allow them to lose weight does extremely well and gets down to weights they haven't seen in ages.

Fubarski, what do you do for a living? You seem to have an agenda here.

Probably. I just go fishing all day. Btw, what are you doing checking out housewives on facebook?

IOW, she has no training, expertise or qualifications to do what she does, cept bein skinnier than the suckers she pulls in.

Maybe I should take golf lessons from somebody that beats me at golf.

Must be a pro, right?

I hear ya.

Ripe pickens to be had in the Alaskan villages with many on a secured .gov income.

Hah! They stalk me.

Really just a lot of friends and family that are always pushing some product on Facebook.
"Gold level bonus!!!! I feel so great!!!! You can do this too!!!!! Changed my life!!!

You are on the verge of retard now. Simmer down.

Says the expert..haha

Don't mind me. Just been up since 3am grinding it out on the ocean. Hope your day was great.

You'd love my facebook page. Lots of dead fish. I don't sell anything btw.

Does she have the qualifications, education and training to be competent to monitor the exercise and diet of the varied individuals in the community, including diabetics, the elderly, those with allergies and the disabled?

Or does she not?

Seriously Fubarski? You are going to go full retard on a gal making a few bucks helping ladies get in shape and to live a healthier lifestyle?

You really have an ax to grind and an agenda, that is for sure.

I don't mind the sales pitches. Easy enough to ignore. Just have noticed the increasing occurrence of them. Some are down right comical!

If a person sells a product that they use and get results from, good for them. Hope your lady makes a bundle.

Let's ignore the fact that your wife is unqualified to do what she's claiming she can do, to people that are trusting her.

Why does she have to share her income with other people "higher on the ladder"?

Reeks of ignorance

Is the correct usage/spelling and is a decent simile for the reader.

The problem with people like you is so much of what you "know" just isn't true. Enlighten us on what you do and how much you make. I'm sure we would be impressed. Or maybe you are just another troll.

You are really taking this personally. Sorry dude, can't help you with your issues.

Yes, you are so awesome you can correct EdM.

Got to love the internet.

I was once an engineer, 25+ years ago. Seems to have stuk.

Never been the salesman type myself but many years ago as a side job for a little extra cash I did get involved in selling what I truly believed to be a much needed and important product that every home should have.

About a week into it a half dozen of us 'new recruits' were taken to the home of our regional sales manager for a mandatory sales meeting/motivational pep rally.

The regional manager, to our surprise, was a very young man, in his mid 20s at most, with a lovely young wife and a couple of very small kids. He and wife were wearing expensive, tasteful clothes, jewelry, watches, rings.

They lived in a beautiful, tastefully furnished, spacious executive home in an exclusive upscale neighborhood, w/high dollar 'his & her's' luxury vehicles parked in their driveway --all attributed to sale of our product.

The very picture of quick and easy financial success.

Unfortunately, after a few more weeks passed I found out it was all fake from the ground up as well as a pyrimid type sales scheme.

The whole regional sales manager thing was staged.

Neither the house nor furniture nor vehicles were really theirs.

All were short term rentals (don't know about the wife and kids) meant to impress, inspire and motivate new recruits into believing that that could easily be them if they sold more product and recruited more sales people to sell more product.

Yeah, we get that.

But could you move nutritional supplements and work-out DVDs in the villages?

add is now going to enlighten us about his awesome career and what is salary is. Speak up!

Writes the guy starting a thread on MLM...

PM for details!

Haha, you must be a real rough and tumble guy. Hope you feel better about yourself and your circumstances. I happen to think highly of many of the folks on this thread.

Page 3 now.

Link what you are hawkin', why be shy?

I ain't hawking anything. I fish for a living. Just head down to the fish thread in the Alaska section.

Pretty funny how you won't say what you do for a living, but you'll knock a gal making a few bucks getting women in shape.

Any marketing scheme that relies on conning others to get on board under you in order for you to make money is a pyramid. Check any consumer protection website. Once the area is saturated, the ones near the bottom are screwed, if not before. Not to say that none of the products are any good, or that everyone involved is a crook.

Amazon will deliver lots of products to your door on a schedule that you set up, regular stuff like you buy in the stores, at excellent prices. They'll even provide a wifi ordering button you can push to get stuff without going online (not recomnended for people with children or cats).

What mlm does it seems to me is allow folks with a dynamic personality to make some money

I think a lot of folks have a sour taste like n their mouth over themselves or someone they care for feeling like they were duped by the sales pitch "that you can do this too "

You can take the most educated person in health & fitness and if they lack the personality they'll only be marginally effective inspiring others to be fit

But take a young lady that's a busy mom and wife & can first of all relate to other busy moms (target market) shows the results she's obtained by following the same program and IF she has natural leadership abilities to inspire and encourage she's apt to have a greater influence over the target audience than someone who's got a Ph.D. in nutrition & exercise


Mlm gives the opportunity to folks with little formal training to reach significant numbers of folks marketing goods or services to sometimes earn more than folks that are experts in similar fields


Is it fair? Beats me, but it exists. Is it for everybody? Probably not.

But there are some crazy plans out there

Saw one presentation where you join the club & bought a 1 oz silver coin 1 per month

Lmao $100 for the silver coin, yep at 5 times the price of said coin, there was some room to pay some up line

Wished the nice young man luck, but felt a bit sorry for the folks he signed up

I honestly had no idea what a MLM company was until my wife became a Beachbody coach. She loves it and I don't feel like she's taking advantage of anybody by coaching them to lose 20-30lbs, get in shape, and teaching them to eat right.

url=https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0065-multilevel-marketing]https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0065-multilevel-marketing[/url]

There is a ton of it where I live here in Utah and it has been that way for many years.

I have mixed feelings as some of the ideas and companies are kind of novel but the people at the "top" ultimately make boatloads of money with little work while the hopeful little guy at the bottom makes little money (relative to the top) yet does most of the overall work. It seems to me that it has much more to do with the money than the product.

An entrepreneurial young population and LDS(Mormon) culture and networking have set the stage for this. The focus on the business model rather than the quality or integrity of the product or service has tainted other historically professional endeavors as far as I'm concerned. Dentistry(my father was a 1950's trained dentist) is a fine example. It is very hard to come out of school, "hang your shingle" in an area of need and make a successful go of it based on word of mouth
and your reputation. It has been replaced by "buying in" to established practices that are basically "dentist mills" that rely heavily on aggressive advertising and "employ" heavily debt-ridden new grads. A friend of mine whose ton is training to be an oral surgeon told me that his son and his son's new wife are currently $875K in debt with still more training to go! After that, they will be "employed" in the Twin Cities area for ~4 years making money for those at the top and then will be able to "buy in" to their group at ~ $1,000,000. It's not exactly the same as MLM but still another business model the top of the chain really feeds off the bottom. In my mind it kind of taints a profession in the traditional sense, I guess I'm old fashioned, a poor businessman, or maybe both!!! I'm not starving though and enjoy my own old fashioned professional reputation.

I was flying to Ketchikan recently from SLC for a fishing trip when I listened to a "nice" middle aged woman from Petersburg visiting with a college aged girl flying to Seattle. At first it seemed she was genuinely interested in the young girl and her plans for the future asking all about her and then telling her about her life in Petersburg and her own life lessons learned. Then the conversation shifted to this neat, special company that she had joined forces with in Utah whose number one priority was to empower and improve peoples lives!!! Because this company was so great, they were also very successful... but that was not the primary focus!!! Would she like to know more about this wonderful company??? I had to tune her out at that point in time. She got the girl's contact information and it was over. I said hello to the young lady as we landed and had her tell me about the travel abroad trip she was taking... enough said.

I'm a skeptic but I am not as rich as many of these people and a little more old fashioned. Thankfully I can still afford the occasional fishing trip to Alaska (but I don't own the airline or the lodge!).