You Hate Multilevel Marketing Because It’s Cringeworthy & Dishonest
By: Tim Denning
Tags: Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business, Social Media, Life Lessons

The Multilevel Marketing Bible

I’ve been around lots of multilevel marketing companies over the years because of my commitment to open-mindedness. I want to be proven wrong. I want to find one MLM company that is honest. I haven’t found one yet, although I’ll keep being the human MLM guinea pig for you (I promise!).

This is everything you need to know about MLM.

The purpose is to recruit, not sell products

This is the biggest problem with MLM. It’s not about selling a product so much. It’s about recruiting members to your team. An MLM company needs lots of fresh victims because the churn rate is high.

My friend who got the Ferrari from MLM doesn’t do it anymore. Neither do the others from my high school. (After writing this story I am going to find out why because I never asked.)

The mantra with MLM is “if you bring in the people, we will do the brainwashing for you.” When you have a group of people who believe in something, you can do a lot — both good and evil.

MLM functions like a cult

I shared a story recently of getting sucked into a religious cult a few years back. You want to know the number one occupation of the people who were part of that church? Multilevel marketing. (Nothing against religious folk.)

This is not the first time I’ve seen this. It turns out if you believe in a higher power you might believe in MLM.

MLM companies actively target churches because they’re complex and highly spreadable social networks. Just like a cult, once you join an MLM company it’s hard to get out. The other members you helped bring in will shame you for doing so.

You’ll get person after person telling you that you’re throwing your life away and if you stay for a little bit longer you’ll experience the magic.

Hold annual seminars in exotic locations

MLM is sold to you as a lifestyle. Part of the lifestyle is hanging by the pool and taking photos of your friend drinking a coconut cocktail. People don’t buy MLM products; they buy the lifestyle the products give them, regardless of whether the products being sold are rubbish.

These annual conferences cost money to attend. If you’re a superstar at MLM you might get a free ticket. But the majority of tickets you have to pay a lot of money for. Everything in MLM earns money for the MLM company.

You can’t not go to the conference, either, otherwise, your MLM buddies will hound you via SMS daily and hunt you down.

Hold lots of events

Live events are the lifeblood of MLM. Think of the model like a pyramid.

You have the annual conference at the top of the pyramid.

You have the country level conference next.

You have the state level events after that.

You have the regional level events weekly.

You have the team member events daily.

Not attending an event shows a lack of commitment. The purpose of having so many events is so you continually have the MLM message reinforced into your skull until your eyes bleed and you can’t *not* see it as being the promised land full of rainbow unicorns.

Fly in winners (because there are none locally)

The bigger events on the pyramid tend to have MLM winners from other parts of the world fly in. The reason is that there are so few people who do well with MLM.

I reckon 1% or less ever actually make six figures from MLM. This means if you make it into the 1% by some miracle, then you’re going to be continuously flying to events all year and speaking about your Ferrari life.

The number of hours is horrific

My friends who have worked in MLM are hard workers. They would typically be pitching and attending events seven days a week. They didn’t have time to start families or get married (unless it was to another MLM person) because they were always finding ways to grow their business.

Many people I’ve met along the way lost their normal jobs because they committed so much time to MLM that they had no time to do work of the paying variety using their skills.

Replace everyday purchases with MLM products

One clever trick with MLM is the products they often sell can be ones you’re already buying like supermarket groceries.

This means the sell is easier. You’re not asking people to spend more money or believe in something special. You’re asking them to buy their food or energy drinks or essential oils from a different provider. This works well for the MLM company.

If a person fails to master the business of MLM then they can always just be a customer for life and still make them money.

Teach others using the potato method

Once you’re an MLM goddess you are asked to become a teacher.

The strategy they teach you is the potato method. You bring a bag of potatoes to a live event with your team. You show the model and how it works.

You talk to one potato. That potato talks to another potato. You follow up with the potato. You pitch the potato again if they don’t believe in your potato philosophy. You leave the potato with some books to read. You invite the potato to the next event. You ask the potato how it feels. You keep discovering the objections from the potato. You bring the potato’s objections in list format to the next potato event with the team. You invite the potato to a potato conference, if all else fails, and let the Ferrari do the selling to the potato.

(The potato is a human by the way.)

The MLM model for society

MLM mimics the model for an ancient society. Those at the very top get 99% of the money. Everybody else is a slave with no chance of reaching the top. This isn’t a philosophy we want to recreate.

Products are hyped

The results you get from taking the MLM products are hyped. There are huge claims that can’t be backed up.

The list of disclaimers is longer than the Bible. Your grandma’s wisdom applies to MLM too: If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Secret coffees that are actually sales pitches

The problem with MLM is it’s dishonest. You’re taught to ask people to have coffee with you so you can pitch them. But the victim is never told. The coffee is disguised as something completely random.

(The coffee isn’t paid for by the MLM company either. So you could go broke by buying endless free coffees.)

Trapping people into product presentations is weird.

Mapping out how you can leave your day job on a serviette

A bizarre experience I had much later in the journey was when I went to catch up with a friend. Out of nowhere, he hit me with the MLM spiel. I listened to it so I could keep my desire to be open-minded intact.

He took out a pen and asked the waiter for a serviette. He then mapped out the exact numbers I’d need to achieve to leave my 9–5 job.

It had an average sale price, number of units, risk-adjusted outputs, and timelines. It was a finance dude’s dream. I still have that serviette in my cupboard. It was an unexpected moment, and it’s another bizarre technique taught by MLM.

You get paid in cars

This part may surprise you.

When you hit the big sales numbers in MLM you are paid in cars first. The goal of the MLM company is always to recruit, not to sell products. They know if they give you a luxury car you’re going to take a photo of it and spam it all over social media with the hashtag #BlessedLife

Your followers on social media will then start to ask you about your car. This brings in more cold leads you can use the potato method with. If the MLM company gave you cash then there’d be no social proof.

Unless you’re Dan Bilzerian, the average person isn’t going to take a photo of a pile of cash they made from MLM. Photos of cash aren’t appealing. But a photo of four wheels and a sunroof is enough to get the average punter’s heart greased and purring.