Hey Girl! Have you heard about...

4 months later...        

Am I the only 51 year old who hears that in a Spongebob Narrator voice? lol, mother of all boys here.  

Alright, let's go back to the last post and take it further...so I left Stampin' Up! In the meantime, I had signed up with a new company based out of Texas and not based on the LDS church...Homemade Gourmet.  It went well, and I loved the food mixes, but let's face it, in smaller Texas towns people didn't want to pay for ingredients as well as $4-$8 for the mix to go with the ingredients.  So that didn't last long.

Still not really understanding the downside of the "MLM" yet, I then signed up for Young Living.  I loved every little thing about YL.  I loved the oils, I loved the education, I loved the bonuses, I loved the people.  I never went to a big conference because quite frankly, I wanted to put that money towards other trips and needs.  

I worked Young Living, more than I had worked another company.  I started a Facebook group, I had a good downline, I held classes, I taught what I learned, I went to smaller gatherings in Texas to learn about the products.  I loved every second. It opened up my eyes to natural health products.  I still love essential oils and what they can do for us. I still use Peppermint for headaches, I still use Eucalyptus for coughs, I still use Lavender for all the things...but I'm not sold out on just Young Living anymore. 

Why? Well, it wasn't religiously based this time, as I knew that the founder of YL left the LDS church so it wasn't a Mormon based company when I was in it, it was because I started to understand how MLM's really work.  See...when you sign up, you are taught by the MLM company that MLMs are not pyramid schemes...which in the fact that pyramid schemes are illegal then no, they are not the same thing.  On paper...not the same thing.  But in the way the companies are run?  Yes, they are much like pyramid schemes.  

How? You are told to sign up everyone, from your mom to the stranger in the parking lot of the grocery store.  Every. one. for real, everyone. Because if YOU aren't sharing this aweseomness you've been blessed with, how will that person ever learn and be blessed by it too??  How will they ever learn that essential oils are amazing? How will they ever lose weight properly without your pills? How will they ever scrapbook faster without those stamps? How will their pantry products ever stay truly fresh without your plasticware?

You get where that's going. YOUR product is the best and everyone needs to not only know it but use it and sign up for it...otherwise no one makes money.  Yep. But I still didn't see it as a problem. I mean, most companies are pyramids right? There's a CEO, then a President, then a few VPs then a few Managers and it keeps trickling down.  In an MLM company you are the "CEO" of your group, you have a few Presidents directly under you and each President then has a few VP's under them and each VP has a few Managers under them and it keeps trickling down.  So what's the difference?

Well...in a regular company, every level makes more money than the next right?  The CEO makes more than the President, the President makes more than the VP, etc... but it's typically performance based and paid out of money made by the company in total.  

In an MLM, every level makes more money than the next, right?  The "Diamond" leader makes more than the "Platinum" leader, the "Platinum" leader makes more than the "Gold" leader, etc... but it's only performanced based in the fact that your performance isn't how good your work is, but how many people you brought into the company.  The bigger your pyramid...sorry, downline, the more money you make.  And that money isn't from the company in total, it's from what your downline buys.  The more they buy, they more you make. So as a leader you are always trying to sell to those already signed up so they buy more so you make more money.  You don't technically make money off of any products you sell unless your downline buys them. You will get a few bonuses from the company but only if you buy a set amount yourself each month AND get a certain amount bought by your downline. 

Hmmmm....and it took me 20 years to understand just how wrong this is.