Hello. My name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr the Order KERNI Whoaltbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it.
She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast that's all about real strategies for growing your finances, not fake ones for growing a down line. I'm Victoria Devine, finance expert, MLM exposer and full time skeptic of Get Rich Quick Schemes. If you've been following our series on MLMs, you know we've been peeling back the layers on this literary yet gritty world. But today I have something extra
special for you. An MLM million dollar earner. Yep, you heard that right, a genuine unicorn level success story in the world of MLMs, the kind of story that the brochures promise and the hashtags romanticize. But he's the twist. She's left it all behind, and not only that, she's turned her energy towards exposing the truth about the system that she once thrived in. Joining me is none other
than Emily Lynn Paulson. She's the author of Hayhun Sales, Sisterhood and Supremacy, and the Other Lies behind Multi level Marketing. Emily isn't just a rare success story, She's also the sharpest critic of the industry's predatory practices. Emily, I'm so excited for this episode. Welcome to She's on the Money from the other side of the world.
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's my favorite topic to talk about.
Really, It's almost like you wrote an entire book about it, you know, I adore it. I also just low key the name of your book, heyhun Oh, it makes me so excited. You just know it's going to be a good book, full of all of the juiciest details, and it is. So can we dive straight in?
Sure? Do you want to know? First?
With my background as a financial advisor and having just written a business book, I have so many thoughts and feelings about the I guess flaws in the MLM business model, and as someone who has a background in psychology, I also take a major issue with I guess what you would call the manipulation tactics that these companies use. And
that's why I want to break this chat into two parts. First, we're going to talk about the business side, and then we're going to talk about the psychological side of MLMs, because, like I feel like the business side, yeah, pervy, but like the manipulation, we all just get so frustrated with Emily. First off, I have to say the book was a very fun read. It is spot on. I feel like it captures the like slightly too friendly vibe that we
all experience in our inboxes. Had you had many of those messages before you'd actually joined an MLM yourself, did you, I guess, know much about them at the time or was it a bit of a mystery?
I would say I was blissfully ignorant, and that kind of made me the best target because I had been to tupperware parties and legging parties and different things. I bought the jewelry but I didn't really understand. It was just kind of like you go to your friend's house, you drink wine, you buy a few things, and you leave. I didn't really know it was a hierarchical structure.
Why would you You don't ask about the business model. You're like, hey, these leggings are cute.
Yeah, and even if they do, you know, talk about like, oh, yeah, this is something you can do. Also, it isn't until like the one on one or after you sign the dotted line that you realize what's involved. And I think that's why I was such good prey, because I knew enough, Like I knew enough to know that Okay, yeah I can throw parties, Yeah, I can work a website. I can you know, I like to buy stuff, Like those are the qualifications.
And that's fun.
Yeah, and it's and it sounded fun. It was like something to do money. It was you know, going out drinking and like it was all the things I wanted to do. But I didn't really know what was behind it. So I would say, you know, yes, and no, I knew some I'd been targeted a little bit, but I didn't realize how predatory it was.
Yeah, No, that makes absolute sense, And I feel like that's the story I'm hearing in my damns from basically everybody who's joined and is either considering leaving or has left. They're like, I didn't know, Like I was blissfully unaware. Seems to be the tagline here of these We'll get onto it later, but I feel like you were right. You are the perfect target. Oh no, know, what was your life like before MLM. Paint us a little bit
of a picture. What was going on in your world before MLMs became part of the story.
Yeah. So it was twenty fourteen and my youngest child was two, So I had five kids under nine years old.
Oh my god. So I was just you were having fun.
Yeah, it was so much fun. So you know, I was sleeping a ton, and you know, I was just kind of run ragged. Like from the outside, I had a very good life. I loved being a mom, and yet at the same time, I also felt a little bit trapped, and I was at the point where I knew we weren't having any more kids. But the thought of going back to the workforce suddenly was like, well, shoot, like, how am I going to do this? Childcare for five kids?
Would be ridiculous, Like my husband's job not flexible. We've kind of followed his career, and now like what am I going to do? So I had this desire to like escape and get out and get a break and also figure out some way to earn money. So I think, you know, I was feeling a little bit lost at that time.
That feels really reasonable and also something that I'm sure a lot of mums can resonate with. You kind of sometimes lose yourself a little bit. You're like, oh wait, I've you know, prioritized my husband's career, and now what am I going to do? You write childcare. I don't know what it costs in the US, but in Australia,
childcare is astronomically expensive. Like to give you a little bit of context, I have a child in daycare and we pay one hundred and ninety two dollars a day and for that there are rebates and stuff available, but it really it doesn't come close to making it reasonable, especially if you had five kids like you just it would be more than a full time salary worth of day care.
Yeah, And I think that's why you know mL can thrive that it's because there is no safety net. I never fault anyone for taking that as an option, because you know, we don't have affordable childcare and we don't have you know, flexible paid leave or you know, jobs are really hard for moms to have because moms are generally the ones who have to take off for sick days and all of that, and so we don't have
safety nets. So I get it, and that's why I joined one because that was the option available to me at.
The time and it sounds really attractive, right. And this is why when we have been doing our MLM series, I haven't named names of people in MLMs because I just honestly I feel sorry for them because they've been taken down this beautiful garden path and I feel like they've drunk the kool aid and they think that this is all sunshine and roses, when in reality, they've been taken advantage of. And that breaks my heart. And it's
not my job to call them out. It's my job to call the system out and help I guess illuminate what that looks like and why you might be taken advantage of, because I kind of want to stay a safe place if you go, oh hey, they I've been watching your content and it's been a bit confronting because I've just realized that I have drunk the kool aid and I am actually victim to this system. I want to be that safe place for people to turn and you would get this all the time. I'm absolutely certain
of it. But it's wild. The more I talk about it, the more people are sliding into my dms, going hey, they have you got any advice for leaving? Because I've just realized that's me and that's really heartbreaking. And I mean we've been talking about it a lot. In She's on the Money, so on the podcast and in that she's on the Money community, but also on my personal Instagram, which is where I go a little bit more rogue. You've probably seen the difference, like nobody stops me from
posting on my personal Instagram. But there's a vetting process on the more serious business side. But we know legally the difference between a multi level marketing business and a pyramid scheme is but from an insider's point of view, talk me through it. How does the business actually work?
So there is no difference. In fact, pyramid schemes are actually more lucrative.
Yeah, you'd make more money bybe don't join an MLM, just go straight for the pyramid schemes.
Great pyramid and that's a sad reality. And you know the idea of a pyramid, you know, everyone thinks so like the little triangle, but like in reality, the pyramid would be like so flat because there's like very few people a top the people at the bottom. It would go out past the earth, you know, it's so wide.
So pyramids not even the right you know shape. But just for our intensive purposes, a pyramid scheme and an MLM are the same in the sense that it's all about recruiting into the system, and it has nothing to do with what you're selling or how you're doing it. It's just about collecting people. And so when the messaging is, oh, I've got these great products, but you know you should buy in to get the biggest discount, or you should
join because this is a great opportunity. You know, you got to ask yourself, like what would be the difference between just giving you one hundred dollars and asking five people for one hundred dollars? You know what is so great about this product?
Yeah, it's true, it's scary.
And The reality is the products aren't special different. There's nothing necessarily wrong with some of them. Some are problematic, but for the most part they're just run of the mill skincare, you know, diet pills, shakes, whatever, they're selling, leggings. But it isn't about the products at all. It is about the mission, the system and this bigger thing. It's about,
you know, this mission to fulfill whatever. It's this like self fulfilling prophecy of nothing really, you know, it's yeah, prosperity gospel, all of that.
Yeah, from all my research, it seems that I guess at mL structure. You know, obviously we need to stipulate that here in Australia, and I'm pretty sure in the US a pyramid scheme is illegal. But we're just talking context and comparison. We're not saying go and do a
pyramid scheme. But it seems from all of my research that an MLM is actually more harmful than a pyramid scheme because in a pyramid scheme you kind of have that once off investment, like you invest and then you know, the pyramid does its thing, whereas with MLM, you invest over time through like I guess, product purchases and you know, needing to meet your quota every month. Like I feel
like that seems to be a consistent thing. How much pressure did you feel to invest your own money into I guess, your product or your business.
Yeah. I mean that's where no matter what, even if it's not a product that you want, you become a consumer because there is a minimum requirement and there's always a caveat. And this is how they stayed legal. They make so okay, you don't have to buy the product, you can join, you know, you can join and not have to buy the product. But if you don't buy the product, then you're not getting commission. And then what's the point of joining in the scheme?
Oh, that's so snaky.
It's talked around and it's always little bits. Like you said, it's like death buy a thousand paper cuts, right, it's like, well, you've got this twenty five dollars website fee and you're like, oh, twenty five dollars, No big deal, that's not much. Yeah, actually yeah. And when it's compared to a business, and this is another place where kind of I'll even say for myself, business illiteracy, Like I wasn't a business person.
I don't have a degree in business. You know, I was a chemist before kids, like so for me running a business lots of air quotes. It's not a business. You know, you're a ten ninety nine contractor. But they use all these comparisons, like, you know, if you started your own brick and mortar store, you'd have to pay for rent, you'd have to pay for products, you'd have to pay for and so these little purchases seem very nominal when they're compared to an actual business, right, But
they're not related. So it's a ridiculous comparison. It's comparing apples and oranges. But it's easy to get in that mindset. Well, okay, I guess if I spend twenty five dollars and then another hundred, I'm going to use those products anyway, and if I can make money off it, I can earn my money back. I mean, you just start talking yourself into this. And you know, a payramid scheme, you don't have people on the sideline saying just stay just stay in,
just keep working. It works if you work it just one more month. You know, you have people cheering you along and also doing the same thing. So it's like, Oh, do you think it's weird that you know, I have to buy another serum even though I haven't used the last one. Oh yeah, but you know you can gift it. You can. You're surrounded by people doing the same thing, and so I know that gets into the psychology that we'll talk about later. But it's that group thing.
We'll talk about it, we'll talk about it. Yeah, Oh my gosh. I feel like that's the pervioust part for me, having like I've done a couple of psych degrees and
I adore or the psychology of money. I adore the psychology of literally why people make the decisions that they make, And this just marries the two together so perfectly, which is why it's probably I don't know, a hyperfixation of mine at the moment, but I have had a lot of people in my DMS and messaging and emailing me saying what's the difference between like a multi level marketing business and a franchise, Because lots of people, if you're inside an MLM will say, oh, it's like having your
own franchise, but you don't have to pay for the bricks and mortar store. And having read your book, you've talked a lot about this in your book. Can you explain how they are different?
Yes? And it's so interesting once you're on the other side of it, because this was like a talking point when I talked at presentations of why people should join, like, oh, it's a virtual franchise, but it's less than one thousand dollars, and you can't open a taco bell for less than a million dollars. I mean, I would use this language. So it's just it's funny that that became part of the normal vernacular. But it's different in every way. You know.
I can go down town and there's a Starbucks in a grocery store and then there's Starbucks next door, and you think, oh, well, gosh, if the Starbucks can be in every corner, right, it's so saturated. But they do so much research. Starbucks figures out like what are people shopping habits. The people who are buying the coffee while they're shopping, you're totally different than the people driving through and getting one. So you need both. And it's a
location that's accessible. Any Starbucks store that opens has a purpose, and that's why sometimes they close and sometimes new ones open because they have so dialed in to how they're going to make money back. That's just one aspect of
a franchise. There's many, many more. There's also rules with franchises that you have to do a certain amount of a waiting period before you can actually get the McDonald's or whatever franchise you're purchasing, so that you can have time to think about it, which shouldn't be built into any purchase, any big decision, any big financial decision. With an MLM, it's completely the opposite. You are encouraged to have as much competition and as small of an area as possible.
Which is insane to me. It's like recruit your mom and you're like, hold on, wouldn't you both have the same customer?
You would? Yeah, So your recruiting competition in an already saturated market, and not only within your own. You know, I was in Rhodana Fields, for example. I also was competing with Beauty Counter and Monate and you know all these other products that maybe had overlapping portfolios. Nobody needs that much serum, right, So it was way more than the area I lived could contain could purchase from. And then not only that, but you could buy stuff online.
So just the idea that it's a franchise is so out there because there's zero research done and it's encouraged to be more saturated than not. And you're also encouraged not to have a waiting period but to sign up as quickly as possible. There's always these like sign up this week and you get this free, or you know, you can get a refund. That was a big thing. It's like there's no commitment. If you join, you can pay this business kit fee and you'll get your thousand
dollars back after sixty days. If you're not interested, well that's a load of crap, because guess what, you're going to have a thousand boss babes, you know, on your ass telling you not to return it and telling you you just need to work harder. So, I mean, it could not be less like a franchise. It's it's much more like a pyramid scheme than a franchise, that's for sure.
And I feel like these questions come because we don't know what we don't know. Hold that thought, because after the break, we're going to dig into how MLMs legally separate themselves from pyramid schemes and whether those comparisons to franchises hold up spoiler alert, they don't stick around all right,
we are back. And something else that I find interesting and I kind of want to like put here as maybe like just a conversation market you could say, is there are lots of differences right economically between Australia and the US. And I think a lot of the time as we live in our little island away from most things, and like everything's bigger in America, and so I think that when Australians look at multi level marketing businesses, we go, well,
it's nothing like what happens in the US. Like it's not like that because you know, we don't have the aggressive religion overlays and we don't have, you know, the scale that they have, when in reality we do. Like the reality is the businesses that you're talking about, Emily
are actually the identical businesses here in Australia. So like we are talking and like it's been a few years, so like it took a while for like Monet to get to Australia and we got Rodin and Fields recently as well, and like we actually have all of them and they are not different. They have been cut and paced from the US for an Australian market, and I think, what you know, and we'll get into the psychology of it soon. I'm just like, I guess, chumping at the
bit and trying to get there. But when you talk about the psychology of it, we actually do have the religious overlays as well in play, it's just not as obvious. I feel like Americans are a lot more like open about their religion and open about posting it and going, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that God helped me
do x y Z on their Instagram posts. But I think in Australia we're a little bit more nuanced because we know that religion isn't so big here, so we don't want to turn away a consumer that might go, oh, if that's religious, I'm not interested. So it's a little
bit more hidden, but it absolutely is here. And I think that, you know, That's why I was like, I just want to pop this here and say no, no, no, what Emily is talking about, because I think it's so easy sometimes to go she's in the US, it must be a little bit different.
It's not.
It's identical, and I think that's what is so frustrating because again back to my history, I was a financial advisor and I now have this podcast that thankfully takes me all over the world, and I have been lucky enough to go to the US a number of times to go to finance conferences. And one thing that I find different about the Australian market versus the US market is in Australia, it is the expert's job to protect
the consumer. So here in Australia I have to always say, you know, if I was working as a financial advisor, I'd have to be like, okay, Emily, sit down. I need to take you through all of the risks and what's going on here and how this works so that you're making the right decision, and like, you know, we've got laws. So if I was recommending a financial services product, I would have to give you three products to compare. Like I am as the expert, the I guess security.
Whereas in the US it's actually the consumer's responsibility to do their own research, and a financial advisor can say whatever they would like to say. They can go out to market and go hey, hey, Victoria, I think that product A is the best. Go there, and it's not a good or a bad thing. It's just the difference in responsibility. But I think in Australia it's become quite dangerous because we live in this society where we expect our experts to have our best interests at heart, because
we are legally bound by that. Like I was bound by that. Every single service provider in Australia has to make sure that the consumer's in the right position. We now have this American model coming into Australia and you expect those people telling you that that serum is the best serum to actually be putting you in the best
possible position. And it's not the case because they are assuming that you will do your own research when we haven't been brought up that way, if that makes sense, And that's really scary it is.
And when you are you sign the dotted line and you give yourself a security number and you become a boss babe. You are told to be the expert. You're told to act like the expert. Take it till you make it, you know, use whatever company materials you have to sell whatever. Like I was the skincare expert, I wasn't a scared care expert. Like I knew a lot about the products we had. I could give you talking
points for the products we had. I was not a dermatologist, I wasn't an esthetician, and so you can only do so much damage, I guess with skincare, hair care. But when you're talking about products like man, there's this Amari company. I don't know if you guys have that in Australia yet, but it's a mental wellness company where they're telling people,
you know, use this in place of your antidepressants. And when you're getting to this place where okay, this person selling themselves as an expert without credentials, I mean, yeah, it gets really scary. And I was going to say too with the infiltrating Australia with this business model that is done so on purpose, like it is so intentional. They start in the US and then they say, oh gosh, yay, we're doing so well, We're going to go to Canada.
It's not that they're doing well, it is that it's become so saturated and the people at the bottom are getting, you know, consistently turned and crushed, and there's fewer people now to buy in. So they go to Canada and then yay, we're doing so well, now we're going to go to Australia. I mean it's like with every company. You will see this, sometimes Japan and then you know Japan, they don't do so well there, so they leave. Sometimes
they don't do so well in Australia they leave. So it's this constant expansion and people think, wow, a company's growing, they must be doing well. That's what we think, is non experts, right, But the reality is you're just running out of people a scam in one country and you've got to go to another one.
So that's terrifying. And I mean I trust literally what you're saying, because you made it to a level that many aspire to but rarely achieve, right wild And do you talk in your book about the perfect storm of circumstances and qualities that made you so successful in a system that was designed, honestly for most people to fail in. So I want to know how did you become so successful in the pyramid scheme?
Yeah? It really was just lightning striking at the right time. I happened to join this company that wasn't you know, really well known in the area I was living. I was in Seattle, Washington at the time. And so I was kind of the first to bring it to that market. And I had a lot of friends because I had a lot of kids, right, all those kids have friends, they have parents, Like I was in so many social circles. I was very social and most of the people I
knew were kind of the same circumstances as me. Where you know, we had money to buy things. It's not like we were, you know, swimming in cash or anything. But if I wanted something, if I wanted to try a haircare product, I could My friend was selling jewelry, I could buy it. Right, I had these people all around me. And with that, people are like, oh, hey, I'm bored too, or you know, I can't get a job either because I also have kids, and I also am in the same circumstances that you were in, and
so heck, I'll join too. So I very quickly assembled this team of people who joined with me, who then got their own teams of people to join with them. And so it really was the pyramid got assembled very quickly. And again the products were an inn like, people liked it and they were cool whatever, But the products were just away in to build the.
Team into the system, into the game. It's insane how that works because obviously you had the perfect storm. But then on the flip side you talk about Hannah and why she was actually never going to succeed in a multi level marketing structure. Can you tell me a little bit more about why the Hannahs of the world will always fail in an MLM structure.
Yes, So someone who comes in, you know, say a couple of years after a company has really taken over an area. And this is when people tend to come in because they see it a lot on their social media feeds. They're like, Wow, so and so is getting a paycheck, and soone says getting a paycheck and gosh, they look they're having so much fun. I'll host a party, you know, you come over, I'll bring my friends. They
join right. Well, at that point, again, the area has become so saturated, and maybe that person who joined had to wait a while to join because they had to save up the money. You know, they don't necessarily have the network of people who have extra money. They don't have a ton of relatives, and so if you have any of those things stacked against you, which most people
have one or two. Like most people, they either had don't have a huge network, or maybe they don't have a ton of extra money laying around or they you know whatever, they don't they can't use the products that are being sold. There's lots of reasons why someone wouldn't be successful at this, but the biggest thing is the saturated market. And so it really just takes a couple of levels. In fact, when I joined, nobody who joined after me ever achieved near the level of success that
I did. And I always use air quotes because you know, the success came at, you know, the victimization of other people. You know, my upline brought me in thinking she was
helping me. I brought people and thinking I was helping them until I realized, oh, I am making money because they're all paying monthly for their website, for their products, for these conventions, for all of these things, these trainings, these things that I'm making them go to, and the new product that comes out and they have to buy it, well, all that is going up to me and booying me,
and they're treading water. And you know, that was the point where I was like okay, and you know, there was some guilt and like trying to help other people and it really was the realization that, oh, this is designed so that a few people make money off the many of people who are not.
And that must be a really hard realization to come to because you are earning really good money and I'm seeing it a lot here where the top dogs, you could say, are going No, absolutely not stop saying I'm victimizing women. I absolutely am not doing that. I'm giving them this opportunity and if they can't make the most of it, that's on them, not on me. At what point do you stop drinking that kool aid and flip to hold on. I actually feel a little bit uncomfortable
with this, and is that I don't know. I feel like that would be a jarring realization for you to have gone through, to go hold on, hold on, hold on, I've led all of these people down the garden path, and now I'm realizing that this garden path is actually fraught with danger. Yeah, what did that feel like?
And that was also by design, because you know, you're never told, like you would be in a traditional business to do a profit loss statement or keep track of expenses. You know, you're never told to do that. It's just like buying your products sign people up bloody DA and the rest is like just you know, shove it out of the rug, don't talk about it. You know, look at the income disclosure if you want any financial information.
So you're kind of in this place where by the time you are able to figure that out, you're in so deep. You've recruited so many people into this system. So it really wasn't matter of me. My rise in the MLM really followed my journey with alcohol, and you know, I got sober, and you know, the beer goggles came off, and I realized, you know, the lot of the tactics I was using I wasn't comfortable using anymore. I realized, like, oh,
I really saw it for what it was. I saw that the people who I had been telling, well, you're not successful because you're not doing X, Y and Z, they were doing those things. And I always assumed, you know, I did what my upline told me, and it worked. If I tell people to do what I'm doing, it'll work for them too. And it wasn't. It wasn't until I actually you know, stopped gaslighting people right, looked at what they were actually doing, had them do like their
own profit loss statements. And so that they could see the riding on the wall. It kind of took that. You know, I could say to someone like, Okay, this is how much money I'm making, and that's whatever. But to someone when you tell them like, okay, you're spending this much time and this much money and this this is how much you're really taking home. Oh, then the work they're doing is not They're not going to keep grinding, right.
So it was at that point when I really tried to help people see that they kind of needed to leave before I was ready to leave. You know. It's like I had to slowly dismantle what I had built, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, it's a hard realization. And like those women you're saying who are like, no, I'm not manipulating people, they might not actually realize it yet because they've never been.
Told no, and that's what hurts.
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's hard.
It's a really challenging realization. And I mean, you're sould the dream, right, I mean when it comes to the lure of joining a multi level marketing business, A really big one for women in particular is this freedom push. So they're always talking about have freedom, like you know, you'll have the freedom to do whatever you want. You can work from wherever you want. Look, I am in Mexico and I am at work, and it just it
blows my mind. So how did this so called freedom manifesting your day to day life as a really successful multi level marketing quay?
There is nothing less free than being required to work from the hospital, or being required to work at month end every month, and being required to go on these trips. Like that's not freedom, Like I want to go on a vacation and put my phone away, not sit with my face in it and text it. That's what you see on social media, right, I can work from it anywhere. Why do you want to work from anywhere? Like? Why is no one questioning this?
Yes, it's true.
Right, I sold some lips erum while I was in the hospital having a baby. Why are you doing that? Like nobody's questioning this. So the idea of freedom being able to work more places is what's so screwed up? Like what is freedom to use that freedom? Though? I mean, there is nothing less free than being glued to your phone all day. I can't tell you that when I find decided to step away and not go to the conventions anymore and not send dms anymore and do all
of that stuff like that was true freedom. And that's when I could not wait to cut the cord and be done with it. I was in a prison of my own making.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, And that's exactly from I think. I'm in a very privileged position looking in like I've got the education on my side, thankfully, but I'm also a business owner, and like you are saying all the stuff that I am thinking, I'm like, I don't want to work from anywhere. If I go on a holiday with my baby and my husband, I don't want to take my phone out of the room. I want to be present. What are you guys doing? What is this
freedom thing you speak of? And I guess the other thing you've touched on before is about like doing a profit and loss and talking about you know, how much you're actually taking home and you know, tracking your expenses, which is they don't talk about that. They absolutely don't talk about it. You've described running the business as exhausting, and obviously it sounds it if you're selling serum while
giving birth. Absolutely not. And there's I guess, so much unpaid labor involved, which is something that makes me so angry because women are already doing so much unpaid labor. Can you talk, I guess a little bit more about these tasks and how much time you were spending on them that I guess you weren't being directly compensated for. And another question, did you ever work out your hourly wage?
Yes? And by the time I did that, mine was okay. But I had like my team do that as well, and it was eye opening and we were not told to ever do that. And I'm sure that's why.
Yeah, because it's dismal.
It was dismal. I mean, yes, you could make more money doing anything. The unpaid labor thing that it is really sad because just like the freedom thing when you are at home, and I'll use me for an example, like I was home with five kids. I was pretty much the sole caregiver. My husband traveled a lot, you know.
I craved thetion so for me to have to get a babysitter, to have to pay for a babysitter, to go on a free trip that wasn't free, and to be on a beach looking at my phone, that sounds like freedom, right, So that even though in practice it ends up not being freedom. It felt like it. So you're given these goals to strive for that end up not being very good goals. And you are used to doing so much unpaid labor, like our whole country and
probably yours too, is held on the unpaid labor of women. Right, So when you're told, hey, you're already doing this, like you're already sitting at pick up with your kids, why not send a couple of texts and make some money? Again, it sounds good in practice until then it becomes something you have to do and you're not necessarily making money. You're not making money until you sell something or recruit someone, right, so the act of sending a text isn't making money. But again, it sounds nice.
Yet sounds so kind. Yeah, oh, it drives me insane. And when you start to look at the monetary side of things, like obviously I love deep diving into it. And legally they have to share their income disclosure statements, so MLMs will put on their website the income disclosure statements and they'll often be relatively proud of these things
because they use them as marketing tools as well. And I have been in the background doing some maths on a number of these MLMs and taking the information on their income disclosure statements versus every other statement I can find on their website, and they don't always add up. So do you think that these income disclosure statements are a fair depiction of I guess the state of affairs so to speak.
Oh, absolutely not. You know, they user mean as opposed to a median, which they should use a median because you know, if you have a bunch of people who make two dollars and you have one person who makes five thousand dollars for some reason at that level, well, the average then it's going to be twenty five hundred dollars. I mean, we all know how averages work. But the median would be maybe five dollars. Yeah, that's a big difference. So it doesn't show what the majority of people make
at each level. And even when you look at it, it's pretty abysmal. But when you look at like, okay, eighty percent of people make this much, and when you look at it and realize it's before expenses, like it doesn't include expenses, it doesn't include taxes, it includes nothing, So you can basically cut that in half, maybe in half again, it's already abysmal, and it's much worse than that, So no, they're not accurate. It's much worse than than it shows, and they tell you that's why they don't
really reference it that often. It's like, oh, if you want more questions, just go check out the income disclosure. Well you might, and then sometimes it's super confusing. It's written strangely. You don't necessarily know the levels when you join, so you're like, oh, maybe I will be a level superior, princess or whatever the hell. The top one is maybe I want to get to the point one percent. And then that income you're like, oh, that looks really good.
Yeah, wow, Premiere Penguin Pro. I love it.
Yeah, but everyone else is making very little or the majority of people are actually losing money.
Well, yeah, I did the maths and I worked out that to you know how they say you don't have to buy in, but you definitely have to buy the product packed to otherwise you're not going to get commissions the product pack. Divide that by the amount that someone would make over a year. I did it in Australia, so our product pack averages for monet about three hundred and fifty dollars and the average monet sales persons making nine dollars a month, So like immediately you are in
the red, which is really really scary. I want to know a little bit more about the pressure to make sales, to reach each rank by the end of each month. So what I guess is the worst thing that you think you did to try and make or close a sale, because that's a little bit pervy.
Oh god, the worst thing. Oh, I don't know what the worst thing is. I think the fake accounts. I don't know if they're the worst thing, but they're the most prolific. Like that's what everyone does, and you're taught to do.
You're taught to make fake accounts.
Make fake accounts, and whether that's your husband, you know, you use their number. You know, I had an account for a hamster. Oh good?
Oh good? Did they enjoy their serrus?
I loved them. And there's rules baked into like the policies and procedures that you can have certain amount per customer, right if they live in your house, because you know, theoretically I could have a daughter who uses skincare too, right, and she I stuffed through her account. Yeah, that makes sense.
She might only be two, but that's perfect.
Yeah. So the fake accounts, and it's really it's trained into you, and that's one of those things you look back on you're like, I can't believe I believed that, but then I did it, and then I taught it, and you see why. It just continues to expand, like
down every level. You know, Gosh, if you've got to make this quota per month, you know, buy the new product under a fake account, and then that will booing your sales and then you can use that product later for giveaways, basically buy more stuff than use it for bribes later. Like that's the long and short of it, right, Yeah, So the amount that you are spending for your own quote unquote business, it's astronomical.
Which is insane. And I've called them up. I have literally called their head office to ask questions, and they are incredibly evasive. It is a lot of fun to call them as somebody who you know, it gets a little bit of a kick out of being like, hold on, but didn't you say x y Z did just before? I want to know where that came from. Because when I ask them about these practices, they say, no, absolutely not that is illegal. It's actually in our terms and
conditions that you don't create that. Like, if we ever found out that somebody in our business was creating fake profiles, we would absolutely you know, crucify them. Absolutely not. So when they say one thing and then you guys are doing another. They know that you're doing it. I know that they know that you're doing it, but like, how are you quite getting away with it? And like who is teaching you this? Like it's clearly coming from the top, but then they're denying that it came from the top.
Yeah, I mean your upline trains you, and you train
your downline and you know everyone does it. And the verbiage in the policies and procedures is you know, it's loose enough, you know, like it'll say you can have unlimited number of accounts in your own home if people are using the product, Well, nobody is coming to your house to verify that anyone's using it, Like how do you so they make these rules that nobody can can really fact check, right, so you can have an unlimited number of accounts, purchase product underneath them, and then who's
going to check it? So they do write these things in a way. While they'll say, oh, no, that's illegal, we never allow that, but in practice it happens all of the time, and they're not going to enforce anything that brings money into their bottom line. They are never going to get rid of accounts where product is being purchased that's flowing up to them, and so they encourage it. It's never frowned upon. I never had anyone ever anywhere in the company that I knew of, who got terminated
or kicked out for making fake accounts. Ever, because if you on paper wanted to say, oh, yeah, that's my sister, that's my daughter who's going to come to your house in fact.
Check, yeah, it's not actually like a legal ramification for that, right Like, it's just them saying don't do that and then turning a blind eye. All right, Tam, That's why we're going to leave it for today. I mean, we've covered so much ground already, haven't we, From the questionable business models to the financial pressures of maintaining a rank. MLMs is starting to sound less like opportunities. I'm all, like, well,
expensive hobbies. But my friend, he's the thing. Understanding the numbers is just one part of the story.
What's really wild is how these businesses keep people coming back despite the red flags waving inarguably neon signs.
It's not just about the dollars. It's about the psychology, the manipulation, and the promises of freedom and community that hook so many people in and keep them there. And that's exactly where we're going to pick up next time. We're diving into the psychological side of MLMs, how they pull you in, how they keep you there, and why leaving can feel so hard even when it's costing you more than it's worth. You're not going to want to miss this, so don't forget to follow and subscribe so
you don't miss part two. My friends, It's going to be juicy. I'll see you soon.
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