Transcripts For CSPAN2 After 20240704

Really great Business Opportunity for you that i think youd be into. And im obviously obviously joking, but thats kind of what brings us here today, sort of that that line that a lot of us hear from a lot oflives who arel marketing around the labs. And i guess since maybe a lot of people have never heard of mlm before or theyve heard of them and they dont know what they are to start out, just like to set the table. I wonder if you could just talk through a little bit. Like what youre talking about in your 1 book. What market are we addressing here . What are we talking about . Sure. Well, were not addressing a market. Ill get to that. But we are talking about an industry. Lets took years to really try to distill down a definition, but mlm, if anybodys heard of them, they would have heard of amway, herbalife lately. The lulu ro because they got in a bunch of trouble for selling crappy leggings and stf. Avon tupperware, mary kay, those kinds of companies are all implants and the way our work is shaped like this, theres a person who owns the mlm and then theres like a line of recruits and then all those people recruit people and then all those people recruit people. And its supposed to kind of spread out and you earn money off of all the sales of the people underneath you. But what really happens is that the people on the bottom rung have to pay a fee to to get in and the system is designed sort of to fail, which means that the people paying to get in, very few of them stay in. But theres like an Endless Supply the bottom because the promise is really good. The promises are great. Like, if it was true, itd be awesome. I would do it, but the price is really good. So the people pay a couple bucks to order books, 500 bucks to their upline and that money gets distributed up to this shape. Th quit because they cant make any money. And then another set of people does the same thing. And thats how all mlm operate. Only 1 of participants make or dont lose money because 99 lose money trying an mlm. So its just a not. Its not or its a its a story. Its more a story than a business. Right. And and you said 99 of people fail. So basically nobody makes money on this except for the people at the very bottom or the very top. Right. Right. And i think whats interesting to me is that like everyone knows, like the restaurant business, for example, is very hard to succeed. And i feel like Profit Margins are like a lot, 10 . And, you know, almost all of them shut down, too, but theyre at least its talked about that way. You know, if you were to tell someone, im going to start a restaurant, theyd go, ooh, you know, like, good luck with my its talked about like, oh, i cant wait to go on your yacht. You know, when youve made 1,000,000, like, we dont tell each other and we dont the people in the organization dont tell each other how impossible it is. And thats kd of what were trying to change. So i guess i want to get to that, but i do want to back up a little bit to what got you into this in the first place. Like, i think we similar backgrounds. Im also from the midwest and i grew up around mary kay and avon and like to be honest, i didnt realize until even five years ago that those were mlms. Like why . I was just so sorry, but why . Why talk about this . Why delve into this . Why look at this . Well, the story is that our producer at stitcher years ago called me to see if i wanted to produce a show about im alums, kind of knowing im from the midwest and all that. And i kept her on the phone for like an hour just regaling her and stuff. And then they were like, why dont you just make this show . So that i did and became even more obsessed than i already was with that world. And it kind of took off from there. Mm hmm. And i know, i mean, i guess like. And im sure ill talk about this later, but are they always bad . Are they always. Yeah, i guess. Yeah. Yeah. Mean, do you think that theres any kind of Silver Lining where people who do feel like, okay, whatever, like they my leggings suck, but like, i enjoyed my time selling them or i had my mary kay parties. Do you feel like theres any kind of redeeming quality here . Definitely. There is a social aspect to all of them thats really important for a lot of people. Problem with it would be, yes, you can get a lot of social interaction out of it. You can get accolades, kids, you get to go on vacations. You dont have to be around your kids 24 seven and all of this stuff is great. It would be better if it were sold as a club or kind of. I always think of beauty pageants like, you know, in a beauty pageant, your chance of winning is like almost nothing and you pay a lot of money to be in it. But its mostly for the fun of it or like, you know, to kind of dress up and things like that. And if it were marketed that way again, i wouldnt have a problem. But if you ask, you know, are there any good melons, i think that the very structure of this business is bad and i dont think theres a way. I just dont trust that anyone who has a real product couldnt sell it for more in the marketplace. If its a good, real product, to keep it behind closed doors . Why does it have to be, you know, door to door sales in this day and age, like that . It doesnt it doesnt make sense unless you understand that the money isnt really coming from that right . Yeah, that yeah. In the book, there is one section, i think, on sex toys, of all things that a woman who is selling them. And then i remember being like, oh, you could get this a lot cheaper a place. And so people dont even realize that youre selling, youre buying things that are enormous. Youre selling things or buying, i guess both an enormous markup. Or you can get whatever the product is at cvs or somewhere else for a lot cheaper. Its funny, you just said buying or selling. Its both. You are right. Youre the same person who is selling and also buying. So, for example, that that story was about a woman who worked at pure romance, which is like an adult accessories. They call it bedroom Accessories Company and she was encouraged by her up line to stock a bunch of stuff like she wanted to get the smallest starter package and was like talked into sending tons and tons more to make sure she had everything available for samples. She didnt really sell very much and she was her own customer for the most part, right, because shes just trying to keep her inventory stocked up with the new products and companies also do this thing where they like, discontinue stuff and then reintroduce stuff over and over again. So youre if youev do have thins in your trunk that youre going to take around a party, a lot of times you have to check to make sure theres even available. And then theyll be plyou have o put in your trunk. But yeah, she she lost a ton of money doing this. And and that. The number of ways that moms keep you in and spending money like that are just countless. I mean, its. I could go in. I mean, theres like all kinds of stuff that they sell to you, like selfhelp and conventions and things like that. But yeah, i think i got off track. But no. I just before we have a little bit more into the book, can you just kind of talk me through like what the life cycle is for most people into the, the friend approach of you and says, i have an idea or i have a Business Opportunity. Ive been selling earrings, essential oils, whatever. What happens next . While. There are two different types of people, one types, as this sounds like a money loser and so no, thank you, im not going to do it. And then usually your friendships over for a little while because theyre focused on getting all their friends. And this company. The other one is some people see the 1 and are like, thats me. Im i can do that. Or they believe so much in the dream and they have so much hope that they want it to be true that you can do, you know, have no experience. You dont need an education, you dont get any sales experience. You dont even need a phone, etc. To do this work. And you can become a that right away, and i understand why they do so. Those folks who do get in usually leave kind of quickly within like six months. But it then but a bunch of things happen in that six months that can keep you in for a very t the things im talking about with you spending more and more of your own money to rank up to like to to get higher in the ranks so you can earn a little more commission. People will spend their own money to do that. And then you come to a place where youre you run int these like, logical fallacies that all of us participate in. Basically honoring sunk costs is a big one. So like you spend 10,000, are you just going to quit like or should you keep trying for another year and not realizing that that trying for another year is going to cost you 20,000 . So it takes a while. I mean, the people that i spoke to that were really high up have been in most of these islands for ten years or something. And have still quit eventually. And i spoke to a guy from amway that estimated its over a ten year period. He lost 200,000. Oh, my goodness. Thats you didnt even realize for a lot of it. Or did he know . He didnt know. He felt he. No, he didnt, because, well, first of all, the bookkeeping is really dicey. It doesnt its not part of the training of any of these companies. So, you know, youre not youre not writing off your gas and your phone and all of this stuff which is necessary. And and kind of recognizing the cost of just the cost of doing business. How many hours are working. And a lot of people i talked to would do their hours and go, oh, im making less than minimum wage. Like, what am i doin and they do keep you know, they keep the compliments flowing. They keep the accolades flowing. They keep you get a small check. So the checks are coming in, but its not enough to make up for all the money youre spending. And it is easier just to put the blinders on and go. Its got to work. One of these days. Otherwise, why would all these people that i really trust be involved in this . Like, i must be doing something wrong . Right. Well, and also kind of isnt the the mantra sometimes or the idea that youre not making money, youre not trying, you know, youre not trying hard, right . Your fault. Yes. Yes. Because once again, no ones being honest. So the man im talking about who lost 200,000, his up lines were telling him that, like the people above him were saying, thats really weird because im making tons of money. Its like so crazy that youre not making money. Mm. Truth is, they prob werent either, but its its the mythology of these organizations. So he he really did think, oh, im, im bad at this and i need to train more. And he started buying all kinds of training materials from amway more money into this thinking he was the problem. But when really the problem is they just sell boring. So thats like a regular self. Its very, very expensive. So that doesnt even look that pretty. I did like never seen amway in the wild and i did like ive never or we came here. Were like, what do they even sell . Ive never seen it, which very weird. I feel like ive seen the other stuff in there. Its very telling. Its very its very telling, though, right . Like theyre one of the biggest in the world and youve never seen it anywhere. What does that tell you . Where is it . Right. Its in a trunk or a garage. You know, if it really was that big of a company that couldnt sell at cvs and couldnt get into target because its so special and one in five people, you know, they say one in five people has an amway product in their home. And i dont know, im from michigan and i dont even know people that have amway products. Its really strange. Its not its very much an insidebut ive even asked around in my life and nobody is seen it. And i just a way where are in them but different different day so i did want to obviously dive in a little bit more into the book and the title on this is selling the dream, which obviously refers to the American Dream here. And you talk about in the book like there are these ideas of like limitless potential that, you know, anything can be achieved with optimism and willpower. And those are very quintessentially american ideas. What do you think about i mean, makes them and they they obviously are likemultinational. What is american specific about them . Well, they were built on that philosophy. I mean, the men who started mlm were totally like capitalist, you know, rugged individualist who believed they were growing up in a meritocracy in the early 20th century. And did believe like, oh, and bootstrap thinking and that sort of thing. So its a chicken and the egg. Like where what came first . Well, the the hope and the dream came first. And then these people i dont cant tell you how intentional it was, but they exploited that. I mean, exploiting hope is very profitable as we know. And so it it it taps into that thing that were all raised with still to this day, that this place is great, that anybody can make it if they try hard enough that, you know, again, were a matter where you come from or how much you have or dont have, like this is the land of opportunity. And people who you dont want profiteer from that essentially can on it. And its its totally understandable that they would i mean, i dont think its understandable and i dont k that there could people but it its not that hard its not that hard to take a big group of of of hopeful people who feel like theyre exceptional who feel like they are different than the rest of the world. And in a special way and who feel like there is money to be had out there just sitting around because like, look at donald trump. Well, what we know now is donald trump doesnt even have money. What do you. But for a while, like he was he ran in on my lamb and hes been a spokesperson for lambs and for a while people would look at him and i think secretly think like, well, hes a dance like and hes a billionaire. So when i can do it, you know, like and right. And hes telling me to do it hes saying that the mlm help you get there and i believe hes a billionaire. Well, now again, you know, because of the court cases, but also because he cant pay his 450 million fine, that guy doesnt have money just like the up to dont make any money. I think its, you know, its the kind of the same thing. But you have these sitting ducks in us and us regular people who have since kindergarten or early urban pledging allegiance to the flag and then talking about, you know, how what college were going to go to and what, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up as if like astronaut is even a possibility . A side note i found out that astronauts are actually just like my way too old to find that out. I thought they were i dont know what i thought they were, but theyikstuff. They like build things in space. And i was like, oh, i really i could have it announced or not. But, you know, we talk about that. You could do it. The skys the limit, basically. And, and i dont think thats a i dont think thats a bad attitude. So long as no ones taking advantage of it right. And yeah, i learned i learned that about astronauts in this very moment. You have, you know, you did mention, you know, the men who founded a lot of these missions in the 20th century. And i think, yeah, you know, obviously today i like is very much seen as women do emblems. I mean, we joke i jokeor boys. But yeah, right. But there are no limits for boys ate to crypto stuff, though i will say there are emblems for dudes that are all like finance, telecom, you know, things like boy stuff. Theres plenty of those. Yeah, but i mean it is a lot of it, especially in 20 centuries. Women selling perfume, essential oils, mary kay, avon, even tupperware with a woman named brownie. Why tupperware founded it. What are the gender dynamic here . Why, i mean, why could it if these guys are found in these companies, why couldnt they sell their stuff so well . The first answer is that it really was in the very beginning, a great idea to have women as your sales force because were talking about a time where it was around just after the Industrial Revolution and around the time that, like cities were happening and there were big urban centers all over the place, but at that time, most people were living in rural areas up until like a couple of 0th century. So people were living in rural areas and they were getting a lot of their products from door to door salesmen or, you know, like a stanley brush or, you know, Fuller Brush Company or stanley Home Products coming by your house. They went to my grandmas house. I remember that. And my grandma talks about it very fondly. But these were all itinerant dudes who maybe werent from your community and didnt like our milkman. I was growing up was from like saginaw, which is like an hour from my house. So i dont know anything about him other than he showed up at our house and had a key and walked in and put the milk inside. If we werent allowed you know. And so i think they early on, the founders of these companies thought, well, what if we had, like, ladies doing it . And then they thought, what if we had those ladies recruit their friends into doing it . And then you start to see this big group because its like 75 to 80 of all american participants are women. You start to look at this, and im going to sound like a broken record, but you start to look at them as a group. What do they have in common that looks attractive to an mlm these days, right . Because we dont need to worry about door to door salesmen creeping people out or like going into strangers homes anymore. Thats not the issue that were trying to solve with that now. Loans now. So what do they have in common now . They have they have, you know, difficult economic process. Their mothers, a lot of them stay at home moms. A lot of them christian. So their belief system is that they should be at home with their children. A lot of them are employed and dont make enough money, pay gap. Hello. So there is an opportunity to sell them this like dont you need extra money . I guess. Of course i need yes, i need 25. I need the 25 that my male coworkers getting. So i guess ill do it on my loan because i cant fix the system right. And im being serious about that. Like that is the thinking. Its like, how could i ever get ahead . How could i ever leave my husband . How could i ever and weve done a lot of weve gone to these conferences and stuff where people will talk about the reas t monetary reason that they got into mlm is and a lot of times its just for fun, but a lot of times its really sad. Like a woman who needed to pay for her dads headstonee for the years and she was working for three years in this make up mlm and didnt make enough money to buy a headstone in that much time. S a group, women are vulnerable in that way. And its also true that other vulnerable groups are becoming are like race and, you know, competing with women. Now to be like the big group of, you have a lot of people in developing countries or neo liberal societies that are kind of just beginning their capitalist experiment that we started a long time ago. And theyre perfect targets for these companies. So its just kind of turned out that theres good idea for sales is also a really good idea for scams and uh. Right, well, it makes sense. You know, in 1920 you dont want a creepy guy in your house. Makes more sense if its a woman and better if its a woman whos your friend. And maybe now theyre not showing up at your house, but theyre showing up on your facebook feed on like facebook. Theyre in your lives. Yeah. Or your church or whatever. But also, you know, the women, these these the recruitment process requires a Large Social Network and trust. So, you know, trust the story that im telling you because its not true. The recruitment has gotten easier, at least at least recently because of social media. So in the last like ten, 20 years, its been easier to recruit people outside of your community. But before that, women had these very, very Strong Social networks that would happen in the daytime when their husbands were home. You know, the neighbor dy, your sisters, your aunts, your grandma, and thats what happened in my family, was one person joins. Then the next person joins and the next person joins in. And then all of a sudden, everybody selling herbalife. You know, and thats just a literally what happens over and over again in my family. Mm hmm. Yeah. Right now, the popular thing in my community, you what you felt like was no go. I was saying the one in my the one in my neighborhood, its really taking off right now is like theres a couple of Different Companies that sell those nail stickers, like the nail polish stickers i have. Oh, the nail. And my moms next door neighbor cant sell them because its enamel and you cant sell them. So every time i go home, she like, left me rifle through this giant basket she has of, like thousands of these sets of mail stickers and takes on the. Oh, but yeah, they have fun. Oh, yeah, it is. It is. I can tell in my hometown just by observing from afar. Kind of. I can tell the girl who is like the top of the pyramid usually. And then i can see everybody else get into it and then it changes. Its very funny how it cycles through and and how people dont quit. I mean, they quit one mlm, but then they pick up and do another one a lot of the time, right . Yes, because you have to. Its so hard. Its so much inner psychology, so. Okay, if you figure out youre not making money at this 1 million in order to quit and not want to do it again, you have to first identify as a victim. You have to understand that you are a victim. You have to understand that probably during your tenure there, you victimize other people. Right . His thing and theyre not making money either. And they happen to be your sister. So you have to, like, recognize those two things. You haveo fault, but it wasnt what you were doing wrong. And instead what happens . The story that gets told often is that wasnt the right mlm and i didnt have the right attitude about that product, so ill quit this one, but im still believe in in the the dream. So we talked to a woman and named jd who failed miserably. And like a number of islands and i thought we were doing this im so glad you came to your senses or whatever. And then at the end she was like, so now im doing landmark, which is another. I was like, what are you talking about . I mean, we had a laugh about it, but i was like, you dont learn anything from this. And shes like, no, i really think its a good idea. Like i want to make money like youre not this isnt not working. Yeah, it is tricky. This is. And then im like, frozen years ago, i had i worked on a story about these 5 earrings that were in mlm and they had it was a horrible story. They had a conference in las vegas and it was a superspreader event and multiple people attended, died of covid and oh ■ my god, it was awful. And i still follow some of the ones who had spoken out on facebook or whatever. And i do see how many of them are still doing. And you think you had just like a horrifying experience. And obviously i dont want to be judgmental towards people, but its wild how they say, well, this one was bad, but the other ones are good. Its the same pressure mechanisms that they just repeat over and over again, which i guess does bring me kind of to where i want to go next, which is, you know, how do they get you in these emails . You had a story about one of these. It was called holiday magic, where they would i really laughed at this part. They had a manual that would they would teach you about how to get a pen into someones hand to some paper design drop the pen and then have jan pick it up and then kind of back away. Yeah. And then just really care, like, just silence. If you dont know whats going on here. But you know, what are some of the tactics that they use, i guess, to initially like to get you in besides the promise, like are there any certain like tactics that just have stood out to you in terms of like, how do they get you . Well, one tactic that i learned about more recently is this thing that i learned from jennifer rila, who was an arbonne salesperson for a long time, and its called dripping. I thought it was so weird, but its called dripping. And y essentially create a target list, like a a list of people you would like to recruit. And for a while you drip on them, meaning you, you gift them things, or you invite them to the parties, but you dont pitch it to Business Opportunity, but you just keep in touch. Text them every once in a while about something unrelated. Give them another candle, etc. I do that for a long enough and then you pounce when you feel like theyre ready to sign up. And she had a she has a notebook. Ive seen it in person. It was called her direct list. That was like a three ring binder with just addresses, information about people like when is their birthday . Who are they married to . You know, like, like a dossier, essentially, about her entire neighborhood and everyone she ■■rows. And what they how to drip on all of them, turn them into recruits. And that was an interesting attempt. But even lately, i just seen the its kind of sad. I was at the airport going to michigan for thanksgiving, i believe, amway lady in one of the restaurants just walking up to people, strangers with her briefcase. And i was like, i wonder if shes even going anywhere. She bought like a really cheap Spirit Airlines ticket just to, like, hang out in there for it to go hang in the airport and we keep trying to recruit her, she told. Oh yeah, she was training. Yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah. She would like chit chat people a little bit and then they would be like, so what are yous likea business conference. Oh, you would love it. Like, and then it was like immediately, heres the pitch. Wow. And im over in the corner of the russia shopping, like top arabesque. My goodness. We that is what. So i mean, does anybody ever want to i mean, somebody has to come into thinking theyre going to sell. I have i have friends. And on the first season of our show, we spoke to my friend danielle, who is a childhood friend. We grew up together in michigan and she has really high ranking in mlm called 31 bags. Its a christian bag company and i think shes like four levels from the top or Something Like that and has like in the thousands of people under her. Do you believe that she is one of those people that thought she was going to be preside you know, like she just really likes the idea of this society. We have going on here and like how she can run it and shes done really well. But guess what . He works her off. I mean, far more than full time, i would say probably if she really wrote down hours and her biggest take home pay, i think ever in a year was 45,000 to not actually be like get Health Insurance. They dont have Health Insurance benefits. Theres not a401k, theres not time, thats for sure. I mean, you cant take a day off because your sales are are counted monthly. Its really hard to get any time off actually, to get approved time off because youre sales, sales, youre recruiting count for the whole group. So youre really discouraged from taking your own time. So none of the benefits of a regular job. Plus youre only making 45,000 a year, right . Right. Which is not a bad income, i guess, for where i grew up. Its fine. You can live on it, but its not something to brag about or to rope someone else in, too. I feel like unless there unless they feel like its their calling, like i know social workers who will take that much. Right. But they also get really Good Government benefits. Right . It usually youre the one kind of making the most, and thats kind of the thats the feeling to it. Certainly not the feelings. Theyre three other people above you. But if thats a steal it like thats not a great place for the feeling to be. No, no now and there are a couple people above her. A couple . You know. But if you think about how many people the exponential growth of th triangle right to and then say you have ten and each of them get five and each of them get five and each of them get five. Once youre down like four or five levels, youre talking hundreds of thousands of people. Right . And so if these couple up here in the first few rungs are making 100,000, like who am i going to beat out . Like, how would i how would leapfrog best friends for one or like a mom and lula ro, for example, almost everyone at the top of their organization is like related to one another. So how are you going to squeeze in there . Mary one of them, i dont know, right . And it just doesnt seem like a good ean to think like, im going to infiltrate this really closed organization at the very top and then i can make her money, you know . Okay. Income, but also daniel, my friend who does the bags, hes been doing it for like a long time. Like eight, ten, 12 years, Something Like that. Same thing with jennifer raiola, who also wasnt making any money. Eight years. Scott lost. The 200,000. Was it ten years or something . So theyre even the ones that are making a little bit of money, or it takes a really long time to get up there. Uh huh. And is jennifer the one who had the themeone else, the mercedes, White Mercedes suv . Yeah, yeah. And so you just tell that story. Thats all i, i, i genuinely just while because shes the one who outwardly she sells arbonne right. She looks like shes succeeding, but shes. Oh, so yeah, just tell that story. But shes not and she had to shes now seeing a cult d programmer like wow, seriously therapy to try to take it out of her head. What happened . So jennifer was selling arbonne arbonne. If you dont know, its like its a weird company. Its like diet shakes and makeup, like, perfect for ladies, you know, just exactly what the ladies need. Diets and makeup and its claims toe atural and whatever, but its again, its like you can get that its like you can get that ol all have you dont get that are going to get Natural Products but they thats what they sell and they have this program where i just explain a little bit more about the levels. So you know if youre way down here, youre like a an associate or a represented or a distributor. And then if you sell or recruit, you know, enough people in a month, its usually not from selling, its from recruiting and their sign up fe. But they put it in a dollar amount. So like, lets say you recruit five people and theyre each 200, and then that means you sold 1,000 for their starter packs, essentially. So you, you hit a certain sales goal every month for, lets say, three months, and you get to rank up and it gives you like a couple of benefits, like maybe another percent in your compensation or something, or youre your discount on products and things like that. And so you just try to rank up and rank up. So jennifer was ranked up pretty high and a lot of her friends and family had joined her. And one of the levels is, i think Senior Vice President , its called, or Senior Regional president. I have my book right here, but im not going to open it. Im so sick of looking at that thing. Im just kidding. Ita great book now. So she wanted to get to the certain level and its called the mercedes level. And this will sound familiar to anyone whos heard of the mary kay pink cadillac in arbonne. You get a White Mercedes, you get a White Mercedes, you dont get a White Mercedes. So essentially you get to a level where they allow you to go to your local mercedes dealership, apply for a loan or a lease in your name. There. Their name is an anywhere except on the outside of the car. Theres like placards that say our born on the outside of the car. But they dont have anything to do with the actual ownership of the car. And then they set the sales goal. I think for her it was like 40,000 a month or something for her hit that every 44, maybe a quarter. So it was a lot of money. If you keep hitting that, you get 800 from the company to go toward your car. So its like what . Its just a manipulation tactic to keep you. Like, first of all, why not just give them the 800 right. But its to keep you roped in like its to keep you so now shes paying eight or just getting 800 a month a couple of times. But like the the the goal is so high that the sales goal and the way she reached it even to get this mercedes was kind of shady. Like not shady. She didnt do anything wrong. But arbonne encouraged all of their salespeople and all our moms do this. They encourage all of their salespeople to like buy multiples of any new product thats coming out so that they can sell one to their friends and have one in their house and have one in their car and all that stuff. So she did that one time when there was this big new Product Launch and her team all bought everything and then she hit the sales goal. So doing that month after month does kind of impossible. So now she has thedes is an 800 a month. Im sorry but a brand new White Mercedes suv in northern michigan, a white car. First of all, what dirt roads everywhere . I dont think so. Youre not even going to cover the lease, let alone insure or texas or anything else. And like, it wasnt even a hybrid. So gas is a gas guzzler, right to me. And she stole on t■hat. Not in urban, but its her car just to drive it around. So shes like a like a driving advertisement for our von, a company she doesnt believe in. She doesnt believe in a work for anymore. And when i was riding around and i wanted to take a screwdriver and like pry off because its like a metal sign on above the wheel, well, im like, thats fine. And people also we went mushroom hunting one day when i was out there and just to take a load off and her car, we were like, park in a ditch and then go back into some and stuff where we knew where we thought mushrooms were. And i wont tell you any more than that, but people would pull over and be like, rila, jennifer her. And because they saw her car, like her car is so recognizable to everyone in the tiny town she lives and like knows thats her work. They can just see her everywhere shes going, you know . Its like, yeah, i think a big flag, a big red flag, huh . Oh, man. Well, then theres also theres like a wellness point in this. A lot of the moms and obviously we saw during the pandemic and covered a lot of them discovered that they had ways to help with covid. But this kind of goes back to the beginning to right in our run this. But a lot of them do this. And even 100 years ago, a lot of companies were were kind of started based on like a wellness promisejm that i feel like has really seeped into society, right . Yes. And theres a reason for that as well. So like the earlie were vitamins, one of the earliest of melons was neutralizer, which is now owned by amway, but guys o started amway started at Natural Light and naturally existed before that. And it was like vitamin supplements, i think. Ands since then thats become a huge share of the Product Market in mlm. And i think the reason is because. People who i think if you believe the story about america, theres things that you question that and then you question different things. So you a lot of people dont trust that the establishment, they say, oh, everyone really, you know, theres the pharmaceutical industrial complex, theres the medical industrial complex, theres, you know, the scientists dont want you to know that we actually have a cure for cancer. Thats really cheap. So theres sort of keep an eye on anything. That and like a lot of conspiracy theories and stuff about regular products on the regular shelves, like trying to kill you when in fact a lot of mlm products are gravely hurt people in the past. But its like, yeah, thats first of all, youre big believer in the American Dream, but also you just dont trust the guys that are running it right now. Thats kind of the combo. I think we all know like that. Yes. And i think, you know, yeah, no, you got theres also like a religious aspect to this too. I mean, theres always the joke that its like mormons. Like, why do you think not thati religion plays a role in this, but a lot of christian communities, this is moms really do take hold. What what do you think the connection is there on the connections . Okay. So we can start with the women again being asked to stay in the household and not having a lot of Economic Opportunities outside the house. So this is something thats thats deemed acceptable all for you to be spending your time doing, especially si your your h folks, your friends from church. You know, like, who could be that . I mean, my friend danielle has her meetings at a church and in my hometown. So thats like your husband. Fine with that . Your pastors, my mother. So thats one thing. Another thing is that christian and im only talking christians here, i didnt do a lot of research into other religions participation and mlms, but i did look into protestants and catholics quite a bit. And one thing that youre taught in, especially in protestant churches and evangelical churches and mormonism, is to proselytize. So its part of your job as a christian to spread the word, to tell people and save their souls. Right. Which is how you end up with people going off to weird islands and never coming back. And the the skills that itakes to do that kind of work is pretty much the same thing to do. Recruiting in. And im all out. So youre already comfortable with the idea of walking up to someone and offering them this gift of freedom of, you know, you can finally have what you want in life. And and we can do it together like that is all over the place in church, like were helping each other, you know, were helping each other know, make this community, this Little Utopia better for ourselves. And so the idea of knocking on or walking up to strangers in a supermarket is not completely foreign to those communities. And then i also think that in some factmr of especially like calvinism, i spoke about that a lot because thats where the amway guys got theirchurch. And mormonism is similar where monetary gains are seen as a blessing or a sign that if there is predetermination, what signs could you look for on earth that youre one of the chosen ones and those sects have decided that wealth is one of the things you can maybe would help you take a good guess if youre going to the good place or the bad place. So again, you get into a chicken or egg thing where its like lot of these folks go out with the intention of making a lot of money so that it so that they do. And then its like, well, why would they send me to hell . Like im working. I bought off and i have a bunch of money. Im an honorable person and i should be rewarded in the afterlife. And i know thats a really big thing in mormonism. And then lastly, want to say, i think also because so many mormons participate, that it has gotten kind of a bad rap for like targeting religious folks. But utah is the like the home of them all. And theres more per capita than anywhere any other state. But thats because they the people who run that state, have created a really lax pyramid scheme laws. And then the ones arent the only scam that are being scams that are being run out of utah. Theres plenty of others, but i happen to be one of them. So its kind of like if youve ever started an llc and your tax accountant will be like, set it up in delaware right . Because delaware has like no something tax. I dont know, like some tax you dont pay. If your llc is registered in delaware, its similar. So if you want to start going, my mom started in utah because. The state wont go after you for a pyramid law violation. That pyramid scheme violations. Yeah, right. Well thats i think like one of the things that for me about the book and i remember this from the podcast that was the most disturbing were the polish tax he where you kind find yourself talking enough about mlms and worrying enough about mlm and ultimately you landed the part of like, well, why the heck doesnt somebody do something about this . This is wild how is a business allowed to exist where 99 of people fail . I mean, some of it comes from lobbying, right . The amway people have been very a lot of it very good. I dont want to just say amway, but a lot of it is amway, right just kind of being able a lot of amway. But but the dsa that direct sellers association, which is the mlm lobby and individual companies do spend a lot on contributions to political campaigns for people who are friendly to muslims, mostly conservatives, mostly republicans, mostly people who have who just love bootstrap thinking and i think you know, those weve seen the political ties. I mean, they amway dudes were like in government. One of them like was part of the rnc and the other one this isnt government but like was part it was the head of chamber of commerce and now his kid is so which chamber of commerce is not a department in the government its a its a lobbying organization. But which i never knew before looking into this stuff. So, yeah, theres theres a lot of a lot of politics going on in this in this world. Mm hmm. But also like, it is politics on both sides, right . I think that was for me has been surprising where you kind of with you like, okay, i can understand a world where Ronald Reagan said, go ahead, mohammed. Just like, you know, the mantra of is very much go ahead. All business. But it really is like were and democrats, at least at the federal level, have not done a whole lot on this right. I think that we are in deniked e efforts with. I think thats the problem is, again, and this is why i like talking about this stuff, because its stuff people dont know or think about very often. But if you spend a couple of minutes thinking about it, its like, oh my gosh, the ftc, imagine this. You have you have a whole department of of a federal government that has less funding than like a medium sized mlm like annual funding, like compare revenues or Profit Margins on and on all the big people up top, not the little guys to the tiny, a tiny, tiny. I think its like 350 million a year or something, which is like nothing. Dont quote me on that, but its somewhere around there and their job at the ftc is to go after credit card fraud, identity theft, telecom, you know, like spam calls, false product claims ■[like, you know, or Service Claims that are wrong. All of the internet phishing stuff, catfish ring, all this stuff and on alarms. So how to get them to prioritize this thing that has branded itself so well as something good when you have these very obviously bad criminal acts going on which they dont even have the capacity to to to stay on top of those like getting them to getting the momentum of the country to swing toward. Lets lets take out the millions is hard and people are trying. But thats hard to do because when you have like people stealing like old peoples identities and credit cards, like thats a you know, you kind of look at the two of them and youre like, well, these people signed up for it. And these people, you know, didnt. And we only have ten of us here or whatever. Ive talked to the ftc a lot, and it feels very much like thats the main issue with why they wouldnt put this at the top of their docket although they are taking it much more seriously lately, especially since covid, they have been sending out warning letters for false product claims. A company saying our essential oils will cure or prevent covid. The warning letters. You know, i challenged them on this a bit like, what do they really do . Like, are you knocking on doors . Are you going showing up there and make sure they dont do their stuff . But a new initiative has started a lawsuit just came out a couple of days ago, a Class Action Lawsuit thatstablish, distribute ers as employee is meaning when they go online and claim stuff like our products care, covid, theyre actually youre representing the company right now. Its foggy because the company can say thats just an individual distributor. I didnt tell them to say that if i thought they but, you know, i didnt tell them to say that. Thats not part of our training. And its just like thats what everyone else is doing and what you told up lines to do. But now if they do, when this lawsuit, they are, you know, on being held accountable because these people are not considered employees. I mean, that would be great. Like that would be resolved. So many things had to, you know, pay taxes in a certain way if they had to offer insurance that they had to get Social Security and stuff like that, like all that. I mean, its a huge deal. And im keeping a close eye on that one because that would solve a lot of that. Yeah, because it does have looked at this a little bit. But i remember like years ago looking because i think they do have to kind of disclose like what most people make or whatever. But even thats a lot of the time that they do disclose that by the time youre like the fourth spreadsheet, you kind of cant tell how much money. And you know, its impossible for the public income disclosure statement. Ive rarely seen one thats over one page. The compensation are so huge. The thing that i will tell you as a seller, what youre going to make are so huge and convoluted that like, i cant understand a word, but the sheet that theyre supposed to show, not supposed to, they dont have to. No one has to. But but if in good faith, a few of these companies are not doing this, theyre like offering up the info and it will be one page. It has a chart that shows you well, first of all, its a lot of like inspirational language up at the top. And theres a little chart thats like how many people make 1,000,00000 1 of the company . How many people make 500,000 . It goes like that. And then it usually tells you like the 99 make nothing or make like 200 a year or Something Like that. What it doesnt you at all are the people fail, the people who drop out. So it doesnt there row thatsy these people quit within the year because they failed and they lost this much. That would be the most informative version of that chart to me, because if they included that and i asked the dsa to do it and they wouldnt do it, and they were like, i dont understand what youre asking me. And i was like, i just need to know. Youre telling me how much people make and how happy they are, but who have you talked to . Any of the unhappy ones . Like is that part of your survey . And they were like, no. I thought, what are you talking about. This is an incomplete. Its incomplete data. If you dont have that, like why a business would do that. Like, not know their attrition rate. Thats right. Thats not how work works. Yeah, like if walmart was losing like 99 of their workforce every year, like that would be a would something they would want to look into. And the millions are like, yeah, okay, cares. Thats kind of a them problem. I guess. You know, knowing all of this. Like why do you think people keep falling for this like everyo . Smart and theyre all on tiktok they are going to fix this. Theyre going to find why do we keep girl on tiktok selling. Ml out there on yeah this is the truth but why do we keep because it sounds it sounds great and it sounds exactly like the story weve always been told. Sound out of the ordinary for this culture like it sounds exactly right. Like it sounds you can make a living without having to go deeply into student debt. All you have to do is now be online all the time, which you are anyway. And you can have Financial Freedom and you can spend as much time with your kids as you want to, and you can make as much money as you want to. It just depends on how hard you want to work. You set your own hours. You, you know, you decide how much to grow your business. All of that. Like if that were true, i would do it tomorrow. Like i, i love the idea of it and i think a lot of people love the idea of it and the person giving you the idea isnt giving you the bad side of any. You know, theyre not saying what really what really happens. You kind of have to dig for that information. Its only really been in like the last five or ten years that you could get a lot by googling mlms. Now, a truth in adrtg has a nice collection of, you know, information around the Business Practices, the dubious Business Practices and alliance. And the ftc now has more information on their website, obviously, like reddit groups and facebook groups that are anti mlm and then my show on my book and, other shows about this world, but its been very, very recent. So i think, you know, lets say 20 years ago, i wouldnt have even known who to ask if this was a good idea or not. The chamber of commerce is certainly not who i can ask because theyre run by right. And have been forever. So i guess Better Business bureau or something. But who actually calls them . I dont know. Yeah, thats what we used to say. Well, you know, the ftc, its i guess like i feel like i do this for a living and. I dont like about its website as much as i look it up, but its like i and it is i mean, i do think too, sometimes we only have a few minutes left, but you dont even recognize sometimes that its an email. Im like, i think im a pretty astute person, right . I can think two years ago in a friend of mine with like asked me to go to some webinar in back of my mind, i was like, oh, melanie sells cleaning products now, and it didnt occur to me that it was an mlm. I just thought, well, im shes doing something new, so you dont always recognize it either. Well, they know not to advertise it that way, right . So, you know, not to just walk up to you and be like, are you interested in multilevel marketing . Like thats not the sales pitch, but theyre, theyre getting sneakier. I feel like theres more like there does used to be a way against the rules, way against les. But theyre now getting on store shelves, like making official partnerships with like a big brand like sephora. So, like beautycounter isnt on my lap and they sell products at sephora. I believe they have tupperware at target now. So theyre kind of blurring the lines. And if you see it on the shelves at target, does that look like a potential pyramid scheme . No, no. And so now why dont you just sell it at home, not knowing which you talk about in the in the book that tupperware actually started in Department Stores and failed miserably and then then moved over to the party system. But yeah, i think theyre theyre getting they getting sneakier. Theyre Getting Better at the language they use to bring people in so that its not just all over the place. In the beginning and in my family anyway, people dont talk about it. I joined it. I know. And they say i got a new job. Wow. Thats the phrase. Mm. And so and then if someone fails, its kind of embarrass saying you also got your mom and your cousin and your sister in law into it. And so you dont talk about it. The easiest thing to do is like it wasnt right for me. Mm mm. Wasnt a good fit, you know, and then youre just on your way to the next level or whatever. But i understand that because its, its been really hard for everyone to talk to. Thats like especially left out for a long time, like jennifer, its really hard. Like in my conversations with her, shes having realizations all the time, like, oh my god, i cant believe i believed that or i cant believe i said that to someone or oh my gosh, like, its its all just coming up all the time. And shes making apology phone calls all over the place, like as shes realizing its like coming out of a stupor, you know. Right. And so you just once you figure it out, its just takes some time to recognize what happened and your, you know, maybe 15,000 in the whole. Yep. Yeah. And with somebody like so i think about like the victims of bernie madoff. So that was a ponzi scheme, not a pyramid scheme. There was no product involved. But it kind of works similar, but folks can say this is a you know, this is a crime that goes after the other. You know, a lot of departments really want this guy behind and can see whats exactly illegal about it. And dont have such a problem selfidentifying as victims, even though they did do the same thing by roping their friends and family into it. At least all of them can say like point the finger at you and what millions have done by, you know, lobbying for the laws that they have is they protect themselves with this idea of if we were a pyramid scheme if we were illegal, we wouldnt be allowed to exist. ■f thats like saying im not a murderer because im not in prison. Right. Like youre you have to get caught. Someone has to have the resources and the time to do the research and come after you and we just dont have that right now with the ftc. I wish. I mean, any other more hopeful note that thats the note, that we are going to end are going to be great. Well be fine and its going to be great. Oh, heres a hopeful note. Heres the cover of my book thats really pretty. Oh, i will hold it up, too, because i think, well, thank you so much. Iso now, without further ado, tonight, im very excited. Welcome, rachel beta for celebrating the release of hit