What are 10 reasons why mlm is the worst opportunity in the world?

Question

MLMers brag that it is the best, now lets hear why it's the worst.

Answer 1

10 reasons (in no particular order)

1- they latch on to anything anyone ever said positive about MLM as though it proves that MLM is the greatest thing ever...even an author who mentions MLM just to sell books.

2 - they pull all this BS out of thin air like Donald Trump says he would do MLM if he had to do it all over again, or MLM is taught at Harvard, or MLM produces more millionaires than corporate America...all of which is at best lip service and more likely complete BS that MLMers naively assume is true without ever validating any of it.

3 - they think they are business owners...yet the bulk of them have sold product only to a few friends and family and maybe have a few reps under them who are equally incapable of actually doing enough volume on their own to make a living. They also merely own a license to sell a real companies product that can be taken away at any time. The majority of all MLMers claiming to be in business for themselves not only don't have any business education, they don't even understand simple business terms like opportunity cost, marginal utility, or even a simple supply/demand graph.

4 - you can put an MLMer in any situation and they always look at everyone they meet as a prospect and at one point or another intend to bother those people with the business opportunity.

5 - MLMers lump everyone who doesn't like their business into people who must be wage slaves, working for someone else and/or a sheep and a negative person trying to bring down their company. They also assume that anyone disagreeing is incapable of understanding business concepts (as ironic as that may be).

6 - they proudly profess that the secret to wealth is building your downline at geometric rates that are unattainable. They say things like sponsoring 3 people who also sponsor 3 people who also do the same and so on. It is supposed to look like this:

Level 1: 3 people
Level 2: 9 people
Level 3: 27
Level 4: 81
Level 5: 243
Level 6: 729
Level 7: 2,187

So they look at that and tell you that with a lot of hard work, its possible to have over 2100 people in your organization earning money...but they are either too naive or intentionally deceiving you by not bringing up the fact that those 2,187 people on your 7th level are not going to stick around unless they ALSO can build the company as deep, and same with the people who would be on their 7th level...and so on and so forth. So it has to continue to grow. But look at what is looks like on the 21st level:

Level 1: 3 people
Level 2: 9 people
Level 3: 27
Level 4: 81
Level 5: 243
Level 6: 729
Level 7: 2,187
Level 8: 6,561
Level 9: 19,683
Level 10: 59,049
Level 11: 177,147
Level 12: 531,441
Level 13: 1,594,323
Level 14: 4,782,969
Level 15: 14,348,907
Level 16: 43,046,721
Level 17: 129,140,163
Level 18: 387,420,489
Level 19: 1,162,261,467
Level 20: 3,486,784,401
Level 21: 10,460,353,203

Over 10 BILLION people are needed now to maintain this thing so that people are not dropping out. MLMers don't like simple math.

7 - MLMers like to use terms in the real business world and apply them to MLM as though they are one in the same. For instance, "real business is set up as a pyramid as well"...of course real businesses don't need to keep getting more and more sales people just to pay the ones they already have. "Its just like buying a franchise"...except buying a franchise you actually get to look at the incomes of franchises that are successful and you don't need to convince everyone you meet that your business is legit.

8 - The only real entrepreneurs in MLM are the ones selling training material to the dreamers who eat it up because they think they are in the best business ever. Its no different than when smart business people sold shovels during the gold rush when naive people spent their life savings looking for gold that less than 0.001% of the people ever found, but the shovel salespeople made a killing. The same can be said for those selling promotional materials to the MLMers (sadly, most MLMers are too captivated by the false dream of MLM to even realize that the people selling promotional materials buy their way to top levels putting their own money in to set themselves up to sell the material.

9 - MLMers too often fall into the health and wellness industry and have ridiculous claims about their products. The reality is that MLMers convince themselves that their products are wonders because they are justifying their dream of making money. If an MLMer didn't think he/she could make money selling the product, they would be forced to give an unbiased opinion of the product and inevitable see if for the sham it is. No MLM has any product with scientifically proven benefits...the benefits are only the dreams of those trying to sell it. MLM companies in the health and wealth industry typically have nearly all their sales coming from distributors, not through sales. The misguided reps will tell you that is because anyone who used the product automatically wants to be a distributor, which is like suggesting that people who like drinking coke would suddenly want to become coke salespeople. MLMers in the health industry will use lines like suggesting that the health and wellness industry is one of the biggest industries and with the baby boomers its only going to get bigger, both which are true...but then they try to use that fact to justify why their product is the perfect opportunity. That, of course, is because of their general lack of any business education. It would be like saying that since the price of gas rising by leaps and bounds that owning a gas station is a brilliant idea these days. Anyone with any business intelligence knowns that the gas station needs to be assessed on its own merits, not on an entire worldwide stat. MLMer's don't understand how to analyze a business however, and this is why they try to sign up their aunt, their postman, their babysitter, etc.

10 - MLM is the worst opportunity because it uses the cult mentality to convince its reps to stay put. Cults use arguments that are circular and cannot be disputed. So, the average MLMer is led to believe that if they get too hung up on the numbers, or they look at the opportunity negatively, then THAT is why they would fail...therefore, they only look at things positively and refuse to question things that do not add up. That is how cults work, and why you find people in cults and MLM who defend their view with intense emotion instead of willingly debating logic. MLMers won't use logic because unbiased logical views of their business tell the story of why MLM doesn't add up.

It takes realizing that intelligence is more important than emotion when building a business for any MLMer to be saved and finally come back to the real world and stop annoying those actually contributing to society.

Answer 2

While Marcello has explained the matter far more eloquently than I can at the moment, I can still provide links to websites that go in depth into the issues surrounding MLM.

http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html explains the misconceptions that MLM promotors spread, the damage the programs do to families and communities, and the relationship to pyramid schemes. http://www.vandruff.com/mlm_FAQ.html also gives some good examples of how MLM cultists react to being told it is a scam, very similar to how chain letter addicts react in fact.

http://www.falseprofits.com/FSLegalityPg.html goes over how Amway tricked a judge, and established a false sense of legitimacy for numerous scams later on.

http://www.mlm-thetruth.com/tax_study.htm is a study of the tax returns of MLM participants in a particularly hard hit (by MLMs) section of Utah. The data is far from encouraging. It seems that you have a better chance of hitting the jackpot from one spin at the roulette wheel than of breaking even on MLM. Some of the links from here are quite interesting reads.

http://www.profitclinic.com/MLM/boobytraps/Index.html covers, as the name suggests, a number of the boobytraps within most MLM programs. There are some doozies here... like the real meaning behind "ground floor opportunity."

http://www.stopspam.org/faqs/mlm_vs_pyr.html and http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside&ed=rich_quick are subjects that make diehard MLMers explode. Being caught spamming, and the marks finding out that Paypal and similar services forbid MLM payments through them.

And while http://www.stopspam.org/usenet/mmf/mmf_variants.html is not actually about MLM, the kind of lies you see being dissected here are classic examples of how many of the less ethical MLMs operate and deceive.

Answer 3

well, marcellos answer gets very long, and sadly goes off on a tangent that is no more accurate than what mlmers would tell you anyway. overall I agree with him though. The big thing I have found with mlmers is that they have to do high pressure repeat sales, and yes thousands get trampled so a few can do well. The only way to avoid this is to ask some tough questions to the person trying to sign you up. If they can answer all the questions accurately, the company will be fine, but however, I have not found a single one that could do just that. Dont get me wrong, these companies have my respect, they have history and decent products, I just dont like how or what they do to people once they are signed up in order to "succeed".

Answer 4

In most cases, the worst part of the multi-level thing is the multi-level. The only way to make any money is to recruit people to recruit people to recruit people. The chain will eventually stop as everyone (usually you) runs out of people to sign up. If you want to sell a product, sell a product where you get repeat sales and repeat profits. I cannot tell you how many times I was solicited to sell Amway. I love Amway products. There's not a single Rep out there that actively sells the products ... they just sell the company. I don't want a sales kit. I want a bottle of their drinkable drain cleaner!!!

Answer 5

Many work from home schemes are scams… are poorly paid… repetitive… etc (especially on the net)!! Sadly also: most legitimate work from home schemes do cost an initial outlay... but then that’s a good incentive to get up and work... You get nothing for nothing these days!!

Here is a site where the information is free, wont even cost you a stamp… it is with a 100 year old PLC… ‘All’ statements made can be verified… and it would also be ‘YOUR’ own business!! You will get out of it…. What you are willing to put in!!

http://www.bluethundergroup.com/

Answer 6

Hi,

My name is Patrick and I am originally from Europe - Czech Republic, but more than one year I live in Hong Kong. This way I would like to meet some professional individuals and make friends network over the whole world. I am Business Development and I have many experiences in network marketing industry, but I've never seen business concept like this. It is called ONE LINE ONLINE THE GREEN LINE and the most successful countries in this business are Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan ...

That's the reason why I would like to share a really important information with you which can change your life. This is the next quantum leap in this industry. Click on the link for more information https://one-line-online.com/PatrickHK or keep reading my information below.

1) It exists worldwide only ONE DOWNLINE or ONE SINGLE LINE. Every person of the world who is registered after, is registered after the next person. You can profit from everyone. It’s a real motivation, because everyone can see own downline grow!

2) You can start almost from the beginning. The company already started in 1st of April 2014. It was successfully launched.

3) In addition you can profit until 7 Lines from your UP LINE!!! Awesome!!!

4) The company has an amazing business plan, you can find here in ENGLISH https://one-line-online.com/files/presentation/payplan-EN.pdf RUSSIAN https://one-line-online.com/files/presentation/payplan-RU.pdf

5) We have also many webinars in many languages (russian, polish, english and many more) for your support and for developing your team ENGLISH https://one-line-online.com/webinar/events/lang/en/ RUSSIAN https://one-line-online.com/webinar/events/lang/ru/

6) The product is The Green Share and almost every person of the world uses it every day. In this case, it is Clean Energy, from the Sun and Wind.

I am sure that people who will decide during May sign up, they will have thousands people in their downline end of this year, according to my estimation, because we are in ONE SINGLE DOWNLINE all over the world.

Still once again, click on the link for more information https://one-line-online.com/PatrickHK

The company also look for the country managers who will be willing build this business in the country. YOU can be one of them!

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

I am open for any kind of conversation.

Best regards

Patrick
Business Development
Hong Kong

Answer 7

Number one reason - It's immoral, because the vast majority of participants HAVE to lose money in order for the small minority to succeed. That's the part they never tell you.