My Brief Experience with an MLM scheme

AKA: How relationships are created and destroyed

I’ve heard a lot about Multi-level Marketing (MLM) schemes. I remember as a kid my Mom getting roped into Avon, a somewhat harmless MLM selling beauty supplies, where she ended up getting stuck with a room full of products she couldn’t sell. I’m pretty sure she still has bottles of bad perfume and lotion in the bathroom cupboard almost 20 years later. My Mom struggled, because she was resistant to pulling her family and friends into the fire. She realized very early on that this would have damaged or destroyed the relationships she had just to break even. Even though I was a kid, this experience stuck with me and really tainted my view of these companies but also gave me a lot of empathy for those trapped in the hierarchy.

So let’s jump into what happened to me this month. I stopped at my favourite hardware store after work to pick up some nails for a project I was working on at home. I stuck out like a sore thumb as I was in a nice white dress shirt and polished brown shoes. As I was heading to the till from the fastener isle, I was called out by a very attractive dude holding the most adorable little human. We struck up a 30 minute conversation about the project I was working on, what we did, family, life goals, etc.; not really the type of conversation I was expecting at a Home Depot but this wouldn’t be the first time. As we performed the most awkward handshake of my life, we exchanged numbers and parted ways; the box of nails I was holding was getting heavier by the second.

A day later, dude reaches out to me and we set up a meeting at the local Tim Hortons, where we chat about ownership, people management, and poorly regurgitate key points from self-help books we’ve read. He doesn’t order/offer anything during our chat; first red flag. This dude knows his stuff and it is the first time I’ve really been able to chat about all the Patrick Lencioni and Henry Cloud books I read skimmed. We abruptly end the conversation at the 1 hr mark, as he has another friend meeting him at the same spot; second red flag. I really don’t think anything of it, as he seems like your every day busy entrepreneur type. We schedule another meeting for the next week and part ways.

The next week, I’m excited to meet dude again, as I want to dig a little deeper into topic of leading people and ownership. I arrive a little early so I can order my favourite habenero chicken rice bowl and a peppermint tea before we chat. I finish my food right before dude shows up looking like a GQ model after a photoshoot. He jumps right into it. He starts very vaguely talking about businessy stuff; breaking down concepts as if he had just learned them yesterday. Crude graphs, charts, and jargon that really didn’t mean much but still had my interest. I liked his style, charisma and attitude so it really didn’t phase me that I wasn’t being given any information of substance. He asks me what I would do with an extra 10-15k per month and I tell him that I’d put it towards my mortgage. He likes that response and then offers me an opportunity to join him at an exclusive conference at the local Hilton conference center on the weekend; third red flag. To me this sounded like a cool opportunity to meet some entrepreneurs and dress up in my loud but not abnoxious red suit, so I accept. He says it may be tough getting me a spot so he’ll text me if/when he does. Again, we drop the conversation right at the hour mark as he has another appointment. My spidey senses are starting to tingle but I tell myself I am going to see this through as it could just be my previous second-hand experience with an MLM scheme and that my new friend wouldn’t just toss me into that, right?

Thursday afternoon arrives and dude has got me a spot at the conference. Great! However, it is at this point that I realize that I already had plans with family, but forgot to add the date to my calendar. I ask him if I can take a rain cheque and get a response that wasn’t aggressive but read like, “this opportunity will only happen once.” Fourth red flag. Not wanting to dissapoint people due to a very annoying character trait, I find a way out of plans with my family and call him letting him know I’ll be at the conference. I get the approval my brain craves and feel the anxiety slip away.

The weekend arrives and I’m getting my outfit together, which required a short trip to the local tailor. I’m ansy and unproductive as I count the minutes until the conference. Dude texts me confirming the address and time. In an overly enthusiastic manner as to not seem unappreciative, I reply, “see you there!” I arrive 30 minutes early. I see hundreds of people streaming into the the lobby of the conference center and I no longer feel over-dressed. These people are dressed to the 9s in new/rented suits and many people are making comments about how they cleaned up well. I make my way into the lobby, nervously chewing a very stale piece of gum. Dude arrives in his navy blue suit with a couple of goody bags and we make our way into the conference hall. There are over 1000 people crammed into the hall that seems to be shrinking as more people arrive. Announcements are made that women get priority seating, as there aren’t enough seats to go around. Men are instructed to raise their hands and allow women to take their spots. I don’t hate this, but it definitely has an overly chivalrous vibe to it. However, this seems to be a normal request for the regulars. I place my goody bag on the ground and get comfortable.

The conference starts with a very enthusiastic MC talking about tonights speaker, a Seattleite who’s American dream story has been told many times. 14 kids, split up parents, food stamps, really tragic stuff (like actually.) The MC calls up the speaker and the whole hall erupts in deafening applause for 2 minutes. Once the audience was tired, speaker dude starts talking about how he isn’t a good public speaker, trying to advertise himself as one of “us”. Meanwhile, the dude is a natural speaker and commanding the room like we were being called into battle; fifth red flag. After some context about his difficult past, some crude acronyms and pie charts were drawn on a whiteboard that was too far away to make out. Another twenty minutes in and it happens; the word Amway shows up. Up to this point, I had no idea what I was in for but I turned on my bullshit detector before leaving the house. I felt prepared. As soon as the ‘A’ word showed up, I immediately started to feel the heat in the room. Cotton mouth, clammy hands and rapid heart rate all came to me suddenly. I was angry.

I waded through fifteen excruciating minutes of speaker dude defending Amway with less-than-satisfactory talking points and even through the phrase, “pyramid scheme” in for good measure. However, I couldn’t help myself but turn to my new “friend” and ask him if we could step outside for a moment. Although there was some surprise on his face, I could tell he was prepared for this. I let him know that I appreciated the opportunity, but was not going to continue with this. I avoided any mention of my thoughts about MLMs and stuck with an alternate but true reason. I didn’t want to shill expensive water, soap, and protein powder. I had compassion for him in that moment. He asked me some questions that I had less-than-ideal answers to, but he relented after first trying to shift our relationship into just selling me some overpriced health products. I couldn’t get upset with him as I understand how this stuff works. Without me, he doesn’t move up. Without me, he gets stuck with a room full of product he can’t get rid of.

I left in a better mood than I thought I was going to be in; texting my partner, “IT WAS A F***ING MLM.” I got home and immediately started writing about my experience. I really hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. If you ever find yourself in this situation, be a good human and listen to these people. Chances are they’ve isolated themselves to run their ‘independent business’ and you are potentially the only point of contact they have outside of their cult. Just don’t let them bring you in. You never know, you might be able to help them out of it by just being a voice of reason when there isn’t any.