I write this out of love and hope that you will take this to heart so that you will know what your non-multi-level-marketing ("MLM") friends think about your business.
Right up front, I want you to know I'm happy that you have a business and you're working hard at making it grow. Good for you. I sincerely hope you earn enough to one day quit your day job and focus on your passion.
Having said that, you're driving everyone crazy.
Seriously, the MLM model is built on using your friends and family to build your business. To be fair, the Pareto principle probably applies here. Maybe you're part of the 20 percent who are being appropriate in relationships, not posting every other hour on how amazing your product is on Facebook and Instagram. Odds are, though, you're part of the 80 percent ruining it for everyone else and you've already been unfollowed on social media more than you can imagine.
Take an honest examination of yourself. Does the following describe you? Here are some ways to know if you're not doing your MLM business well and are part of the 80% who are alienating their friends and family:
1. When you meet new people, you think of them as prospects, not possible friends.
2. Your friends have stopped returning your phone calls because they think you might be selling them something.
3. From your personal Facebook account, you are posting more about your MLM than anything else.
4. When you're not posting on Facebook about your MLM business, you're only posting to create a buffer between your MLM posts.
5. You use "Buffer" to post on Social Media.
6. You're feeling VERY defensive right now, reading this letter.
7. The only parties you throw are ones that involve people coming to your house to become a distributor or purchase products.
8. You belong to an organized religion that expects proselytizing, yet the only proselytizing you do is about your product.
9. You sell Plexus. (Sorry, but for some reason, Plexus sellers appear to be the biggest offenders.)
10. The only friends who "like" your MLM posts are other MLM sellers, usually from the same company.
11. You refuse to look at the cold, hard facts that literally 99% MLM businesses DON'T MAKE ANY MONEY.
12. You've created a list of everyone you know in order to try to find 7 people to do what you're doing.
13. As you're reading this, you have said to yourself, "No, I'm just trying to help people because this product/scheme is SOOO amazing!"
By the way, the you get seven people in, and they get seven people in, and they get seven people in scheme doesn't work. You run out of people on earth in only 12 cycles of that. Do the math.
I'm not just here to complain, I have some solutions:
1. Be honest up front. If you're going to ask me to coffee to pitch something to me, give me an opportunity up front to say no.
2. I miss seeing pictures of your kids and your thoughts about life. Let the ratio of personal life versus business posts be 10 to 1.
3. Don't "friend" people on Facebook because they are a prospect. We're smarter than you think.
4. Understand that most people that hate MLMs do so because they've been burned by friends who have done it wrong in the past. You're probably not going to change that.
5. Apologize if you haven't done it well in the past. Be specific and seek out the person you've alienated.
6. Take a good, honest look at the cost/benefit of your business. Less than 1% of MLMers make any money at all, ever. Is the risk of alienating friends and family worth your odds of making money?
7. Stop telling yourself that you're doing this to help people. That's called volunteering. You're working to make money. If you truly were doing this to help other people make money, remember you'd need 100 people in your downline to have one person make money. The other 99 people won't ever make a thing. See #11, above.
8. Create a separate Facebook business page, so friends who want to follow that aspect of your life can do so.
Remember, it's never too late to reverse course like R&F reverses aging and Plexus reverses fat gain so you can eat what you want and still look like a superhero. Okay, that was a cheap shot. I'm sorry.
But I'm not sorry for telling what EVERYONE is thinking but is afraid to tell you.
Real friends tell the truth. Hopefully, after having built your MLM, you still have some left that will be loving enough to gently post this on your wall--you know, the one with only pictures of people defying age and gravity and sickness of all kinds. Sorry again that was mean. But then again I'm not sorry. This needed to be said. I'm mad and I can't take it any more.
Love,
Everyone on Earth
P.S. Check out this cool picture I found online!
