She's On The Money - Hey Hun: What an MLM Million Dollar Earner Wants You to Know (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

We got the scoop from a million-dollar MLM insider—and it’s juicier than you think. In this special episode, Victoria chats with Emily Lynn Paulson, a real-life MLM millionaire who had it all—until she decided to expose the truth. From the shiny promises of freedom and community to the shocking reality at the top, Emily reveals how MLMs prey on women and keep them hooked. She reached the peak of the pyramid, and now she’s here to tear it all down. Don’t miss the insider secrets the MLM industry doesn’t want you to hear! Learn more about Emily Lynn Paulson and her book Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing here. Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri 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 Awadjeri 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 downline. I'm Victoria Devine, finance expert, MLM exposer, and full-time sceptic 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 glittery 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 here'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 Hey Hun, 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. I know. I adore it. I also just locate the name of your book, Hey Hun. 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. What 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 that 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 And, you know, I like to buy stuff like those were the qualifications. And that's fun. Yeah. 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've 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 DMs 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. I want to 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 2014

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. I was so much fun. So I, you know, I was sleeping a ton and no, 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 is 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, prioritised my husband's career and now what am I going to do? You're right, 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 $192 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 daycare. Yep. And I think that's why, you know, MLMs can thrive. 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, V, 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, 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 the 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 a product. 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. Babe, don't join an MLM. Just go straight for the pyramid scheme. Straight pyramid. And that's a sad reality. And, you know, the idea of a pyramid, you know, everyone thinks of like the little triangle, but like in reality, the pyramid would be like so flat because there's like very few people at the top, the people at the bottom, it would go out past the earth, you know, it's so wide. So pyramid's 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, oh, I've got these great products, but you should buy in to get the biggest discount or you should join because this is a great opportunity. You've got to ask yourself, what would be the difference between just giving you $100 and asking five people for $100? What is so great about this product? 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 MLM 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 stay legal. They make it 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 sneaky. I know. It's talked around and it's always little bits. Like you said, it's like death by a thousand paper cuts, right? It's like, well, you've got this $25 website fee and you're like, oh, $25, no big deal. That's not much. 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. I wasn't a business person. I don't have a degree in business. I was a chemist before kids. So for me running a business, lots of air quotes, it's not a business. You're a 1099 contractor, but they use all these comparisons. 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 spent $25 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 pyramid scheme, you don't have people on the sidelines saying, just stay, just stay in, just keep working. It works if you work it just one more month and 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 could, 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 pervious part for me having like, I've done a couple of psych degrees and I adore 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 hyper fixation 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 a 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 downtown and there's a Starbucks in a grocery store and then there's Starbucks next door. And you think, oh, well, gosh, if a Starbucks can be on every corner, right? It's so saturated, but they do so much research. Starbucks figures out like, what are people's shopping habits? The people who are buying the coffee while they're shopping are 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 like 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. And with an MLM, it's completely the opposite. You are encouraged to have as much competition in 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 you're recruiting competition in an already saturated market. And not only within your own, you know, I was in Rodan and Fields, for example. I also was competing with Beauty Counter and Monat 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 whatever, or 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 $1,000 back after 60 days if you're not interested. Well, that's a load of crap because guess what? You're going to have 1,000 boss babes

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 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 marker 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, chomping at the bit 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's 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, like 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, we've got laws. So if I was recommending a financial services product, I would have to give you three products to compare. 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, 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 is 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, fake it till you make it, you know, use whatever company materials you have to sell whatever. I was the skincare expert. I wasn't a skincare expert. I knew a lot about the products we had. I could give you talking points for the products we had. I wasn't 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, 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, use this in place of your antidepressants. And when you're getting to this place where, okay, this person's

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 churned 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 as non-experts, right? But the reality is you're just running out of people to scam in one country and you've got to go to another one. 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 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 hair care product, I could, if 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 are 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 in, like people liked them, they were cool, whatever, but the products were just a way 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 Hannah's 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 so-and-so is getting a paycheck. And gosh, they look like 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 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 in thinking I was helping them until I realized, oh, I am making money because they are 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 buoying 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. 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 product, sign people up, la-di-da. And the rest is just shove it under the rug. Don't talk about it. 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 the system. So it really was a matter of me. My rise in the MLM really followed my journey with alcohol. And I got sober and the

beer goggles came off and I realized, you know, a 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'd 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, 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 writing 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 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 it's a hard realization and 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. Yeah, it's a really challenging realization. And I mean,

you're sold 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'm in Mexico and I am at work and it just, it blows my mind. So how did this so-called freedom manifest in your day-to-day life as a really successful multi-level marketing quake? 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, but that's what you see on social media, right? I can work from anywhere. Why do you want to work from anywhere? Like, why is no one questioning this? Yes, it's true. Right. I sold some lip serum 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 you? Is that freedom? No. I mean, there is nothing less free than being glued to your phone all day. I can't tell you that when I finally 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 like 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 that 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 eyeopening and we were not told to ever do that. And I'm sure that's why. Yeah. Cause 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 vacation. 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. 100%. 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, 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. Yeah, it sounds so kind. Yeah. 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 use a mean as opposed to a median, which they should use a median because, you know, if you have a bunch of people who make $2 and you have one person who makes $5,000 for some reason at that level, well, the average then is going to be $2,500. I mean, we all know how averages work, but the median would be maybe $5. 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 that when you look at like, okay, 80% 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 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 will get to the 0.1%. And then that income, you're like, oh, that looks really good. Yeah. Wow. Premier 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 pack 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 $350 and the average Monet salesperson's making $9 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. To make fake accounts. And whether that's your husband, you use their number. I had an account for a hamster. Oh, good. Oh, good. Did they enjoy their serum? I loved them. And there's rules baked into the policies and procedures that you can have certain amount per customer if they live in your house. Because theoretically, I could have a daughter

who uses skincare too, right? And she buys stuff through her account. Yeah, that makes sense. She might only be two, but that's perfect. Yep. So the fake accounts, and it's really, it's trained into you. And that's one of those things you look back on

and 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 buoy 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? Oh, yuck. 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 gets a little bit of a kick out of being like, hold on, but didn't you say X, Y, Z 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. If we ever found out that somebody in our business was creating fake profiles, we would absolutely 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 it, 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 where they'll say, oh, no, that's illegal. We've never allowed 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 and 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, team, that's where 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 are starting to sound less like opportunities and more like, well, expensive hobbies. But my friend, here'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 in arguably 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 the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money

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