Dear Friends, Family and Strangers on the internet my up-line said to cold message,
This is for you. Know that if I had your address I would personally drop a line in the mail to every single one of you. I am sorry.
Full disclosure, I am still part of the MLM I signed up for in January of 2015. And while I am no longer active in the day to day business activities, I still use the products daily because they really are amazing. I also spent 3 years building a business and like the DMs promise, residual income is real (if you make it) and until someone wants to buy my business I’ll cash that check monthly.
My Work History: How I Chose to Work for an MLM
I worked in sales for 10 years until I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter. I knew the two+ hour commute and 10-hour workday wasn’t going to fly with two kids at home. Plus this wasn’t how I imagined my motherhood journey would look like. My mom was a stay at home mom and my dad was the CEO of a billion-dollar company. As much as you hate to hear it, you will turn into your parents. And thankfully I had two parents that were so different in terms of work experience that allowed me to craft my vision in my head. In typical millennial fashion, I want it all. Somehow, I was going to be a CEO while SAHM. Well that sounds easy, right?
I retired from the workforce while 6 months pregnant with my last baby. I wanted to spend time with my firstborn and I needed help figuring out how to do this gig full time before I was entrusted with two. I’m not sure I had ever put B down for a nap by this time. So those early days resulted in a lot of text to her daycare workers to see how to put my child down for a nap. #ittakesavillage.
This time at home before the birth of C was the first time I considered an MLM. My friend reached out to me and I remember being intrigued but overwhelmed and not wanting to take away from the time I had at home so I put her on the back burner and said: “not now.”
Sales 101: The Fortune is in the Follow-Up.
This isn’t personal this is just how sales work. Once you are spoken to you are added to a follow-up queue. Just like in advertising, so many impressions create a sale. So many reach outs produce a customer or business partner. I get it and I’m fine with it. So I remember hearing from my friend again about six months after C’s birth. It was January. #newyearnewyou was all over the place. C was still not sleeping and apparently colic was just part of her DNA so I adjusted to my new normal. One of the husband’s infamous quotes is “its just money, we can make more tomorrow.” While we aren’t independently wealthy, we have always been smart. When we both worked full time we lived off one salary knowing I would eventually want to come home. Regardless, at this time, $1k seemed like a lot. And it was him on the other end of the phone that pushed me towards the MLM dark side. So maybe he should be writing this.
It is just money and if we don’t try things, regrets happen. And at the end of my life, regrets hurt so much more than the money invested. So I was officially a full-time MLM promoter. All the promises that sold me of being able to work with my kids 5 hours a week in my pjs and retire my husband was about to come true. Something you must know about me, I typically go big or go home. If I am going to do anything (besides diet and exercise) I am probably going to put my all into it. Because of those regrets again. I don’t want to look back and think I didn’t give it my all.
This is where my apologies start “If you follow the lead of the successful people in front of you, you too will be successful” The messages I sent, they were copy and pasted. They weren’t personalized. It was quantity over quality because, at the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. Day one, they were saying “reach out to ten people.” Everyone needed the product I am selling so the more people you reached out to, the more your business will grow. Let me remind you, I still use and love these products and promise you won’t find a better eye cream, lash serum, or PM cream around. This ISN’T apologizing for selling you products. This is apologizing for entering your DM uninvited and word vomiting a script so impersonally. And forgetting successful sales comes from relationship building not door to door sales.
Now that I am out of the haze of a MLM and have received these same DMs, VM, and texts I cringe at the thought that I did this to you. It feels yucky and impersonal. Like I’m just another name on a spreadsheet (oh wait I am). So I am sorry. I do genuinely love connecting with people from my past. I love seeing your children, travels, engagements, job changes, OOTD, momfails, etc. I want to continue to keep in touch. So if you have blocked me, please unblock me. I promise I won’t come knocking on your DM door with knives at dinnertime.
And for the new MLMer, please for the love of God, realize that what the people above you are telling you is for their growth, not necessarily yours. The more you sell the less they have to. The more you hustle, the less they have to. Seriously stop and look, are your team leaders doing the same thing they are telling you to do. Probably not.
To make one thing clear, if I could rewrite my past and change the fact that I signed up for a Network Marketing company, would I? Absolutely not! If it weren’t for that network marketing company I’m not sure I would have had the tools to create Modern Day Moguls. My legit dream job. So let’s call this post one in a series. And I’ll follow this up with why I am forever grateful for my decision to become a MLM #bossbabe
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