My Personal Experience With MLM

My 1st MLM experience with an MLM home based business...

I was a new college graduate during a recession. I had just graduated with a B.A. in Psychology. I was living with my Mom looking for a job. It was tough. Jobs were few and far between, and I had no "real world" work experience. (I had worked as a bar tender, and 5 summers at a summer camp.) I had just learned how to write a resume and I had taken an interview tips course. I was looking for any type of job, but legitimate work at home jobs were very appealing. This is the story of my first encounter with a MLM home based business.

I saw an ad in the classifieds for Management Trainee's. I had been a student manager in college, I could do this. I called, and was told to show up for my "interview" on Wednesday evening at 7:00 p.m. Odd, but what did I know?

It turned out that about 40 other people also showed up for interviews in the hotel conference room. We were taken inside and shown a "rah, rah" slide show. This slide show went through the company history and then showed us all of the ultra-wealthy people who had joined the company and accumulated their wealth in a short amount of time. These were men and women in wearing diamonds, on the golf course, or in front of their Jaguar™ or Mercedes-Benz™. These people did not have special education, training or skills, they were just ordinary people who simply talked about the product, and the money came rolling in. These people told their friends, who told their friends and many of those folks saw the golden opportunity and joined the company. Recruiting was so easy.

We were shown a man who (supposedly) went from being homeless to a multi-millionaire. Why would we want to work for someone else when we could work for ourselves? Why would we want to be part of the low-paying rat race when we had the opportunity to promote ourselves and be like these other folks who had made millions?

The product was a water filter system. They told us that the specualation was every household in America would be required by law to have a water filter within the next 5-10 years. We were sitting on an opportunity ready to explode.

I was convinced. I wanted to become wealthy and retire by the age of 30. I signed up and bought 2 water filters (the minimum to become a distributor). Now, I had to sell them and recruit. The problem was that I knew NO ONE but my Mom. I had moved to a different part of the state after college. "No worries," I was told. "Many of our distributors go door-to-door. Heck, one of our most successful distributors cold calls people out of the white pages. You can do it!"

I went home super excited, telling my Mom all about my opportunity to make it big. She was very empathic and supportive (but secretly upset). I told her I was going to go door-to-door the next day. She let me practice my script over and over with her.

I really did not want to go next door, but what choice did I have? The next day, I dressed in professional attire and started knocking on neighbors doors. Most would not answer, and if they did they politely declined to listen. However, one lady was kind enough to let me into her kitchen to demonstrate the filter. She actually bought it from me! That was my first day of door-to-door and my last day. I gave my Mom the other water filter.

My 2nd MLM experience.

My 3rd MLM experience.

My last MLM experience.