There is nothing I hate more than being solicited to participate in a pyramid scheme. What is a pyramid scheme? Here’s how it works. Someone sells you products, and then you try to sell them to your family and friends. You can also make more money by recruiting other sellers and getting a cut of the profit they make. Sounds easy, right? No. You need to pass GO and not collect $200 the next time someone tries to recruit you to listen to one of these “amazing” moneymaking opportunities.
Social media has allowed everyone to feel connected to people when they haven’t talked to or seen that person since only God knows when. I’ve had so many people from different walks of my life solicit me for one of their pyramid schemes. It’s annoying and it’s hard to delicately say ‘no’ without hurting anyone’s feelings.
Let’s take the guy I went to college with who notices that I travel all the time and thinks that I would be a good fit for his travel and vacation club, WorldVenture. I use the term ‘club’ loosely. My initial inclination was that I wasn’t going to be interested at all. But since I don’t have the ability to say no sometimes, I said yes to hear what he was talking about. He invited me to watch a video and to have a conference call afterward. Two minutes into the video I realize it’s a pyramid scheme. I close out of it and avoid his phone calls to talk about the club for days. I honestly didn’t know what to say to him. How do you tell someone that their side hustle is a scheme?
Next, it’s the folks that live and breathe Herbalife. I have a relative who’s whole social media feed is dedicated to the weight loss cult. Is it really that great? Don’t get me wrong, his body is in amazing shape. But I’m not buying it. I even had an ex who tried to enlist me into Herbalife and then got mad when I politely declined. I did a little research and learned that the company has been sued over and over again. Also, 99.92% of the sellers lose their money. The odds are NOT in your favor if you try to hawk this brand.
A while ago, I got a Facebook direct message from a person that I graduated with from high school. We hadn’t really spoken since high school aside from the occasional ‘likes’ on each other’s posts. But let’s be real, we weren’t that cool in high school either. So I was very surprised to get a message from her saying that she had just started a new venture with Rodan+Field’s and was looking for some folks to join her team. Just to give you a little background, Rodan and Fields is a skin care line developed by two Dermatologists, Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields. You may remember them from their Proactiv line. The brand launched on QVC but it is now concentrating on pyramid schemes multi-level direct selling through consultants. I don’t doubt that the products are good because Proactive is the truth but I’m not here for the way they are marketing it.
Although I’ve worked in sales for as long as I can remember, I have never been one that enjoys soliciting folks to buy a product. When I was in college I did telemarketing (one of the very few jobs available on campus) where I did inbound calls. I never made outbound calls. Meaning, I would take down pledges of folks for the local public access channel. I would never cold call anyone. I told them before I was hired that I wasn’t comfortable calling strangers and soliciting products. They liked me and let me do outbound calls.
I’ve finally developed a strategy for whenever I’m solicited to join in on a pyramid scheme. I always respond with, “If success is so certain, why don’t you buy my way in?” It stops folks dead in their tracks. They honestly don’t know how to respond. And I get off without having them pleading with me to join whatever they are selling.
Have you ever been propositioned to participate in a pyramid scheme? If so, how did you handle it?
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Wearing: Wearing: Forever 21 High Waist Denim (similar) | Charlotte Russe Denim Shirt | Dillards Antonio Melani Red Pumps (similar).
5 comments
You say: “Social media has allowed everyone to feel connected to people when they haven’t talked to or seen that person since only God knows when.” – I will go further to say that the low barrier to creating a platform on the internet as also created an opportunity for ignorant talk (I mean that in the most respectable of ways)
A pyramid scheme is different from Multi-Level Marketing. Multi-Level Marketing is a business model that some companies choose to use for promoting their company.
I sell you something legal (i.e Membership to a Travel Club) that allows you to go on Holiday at Wholesale price instead of Retail Price, Kindly tell me what is wrong in that?
If I go further to say, hey if you want to refer it to other people you can get financially compensated for doing that. Do you want to do it as a business? — Kindly tell me what is wrong in that?
Multi Level Marketing (also known as Network marketing) is a legitimate business model that has been used for hundred’s of years. It works in England where I live and in many countries around the world. It is not going anywhere soon. Why? because it is the most unselfish concept ever invented in a Capitalist world.
How was Twitter, Facebook and Instagram built? Friends Telling Friends? How much were we paid for referring to our friends? Zero!
It is more that just making money, it breeds friendship through positive interaction and also has a side to it called personal development. So I suggest you educate yourself first before using the opportunity to write things on the internet to spew ignorant views.
I bet you run a pyramid scheme.
I was thinking the same thing. ?
I could not agree with you more. I feel used and misled when I’m contacted by someone from earlier chapters of my life, only to discover it’s only because they want to “share a business opportunity” with me. I had the exact same experience with an old HS acquaintance who contacted me via Instagram about Rodan + Fields. I love your line for getting them to back off. ? I’ll have to use that next time.
There’s a fine line between what’s a legitimate business opportunity and what’s a pyramid scheme. Think of a traditional business, you have CEOs, Executives, Senior Managements, Middle Management, Supervisors, and your Workers. And each level as you go further down has more and more people. Almost what you would describe as a pyramid. And usually the CEOs take away a huge salary while the workers just barely make it. That’s how most businesses work.
Perhaps the only difference is that most businesses focus on an actual product. The workers are told, do well at building and selling the product, and you can move to the top.
This is where bad representatives give the scheme a bad name – they tell representatives to recruit more representatives to move to the top.
Which detracts the goal away from the actual business of delivering a valuable service to customers. That’s where a lot of the resentment lies.