Page 51 - Marie Claire Australia (January 2020)

AUSTRALIAN REPORT
TS the same suburb and paid cash for an
off-road caravan, in which she plans to
D FAC 99% year. Yesterday she didn’t feel like
travel around Australia within the next
OF ALL MLM
working, so she drove to Byron Bay
DISTRIBUTORS
with a friend and spent the day at
R LOSE MONEY the beach whale watching. As one
of the top doTERRA leaders in the
A country, she’s been on incentive trips
to the Caribbean, Lake Como in Italy
D H and on safari in Kenya. Jessie credits
her success to believing in herself.
“I’ve continued to show up and build
THE COL 75% “When I started, I didn’t want to
confidence in myself,” she says.
piss around; I wanted to work hard
OF DIRECT
and create a foundation of residual
SELLERS IN
income and a real life of freedom.”
AUSTRALIA
Living in a beachside mansion,
ARE WOMEN
working 10 hours a week and earning
$2250 for each of them sounds
appealing. And all you have to do is
believe in yourself? But Jessie is in
the one per cent of people who make
INDEPENDENT money from MLM businesses. What
CONSULTANTS AT sets her apart from the other 99 per
ARBONNE EARN cent of people who lose money? “I’ve
worked my arse off to get where I am,”
AN AVERAGE OF
she says. “[The people who don’t make
$908 money] don’t treat it like a serious
business. There’s always people in
life who don’t get where they want
A YEAR, to, because their effort does not
match their expectations.”
OR $75 A MONTH, When Jessie says doTERRA isn’t
OR $18 A WEEK, a pyramid scheme “because pyramid
OR $0.49 AN schemes are illegal”, she speaks with
HOUR FOR conviction, but her words feel like
A 38-HOUR they’ve been copied and pasted from
a well-rehearsed script. She is unfazed
WORK WEEK
when people criticise her business: “I
don’t give a shit. I’m not crying into my
money. I’m too busy living my best life
while they’re working in a job they
hate, making a tenth of what I make.”
DOTERRA’S
MOST EXPENSIVE or the 99 per cent of people
OIL, MELISSA who lose money on these
OFFICINALIS, COSTS schemes, the anti-MLM
$310 F enough. In the US, dozens of
revolution can’t come soon
people have filed lawsuits against
leggings MLM LuLaRoe, as former
FOR 5ML sellers face bankruptcy. In October,
the US Federal Trade Commission
ruled that a Texas-based nutritional
supplement MLM, AdvoCare, was an
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ILKA & FRANZ. IT COSTS saying AdvoCare promised its
illegal pyramid scheme and ordered it
to pay an AU $217 million settlement,
distributors “a life-changing financial
$129
solution that would allow any ordinary
TO BECOME
person to earn unlimited income, attain
A YOUNIQUE
financial freedom and quit their regular
PRESENTER
job”. Instead, the majority of members
either made nothing or lost money.
Former distributors who’ve seen
online, once their hunting ground. The
the light are now finding solidarity
anti-MLM subreddit has half a million
subscribers, and there are thousands of
about their dodgy practices and taking
Facebook groups dedicated to venting
the piss out of so-called “hun bots”.
Amy, who’s in her late 40s, became a
part of The Anti-MLM Coalition after
a negative experience with SeneGence.
She spent $11,000 on products in five
the “cult”. “I was involved in a religious
months in 2017, before cutting ties with
cult in my youth and SeneGence started
to feel very cult-like to me,” she says. “It
was the same brainwashing, systems
of control and influence.”
Now, Amy is one of the main
members of The Anti-MLM Coalition,
which has more than 6000 followers
on Facebook and offers support for
those personally affected by MLMs,
and also lobbies for legislative change.
Amy says they get regular messages
from distressed loved ones who have
lost their daughter/wife/friend to an
MLM, looking for resources and advice.
“Our main goal is education. We want
to encourage people to look for the red
flags and be sceptical,” she says. If it
looks likes a cult, sounds like a cult and
feels like a cult, it’s probably a cult.
O Sullivan’s advice to women
charmed by the promise of extra
money and empowerment is to use
critical thinking. “Nobody would
say no to extra money, but be very
careful if someone can’t provide hard
numbers, a business plan or, in some
cases, won’t tell you the name of the
company,” she says. “Remember,
99 per cent of people in these
businesses lose money.”
Back in rural Victoria, Nikki says
she’s done. “Oh God, no!” is her
response when asked if she’ll ever sign
up for another MLM scheme. All of the
women marie claire spoke to (except
Jessie) shared the same dire warning to
women thinking about signing up to an
MLM scheme: “Don’t do it. Run away.”
If Nikki sees one of her friends
hinting at joining an MLM, she
jumps on them. “Please don’t put
yourself or your family through that,”
and on the hardest chapter of her life.
she pleads, finally closing the door
to her rumpus room full of boxes,
marie claire contacted all of
the MLM companies mentioned in
this story for comment, and only
doTERRA responded.