Multi Level Marketing for travellers – Ethics not Required.

 multilevel marketing noun: multi-level marketing

1. the practice of selling goods or services on behalf of a company in a system whereby participants receive commission on their sales as well as the sales of any participants they recruit .”many people promote multilevel marketing as a way to get rich quick” Also known as Network Marketing

It’s been a while since we’ve posted about finances, but we are seeing quite a few people doing the Multi Level Marketing thing and it has been raised in quite a few conversations with other travellers recently. We believe we should use our influence to speak out about it and warn others in hope to make a difference.  Personally both Amanda and My (Daniel’s) mothers when we were growing up were involved in a few Multi Level Marketing schemes, and neither of them had the money to spare really.  This was pre-internet days, thankfully now we are all so much more connected that we can see and spread information easily about these schemes. We are NOT involved in any MLMs, Pyramid or Network Marketing schemes in any way.

Our Goal writing this article is to prevent people looking for a solution to make money on the road, from buying into this MLM, because we don’t want to see you lose money. We do not want to cause a war on the topic, we are just trying to be helpful in awareness of the facts.

We aren’t going to make any friends in the MLM travelling circles from this post, but it’s important for us to get it out there, especially after we saw a popular Youtube Family have recently joined up to this scheme and have started promoting it. We aren’t going to name any names, but quite a few of the bigger travellers are involved with a particular Water Maker scheme.

What’s the difference between a Pyramid Scheme and Multi Level (Or Network) Marketing?

A Pyramid Scheme is illegal, and basically has no actual product that’s being sold. MLM or Network marketing involves an actual product or service that is being sold, with commissions paid in a ‘pyramid shape’. I am not saying at all that the Water Filters being sold by these travellers are a Pyramid Scheme. The Water Filters do exist as an actual product. A few examples of other MLM’s off the top of my head – Amway, Thermomix, Herbalife, ISAgenix and Nutrimetics, along with a few less reputable ones, such as Kangen, Kayani and Younique.

Is it a Scam?

That’s the million dollar question! A Scam is a Dishonest or fraudulent scheme. Most of these MLM’s aren’t Fraudulent – They advertise a product, you pay money and you get the product. However the products benefits are usually questionable, the products are generally severely overpriced compared to other options (because they pay so much commission to their sales structures) and they all promise you financial freedom through creating your own online business, which is absolutely dishonest, so YES, *I* think they are scams.

There are a lot of emotive words used in the sales pitch, but the basic premise is that you can 

“Build your fortune and have a free and independent lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of while only working part time!” 

Doesn’t that sound great? In the travelling space, there are a lot of people that would love to extend their travels by earning money on the road, and a lot of people who would like to get on the road in the first place but can’t afford it. Most people have heard that travelling full time around Australia costs about $1000 a week, which is pretty accurate.  (Maybe $1100 with inflation, right!)

Spotting the scam

And so people start searching for ways to make money on the road, or while travelling full time. You might follow someone, and they look like they have the dream life that you want to have, and you ask them how and they say they’ve sent you a PM. Sometimes they can be secretive about it, and sometimes they are open about it.

Generally Facebook group admins are pretty good at stopping posts that promote MLM’s. A lot of people that are involved with MLM’s focus on building a travel brand first, before trying the hard sell.

A sure fire way to spot someone that has started with an MLM is something like (shamelessly stolen from someone we follow) –

MY BUSINESS GOALS AHHHH…. I am just so excited and so pumped to start this new faze of my online biz! So much is happening right now and I’m so ready for it all! Stepping it up, getting uncomfortable, scheduling in more time for my training, personal development, mapping out new goals and working out the path to get there, more accountability, helping more families, more women, more men, live a life of freedom and balance! Ahhhhh yesssss Bring it on!! I really bloody love my job. If your ready to live a life of more financial freedom, more time with your kids or you just want more time to do the things you love, then honestly this is for you! Just flick me a message or comment “BRING IT ON” below! It really is that easy!

REMEMBER – Our Goal writing this article is to prevent people looking for a solution to make money on the road, from buying into this MLM, because we don’t want to see you lose money!

But can you make money with MLM’s?

The facts and figures don’t support it, in fact 97.7% of people that join MLM’s end up losing money and fail to make back their initial investment. We certainly couldn’t ethically sign up other people to become distributors in an MLM.

An Exception – There are some MLM’s (Like Do’terra, Tupperware or Mary Kay) where you can make money simply selling the product. If you are involved in an MLM and only sell the product and aren’t trying to sign up more people to distribute, then good on you, I don’t have a problem with your business. Most of these MLM’s you can only make real money by signing up people to distribute under you though.

Kangen Water – The current MLM doing the rounds in travelling circles

I’ll focus now on this particular MLM, as it’s rife in travelling circles.

The Kangen® 8 is Enagic®’s most powerful antioxidant machine – featuring 8 platinum-dipped titanium plates for improved water ionization and increased antioxidant production potential.

Kangen Water

I’ll start by dropping this article which is well written by an actual scientist – https://skeptoid.com/episodes/413
I’m not qualified to state whether there are or aren’t any health benefits to the water, but from what I have read from actual, qualified experts, The health claims are completely untrue.

I’d prefer to stick to the financial side, because numbers are pretty easy. You will statistically lose money by joining Kangen Water.

Kangen Water Financials

What more is there to say other than the below, quoted directly from Kangen USA.

In 2020, fifty percent (50%) of Enagic distributors made more than $440, and the other half
made less. Sixty six percent (66%) of all Enagic distributors made less than $1,000 in 2020

Enagic (Kangen) USA Earnings Disclosure Statement ($USD)

This is going to ruffle feathers, but if you are ethically comfortable signing other people dreaming of a travelling lifestyle up to a $6,000 – $13,000 machine package that electrolyzes water, then you may become one of the 1.75% of distributors who make more money than they spent. Do you have it in you to promote a scam like this in order to fund your own lifestyle? If the answer is yes then you may indeed make money.

https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/mlms-are-not-the-answer-if-you-need-money/100006992

https://medium.com/@jamesw1956/the-scam-that-pays-93e6ae9a0a35

The Little Yellow Pill (LifeVantage, Protandim, Flip The Switch)

Yay, another travelling MLM to debunk. I am sad when I see these, as I just see people getting scammed and funding someone else’s travels. The main people selling this dream are Free, and they are exploring.

Protandim (The little yellow pill) is a herbal dietary supplement marketed with unsupported claims that it can treat a number of medical conditions. The product is a patented mix of five herbal ingredients and sold by LifeVantage Corporation (formerly LifeLine Therapeutics, Lifeline Nutraceuticals, and Yaak River Resources, Inc), a Utah-based multi-level marketing company. The manufacturers of Protandim claim it can prevent or cure a wide variety of medical conditions, including diabetes and cancer. In 2017, LifeVantage was issued a warning letter by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding illegal advertising claims on the company’s websites suggesting that Protandim can help to cure various ailments, including cancer and diabetes.

Again, I am not going to go into the medical claims, since I am not qualified, but I will drop a few links to qualified people who think it’s garbage.

So once again, I will go straight to the financials. How convenient that the US forces them to publish this data.

79% of their US distributors earned $5 USD a month, likely from their own spending. The next 11.3% earned an average of $58 USD a month, again, likely from their own spend.

Here are the kind of amazing motivational promotions from the company that you can expect when you are a distributor for them.

What you will notice is that a lot of emphasis is placed on recruiting other suckers (Ooops I mean business startups) to ‘help’ distribute more Magic Pills that stop ageing.

Not everybody is Evil

Not everyone who is involved with these schemes is a “Bad Person”™ A lot of people get sucked into the sales pitch and either believe in the health benefits of the scheme, or believe that they WILL become financially independent from selling Water Machines or Pills to someone else. In fact, we have personally met a few and they are definitely not bad people, they are just part of the 99.7% that won’t likely make back more than their initial ‘investment’ because they have ethics.

The people that are involved in these schemes that convince you to buy in under them, are making themselves richer, putting themselves higher in the pyramid. Ask yourself are they the people you want to respect, associate with, have as your mentor and have in our travelling community?

REMEMBER – Our Goal writing this article is to prevent people looking for a solution to make money on the road, from buying into this MLM, because we don’t want to see you lose money!

So, how can you make money on the road?

Here is a link to our other article we have written detailing all the ways we think you can actually make money on the road, from easiest to hardest.