“Sketchy, Clearly Unethical, and Clearly a Scam” – A Professional Network Marketer Responds
Should you believe the people who call Network Marketing a scam? Here’s what “Kylie” (an outspoken “anti” network marketer) says. Watch this…
She makes a big, bold statement and says she’s going to prove it. So today we’re going to give her a shot. I’ll show you her side, and then I’ll give you my side. And in the end, you make the call.
Here is her entire quote, because I want to make sure you get the full context of what she’s talking about.
“Ever since I became anti-MLM definitively, I’ve been trying to articulate why I don’t like these things because instinctively and intuitively, I know they’re sketchy… Something doesn’t feel right. They’re clearly unethical and they’re clearly a scam. So what are those things? Because beyond saying it’s a scam and beyond saying it feels shady, I need to articulate why. And I think that I’ve pinpointed one of the reasons. And today we’re going to look at why I think that they’re very shady. We’ve gone over a couple of those, but one of the main reasons is that it seems like the uplines — the people at the top — the people who make all the money, the people who got in five years ago, three years ago (if it’s a newer MLM), those people don’t seem to be doing anything. And just seems like they’re kind of barking orders at people, and their little cronies, and the people at the bottom are doing all the work, killing themselves to make sales…”
Okay, you get the gist of her big, bold statement, right? She’s saying the business model is “sketchy, clearly unethical and clearly a scam.”
And then she goes into the old argument about “the people at the top who make all the money” (which I’ve covered in another video), “the people who got in five years ago who don’t seem to be doing anything… She’s saying it seems like they’re barking orders at people in their little cronies and people at the bottom are doing all the work, killing themselves to make sales.
That sounds awful, right? Do you see the imagery she’s painting with her words? Those horrible people, relaxing in their mansions, sipping a cocktail by the pool, barking orders at their poor bondservants and peons, yelling at them to work harder?
She’s manipulating you, and I’ll show you how.
Instead of just making her point, she sprinkles in a common manipulation technique to sway you to her side. She “pre-framed” you.
What is a pre-frame?
Pre-framing is a powerful psychological tool that allows someone to control or manipulate the conversation. It can be used for good or bad purposes.
Let’s say that you were to tell me, “Hey, I want to introduce you to someone. He’s my business partner. He’s made eight figures in business, and I’m honored to be working with him right now on a new project…”
That would be a pre-frame, a positive one. If you told me that, I would probably say, “Oh, wow. I’m going to listen to this.”
Now let’s say that you walked through Kylie’s pre-frame…
“Hey, so I’ve got this guy and he’s… you know, he’s clearly sketchy, he’s clearly unethical. He’s clearly a scammer. And he’s going to show you a skewed business model.”
That would be a negative pre-frame. And that’s what she just did for you, so that you already are looking for negative reinforcement. That’s her trick. That’s all it is.
(This is a common technique used by anti-network marketing people. Check out my video about how networking got a bad reputation, where I go through all the tricks the mainstream media uses, their trigger words and all of that stuff.)
Clearly, We Know Her Game
Did you notice how many times she uses words like “clearly”?
Over and over, she says “clearly” a scam, “clearly” unethical. Clearly this, obviously that.
She’s implying that any rational person is obviously going to agree with her. And if you don’t agree, you must be crazy. You must be part of the problem. Again, this is psychological manipulation — the same technique employed by the mass media.
The Real Definition of Network Marketing
As someone who has done this business legally, ethically, and morally for 32 years, let me define network marketing for you.
Network marketing is a partnership. That’s all that it is.
You choose a network marketing company based on their products, compensation plan, their policies and procedures, their culture, their training, and the value of your sponsor.
It’s a partnership — sort of like affiliate marketing. Affiliates are just people who market somebody else’s product and receive a commission for the sales they produce. The difference is that in affiliate marketing, the offers are a little more temporary, and you typically don’t own the customer. (More on this in a moment…)
What do I mean by saying the offers are more temporary? I’m saying that when you see someone promoting an affiliate product, you don’t know how devoted they are to the channel. You don’t know how devoted they are to the product. Many affiliates promote a whole slew of different products. And sadly, for some affiliates, maybe it doesn’t matter where the product comes from, so long as it makes money.
In contrast, network marketing companies and their reps (partners) tend to be much more heading in a specific direction with a known battle cry. For example, many network marketing companies are very strict with their ingredients and insist on higher quality, even if it costs a little more.
And then there’s the culture of the company, the training, and the value of the sponsor… Some people join network marketing just because a friend recommended it. Others join because they find a sponsor who really knows how to educate and train them and support them on their way to profitability.
Remember, this is a partnership. So we’ve also got to talk about the corporate site — the network marketing company themselves. What do they do for their end of the deal? In a nutshell, they provide everything else you need to be in business. They provide the products, the raw materials, manufacturing, branding, warehousing, shipping, returns, accounting, customer service, and even open up new countries to do business in.
Those are all vital pieces of the business, but they’re pieces I don’t want to do.
I’d rather be on the customer acquisition side of the business, because that’s where your greatest potential comes. I get paid very well to use my marketing and networking skills to acquire customers for the company I partner with. And you can do the same thing as a rep.
What Do Network Marketing Reps Do?
Reps are just the customer acquisition arm of a network marketing company. Instead of spending their advertising dollars on celebrity endorsements and TV commercials, they take that same money and pay people like you and me.
Reps acquire customers and assist them in getting results. And may I add that we own the customer!
So, to pick up our discussion from a moment ago, if you do affiliate marketing, most of the time you don’t own the customer. If you do Amazon marketing, you don’t own the customer. Amazon does. That’s a big deal, because when it’s time for them to reorder, you get paid again, not Amazon.
So far, nothing we’ve talked about makes network marketing any different from any other business. So far, this is all pretty standard stuff.
But there is one thing that does set us apart, and it’s this…
Reps can acquire other reps and provide them training. That’s all it is.
Some people like Kylie say it’s unethical that we recruit other reps. But consider that every business recruits! Universities recruit. Sports teams recruit. Churches recruit. Businesses have to recruit employees — that’s the job of an HR department. So recruiting itself is not unique.
Salary or Commission? The only remaining issue.
In a traditional business that offers you a salary, you typically don’t get any “upside” — meaning you don’t get to partake in the profits you brought to the company. If they double their profits, you don’t see another dime.
If you’re in corporate sales, maybe they’ll give you a one-time commission, plus a base salary, but that’s about it as far as recurring profit sharing from the work you do.
Let’s contrast that with network marketing, where they say, we’re not going to give you a salary, but instead we’re going to give you a huge upside potential. If you can produce sales volume, you can earn substantially more than any employee ever could.
Those are the fundamental differences in the offer. To recap:
- We acquire customers and assist them in getting results. And we get paid a recurring commission on the products they buy, for life.
- We can get additional reps and train them.
That’s the only thing that is different. So in my view, what she said is false, so far. But let’s continue on this thread…
If it’s a partnership, and we acquire the customers and the reps, and we own the customers… we do still have to perform actions that result in us earning commissions. So, what are those actions? Maybe that’s what’s scammy. Let’s look deeper…
How Do You Get Customers in Network Marketing?
Here’s how we make money… We do something called “the pipeline“, which means we facilitate the customer journey, from them being unaware, to becoming a lead, to a happy customer.
Incidentally, this is what every business in the world does also. The pipeline is not unique to network marketing.
We have to generate leads, and Kylie even does too.
(How does she generate leads? She generates leads by making YouTube videos bashing network marketing. Every video she does is to generate leads and followers.)
Then the next steps… contact, appointment, do a presentation…
A lot of times on the internet, you never see this portion of it. So let’s pick a simple example — pretend you’re an attorney.
You might run an ad on the radio for a free legal information kit, and people call you to get it. On that call, you inquire about their legal needs, and offer to set an appointment to talk with them about it. Then you’re going to give them some sort of presentation — it could be a video, could be a Zoom, could be lunch, could be another conversation on the phone where you pitch your services to help them. You follow up the next day, and if they say yes, then you’ve got a customer. And you serve that customer and you make money because you served the customer.
Every business in the world works that way.
Network marketing is no different in the actions we do to get customers.
The Only Difference Between Network Marketing and Other Businesses
We’ve already established that every company must recruit if they want to grow. Network marketing is no different in that regard, either.
What’s left? We talked about how the pay structure is commission-only. But you know, there are a lot of people in different industries who work on commission only for one reason or another, usually because that allows them to share in the profits.
And so, from Kylie’s quote, that “sketchy, clearly unethical, and clearly a scam” is not very ‘clearly’ anymore, is it?
The only thing we do that is different from any other business — one simple thing — is that we can recruit another person and train them.
Is recruiting sketchy? Because the Human Resources department in any company has the job of recruiting people. They literally receive a salary for recruiting.
In our business, we recruit people, and it’s commission only. That is the only difference. That does not make it a scam. It’s not sketchy. It’s not unethical.
A person could be unethical, but not an industry. That’s where it comes down to having proper training, so you can run your business like a professional.
So that was a mouthful that Kylie said there, and I think it’s valuable for you to see how I respond to her jabs and accusations. She has the right to her opinion, but her statements are false.
In the next video, we’re gonna dig into the rest of her statement — this idea that “you had to get in five years ago” and people barking orders, calling them cronies and all of that stuff. Stay tuned — It’s gonna be good.
Last thing — comment down below and let me know… Do you feel as though what she just said is accurate? That it’s a scam? That it’s sketchy? That it’s “clearly” unethical? You know my opinion, but I’d love to hear your thoughts…
P.S. If you don’t have a team, haven’t recruited anyone (or less than 10 people), this is THE course you should get – Network Marketing Training Course
