It's a pyramid scheme because that's what the media and other uneducated people will tell you and so we all believe it. I myself have gotten great results on Herbalife and so have the people I've also turned the products on to. They are happy and are enjoy the shakes and everything else and that means a lot more to me than the money. Like everything with building a business it will take hard work to make some money.
Herbalife has been in business for 34 years and in 94 countries around the world so if they were doing something dishonest or illegal, they probably would have been brought down long ago.
Haha, these are like word for word the standard evasions and defenses for MLMs. #WakeUpNow
Let's go bit by bit:
"It's just the media and uneducated people telling you this" - no, typically it's experience with other MLMs. Once you've seen a few and know how they generally work, it's pretty easy to spot them. You didn't use one of the other standard defenses, that this isn't really a pyramid scheme because blah blah the legal definition of pyramid scheme. But I'll throw in my response to that one free of charge: colloquially, the phrase refers to a business model where you keep bringing in new people at the bottom and filtering money upwards, by essentially promising the people at the bottom that they're going to make a lot of money once they start bringing in people below them in the pyramid. That's how all of these MLM companies work.
"I've gotten great results and so have other people" - sure, it's entirely possible that the products you're selling in your MLM are decent and work as advertised, it's just that they're guaranteed to be overpriced. They have to be, to support the monstrosity that is the pyramid structure of the organization. If the product was actually great and reasonably priced, they wouldn't need to have this ridiculous pyramid, they'd just, you know, sell it like normal people.
"Like any business it takes hard work" - yes, if you actually started your own business it would be hard work, much like how making any money on the bottom rungs of an MLM is hard work. One key difference is that if you started your own business, you wouldn't be funneling money upwards to other people. Another is that starting your own business doesn't typically result in you burning your entire friend list and becoming a cult evangelist on Facebook.
"They've been in business so long!" or "Donald Trump supports it, it can't be bad!" - MLM companies are usually carefully structured so as to get around minor legal problems like, you know, essentially being pyramid schemes. Just because they've been around for a while doesn't mean they're not bad. Amway/Quixtar has been around a while too.
Anyway. From my experience with friends and family falling into this, it'll probably be a while before you realize that you're not making money, that most other people who seem to be making money aren't either, that there's really nothing special about the product, and then finally bail. Just remember that, at that future date, it's ok to admit that you made a mistake! We all fall for this kind of thing at one time or another. And if you look back on the things you said and thought during the time you were in the program and cringe, then hold that feeling close--you won't fall for one of these things again.
