Friends Selling Friends?

From cleaning supplies to chocolate to financial and legal advice, I have lost many friends to the wave of MLM’s (Multi-Level Marketing companies) that have sprung up for every product and service imaginable.

Seminars I have attended have touted this as the ultimate business model to capitalize on our increasingly social-network-based economy. However, while the numbers are always shown with a sparkle and the words “residual income” have replaced “401K” as the recommended retirement plan, there is one unstated – yet disastrous – drawback to this approach.

Friends Selling Friends

It’s not quite Orwell’s Big Brother phenomenon where we were prophesized to tell the government secrets about our intimate friends.

Yet, I see it as similarly insidious. 

Instead, we recruit our friends, using peer pressure structured as impressive sales presentations and our genuine intention to help to involve those closest to us in something we ourselves have bought into.  The “best” part is, there always is a continued cost.

Personal Experience

I know this better than many.  I have been involved in two different MLM companies, and I have lost friends from both sides of the fence. 

I have been the “helpful friend” who called a contact one too many times to follow up on a presentation at the insistence of my upline (the one who suckered me into the deal and whose job it was to keep me with – and on – the program).  Years later, I still have yet to get some of these friends to answer my calls or emails.

I am also now the one who keeps a mental list and screens calls from all those who have been bitten by the MLM bug. If I could know whether they were calling because of our friendship, I might answer.  Unfortunately, I have gotten caught too many times with their latest sales pitch.  Have you ever been called by a friend between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m., where by the background noise you would think they had started a side job at a call center?  That’s always a clue to plead poor cell reception and “drop” the call before they can begin pulling the friend card…

Live and Let Live

I respect people’s desire to make their place in the world financially and socially. I just wish that my own friends would know me well enough to know that a verbal script or slick video slideshow won’t win me over… or at least respect that when I say no, I mean no.  

And, when I get the feeling they value me based on who I know vs. who I am, I mentally send them well wishes while making sure I have all their information tagged in my phone as “do not answer”… at least until they come out the other side of their MLM adventure.

Ms. Dewberry, an accomplished cellist, completed her DMA in Chamber Music Performance from UCLA in December 2005. She received her MM in Cello Performance from UCLA in June 2002 and her B.M. in Cello Performance from Western Michigan University in April 1998. She also holds a B.A. in French with a minor in Women's Studies and Philosophy.

She may be contacted at carter@carterdewberry.com