The Essential Oil Network Marketing Cult-ure...

 

If there's anything I've learnt over the last three crazy mind-blowing years, is that it's OK to get things wrong, and it's OK to change your mind. On that last point, not only is it OK, but sometimes it's healthy, responsible, grown up, and entirely necessary. I've lost track of how many causes and issues I've changed my views on since the early half of 2020, the MLM I joined being one of them. In my experience, this process gets easier in some ways, and not in others. If you said to me a few years ago that the essential oil company I was working with was cult-like, I would have probably just laughed it off, but now I see things differently.

Mark Vicente once said, "No one joins a cult. They join a good thing". That's just what I thought I was joining in 2018 when I came across an essential oil MLM through a friend of mine and went along to my first 'class'. It was a typical British cold and grey January morning when I turned up at a local cafe, slightly nervous as I didn't know what to expect. The three years before that day had felt pretty isolating for me, I had to give up yoga teaching which I'd done for many years due to my health declining, and I'd been working really hard on my food book, but despite all my efforts and passion it hadn't broken even yet. I was missing female company, connection and community, and that morning I found a friendly group of women all interested in natural health, giggling over our warm drinks while passing around lovely-smelling oils, eating delicious raw chocolate and learning more about something I already had a passion for.

So I took the plunge and bought myself a 'kit'. At the end of the class, she said there was also an amazing business opportunity with the company and anyone interested could stay behind for a few more minutes, but I told her that didn't interest me.

Predictably I loved the oils and the impressive-sounding ethics of the company and soon I started to tell my friends and family about them. Then it dawned on me that if I was doing this already, maybe I should get back to my friend and ask her how it worked if I introduced people to the oils. She told me there was a halfway house between a customer and someone who is full-on doing the business, they were called 'Sharers': I would get a little commission for everyone I introduced the oils to, and I could then use that commission to put towards some more oils for myself. It seemed the logical thing to do so I innocently stepped into that new acceptable-sounding role.

Looking back perhaps the whole 'Sharing' role was a bit like the gateway drug, and before I knew it, I was committing to doing the business more fully, and I soon became what’s known in the company as a 'Builder', and my friend became my 'Upline'.

When I was weighing up my decision to start fully doing the business, I did at least do some of my own research. Regarding the things posted online that were critical about MLMs, I was told that there’s always negative stuff written about most things, so I went ahead.

I had, at last, found my dream job where I got to choose my hours, work for myself, and connect and hang out with a lovely community of like-minded women. Many in the local essential oil Builders community were also mums, fellow yoga teachers or nutritionists, and all of us working towards the same goal - helping people empower themselves with effective and natural health solutions - something that was particularly close to my heart, as I had many years of experience of being dismissed and misunderstood by doctors and mainstream medicine. The role also enabled us to have flexible work, be our own boss, and juggle the job around kids and other responsibilities. It almost felt too good to be true - and sadly, perhaps predictably, it turned out to be just that.

I remember showing my partner the compensation plan with my newfound excitement and telling him that all I needed to do was commit to the work and that this was how much I could be earning, in three, six, and twelve months’ time, and in a job that I enjoyed. To my naivety and slight surprise, he didn't share my enthusiasm and was pretty sceptical, which only seemed to spur me on more – "I'll show him I can make a success of it" I thought. Up on the vision board went the ranking chart and I set to work on following the steps to get there. I knew that working hard and being conscientious and consistent were things that I could do, so surely, this was fail-proof.

Looking back, there were many things I was learning that didn't feel quite right, but I was so swept up in the hope and the vision of it all that sadly I ignored those little whispers. Also, for anything I had a concern about, there was always an answer. Now I see this as a slick and manipulating part of the 'machine', but at the time, I used those answers to reassure myself I was doing the right thing.

"Is it a pyramid scheme?" came up a lot. There was a short video we could show potential customers about this, that persuaded us why it's not.

"Are the prices for the products inflated?" also came up. To this the answer was a definite no, and that it's just a different business model. These kinds of well-thought-out explanations made sense to me at the time and the unconventional aspect of it appealed to my inner rebel. I bought into the idea that it has a bad rep for no good reason, and convinced myself that it was somehow not part of the big capitalist system I so wanted out of.

Another question that often comes up for people was the cost of the minimum monthly spend that Builders had to do to receive our commissions which is about £90 per month. If you didn't make the spend, you didn't get any of your earnings that month. In their income disclosure statement, the MLM somewhat confusingly says, "as a Wellness Advocate, you will never be required to make purchases". In one sense that’s true, but what they don't spell out is, if you don't make purchases upwards of around £90 per month, you won't get your pay cheque.  

Many times, on training calls, we were told how our monthly spend was a "really good value", in comparison to what most people who are in the position of setting up their own self-employed business would have to pay out for costs such as their website, flyers, buying stock and so on, and that weren't we lucky we worked for a company that could do all that stuff for us.

I remember my first training day when we had to write our infamous '100 list', a classic first MLM first activity - a list of 100 people you know to contact and see if they are interested in your product. The selling aspect felt pretty uncomfortable for me, but thankfully in this MLM it's not actually selling, it's just 'Sharing', (if you are eye-rolling at this point I am fully with you, though sadly I wasn't quite able to see through it all back then).

During my first year and a half I dedicated myself to part-time work, doing at least something six if not most days every week, as much as I could manage around my son and my health, and I was doing everything we were taught to do.

On my first training day I was told that the profile of the majority of the successful Builders in the company could be summarised as this - women between the ages of 30-50, interested in natural health, had a big network and needed flexible type work. I couldn't have fitted the bill better! But sadly, after the first year or so, I was yet to break even, and not only that, I was building up more debt every month.

I know now that most proper new businesses would have an actual business plan, with forecasts of profits etc, and scheduled check-ins to see if they were on track. Sadly, I've never had a business or a marketing brain and I was at this point still blinded with all the 'hopium', and so I kept on going. I've recently come across the 'sunk cost fallacy', something I saw in my choices with the company and with many of my fellow Wellness Advocates. It's the idea that you stick to a failing venture because of all the money, time and energy you've invested in it.

I did however, want to try to figure out where I was going wrong and so I reached out to my Uplines who arranged for me to have a rare phone call with one of the UK 'founders' who had make the impressive 'Blue Diamond' rank, the salary for which made me double-take every time I saw it on the infamous compensation plan. In the run-up to the call, I wrote my version of the blurb for prospective Builders that they give out to everyone who is considering the 'opportunity'. I thought that at least when I was talking with people about doing the business, I could use my experience and give them a more realistic idea of their chances of success.

My version was much more detailed than what we are taught. It included things like – whether you have a background in sales or marketing, or at the least some business experience, and what personality type you are. I also included some more realistic figures on how much the monthly spend is, there were nearly always extra costs every month on top of your oils, in my first year or so these added up to another £30-50 a month, and I never heard these mentioned when people were recruited.

On the call, I thought the founder might be at least a little interested in some of my feedback, or perhaps just pretend that he was! I was told him I felt a bit frustrated as I'd been working hard and following all the steps, but I was yet to find myself a single 'Builder' to join my team and help bring me some more much-needed commissions in. To that, he answered bluntly, "You don't have any Builders because you're a Bad Builder". On the other points I raised, he said they wouldn't consider including any of them in their information and that to do so would simply be projecting my own limiting beliefs onto other people, many of whom wouldn't have the same difficulties with their mindset.

I came away from the call without the support or inspiration I had hoped for and was left feeling dejected and disheartened. I ended up feeling like it was probably just something in me that wasn't capable enough for this job, (and it turns out I wasn’t alone in this conclusion).

I kept doing some of the classes for a while longer until eventually, I decided that it wasn't for me. I found what felt like a good compromise - I'd stop actively trying to get new people in, but anyone interested could come to me, and I was planning on setting up as a health coach and so this could be one string in my bow, and since I still enjoyed using the oils I kept up with the minimum monthly spend.

Eventually, I stopped the high monthly spend because I couldn't afford it. I didn't think much more of it all until a few months ago when I watched something that had a very profound effect on me, a brilliant and harrowing documentary series called The Vow, based on the self-improvement cult NXIVM. The fact that many cults have an MLM aspect was completely new to me. The familiarity of the MLM excerpts in The Vow made my own time with one come flooding back to me.

A dear friend of mine grew up in a cult, and as the pennies were dropping about my experience with the company, I knew she was the person I had to speak to about all things culty and MLM.

It turns out that cults and MLMs have a lot of similarities...

Gaslighting and Manipulation

Many MLMs, just like the one I was with, also describe themselves as self-help programs. Builders are sent material from the outset about beliefs and mindset, planting the seed that these aspects are crucial if you are to have success in the company. I was told repeatedly that it was as much about self-development as it was business, which appealed to me at the time, being unaware of all the manipulation tactics at play. At their big yearly conventions - 'high vibe' events where Builders would parade on stage to upbeat music during the ranking ceremonies, they hire high-profile inspirational speakers to reinforce this message further.

Negative feedback from within the ranks was usually dismissed, like in my call with one of the founders. Not only that, but it's put back on you, so if you're not doing well, it's your fault, and all you need to do is to follow the laid-out 'steps to success'. According to a former Wellness Advocate with the company I was with, "we end up in a system where we are trained to gaslight ourselves.”

The other facet of this manipulation and something that features in most, if not all MLMs, as well as the New Age movement, is toxic positivity. In all of the business groups I was in, anything deemed 'negative' about the company was discouraged or quickly removed.

Their Own Language

There were so many different acronyms in the MLM, I felt a bit lost at sea at first. Also seen in cults, this is something that can lead to a subtle 'us and them' undercurrent.

Overly Complicated Compensation Plans

I could never fully wrap my head around the compensation plan, and I was reassured to see other people in my team, often much more experienced and at higher ranks, also struggling with it. From fairly early on in the business we would need to be explaining the basics of it to any potential Builders we had, and I had this constant niggle that I couldn’t quite get it, let alone explain it to others.

Lack of Financial Transparency

Back to the infamous ranking charts, which I now believe are downright deceptive. It turns out that I was far from alone in not managing to make it into a viable business. In fact, according to several studies, about 99% of people who join MLMs lose money, and within five years, 95% of distributors abandon network marketing altogether. Unlike affiliate marketing or franchises where you make money selling a product, people mainly make money in an MLM by recruiting other salespeople beneath them, (and yet I was never told that I had to be good at recruitment to do well in the company). The MLM process turns people into recruiters, usually before they fully understand what they are getting into.

These types of 'pyramid' businesses are made legal because they have a product to sell - it's my view now that the product is only there to make the scheme legal. The people at the bottom are just there so that the small percentage of people at the top can profit from them. 

It becomes increasingly hard for the minority of people who are successful in MLMs to see these manipulations because they are the ones making money, and it's therefore also hard for them to see or admit to themselves that they are causing harm to others. Essentially, other people are losing money for them to make money.

MLMs use deception in terms of distorting and withholding vital information, coercive sales strategies, appeals to emotion (especially the selling of hope), and limited disclosure of the realities in these types of businesses, to capture often vulnerable people, who haven't learned about these kinds of manipulation techniques. While many regular sales jobs are far from perfect, we don't generally see such cultish recruiting in those types of jobs.

I agree with Douglas Brooks, an attorney who has represented victims of deceptive schemes for nearly three decades, when he says, "What is patently wrong and should be illegal is undue influence over a recruit's decision-making process. The recruitment and retention tactics of MLMs are prime examples of undue influence… Informed consent should be the driving force behind development and enforcement of regulations. Only then can free decisions be made."

Toxify Relationships and Friendships

If friends or family wanted to be critical about whether this is a viable business or not, that was just their issue, right? It could be argued that this, point if not careful, then becomes the same technique that cults use – they try to isolate you from people who question your decisions and belief systems while at the same time, subtlety encouraging you away from any of your own critical thinking and towards more 'group think'. This is in my view, a very dangerous combination.

Due to the recruiting nature of MLMs, distributors are not only victims but once they start recruiting, they also become perpetrators. On this note, I had a little win - what was once a sense of failure I felt around not managing to recruit even just one single Builder to do the business under me, is now a feeling of relief and a close escape! Then there's the aspect of having to constantly sell to your friends, family and anyone else you might get in a conversation with. I'm sure some people in my life got fed up with it, even though I tried to be gentle and not pressurising in my approach.

How freeing it felt when I finally stopped trying to make it work, when I could leave the house without my little sample bags in my handbag and for any organic interactions I had with people to be free from all thoughts of 'should I at some point try to bring up essential oils and see if they might want a sample.'

Then there's the whole time-consuming minefield of who introduced whom. Everyone who signs up, needs to be put under the person who first introduced them to the oils. Usually, this is fairly straightforward, but not always. The co-dependency of the tree structure and the placements can add to these tensions and can also make things awkward with friends who do the business together, especially when someone leaves.

So, how did my finances fair up after all my hard work and dedication to empowering people with their health and finances?! I estimated that during my total time with the company, as a Builder and a customer, I spent about £7,000, and the commissions I earned probably added up to less than a couple of hundred pounds during my busiest year and a half. Because I got sucked into "capitalism on steroids", I kept doing the monthly spend after I stopped doing the business side of it, so I unwittingly kept feeding the beast.

Oh, the irony of us keen and hard-working 'Builders', sitting among thousands of others like us at the conventions, watching tear-jerking and inspiring stories of families in Africa that are newly employed the MLM. Before they got the job, they could barely afford food and education for their families but now, their wages had doubled and they could put food on the table and pay for their child's education. Yet he vast majority of the people doing the business in the room are not getting anywhere near the minimum wage, and most of us are getting more into debt.

There’s also the complex issue of the Wellness Advocates training, or lack of. They aren’t qualified aromatherapists, and so the waters can get very muddied, but that’s a big topic for another day.

As much as I enjoyed their oils, it felt really good to close my MLM account. I couldn't support them anymore, even as a customer.  I still love essential oils and continue to use them daily, and now I support a great local company.

I want to leave you with the words of Sarah Edmondson, someone who I deeply admire. Sarah is a former high-level MLM recruiter, an ex-member of the NXIVM cult and was featured heavily in The Vow documentary. She is now the co-founder of the podcast, 'A Little Bit Culty', and has been courageously speaking out about these topics since she realised the truth of what she was involved in. On the nature of these types of companies that exploit people for profit, she says, "they are selling empowerment, but it's actually enslavement."  

~ Jo D.

 
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