The culture found in some multilevel marketing companies wears down on participants like Emma Fife, a former distributor for a diet and wellness MLM. She recalled the pressures and expectations she experienced while distributing.
Because she was relatively high-ranking in the company for an 18-year-old, Fife felt strongly about working hard to maintain her rank. She had hit a level that allowed her to receive a $20,000 bonus, paid out over time, and she had to stay at the same rank (or exceed it) in order to continue receiving the bonus each month. She said this caused her a great deal of stress at the end of every month while waiting to find out if she made it.
“I remember I was literally having a full-blown panic attack because our internet was down or something,” Fife said. “I didn't know if I had made it or not, and I was just panicking about it. And that was just not healthy.”
The pressure to hit her rank each month was accompanied by a heavy guilt — guilt for using her free time for herself rather than to sell.
“I just felt such a constant pressure to be working it … to the point where I just didn't feel like I had any time to myself,” Fife said. “If I ever put down my phone, or if I was ever watching a show on Netflix without messaging people while I was doing it, or … going to a movie with my friends or reading a book — literally anything that I did, if it wasn't for the business, I felt intensely guilty about that.”
Along with the pressure to constantly perform, because the product centered on weight loss, there was pressure to look a certain way.
After several months of distributing, Fife attended a conference in Florida with some of her higher-ups. She remembered a conversation with one of their husbands.
“We were at IHOP and just having dinner, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I was at the convention, I was looking around and I'm like, 'Wow, some of these people really need the products.'’ Just implying that they were too big and they were too fat and that that was a bad thing,” Fife recalled.
Looking back, she noticed that this was a common thread. Fife said she feels they profit off of people’s insecurities.
“They were doing this promotion where … every pound lost with their products, they would donate a meal to Africans or something,” Fife said. “It was really bad. It's just things like that. It was just this constant idea that you need these, and these products are gonna make you feel good about yourself. Like, ‘if you want to be skinny, you need this, and if you're not skinny, you should be.’”
This culture might suck them in and keep them there, but in many cases, it’s just as quick to push them out. And once they’re out, they need to deal with the aftermath.