MLMs: I Don't Like Pyramid(s) (Schemes).

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) Pyramid 

Hi there.

Just a quick write up on MLMs (Multi-Level Marketing). It starts with someone well dressed and looking successful walking up to you, and they are telling you: 'You too can make a lot of money and live the life you have always dreamed of.' They show you pictures of exotic locations, 3-storey houses and luxury cars; you can't help but imagine yourself in those pictures smiling proudly. They finally show you that triangle pictograph with you sitting on top of a pyramid of your friends/network, with dollar signs 'arrowed' to you. But what they don't show you is the giant network of people sitting on your head. 

Welcome to the 'shell' of Multi-Level Marketing.
The scheme that is only as good as its subscribers. I have fallen victim to this before; there are many popular ones in Nigeria. I have lost thousands of dollars (hundreds of thousands of naira) in savings. It's not really a scam or a bad idea; that is if you love talking to people and you are persuasive. I think I suffered from not liking to talk too much, not being persuasive enough, not knowing so many people (people with disposable income), not knowing gullible people and just general laziness.

Some MLMs have some value of products (that's how I was lucky, I used up all the products and gave out some as gifts to console myself), others unashamedly just sell the dream and no physical product. It will all pay off if:  

1. You are one of the first subscribers and the market isn't saturated (yet), 
2. You are able to set some 'legs' directly under you that are more active than you are.

I recently subscribed to a Finance website and they broke down the whole scheme and I read about a man named Ponzi who I think made it work for him and his investors; he was one of the first to use it. Now named the 'Ponzi scheme' it has been used in the corporate world to defraud people in recent years. Now governments have watchful eyes on businesses based on this scheme because it can be uncontrollable, I believe anyway.

What I don't like about it is that as a new-comer, you are the bottom feeder and your subscription has just contributed to some higher level's millions. And also before you can become 'secure' with a steady income, it will be dependent on your 'herculean' efforts to keep signing on people under you and making sure they keep active as well. If you don't overcome that initial stage struggle that can take longer than the brochure or website promised, you would have just been a willing contributor to other peoples' wealth.

As an investment choice for a young person? No No No! I used a chunk of my savings and a year later I am just recovering. If you have the stomach for it, go ahead, but it's not advisable. To think I thought it wise then to forgo a secure bank product with high interest rates for the whisper of a dream. I am a little older (a year) and wiser, Thank God.

Young and Almost-Money-Wise,

Ciao,

Bebe