PORTLAND, Pre. (KOIN) – An Oregon author’s new memoir dives into the controversial tactics of multi-level marketing schemes, and her journey from becoming a millionaire to leaving the business altogether.
Emily Lynn Paulson, author of “Hey Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing,” says she was introduced to MLMs about 10 years ago when she was a stay-at-home mom.
“It was really a time in my life when I was looking for connection. I was looking for something else to do,” Paulson said. “This was sold to me as a flexible, easy way to earn money at home around my family.”
“It was really the hope of making something for myself,” she added.
MLMs cover different sectors from healthcare to clothing and beauty products.
Despite their reputation, Paulson says people may be influenced to join because “there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance.”
According to the author, 99.7% of people don’t earn money from these schemes but they’re sold on the hope of money.
Despite Paulson’s achievements through the MLM, she says they offer a narrow path to success — factoring in one’s socio-economic background, having money to invest in the company and having a network of people to join the scheme.
“It really isn’t the products, the products are fine, but that isn’t what the system is about. It’s about recruiting other people to sell the same products,” Paulson said. “It’s a collecting people scheme.”
Paulson says, at first, she believed the business model worked for everybody before realizing “the system was rigged for most people to fail.”
She also began to realize how controlled she was by the system.
“There are a lot of cult-like tactics that are done that keep you afraid of leaving because you’ve got all your friendships tied into this, you’ve got financial control tied up into this and so it makes it really hard to leave,” Paulson said.
“There was no amount of money that made it worth it.”