I'm looking for information from people who have experience trying to building a business with Arbonne

April 3, 2009 9:38 PM

I've recently been approached by a friend about selling Arbonne products. I've talked to many people who seem very satisfied with the quality of the products. My friend says that there is lots of opportunity for income by selling and signing up others to sell. I've done lots of studying of multi-level marketing and Arbonne online but haven't come to any conclusions yet. I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences selling and making a business by signing others up, good or bad. My friend claims that I could eventually become a Regional Vice President and earn $5000 a month and an allowance for a white Mercedes Benz within 9 months. Have any of you reached that level, or Area manager?
posted by doppler68 to work & money (24 comments total)

MLM? Pass.
posted by tiburon at 9:46 PM on April 3

Come on, you know better. Look up posts on pyramid schemes here on Mefi and you'll have your answer. Yes, it's technically "not" a pyramid scheme, because one could theoretically make money without signing up others . . . but you'd be better off selling just about anything else, given the effort you'd have to expend. The 'real' way to succeed in this business is via its pyramid scheme side, which is by signing others up, who in turn do the same, ad infinitum . . . only chances are minute that this would ever happen. Don't waste your time on this bullshit, and shame on your friend.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:59 PM on April 3

Is your friend making $5000 a month? Does your friend drive a white Benz?
posted by Loto at 10:00 PM on April 3 [12 favorites]

Even if you somehow sign up enough other people so that you yourself can make reasonable money, those "level 2" people can't possibly all sell enough merchandise and sign up enough additional "level 3" people for the level 2 people to all make decent livings. And even if that were possible, for the level 2 people, then the level 3 people couldn't all make it. Somebody's being sold false promises. And this company's been around for a while; either you're already kind of low on the totem pole, or you'd be misleading the people you recruited.

Here is a link to more information.
posted by amtho at 10:00 PM on April 3

Being a salesperson is never about making money; very few of even the born salespeople I've know have made money fast, especially not as fast as your friend describes. The most important thing to consider when you think about whether you should do this kind of thing is this: do you enjoy selling things? Is that your passion? The people who are genuinely successful with it or enjoy it are people that love selling things. If you are not that, it doesn't matter about the money or anything else.

Also, direct marketing schemes are highly doubtful. Even if you are highly passionate about selling things, I'd advise you to find a company to hire you to their sales department; this usually isn't very difficult. Here's some useful information about this goal:

Using Arbonne's Compensation Plan and the goal of $5,000 income per month, let's assume you sold $2,000 worth of products at a 35% profit margin in a month. This would amount to a gross profit of $700, leaving you $4,300 short of your goal. To achieve your goal of $5,000 per month income, and considering that there is only a 4% override of your downline's sales, you would need to have 55 people continuously producing sales of at least $2,000 a month, every month. This will require a tremendous amount of effort on your part, and is an important factor to take into consideration.

So once you join up, you would have to sell at least $2k per month, and get 55 more people to join up, too - and have them all selling $2k per month too - in order to make that $5k per month. This doesn't exactly sound easy; in fact, it sounds very close to impossible.
posted by koeselitz at 10:01 PM on April 3

I've known people who did various MLM programs (Amway, Sunlife), and the only reason they kept doing it was that they actually used the products themselves, and so got them cheaply. Some did cultivate some downstream sales, but no one gets rich climbing the pyramid unless they're a sociopath willing to alienate everyone. All such schemes have high turnover of people because the basic get-rich-quick selling scheme quickly proves to be bogus.

So, if you like the products, an MLM can be a cheap source of them. But don't kid yourself about the rah-rah sales talk.
posted by fatbird at 10:03 PM on April 3 [1 favorite]

Not really knowing what I was getting involved with, a few years back I briefly worked as a marketing and Web guy for the corporate office of a home-party-model MLM with thousands of "consultants" around the country. As MLMs go, it was as solid and respectable as they come. Our core product was actually of good quality, for example, and there was no actual stealing from customers or sales reps -- if you ordered stuff, we'd send it to you.

It was, however, an extremely cynically-run and exploitative business. Most of our consultants made little to no money for themselves, even the ones who'd built up substantial multi-level sales organizations, but they sure did sell a lot of candles and accessories for us (at a substantial markup over retail, a lot of the time, since people given the hard sell at home parties can't easily comparison shop -- we'd get shipping containers full of crappy decorative accessories sent over from China and mark 'em up by like 1000%).

Oh yeah, we offered a Mercedes lease too. In our promotional materials... no one ever came close to qualifying for one during my tenure.

Stay away.
posted by killdevil at 10:08 PM on April 3 [4 favorites]

How long has your friend been selling Arbonne? How close is she to being made Regional Vice President and earning $5000 a month while driving a free Benz? Is the person who recruited her a white Benz driving Regional Vice President earning $5000 a month? The person who recruited the person who recruited your friend, how's she doing?

Have any of them been selling Arbonne for nine months? If not, that means even three levels up you'll be reporting to and hoping to learn a business from people with only slightly more experience than your own. If they have been selling for nine months or more, does it seem like they're really profiting, or are they accumulating debt leases Benzes and buying motivational tapes and merely hoping to sell more Arbonne?

Do you have any special sales ability, contacts, or access to a pool of potential customers that convinces you that you would be more effective at selling Arbonne, than is your friend, her "upline" or her upline's upline? Do you have any experience in sales?

These "many people who seem very satisfied with the quality of the products" whom you've talked to, since they already have a source for Arbonne, presumably won't be buying from you. Do you know many people who don't use Arbonne but would if you were selling it?
posted by orthogonality at 10:09 PM on April 3 [1 favorite]

If you can have the ability push $2K of hokey product ("invented by a teacher?" yeahh, because they know all about virology and stuff) a month and sign up 55 other people who manage to do the same thing, I bet you could make a lot more than $5K/month selling something else.
posted by Good Brain at 10:39 PM on April 3 [1 favorite]

My wife wasted our money and signed up for that. If you use the stuff a lot the discount will eventually pay back your ridiculous sign up fee. It is a pyramid structure where you make money for signing up people and you make money on their sales. If that's your thing, do it, but I wouldn't see it as a quick big money maker.
posted by gibbsjd77 at 10:49 PM on April 3

When you join an MLM program, the people who you are most likely to try and sign up under you...are your friends and family.

So then, at social events in the future, you're the guy who's been asking your friends and family to join your pyramid scam -- sorry, MLM program -- and telling them how they ALSO will have a Benz before long. So, they identify you as "that guy," and avoid you.

Seriously -- don't be that guy, if for no other reason that your friends will hate you for trying to turn your friendship with them into a way to make money.
posted by liquado at 11:08 PM on April 3 [2 favorites]

Seriously -- don't be that guy, if for no other reason that your friends will hate you for trying to turn your friendship with them into a way to make money.

Re: Bernie Madoff and His Feeder Funds.
posted by ericb at 11:19 PM on April 3

I've known lots of people who got into MLM. (I live in Utah, MLM capital of the world.) Do you know how many of them went on to succeed, and I mean quit-their-day-job success, not white-Mercedes success?

None.

Do you know how many of them went on to join another MLM program because this one was going to make them rich quickly?

Pretty much all of them.

Do you know how many of them alienated their friends, neighbors, and family members to the point where they avoid contact?

You get the picture.

Yes, it's possible to reach that Mercedes level. But to do that, you'd have to be an excellent salesman, and an excellent manager of other salesmen, and spend years getting there.

News flash: $5000/month is a terrible salary for an excellent sales manager with years of experience.

If you think you're a good salesman and don't mind working your ass off, either get a job in commission sales or get your real estate license. Both have a much bigger chance of paying $5000 a month or more. And your friends and family will still respect you.
posted by mmoncur at 12:32 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]

P. S. Tell your friend "Ask me again in 6 months and if you're still doing this, I'll sign up!"

I guarantee he'll mysteriously stop talking about it before the 6 months go by.
posted by mmoncur at 12:35 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

Good Brain: "If you can have the ability push $2K of hokey product ("invented by a teacher?" yeahh, because they know all about virology and stuff) "

I'm not sure if you were making a joke out of it or if you just read it wrong, but this is Arbonne, not Airborne (the cold remedy).
posted by sharkfu at 1:56 AM on April 4

Just driving around town and whatnot, I haven't seen a lot of white Mercedeses.
posted by box at 5:15 AM on April 4

My sis-in-law is a regional vp for Arbonne and drives the white Mercedes and makes $5K a month. She works her tiny toned ass off, though, and has, through her family and college friends, a built-in network of customers and lower level agents that seem tailor made for her product. I have never known anyone else as successful at MLM as she is. But she is successful and basically supports her family (my bro's a youth minister/seminary student). So, of course it can be done (and Arbonne seems to be more ethical about their regional level structure than a lot of other similar companies), but it takes a lot more time and effort and good fortune than most people realize.
posted by girlbowler at 6:36 AM on April 4

Forget about "selling" Arbonne. It's a pyramid scheme on the order of scAmway.
If it's supposedly such a good product, why can't I waltz into a store and buy it? Hmmm? HMMM?
posted by BostonTerrier at 6:56 AM on April 4

When's the last time you waltzed into a store and bought Tupperware, BostonTerrier?
posted by notyou at 7:25 AM on April 4

Also, consider that your friend may not be encouraging you to sign up for purely selfless reasons.
posted by amtho at 7:26 AM on April 4

Sit down, invest the time to do the math to figure out exactly what it would take for you to make $5k a month. Possibly the best, if not unbiased, breakdown of mlm/pyramid marketing was a few years ago on cockeyed. Also pay attention to his page on distributor saturation - mlm programs can work, but only if you are in the first or second wave of distributors. After that, it's just a costly hustle.
Please don't do it.
posted by 8dot3 at 7:51 AM on April 4

Forget the MLM aspect of it for a second and focus on the money.

Arbonne is a large, multi-national corporation. $5k for a "Regional Vice President", who is essentially a seasoned sales manager, is $60k/year. $60k is nothing for a good sales manager at that level. Depending on where you're located, $60k would be considered a decent base salary, but you'd then have a commission structure built on top of that.
posted by mkultra at 8:30 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

The multi-level part of MLM never works, unless you're a) one of the first in your area with a franchise, or b) you're an incredibly gifted salesperson (in which case you can make more money in straight sales).

Okay, so let's ignore the multi-level part. Do you love the products enough to sell them and make a profit in straight sales a la Tupperware/Avon/Mary Kay/Pampered Chef/Carol Anderson/Weekenders/the various candles, sex toys, lingerie, jewelry, and other person-to-person sales products?

Do you love selling products enough to sell them to strangers? Because your friends are maybe going to host a couple of "parties" for you and then you're on your own.

When's the last time you waltzed into a store and bought Tupperware, BostonTerrier?

Tupperware isn't a multi-level marketing organization.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:04 PM on April 4

Tupperware is, as you note, a direct sales organization, Sidhedevil, just as Arbonne is. Arbonne is also an MLM organization.

The point of my comment is that the quality of the product is not contingent upon its method of distribution.
posted by notyou at 8:43 AM on April 6