Forever Products and Aloe Vera - MLM/Pyramid?

indiepanda

foxxymynx wrote: »

I know someone who claims to make a good living from it *however* I believe it's a bit of a con, IMPO - but I suppose it's not too different to avon

Seems a bit harsh to Avon - there's no hard sell there, no medical claims and the products are usually pretty keenly priced.

As for the Aloe thing.... that I wouldn't touch. Any business that needs to run down other businesses to convince you to buy their product is highly unprofessional.

My friend signed up for it (to her credit she didn't try to hard sell to me), but I don't think she made much (if any) money - she hasn't mentioned it to me for ages.

MrPearlyWhite

MLM or anything related to the pyrmaid scheme selling really low quality products. Been there done that. Highly recommend to anyone thinking of buying products just the sake for this bussiness. Forget it... for your own good

queenie01

Hello, I think some of you on here are being out of order, I use Forever Living and rate them highly. What I have used has been way better then anything Iv'e bought from H&B. I have a regular distributor and she has never tried to get me to join. They are a mlm company yes but so Is every other direct selling company.They have a great commission that starts at 33%. They have a 60 day guarantee on all the products. If you want to slate mlm companies then do so but I believe they have given a lot of people the chance to stay at home and earn money while bringing up a family. If you join and fail then you clearly havent worked hard enough.

cat04

Oh dear, my friend asked me to go with her last night to a Forever meeting. She's just signed up (although she can't afford the £200 start up fee, but her team leader/manager is doing something with her at a party at hers tonight so she gets the money from selling to pay for the kit??).

Anyway, all I knew about it was that she'd used a deep heat rub/cream/gel and loved it, and as going with her seemed a better offer than sat on the sofa all night I went along. I've obviously read up on here this morning about Forever....

The phrases they used, and way they worded questions made it obvious to me they were all sell sell sell the business rather than the product (which sounds fantastic if it's all to be believed and you can't get similar in H&B for less money!). Questions were phrased in a way that you couldn't give a negative answer, especially if you're like me and far too shy and self conscious to stand up to people and question them about stuff, plus my friend was there so I wasn't going to embarrass her. The lady running the meeting actually concluded with '...if you decide it's not for you and you don't want to sign up, we won't understand (insert silly little laugh) but we will respect your wishes'. !!!!!!?? How very, very rude, practically making out we'd be very stupid not to want to sign up!

Afterwards when I thought about it I realised all I'd been told was some of the range of products and their uses, how everyone wants extra money for little work, if we got 20 customers and signed up 2 team members who each got 20 customers and they signed up 2 team members etc we'd eventually have 15,600 customers under our belts and be earning £100s or £1000s every month. My friend would possibly sell to 10 people. If she signed me up that would leave her with 9 and I'd struggle to find new customers of my own (kids at same school, live near each other etc) and I wouldn't be happy selling expensive stuff to family etc so I wouldn't do very well!

We weren't told the prices of the products, how much commission we'd earn or how it worked once we'd got team members etc. Nothing was mentioned about holding parties or how ordering worked, do you have to pay out up front for stuff? How do you get paid? Are there sales/sign up targets? How do the bonuses work and what do you have to do to get them? etc etc.

And for the £200 kit they actively encourage you to try the stuff yourself and either give or sell the other bits to family and friends. My friend's TL told me afterwards that if you change your mind within the 1st year you can can send back what you haven't opened and get your money back.....only it will all be opened as you've used it yourself or given it away!

The way I was spoken to afterwards I think in their heads they'd already signed me up! The whole thing just gave me a creepy sect feeling, like if I signed up I'd be signing my soul over to them and would never get out alive!!

I'm supposed to be going to my friend's 'party' tonight but don't think I actually can as my partner will most likely be at band rehearsal (but won't find out till later) and I can't get a babysitter at such short notice. I don't know what to do, as I know if I go to the party they'll try to get me to say yes to signing up as I attended the meeting last night. I would probably buy a couple of the cheaper things to help my friend out but I certainly wouldn't spend money I don't have on stuff I can buy cheaper on the high street. Not sure whether to 'warn' her or not about it all and that she might actually end up owing them rather then earning anything.

Wow, that was an epic saga if ever I heard one, but just wanted to share my experience and offer my opinion that unless you've got hard sell sales experience running in your blood and have the motivation to aim very high and work very, very hard I wouldn't touch it!

networkingnoway

There are many people on this thread who seem to be under the impression that FLP is an illegal scam. I can assure everyone that it is definitely not. However that doesn't make it right.

I would like to tackle a number of points:

1. 60 day money back guarantee. The vast majority of MLM customers are 'soft targets', i.e. friends, relatives and workmates who have only bought the product/s from their FLP friend to either shut them up or help them out. So how likely are those customers to ask for their money back? As a nation we don't like complaining to anyone so its a pretty safe bet that your 70 year old auntie Jean isn't going to bother you for a refund on a half used tube of moisturizer.

2. The products are expensive because they're the best. With FLP, they are the largest grower and producer of aloe gel in the world. They are a vertically integrated company which in normal business means they can drive down costs while maintaining quality. You can buy a mature Aloe Barbadensis plant (the best type) from ebay for £4.00. This gives you pure aloe gel whenever you want it. You cut a leaf off, take out the gel and the plant heals itself. Now can you imagine now much the same plant costs FLP to produce by the millions? I guess it would be less than 10p. So why does FLP gel cost £20 per litre? Answer - that's how they can boast about big pay cheques for the top earners. The money has got to come from somewhere so who pays for it - yep, aunti Jean.

3. Everyone who joins can make it big! FLP turned over $2.5 billion last year - wow that's impressive. But, they have 10 million distributors. That's an average of $250 per distributor per year. In other words, 1% earning $25M and the other poor saps making up the rest with nothing more than starter packs.

4. Dream big. A number of years ago, Amway UK was pursued by the DTI for not concentrating on selling goods but for focusing on signing up new distributors and 'selling the dream'. I know what MLM meetings are like - I was a distributor - you are trained to get possible new recruits talking about Ferrari's, yachts, huge houses, Rolex watches and 3 holidays a year in Florida. This is very dangerous ground people.

5. You only need to put in 10 hours a week. True, if you want to be the 99% who only ever breaks even. To earn anything like decent money (eg more than £2000 per month) your MLM business must take over your life. Everything else will become secondary: your day job, family and friends. That's how the system works, they want you eating (literally), sleeping and breathing FLP, Amway, Herbal Life etc, etc. It will become your new job that you can never get away from.

6. Aloe vera cures so many illnesses. It has a number of good qualities but to date there are no clinical trials which go anywhere near proving the claims of FLP. Please prove me wrong.

Check out the small print right at the bottom of the information PDF for Aloe drinking gel. It's on the FLP UK website.

It doesn't appear to be the a whole-hearted endorsement of the product, more like 'this is the best thing since sliced bread - but please don't quote us on that in case its taken out of context.’
There is a term which fits the average FLP distributor very well: Quack: 'An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment'. Whoever joins FLP suddenly becomes a medical expert with a remedy (from the FLP catalogue of course) for every known condition.

I've got more to post later. In the meantime just remember - don't believe the hype!

monsieur_epargnant

Very interesting thread in light if my researching while applying for jobs via the jobcentre website. You know things are tough when the jobcentre is advertising an MLM company.

Check out - Job No:WIS/28512

http://jobseekers.direct.gov.uk/

alexlg

Ted_Hutchinson wrote: »

However some of the same MLM incentives to sales people do apply to Avon so do be careful you aren't sucked into buying stuff you don't want yourself and may be unable to sell to others.

Hi - I'm an Avon Sales Rep and wanted to correct you there: there is no good reason why an Avon Rep would get stuck with something s/he is unable to sell to others unless they are in a mess of their own making and take more than 3 months to sort through unsold stock: most Reps only buy from Avon 'on demand' i.e. once they have confirmed orders from their customers. Even if a Rep does buy stuff in advance, they have at least 90 days to return it to Avon for a full refund.

I'm only a Rep, not a 'Sales Leader' ie I don't recruit, manage or make money out of other Reps but I've been doing Avon for about 18 months now and as long as you're realistic about the amount of money its possible to make from products which cost as little as £1, I don't see any harm in it. Fortunately, there ARE a lot of products which cost a lot more than £1 and a lot of people who want to buy them: my latest order (I place them every 3 weeks) came to over £1300, of which I will make 25% less my other expenses. Sometimes you can make more than 25% if you order carefully from an old brochure. Unlike FLP, Avon doesn't charge you postage (unless you place extra orders), sign you up to training courses for which you have to pay, charge you a subscription or make you buy a big 'intro pack' of products which are non-returnable. In fact, it would be pretty hard to make a loss selling Avon products. Unless you never distribute your brochures (for which you do have to pay and which can't be returned for a refund, understandably). HOWEVER I don't think its the best idea for people who are already having money problems: you NEED to have enough discipline NOT to spend the money you get from your customers BEFORE you pay your invoice from Avon. Otherwise, you risk getting into debt with Avon. Also, you need to be able to resist buying lots of lovely products for yourself (the 90-day money-back guarantee is a useful buffer against this)! People just need to realise it would be A LOT of work if you were trying to make a living out of it. For most Reps, its a 2nd income which amounts to little more than pocket money. However it gets you out of the house and meeting people, so for some that can be a little lifeline. NB: if anyone is reading this and thinks '£1300 every 3 weeks - WOW' - please note that I will NET less than 25% of that. So that's a little over £100/week. Probably less, because I've never taken account of the petrol I use. And that's my biggest order ALL YEAR because people are buying Christmas presents. If I was trying to live off Avon, I'd have starved to death in March! + Thank goodness my boyfriend doesn't charge me rent.

PS - Every Rep should always hold money back for possible returns. There are never many but Avon does sell a few clothes so if someone's paid £25 for a Hello Kitty 'onesie' and it doesn't fit, they are more likely to ask for a refund for that, than for the £3 eyeliner which isn't quite the right colour!

Thankfully, unlike FLP, I'm not selling a health aid/cure/promise etc etc. The most expensive thing I sell is branded goods (Hello Kitty, Storm, Lipsy etc) from which I make next to nothing (less than usual 25% on all branded goods, for some reason, so in fact their occasional return makes little difference to my NET) and Avon ANEW skincare which includes wrinkle serums. The latter are somewhere between No7 and Clinique and I believe skincare is a very personal choice. I have loads of very happy Anew customers. But some people just won't be moved from their (much cheaper) Avon Care or Vaseline, or their (more expensive) Lancome/Elizabeth Arden (etc). I would HATE a customer of mine to feel they were stuck with something they didn't like. Personally I'm delighted with my Avon ANEW face creams and can sometimes buy them for as little as £5 a pot when on special offer, so I'm very happy! I'd long given up on anything curing my adolescent skin, despite being in my early 40s. Then just when you're least expecting it: along comes just the thing!

Finally, I've just discovered the MSE (positive) 'Avon' thread, so thought best to include a link here but..... I'm a newbie (links not allowed) so: please do MSE search for 'Avon Hints & Tips'!

pricetag

I love Aloe Vera products.

alexlg

pricetag wrote: »

I love Aloe Vera products.

Marvellous. Well Avon does a lovely Chamomile & Aloe Vera shampoo in their 'Naturals' range. Usual price is £2/250ml but often on offer eg in the 4 for £5 section. It must be popular - I can see its being launched as a 700ml version next year. They also do a Chamomile & Aloe Vera Hair Conditioning Balm in the same range, 'Cooling After Sun Lotion with Aloe' and an excellent range of 'Mint Leaf & Aloe' products for people with hot feet!

GordonH_2

I have a relative who is seriously into this Aloe Vera MLM thing and has recruited another relative. They are pushing it for weight loss. I did a bit of reading and Aloe Vera is a diuretic and laxative. This would explain why people can lose 8 pounds in a week or so and get very excited initially.

I hate when relatives do MLM. It causes all sorts of relationship issues.