Speaker 1: Hey, Dream listeners. If you like this podcast, you're going
Speaker 1: to love the book. Yeah, I wrote a book. It's
Speaker 1: called Selling the Dream and it's coming out March twelfth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four on Atria. It's about all of your
Speaker 1: favorite characters from MLMs and some that you've never even
Speaker 1: heard of. I hope check it out. Previously on the Dream,
Speaker 1: So William Pinpatrick basically took from the power of the
Speaker 1: mind to affect your circumstances, the power of passive thinking,
Speaker 1: large group awareness, training, prosperity gospel. The mind is like
Speaker 1: a fertile feel its size, the limits of your imagination.
Speaker 1: This leads me to the point of the principle which
Speaker 1: I have discovered as a foundation of my security and happiness,
Speaker 1: which is success. And he made it dark. How is
Speaker 1: one individual tied to the cross? Answer? Well, how would
Speaker 1: you normally tie someone to the cross? And that I
Speaker 1: have to host parties where I need to serve people
Speaker 1: food and drinks. I assume just get them drunk enough
Speaker 1: that they can't drive to CBS and buy regular get
Speaker 1: them drunk enough so they don't notice that I can't
Speaker 1: do their makeup and I'm not a good makeup artist
Speaker 1: and now I see Amy's house. I remember one time
Speaker 1: they were all together at one of these parties and
Speaker 1: they were all laughing so hard they were crying. They
Speaker 1: were always really warm and really happy, and then I've
Speaker 1: never experienced that again with any of the parties that
Speaker 1: I hosted or anything like that. Party. It's a word
Speaker 1: that can mean a lot of different things. We're having
Speaker 1: a birthday party, Oh, I partied so hard last night,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or the dreaded and
Speaker 1: fully loaded. So do you party. One thing that may
Speaker 1: not come to mind when you hear the word party
Speaker 1: is going to a friend's house with a bunch of
Speaker 1: other women to buy plastic bowls. In the world of
Speaker 1: multi level marketing, though, this is what's referred to as
Speaker 1: a party. Not all MLMs work this way, of course,
Speaker 1: but many do thanks to one woman, Brownie Wise, and
Speaker 1: her pioneering work at this is Tupperware, the airtight plastic
Speaker 1: containers that keep good foods pressure longer. The one way
Speaker 1: to buy Tupperware is a fun way at a Tupperware
Speaker 1: home party. To find out about Tupperware parties, right to
Speaker 1: Tupperware Orlando, Florida, Stay down, Ah the good old days
Speaker 1: when you could just put tupperware or Lando, Florida on
Speaker 1: an envelope and it would probably get there. You may
Speaker 1: remember that at my Grammar Root's house, we didn't do
Speaker 1: tupperware parties. We didn't go to tuperware parties. We didn't
Speaker 1: purchase upperware, or we didn't we didn't have any tupperware
Speaker 1: at the house. Temperware was waste of time. But my mom,
Speaker 1: who only married into that family, did go to tupperware parties.
Speaker 1: And that's mostly because of the work of this one woman,
Speaker 1: Brownie Wise. Things to know about Brownie before I tell
Speaker 1: you how she changed the world of direct sales and
Speaker 1: multi level marketing. She was born in Georgia in nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: Brownie is her real name, and I just love that.
Speaker 1: It's one of those cutesy old timey names, like Sugar
Speaker 1: or Kitty or like my aunt Babe. Brownie looked and
Speaker 1: dressed exactly like Doris Day, so naturally, she was married
Speaker 1: at twenty three, had a son at twenty five, and
Speaker 1: divorced her Ford Motor Company executive husband a few years later,
Speaker 1: which means, dear listener, she got her start in Michigan.
Speaker 1: At first, Brownie sold Stanley home products, mops and brooms
Speaker 1: and things like that. That company was part of the
Speaker 1: early first wave of MLMs sold by women to women
Speaker 1: in women's homes. But once Brownie switched over to selling tupperware,
Speaker 1: the real party started. Contrary to her male counterparts at
Speaker 1: the time, Brownie wasn't filing for bankruptcy all over the place.
Speaker 1: She was not making vinyl albums full of faux thinky
Speaker 1: lase fair capitalist propaganda, and she was definitely not gearing
Speaker 1: up to motivate her sales force by having them re
Speaker 1: enact the crucifixion. No, Brownie decided the path to success
Speaker 1: should be paved with fun. I'm Jane Marie and this
Speaker 1: is the Dream episode five Do You Party? Brownie's sales
Speaker 1: tactics were simple but genius. She'd have themed parties. There
Speaker 1: were fun contests and singalongs, and she started giving away
Speaker 1: gifts to hostesses and lucky Raffle winners. Now you'd think
Speaker 1: that those gifts would be like an extra plastic bowl
Speaker 1: or something, but No Brownie gave away items from her
Speaker 1: own wardrobe, dresses, jewelry hats. So you'd go to a
Speaker 1: party crossing your fingers. Brownie would be there, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd get some cute little pastel colored plastic stacking cups
Speaker 1: that your kids can't destroy. But maybe you'd also get
Speaker 1: a fabulous rhinestone brooch. She made being a tupperware sales
Speaker 1: lady aspirational and tapped into the desires of housewives to
Speaker 1: not only make some extra cash, but look good and
Speaker 1: feel good doing it. So she's doing all this on
Speaker 1: her ow and starts out selling Tupperware in local stores,
Speaker 1: at which point Earl Tupper yes his real name as well,
Speaker 1: gets wise to Brownie. Wise. He stops selling Tupperware in
Speaker 1: stores and hires her to kickstart their exclusive home party
Speaker 1: based business. This is in nineteen fifty. Now, if you
Speaker 1: didn't see this next part coming from a mile away,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you should
Speaker 1: read a book or watch more TV. After a few
Speaker 1: years and loads of success, Earl starts to think Brownie's
Speaker 1: getting too big for her breeches. She's becoming a little
Speaker 1: more popular than his plastic bowls, so he fires her.
Speaker 1: She sues for thirty thousand dollars in severance, and Earle
Speaker 1: turns around and sells the company for sixteen million dollars
Speaker 1: That very same year, Brownie dies in obscurity, but her
Speaker 1: innovations and inspiration live on. Party based MLMs are big
Speaker 1: business to this day. And not to brag, but in
Speaker 1: my hometown we have our very own larger than life
Speaker 1: saleswoman extraordinaire, and I know her ladies and gentlemen, Danielle
Speaker 1: Jean Johnson. Growing up, I always knew that I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a leader. As a young child, I used
Speaker 1: to say I wanted to be the first woman president.
Speaker 1: I was president of my class four years, all through
Speaker 1: high school and one middle school year. Middle school, that's
Speaker 1: when I met Danielle. She was in the class ahead
Speaker 1: of me, but we rode the bus together every day,
Speaker 1: and we lived out in the middle of nowhere, so
Speaker 1: those rides were really long. Danielle was cool and pretty.
Speaker 1: I remember in seventh grade finally getting hair almost like hers,
Speaker 1: long dark brown spirals, and then I got braces and
Speaker 1: I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror at
Speaker 1: school and thinking, oh, I almost look like Danielle. She
Speaker 1: was popular and outgoing, obviously, I mean, she was a
Speaker 1: five term president. After all. She married her high school
Speaker 1: sweetheart and they're still married the Noive and they have
Speaker 1: two beautiful teen daughters. After graduating high school, Danielle became
Speaker 1: a dance instructor, which is about the coolest, sexiest job
Speaker 1: you can even imagine. In Shiawassee County, and then six
Speaker 1: years ago Daniell Jean Johnson and changed course and began
Speaker 1: her career in direct sales, selling monogrammable bags for thirty one.
Speaker 1: For those of you that are not familiar, First of all,
Speaker 1: it is a faith based company. The name thirty one
Speaker 1: actually comes from Proverbs thirty one, which is all about
Speaker 1: celebrating women as wives, homemakers, mothers, teachers, friends, you know,
Speaker 1: all of those wonderful things that we can be as women.
Speaker 1: MLMs and religion are a match made in heaven. Thirty
Speaker 1: one isn't the only Christian MLM, not even close. There
Speaker 1: are tons of them, unique young living oils Amway, and
Speaker 1: Proverbs thirty one, the proverb that this bag company named
Speaker 1: itself after, helps explain why it's about this guy, King Lemule,
Speaker 1: who had, in my reading anyway, a pretty overbearing but
Speaker 1: smart mom. She taught him stuff like watch out for
Speaker 1: loose women and don't be a drunk. She was also
Speaker 1: like stand up for the poor and needy and whatnot,
Speaker 1: which is all great, But then she goes on this
Speaker 1: whole rant about the kind of daughter in law she wants,
Speaker 1: and it's like, relax, lady, I'll paraphrase here, but Lemuel's
Speaker 1: mom said, a good wife gets up while it's still night,
Speaker 1: provides food for her family. She considers a field and
Speaker 1: then buys it out of her earnings. She plants a vineyard,
Speaker 1: sets about her work vigorously. Her arms are strong for
Speaker 1: her tasks. Her lamp does not go out at night.
Speaker 1: Then there's this whole section about all the fancy clothes
Speaker 1: she's supposed to make for herself and her family out
Speaker 1: of fabric. She wove herself out of wool she spun herself.
Speaker 1: And then finally she's smart and funny, and her husband
Speaker 1: and kids adore her, and they say, unto her, many
Speaker 1: women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's Proverbs thirty one. This ideal Christian woman, one
Speaker 1: who is both a wife and a mother, who stays
Speaker 1: up all night working while remaining lovable, also happens to
Speaker 1: be the ideal MLM salesperson, And methinks that's by design
Speaker 1: Companies like these bank on the trappings of domesticity, not
Speaker 1: just through the products they sell, which are often housewares, makeup,
Speaker 1: or diet shakes, but they operate in such a way
Speaker 1: that you can't really escape this version of domesticity once
Speaker 1: you're in one of them. You work nights and weekends
Speaker 1: because you're supposed to homeschool your kids and feed your husband.
Speaker 1: And most people in this industry don't make any money
Speaker 1: selling bags on nights and weekends, So even if they
Speaker 1: wanted to do something other than be a stay at
Speaker 1: home mom, they couldn't, so they're stuck. That's my cynical view.
Speaker 1: But for Danielle and many women like her, working for
Speaker 1: a Christian company reaffirms her faith. It gives her a
Speaker 1: sense of community. She gets to be a Christian in
Speaker 1: every part of her life, all day and all night,
Speaker 1: and that's worth more than a paycheck. Right before joining
Speaker 1: thirty one, she was I was doing everything from cleaning houses.
Speaker 1: I was still dabbling and teaching dance. I was doing
Speaker 1: homeschoolers because it was during the day while my kids
Speaker 1: were at school. Anything I could do basically that was
Speaker 1: flexible that kept me going to my kids as activities.
Speaker 1: So I was a seamstress, so I was doing takens
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, and sewing. I was making
Speaker 1: basically my own edible arrangements and doing those for like
Speaker 1: Mother's Day and everything, right, you name it, I was
Speaker 1: doing it. I was I was dabbling in eBay and
Speaker 1: at sea and kind of flipping things from garage sales,
Speaker 1: just all that kind of flexible stuff. And then she
Speaker 1: found thirty one. So I've always been Christian, but I
Speaker 1: was at that point when I when I joined, was
Speaker 1: not going to church, was not you know, had done
Speaker 1: plenty of things with my kids, taken them to vacation,
Speaker 1: Bible school, had spent my earlier years of my marriage
Speaker 1: faithfully going to church, and life got busy basically, you know,
Speaker 1: and I had had not been doing as much. What
Speaker 1: I love is that it actually brought me back to
Speaker 1: my faith. Yes, So I have now since just in
Speaker 1: this last year, joined a church again, have a group
Speaker 1: of women that I love being around. And it is
Speaker 1: one because thirty one has shown me that I needed
Speaker 1: that back in my life, that I needed the support
Speaker 1: of other people, that there's so much to learn from
Speaker 1: the Bible, and there's so much about being part of
Speaker 1: a community. Earlier, I compared Danielle to Brownie wise, and
Speaker 1: not just because she's vivacious and outgoing and works in
Speaker 1: the party business, but because she's exceptionally good at it,
Speaker 1: and because she's so good at it, she's really high
Speaker 1: up in the Oh, what do you call it? I'll
Speaker 1: let her describe it. We have a ladder, obviously, like
Speaker 1: most trex sales companies have. It is not a pyramid.
Speaker 1: Always like pointing in there's no pyramid scheme. Those are illegal.
Speaker 1: I would never be part of that. You hear this
Speaker 1: from a lot of MLM distributors, especially in the recruitment
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube. They must get asked this all the time.
Speaker 1: The very first thing I think of when somebody says
Speaker 1: it's a pyramid scheme, I'm like, oh, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know me, let me help you out here.
Speaker 1: You don't you may not know. But phumid schemes are illegal.
Speaker 1: First of all, it is illegal to have a pyramid scheme.
Speaker 1: First of all. Pyramid schemes or against the law. It's
Speaker 1: really that simple. Okay, Pyramid schemes are, it's the law, okay,
Speaker 1: but this is not one of them. So Okay, check
Speaker 1: thirty one is not a pyramid scheme. It's a multi
Speaker 1: level marketing company that has rungs, and Danielle is way
Speaker 1: the hell up on that ladder. The first level is
Speaker 1: senior consultant, and then director and then senior director. That's
Speaker 1: how where I'm at in the ladder. How many people
Speaker 1: in the organization are at your level? Good question. Last
Speaker 1: I knew we're at about two hundred. I believe in
Speaker 1: our executive director level it's actually two hundred and eighty three,
Speaker 1: and there are three rungs above her, with fewer folks
Speaker 1: as you go up. At various points over the years,
Speaker 1: Danielle has been crowned the number one salesperson in all
Speaker 1: of Michigan and the number one recruiter in the entire company.
Speaker 1: There are tens of thousands of people on the rungs
Speaker 1: below her, and on her team alone, she has one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy distributors. I bet you're dying to know
Speaker 1: how much she makes. Yes, so my actual take home
Speaker 1: after expenses this last year was a little over forty
Speaker 1: two thousand yep. So in the beginning. The biggest example
Speaker 1: I always give is from the beginning, I have paid
Speaker 1: my mortgage. Now with that, that was my personal sales.
Speaker 1: So I was not a director yet, meaning I wasn't
Speaker 1: making any extra commission off of anyone underneath me. I
Speaker 1: was partying. I was partying a lot at this point.
Speaker 1: I still make that a goal. So even to this day,
Speaker 1: my mortgage is always paid by my own personal sales.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a little personal goal that I
Speaker 1: like to do. Can I ask you what your mortgage is? Yes,
Speaker 1: so it was eight hundred and thirty three was what
Speaker 1: it was when I first started. So it's always in
Speaker 1: the eight hundred range. So my goal is usually nine
Speaker 1: hundred and that's mnescro girl, So that's your insurance and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff in there with it. Wait, here's
Speaker 1: a question. So eight hundred times four, so you get
Speaker 1: twenty five percent from the beginning, so you were selling
Speaker 1: over three thousand a month in retail sales, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: goal has always been four thousand minimum. That is. When
Speaker 1: I drop below that, I'm not gonna lie. I'm a
Speaker 1: little disappointed in myself, and it happens from time to time,
Speaker 1: But throughout the years I've been able to do way
Speaker 1: more than that. Now I've shot it more up to
Speaker 1: Usually my goal is more like six thousand a month
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to do. How do you do that?
Speaker 1: That's like a hundred products. So for me, I'm a
Speaker 1: home party gal. A lot of people on my team
Speaker 1: are they're doing you know, the big trend is social
Speaker 1: media Facebook parties. It's not to say that I don't
Speaker 1: do those, but for me, those are the icing on
Speaker 1: top is what I like to say. I'm a people person,
Speaker 1: so I love the home party. That's what fills my cup.
Speaker 1: How much does it cost to have a party? Absolutely nothing. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is sort of true, and I'll let Danielle go
Speaker 1: into more detail in a second. But this framing of
Speaker 1: things being totally free in the MLM world happens a lot.
Speaker 1: You won't have to spend a dime, but baseline, you'll
Speaker 1: need a phone or a computer to invite people to
Speaker 1: a party. Right, those things aren't free, and you need
Speaker 1: a place to have the party. That's stuff not free.
Speaker 1: And then you need time, which if you have kids,
Speaker 1: means you might have to get a sitter, and those
Speaker 1: are not free. The only thing that you're ever out
Speaker 1: would be snacks and drinks. And I try to keep
Speaker 1: that light. I schedule my parties at times where people
Speaker 1: are not going to be wanting actual breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Speaker 1: So I like to do a ten am brunch, which
Speaker 1: again I always say, hey, you know, if you think
Speaker 1: your friends would like mimosas and muffins, that's a good
Speaker 1: theme and that's super easy. Two thirty again, that's a
Speaker 1: snack time, and then six thirty after dinner, and themes
Speaker 1: are a great way that they can also not only
Speaker 1: have fun, but the other thing I say sometimes too,
Speaker 1: So let's say we're going to do chocolate and wine.
Speaker 1: We're going to do a six thirty chocolate and wine.
Speaker 1: I will also take some of the heat off of
Speaker 1: the hostess by saying, hey, let's have all of your guests.
Speaker 1: Anyone who brings a chocolate dessert or a bottle of wine,
Speaker 1: they're going to get extra tickets for me to be
Speaker 1: entered for that prize. So that's another way that I
Speaker 1: take the heat off of the hostess that she doesn't
Speaker 1: have to spend anything. Oh one thing I forgot to
Speaker 1: mention Danielle only works part time and guys, she lives
Speaker 1: in a really nice house, Like, what is the level
Speaker 1: that you're kind of more selling to people when you're
Speaker 1: offering them the opportunity. I mean, I obviously want to
Speaker 1: tell them about your success, but like, what is the
Speaker 1: kind of take home pay and how does it affect
Speaker 1: people's lives at the level that's actually like what most
Speaker 1: people can achieve. Yep. So the biggest thing with that
Speaker 1: is that you're exactly right, and in fact, not only
Speaker 1: is it a little bit harder and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of stretch, it's actually intimidating to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that think, oh, I can
Speaker 1: see how much time she's putting into this, and I
Speaker 1: already have a job and this would be my second,
Speaker 1: you know, side gig type of thing. I don't have
Speaker 1: the time for that. And it's not so much about
Speaker 1: figuring out what level it works. It's more figuring out
Speaker 1: what works for them and what the money can do
Speaker 1: for them. So for me, it's more listening to their story.
Speaker 1: It's easier for all of us to do those prejudgments
Speaker 1: and those assumptions. And I think when they say, you know,
Speaker 1: let's just give an example that someone says, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I really need money. We're strapped for money, and for me,
Speaker 1: I automatically may think, okay, that means she needs thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars. We got to work this girl fast. But
Speaker 1: for her it might not be. It might just be
Speaker 1: that she needs two hundred dollars to keep the lights on,
Speaker 1: or you know, something a little more simpler than what
Speaker 1: I'm assuming. And I like to say, if you need
Speaker 1: a thousand or less, I can get you there right away.
Speaker 1: If you're ready to party and you're willing to put
Speaker 1: a little bit of work in, whether that's five hours
Speaker 1: a week, ten hours a week or less, that thousand
Speaker 1: in less range is very achievable for girls, you know,
Speaker 1: women right away. Anything above that, yes, then we're going
Speaker 1: to need to look at leadership for you, and we're
Speaker 1: going to need to get on a fast track to
Speaker 1: leadership for you. If that's you know, if your numbers
Speaker 1: are a little bit higher. I've seen directors become directors
Speaker 1: in you know, four or five six months if they
Speaker 1: if they've got the time and the energy and the
Speaker 1: want and the need. But I will say one of
Speaker 1: the things that a leader above me had taught me
Speaker 1: from the beginning is that we have a bathtub with
Speaker 1: the drain open and the water is forever flowing and
Speaker 1: going out that drain. So that is where you're constantly needing.
Speaker 1: If you want to be a director above like myself,
Speaker 1: you have to be constantly bringing people in because they're
Speaker 1: going to leave. And it happens all the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: some of my best friends started off selling and they're
Speaker 1: not anymore, you know, and plenty of people come and
Speaker 1: it's not for everyone. That's the other thing I always
Speaker 1: say to people too, do you ever have any hesitation
Speaker 1: signing people up, like knowing that there is a high turnover,
Speaker 1: knowing that it is really hard to like make money.
Speaker 1: Are there people that you want to sign up? And
Speaker 1: you go, I can't do this to her. When I
Speaker 1: first started out, it's such a mindset and such a
Speaker 1: mind game of getting your self in the right place.
Speaker 1: When I first started out, you would hear so many
Speaker 1: different theories. There are some consultants who will say that
Speaker 1: they only recruit what they want to recruit, which is
Speaker 1: people that they think are going to be like them,
Speaker 1: are going to be successful. And there are some that
Speaker 1: are a little the same idea but maybe different that
Speaker 1: they're like, no, I'm always just looking for those girls
Speaker 1: that I know that I can help for me? No,
Speaker 1: and when? And sometimes is it a disappointment sometimes that
Speaker 1: you get people that you know you recruited and you
Speaker 1: put time and effort into them and it didn't work
Speaker 1: out and they didn't do you know anything that let's say,
Speaker 1: let's be honest in the most transparent, don't mean this
Speaker 1: in an ugly way, but that it didn't do anything
Speaker 1: for me. You know, there were no sales. I made nothing,
Speaker 1: but I put a lot of time. But it all
Speaker 1: just has to equal out and average out because there's
Speaker 1: some that I know when I devote that time to
Speaker 1: they're becoming a director, They're becoming what I need to
Speaker 1: help me move up the ladder as well, And so
Speaker 1: it just all equals out. And that's why I just
Speaker 1: look at it as the big picture of this is
Speaker 1: what I'm spending on my time doesn't matter whether I
Speaker 1: spend it on this individual or that individual. You know,
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time, it's all gonna come back.
Speaker 1: Money goes pretty far around here if you know where
Speaker 1: to find it, and Danielle says she does. She invited
Speaker 1: me to a thirty one training and recruitment meeting so
Speaker 1: I could see for myself how her business works. It's
Speaker 1: not a party, but it's a training to train people
Speaker 1: how to party. All right. It is a cold, rainy
Speaker 1: Saturday morning in May, and I am headed to Calvary
Speaker 1: Baptist Church on the south side of a Wasso, just
Speaker 1: passing Central Elementary School, which is where my little sisters go,
Speaker 1: and I went there too. I just heard from my
Speaker 1: stepmom that this company that Danielle works for, for a while,
Speaker 1: somebody in the elementary school was slipping information packets about
Speaker 1: it into the kids' mailboxes. So when you would pick
Speaker 1: up your kids homework after school, there'd be some flyers
Speaker 1: in there about selling thirty one. But I guess somebody
Speaker 1: put the kibosh on that and they haven't done it
Speaker 1: in a little while. Oh this is this is my favorite.
Speaker 1: There's a storage place that's in the old recycling plant
Speaker 1: and it's called out Back Mini Storage and they just
Speaker 1: stole the logo from Outback Steakhouse. Soay, yeah, out Back
Speaker 1: Storage Calvary Baptist Church. Character is a paramount in leadership.
Speaker 1: Character is paramount in leadership. And oh the lat is full. Hello,
Speaker 1: hello you gosh are you We're in a conference room
Speaker 1: in a newish kind of fancy church, the kind of
Speaker 1: room that's seen a lot of bridle and baby showers,
Speaker 1: with fluorescent lights overhead and long folding tables set in
Speaker 1: a rectangle like we're all supposed to be facing each other,
Speaker 1: But then too many people show up, twenty seven in all,
Speaker 1: and the middle of the rectangle gets crowded with chairs
Speaker 1: and babies. There were three and a projector. Before coming
Speaker 1: to this meeting, I had heard of thirty one. A
Speaker 1: few other friends sell it on Facebook. I jokingly called
Speaker 1: it the ugly Chevron bag Company. In my defense, one
Speaker 1: of their most popular bags is called the Utility Tote.
Speaker 1: It's enormous and could fit like all of your hockey
Speaker 1: equipment and all of your weekly groceries, and it comes
Speaker 1: in a chevron print. I was ready to hate thirty one. However,
Speaker 1: the minute I sit down here, Danielle plops a stack
Speaker 1: of catalogs in front of me, and they actually have
Speaker 1: some really cute, soft insulated cooler things and vegan purses,
Speaker 1: And for not the first time during this experience, I
Speaker 1: start to enjoy myself leaping through the seven flyers of
Speaker 1: new product lines. Also, I find out that you can
Speaker 1: become a distributor for one dollar. No product purchase is necessary,
Speaker 1: though there's a pretty hefty starter kit you can get
Speaker 1: for ninety nine bucks and you only have to sell
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars of retail items every three months to
Speaker 1: stay active, whatever that means. At the risk of sounding
Speaker 1: like an MLM apologist, I do start to have some
Speaker 1: positive feelings about this particular one. There are others that
Speaker 1: require so much more financially, and no one's promising these
Speaker 1: bags will cure cancer or anything. But then here comes
Speaker 1: the Christianity again. Danielle kicks things off with a prayer
Speaker 1: one from a thirty one handbook, and I'm back to
Speaker 1: not having any fun. Thank you, Laurd. I want to
Speaker 1: be that tree. I want to move beyond thinking that
Speaker 1: I'm still a seed. Take me and grow me into
Speaker 1: the woman you would have, maybe unwavering, unaffected by others,
Speaker 1: seeing only your plan, flexible, and willing to do the
Speaker 1: work to grow to amazing heights in my faith. Real quick,
Speaker 1: before you start filling in the blanks about my thoughts
Speaker 1: on Christianity. My family is Methodist and I had plenty
Speaker 1: of exposure growing up, but every time I go to
Speaker 1: church or think about that God, I start to panic
Speaker 1: that someone I love might end up burning in hell.
Speaker 1: And I get that the positives probably outweigh the negatives,
Speaker 1: what with the wonderful community and inner peace and going
Speaker 1: to heaven and all that, but I can't shake their
Speaker 1: need to threaten eternal damnation. I do get a genuine
Speaker 1: kick out of the Bible, though, Remind me to tell
Speaker 1: you about the physically giant demi gods in Genesis. All right,
Speaker 1: let's celebrate our new people in the room. So first
Speaker 1: of all, if this is your meeting, stand up, we've
Speaker 1: got to celebrate you. Clap pep club pat clud. Danielle's
Speaker 1: energy on this cold Saturday morning is impressive, But I
Speaker 1: guess that's it's possible if you aren't grinding away at
Speaker 1: a nine to five or a nine to seven or
Speaker 1: a nine to nine all week like the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Her assistant ju Linda, sitting directly across from me, pulls
Speaker 1: out a giant roll of raffle tickets, tears off a
Speaker 1: few feet of them, and hands them to Danielle. So, everybody,
Speaker 1: we'll start with This is May, so we'll start with April.
Speaker 1: If you had six hundred or more say standing, if
Speaker 1: you had eight hundred or more, say standing whoo. Danielle's
Speaker 1: asking people what their retail sales were for the previous month.
Speaker 1: A handful of folks are brand new and have no
Speaker 1: income to report, but then again, neither do some of
Speaker 1: the women who've been selling thirty one for quite some time.
Speaker 1: Only six of the twenty seven folks in attendance sold
Speaker 1: more than six hundred dollars worth of stock in April,
Speaker 1: and the most anyone sold was eighteen hundred bucks, or
Speaker 1: the month which she got a twenty five percent commission up.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't take into account expenses. So doing quick math,
Speaker 1: in my head, I'm thinking, this just doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: enough money. But then I talked to Ala Marie, a
Speaker 1: very young mom sitting to my right, who told me
Speaker 1: she averages around three hundred a month in commissions when
Speaker 1: she's really focusing on thirty one and not doing care.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like It didn't seem like like a
Speaker 1: lot at first, but when I actually started getting it
Speaker 1: and it was paying like three to four bills, and
Speaker 1: then for me, it wasn't necessarily the money that paid
Speaker 1: for us to get a house, but that was enough
Speaker 1: to prove that much more income to get a mortgage
Speaker 1: on a house. So so for me, without thirty one,
Speaker 1: we would not be We'd still be living in a
Speaker 1: trailer park. Like it, not necessarily taking that money to
Speaker 1: pay for the house, but it was being able to
Speaker 1: prove the income to get a mortgage. So that was
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Ala Marie owns her own home. I do
Speaker 1: not aside from how much people are making, I also
Speaker 1: start wondering who's buying. Remember how one of the things
Speaker 1: to look out for in an MLM is whether it's
Speaker 1: a quote closed system, as in, is most of the
Speaker 1: actual selling going on within the structure of the company
Speaker 1: itself or are there outside customers. Turns out that there
Speaker 1: is a ton of buying going on in this circle
Speaker 1: of sellers, but it's more complicated than I would have guessed.
Speaker 1: The majority of the new women in the room started
Speaker 1: out as collectors. They love the product, and some of
Speaker 1: them they treat these bags like beanie babies. Apparently the
Speaker 1: brand is very popular. One woman collected for years before
Speaker 1: finally plunking down the ninety nine dollars fee for a
Speaker 1: starter kit. Sandy, you had your hand up that to
Speaker 1: share something ten years ago, at Christmas time, I was
Speaker 1: introduced to the thirty one bags with from my mother
Speaker 1: in law who had a party and got some bags
Speaker 1: and gave them out for Christmas gifts. So then I
Speaker 1: tried to seek out who was selling the thirty ones,
Speaker 1: and I had several friends that sold thirty one. They
Speaker 1: would always tell me, you know, you can get all
Speaker 1: this stuff for ninety nine dollars. No, no, no, but
Speaker 1: I would order this stuff and spend more than ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars getting it, and then the next mouth I'd
Speaker 1: call them up and say, hey, I saw this was
Speaker 1: on sale. I would like to place an order. So
Speaker 1: I did, and of course that was again more than
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars. So it's taken me ten years to
Speaker 1: finally pay that ninety nine dollars saving. But you're not alone.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of people who do that. So absolutely. One
Speaker 1: of my friends at work, we had a hobby day.
Speaker 1: We were supposed to dress up for our hobby. So
Speaker 1: I looked at her and she's a big dresser upper
Speaker 1: and I don't like to dress up whatsoever for work,
Speaker 1: and so she looked at me. She goes, you have
Speaker 1: a hobby and it's thirty one, I says, no, I don't.
Speaker 1: I just like thirty one because at that time I
Speaker 1: wasn't selling. And she's like, you're gonna come into work
Speaker 1: tomorrow and you're gonna have all your bags on you. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I had one of the pink thirty one bags
Speaker 1: that the consultants put my stuff in at one time.
Speaker 1: I cut the bottom of it, I put it through
Speaker 1: my legs, put it all the way off, put my
Speaker 1: name take on the top, and I was the thirty
Speaker 1: one bags no shirts that said thirty one, and I
Speaker 1: wore that the whole day. I work at a nursing home,
Speaker 1: Pleasant View, and I had residents asked me what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I had people look at me and say,
Speaker 1: I want the bag person over here. No, I shut up.
Speaker 1: I shut up, but I was because that is so
Speaker 1: fun Halloween right. Another part of the appeal of this
Speaker 1: line is that you can get everything monogrammed. I started
Speaker 1: wondering if Ala, Marie and ju Linda were even the
Speaker 1: most creative names in the room, and having a unique
Speaker 1: name is hard, and that you never get a key
Speaker 1: chain from the airport with your name on it. So
Speaker 1: maybe having your name monogrammed on a wall. It would
Speaker 1: be nice. And then I'm like, Jane, snap out of it.
Speaker 1: They don't really make Jane keychains either, and You're fine.
Speaker 1: Usually goes right from Jamie to Janet. For the next
Speaker 1: two hours, Danielle is walking around handing out Raffle tickets
Speaker 1: one by one for literally anything anyone says about anything,
Speaker 1: Does anybody have any just it's always fun just to
Speaker 1: hear life celebrations. Anybody get something cool that they want
Speaker 1: to share talking about or got married and I got
Speaker 1: two graduating in two weeks and I'm done there. My
Speaker 1: two brothers and my sister and I were able to
Speaker 1: pull up a surprise fiftieth anniversary party for my parents.
Speaker 1: Very cool. Yeah, we watched some promotion of it. A
Speaker 1: new products, including this really cute little unicorn lunch bag.
Speaker 1: June and July were excited to be holding the Summer
Speaker 1: Print events for two months. We'll be offering five exclusive
Speaker 1: new prints Shark Party, Unicorn Dreams, Barn Fun, Sweet Sparklers,
Speaker 1: and Happy Campers. Then we finally get to the Raffle
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry to bum you out, but I was
Speaker 1: bummed out. The Raffle prizes were promotional materials like catalogs
Speaker 1: and keyfobs. I was hoping for, I don't know, a
Speaker 1: bag or two, and oddly, most of the Raffle winners
Speaker 1: picked the key fobs, which I'm assuming are less useful
Speaker 1: in their business pursuits than the catalogs. We did on
Speaker 1: the day. On a high note, which was a game
Speaker 1: Danielle taught everyone to play at their own parties. You're
Speaker 1: only supposed to use one prize for this game, but Danielle,
Speaker 1: being the beast that she is, brought a surprise gift
Speaker 1: for everyone in the room and had them practice the game.
Speaker 1: Here's how it works. One volunteer reads a kind of
Speaker 1: ode to thirty one out loud, and every time the
Speaker 1: words left or right come up, which is quite often,
Speaker 1: this ode was written for the game, you passed your
Speaker 1: mystery package either to your left or to your right.
Speaker 1: The person holding it at the end wins, kind of
Speaker 1: like hot potato. I can't even describe to you how
Speaker 1: huge the smiles were in the room at this point.
Speaker 1: I'm a stay at home mom sometimes left. That's the
Speaker 1: three time and I have gotten the opportunity to make
Speaker 1: a few friendships. I mean, I didn't know some of
Speaker 1: you until tonight, right, So starting thirty one was the
Speaker 1: right decision for me. If this sounds like fun and
Speaker 1: you would like time to play and money to play with,
Speaker 1: then ask me how you could try it right now? Now,
Speaker 1: what do you have to lose? Right In the end,
Speaker 1: everyone got a little fabric container about the size of
Speaker 1: a lunch box in one of the new summer fabrics.
Speaker 1: I got sure after we all put away chairs and
Speaker 1: tables and everyone rushed their babies home or rushed home
Speaker 1: to their babies, I sat and talked with Danielle. I
Speaker 1: want to know how she as one of the chosen
Speaker 1: few who actually make real money doing this, How she
Speaker 1: gets people to join knowing they probably won't get to
Speaker 1: where she's at. Do you feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: the folks you're working with, the women that you're recruiting,
Speaker 1: like I mean, when you and our kids, it was
Speaker 1: kind of prosperous here for a bit when GM still
Speaker 1: was around and everybody had a job. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's felt I'm not here, so I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's felt like it's gotten worse or better
Speaker 1: in recent years. Are there a lot of options for
Speaker 1: people right now? Or is this kind of like one
Speaker 1: of the main things you can do to ensure that
Speaker 1: you make a good living. I think in our direct
Speaker 1: Shiwasee County, No, I do not think that there's been
Speaker 1: a huge improvement with job availability. I think there's been some,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't say it's enough to really show that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's huge. But I think direct sales as
Speaker 1: a whole has just taken a huge boom in the
Speaker 1: last few years for that reason that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of women and men, depending on the companies, have
Speaker 1: seen that it's something that they can do for themselves.
Speaker 1: And demographically, you know, there are some I always give
Speaker 1: the example that I will go to, you know, a
Speaker 1: party and we'll say Grand Blank or down River Detroit,
Speaker 1: and you just assume and think, oh boy, this is
Speaker 1: going to be it. This is going to be the
Speaker 1: honeypot because it's this beautiful neighborhood. And they're the ones
Speaker 1: that don't spend where I can go to the trailer park.
Speaker 1: And they're the womans, the women that just got their paycheck,
Speaker 1: and they live a different world than the rest of us,
Speaker 1: and when they have money, they they're afraid where it's
Speaker 1: going to go, so they use it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: and I've definitely I've learned that, I've even done you know,
Speaker 1: there's studies on that. I've actually taken classes on that,
Speaker 1: so you never can prejudge, first of all, and it's
Speaker 1: where it does work, taking classes on how people spend
Speaker 1: their money. So it's funny, it's not actually how they
Speaker 1: it's it wasn't specifically a class for that, it was,
Speaker 1: it's it's a series of classes. So we have, believe
Speaker 1: it or not a huge homeless I don't want to
Speaker 1: say problem, but numbers in our community way more so
Speaker 1: than we ever used to have. And a local community
Speaker 1: leader basically who is amazing, she has run a lot
Speaker 1: of classes and her emphasis was for those of us
Speaker 1: that are business owners of any type or anyone in
Speaker 1: the community for that matter, was to make us aware
Speaker 1: of those lower demographics, not just the homeless, but those
Speaker 1: people who are for instance, you know, in a trailer
Speaker 1: park situation or in a lower income apartments and residents
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, how they work and how
Speaker 1: they think, and that was exactly it. It was eye opening.
Speaker 1: It was so huge to think about. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of people think and assume for instance that like
Speaker 1: they're on welfare, but they have this huge, huge, big
Speaker 1: screen TV. You know how many of us have thought
Speaker 1: of that as an example, why are they doing this? Well,
Speaker 1: you have to understand that they live in communities that
Speaker 1: we don't always all live in. So for them, that
Speaker 1: is their only entertainment is that big, huge screen TV.
Speaker 1: And they work together. Unlike a lot of us. They
Speaker 1: know that their neighbor may be the one that has
Speaker 1: to go pick up their kids because they don't have
Speaker 1: a call, and so for them to have the TV
Speaker 1: that my neighbor picks up the kids, but hey, come
Speaker 1: over to my house, We're going to watch the big
Speaker 1: race on the big screen TV. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: a small example, but learned a lot of things that
Speaker 1: was really eye opening, just as a human being in general,
Speaker 1: to have a little more compassion, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: so easy to prejudge. But showed me a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: of what you can do with your business and how
Speaker 1: you're helping and how like I said, they work, and yes,
Speaker 1: for them their paycheck. That was one of the things
Speaker 1: that we learned right away in there is that they're
Speaker 1: used to someone taking that paycheck some way shape or form,
Speaker 1: and so there's no savings for them. They know that
Speaker 1: that's just not in there. They don't feel that's in
Speaker 1: there in their realm of capabilities, and so they that's
Speaker 1: where they get those big items and they you know,
Speaker 1: they do those things. Back when I was in elementary
Speaker 1: school here, we had an annual event where the entire
Speaker 1: school played town. We were given the freedom to choose
Speaker 1: a career, set up shop, and market our business however
Speaker 1: we saw fit. The ice cream stand guys didn't need
Speaker 1: any help in that area, and the counterfeit dollar printers
Speaker 1: could hardly keep up with the action. I always chose
Speaker 1: to run a salon and gave out coupons to passers by.
Speaker 1: My friend Shanna's mom had a real salon, and she
Speaker 1: let us borrow curling irons and crimpers, which by teachers
Speaker 1: starting in second grade let me plug in and use
Speaker 1: on other seven year olds. Any fear that I'd horribly
Speaker 1: maim a classmate was apparently outweighed by the fear that
Speaker 1: I'd end up a directionless hobo. We were being trained
Speaker 1: to be workers and to work hard. At worst, that
Speaker 1: meant working hard at train hopping, at best, working hard
Speaker 1: at running a family and a small business at the
Speaker 1: same time. Danielle probably got an A plus in town.
Speaker 1: Next time on the Dream, toward the end of the month,
Speaker 1: when things are winding down and we hadn't met our
Speaker 1: unit quota and hey, I noticed you hadn't placed an
Speaker 1: order in a while. Do you think you could maybe
Speaker 1: put in two hundred or four hundred dollars? You reach
Speaker 1: out to your aunts, you reach out to your grandmother,
Speaker 1: You reach out to these people that you think are
Speaker 1: soft targets. All you know is this looks familiar to me.
Speaker 1: I've seen it in my Facebook feed or my sister
Speaker 1: did this. We have a lot of work to do
Speaker 1: with victims and even helping themselves identify as victims. I
Speaker 1: just don't think the accurate picture is out there. I
Speaker 1: miss A production of Little Everywhere and Stitcher written and
Speaker 1: reported by Me Jane Marie, Dan Galucci, Mackenzie cassab Lyra
Speaker 1: Smith and help from Claire Rowlinson. We are edited by
Speaker 1: Peter Clowney. Our fact checker is Michelle Harris. The Dream
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Laura Mayer, Chris Bannon, Dan Galucci
Speaker 1: and me. We appreciate you subscribing, rating and reviewing the show.
Speaker 1: Wherever you listen, Hello the Dream listeners. Have you had
Speaker 1: a personal experience with MLMs? We want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Leave us a voicemail at seven one five six zero
Speaker 1: zero zero three two six, or send us an email
Speaker 1: at This is the Dream Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Remind me to tell you about the physically giant demigods
Speaker 1: in Genesis. They're called Nephalem, and they are the children
Speaker 1: of the sons of God who are friends of God.
Speaker 1: Were in heaven before the earth was created, which nobody
Speaker 1: talks about. He has all these homies up there. And
Speaker 1: they saw the women that God made on earth and
Speaker 1: thought they were super hot and told the told God, like,
Speaker 1: we need to go down and get some, and he
Speaker 1: was like, sure, go ahead, And they came unto them.
Speaker 1: They said, it says, it came unto them had babies
Speaker 1: with them, and those babies are Nephelim, and they live
Speaker 1: to be a thousand years old like Methuselah. And they
Speaker 1: were like thirty feet high, and they're the whole reason
Speaker 1: the flood happened.