While it was a great gig for me, I found it wasn’t the best investment of my time and money. What is your monthly reorder rate? Mine was half of one percent in my other biz, if that. Melaleuca has a 95% monthly reorder rate. If you’re looking for true reliable, residual income, you will find it is the only company that experiences that kind of reorder rate. I can 99.99% promise you that.

Also, there is no major start up fee (like PC and other businesses) and you don’t have to go and plunk out more money into replenishing catalogs, supplies, demo products, samples, invites, host credit, etc.

Not to mention you don’t have to sell products (which is a one-time payout, it’s not residual), collect checks and hope that the check clears, submit people’s orders, etc. I love that I just set up wholesale accts. and people shop for what they need – Melaleuca takes care of everything I was doing before, only they just send me a monthly check for the referrals. LOVE that, and love that the products have been life-changing for many people with health and financial issues. And I also love that NOBODY gets hurt!

We’ve invested our time into building a very successful business with Melaleuca in just 17 months. Just the last 3 months, our checks have averaged $6,400/month. We’ve already replaced my hubby’s income and now working towards replacing mine.

I’m sorry to hear you didn’t have the same experience with Melaleuca. It’s not for everyone. Some people prefer to go out and do the parties for one-time sales to make an income. That’s just something I personally don’t miss! But that’s what’s totally great about living in America…everyone has a choice! All I know is we love it and feel very blessed we are gaining true time and financial freedom while helping others!

Divide $2 billion/180,000/18 years. That’s the average annual income of an MA owner and makes the 45 year plan look pretty appealing right?

It is about getting only 2 people. You’ll be looking for just 2 people 24/7 for eternity. Even if you’ve brought 50 people into the business, you’ll still be looking for just 2 people. There is nothing wrong with that just don’t tell me I only need 2 people.

It’s not “just like any other business”. MA is driven by the money spent by its employees….like any MLM. More math for you; 180,000 X $2,400. As an MA owner you’ll spend AT LEAST $2,400/year out of pocket on products and services. That’s $437million in annual sales from MA employees. THAT’S WHY YOU ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR MORE “EMPLOYEES”.

Other than that, it’s all good. lol.

First, I became an Unfranchise owner of MA on October 20, 2008. A friend of mine gave me the sales pitch of how I could earn extra income and residual income if I allowed her and her business partner to show me the plan. Let me add that I was a full time college student at that time taking 18 credits a semester, with no plan A income. My awareness of real life wasn’t really in focus and any idea that was thrown at me sounded like a great venture. 2008 must’ve been the year for me to learn about Network Marketing.
1. Summer – I was asked by my cousin to do Quixtar (total of 8 hours of meeting time),
2. July – a costumer of mine tried to get me into selling Mary Kay (a total of 3 full days of learning and watching)
3. August – student at school introduced Avon to me
4. September – Friend brings up MA to me

To keep this as short as possible I would like to share my experience with MA. Prior to starting the business, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just thought that it was like going to college, like doing a long term project and working on completing it till satisfied. Well, in reality it’s not. Being a MA distributor is NOT EASY! Yes, it’s do-able to make the big bucks but you have to stick with a system that works and devote many hours of implementing it. I admit that I did not follow the system, nor did I do cold calling to my friends and relatives. I’m also not the type of person that sells. Yes, I love recommending ideas and vitamins that I take within MA but I can’t go up to a random person and begin my sales pitch. For all these months, I thought that deep down, maybe MA is a good idea for me if I just wait it out, but after reading everybody’s posts, I think I’m going to cancel my UFO this summer since I already paid for my $104.95 annual renewal fee but then I’ll be $600+ in the hole. I have put in over $2,000 with nothing in return (in aspects of income). I don’t regret starting MA because I wouldn’t have known about OPC-3, which helps me with my kidney issues. The point is, I don’t even have a job to help me pay for my monthly transfer buys which costs an average of $140/month, then a yearly renewal fee, and admissions fee to all of the classes and conferences held through MA. I haven’t even gotten my 2nd downline, on top of that my first sponsor just quit because all of her credit cards are maxed out. Is MA to blame? NOPE, I blame myself because I didn’t ask the difficult questions of what I need to do when starting this company. If I asked myself can you be a sales person? Are you ready to commit to a system that may or may not work in the end? Do you have the financials to back up MA? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to be like E. Weber? Do you know enough people that would be interested in working in MA and to teach and guide them? My answers to these questions are “no” because that’s me. I accept who I am and how far I can push myself to achieve something . With my experience, I have seen/met the people that are succeeding with this and most of the time, they have a very strong moral support. Unlike myself, I don’t have any support but my sponsors……and my mom because she knows how the product has helped me. My mom sees the value of the product but the income part is a different story (which I have not shared with her). My advice is, do your research prior to getting into something like this, even if it takes a year or more, they’re all good companies to partake in but ask yourself is it a good company for YOU?!?! I rushed into this venture with minimal research and because my sponsors kept saying “what are you waiting for?” They never really gave me the full detailed outline of what it takes to be successful in MA. And so you know, I am very open-minded with MA because like all companies there are pros and cons.

I’ve actually just plugged into a team that things it has figured out a way to manipulate the MA system, give it a shot in the arm and get people activated quicker. It’s all about the placement of people’s b/v purchases throughout the group. my wife my inlaws are in balls deep.

I on the other hand remain skeptical and realize that you can’t get blood from a stone. you are essentially being compensated for being a consumer, which isn’t bad but a couple rewards cards could be just as beneficial, shopping at aldi’s and biglots would help out too. damn, people and thier conspicuous consupmtion….

I am really concerned to allow this marketing machine into my family’s life but I have literally spent the past 3 months trying to convince my wife that MA isn’t the greatest thing. Over time, yes maybe, if everything works according to the “plan”, but anyone with a half a brain knows life isn’t like that.

The past 2 weeks have become increasingly intense at home, literally yelling at the top of my lungs, laying in bed yelling at eachother at night. I’m in the financial industry, and I know that simple accounting and numbers don’t lie. if your out’s are more than your in’s, your losing money, plain and simple. the start up costs are about 1000.00 for us, some people are putting in thier monthly orders through us to compensate for lack of funds for the extra BV’s to qualify. we have two people lined up and the pumps primed to “activate” and within 3 weeks, we’ll start seeing our first 300.00 check. That’s what the team I’m on is telling me.

I guess im just too old school to get caught up in the zealous nature of this beast. One other commenter said the same thing I told my wife and my father in law,

“They are in the business to sell the MA business model, that’s where they are making thier money.”

sure you might think your saving money by buying thier products for yourself at your distributor cost, but you lose on the other end of “keeping up with the program” “hanging in there” “building your customer base” blah blah blah. I worked in retail and customer service for 10 years before transistioning into the financial industry. Selling stuff is pretty much done the same way all over the world, the only thing that changes is the product.

They frame the product around the same bullshyte, there is nothing new under the sun. Man has been trying to create value in anything that can be illusory percieved as valuable to a potential customer. its only beneficial to the customer if it really is valuable, but the person selling it, at the end of the day only cares about funding what they have determined is valuable to them. idk…

After the past 2 weeks of intensly deliberating with my wife I gave in. Faced with her growing disatisfaction with staying home with the kids, watching other peoples kids to have some extra cash, wanting “something to do with herself” and the prospect of never living down the notion that I am “controlling”, I decided that maybe I’m wrong (although I don’t really think I am, Im gonna go to the meetings, play the part, im going undercover to really keep track of the IN’s and OUT’s of this whole process and then track that evidence, show my wife that we are spending more on keeping this thing alive than making any profit.)

She agreed that if we weren’t making money and that we were spending more on the business model than we were supposed to get, we’d quit, she doesn;t know what’s in my head. shytty? maybe, but “bullshyte the baker and you might get a bun, bullshyte me and you won’t get none.” I’m not dumb. Diligent hands will prosper. People who complain about not making enough money are living beyond thier means. Having more money starts in your head with how you think about yourself, what you need and what you want. its a fine line but if your honest, and I mean really honest with yourself you’d be suprised with what you realy don’t need in life ( materialistically speaking.) Food, clothing, shelter and friends are all you need to have a “life”. but I digress…

Still, I feel like shyte, I have my doubts and i just wonder how long its going to take before my wife and in laws to realize they are actually losing money. Get this, my father in law is so hooked and so firmly believes in the business model that he actually guaranteed to reimburse my start up costs, not to exceed 1000.00 of course hahah, if we aren’t making money in 12 months in writing. We both signed an agreement. That’s how strongly I am resisting this whole thing. I figured, If he’ll pay me back what do I have to lose right?

I Just wonder if I’m going to break even. I’m tired of running the numbers. talk about fuzzy math? MA’s math is too involved and dependent on customer loyalty. The only thing people are loyal to is thier own best interests. try to predict the course of desire in the human mind and quantify that mathmatically. The nature of people is to choose what they want.

Wasting my time to convince people to only buy thier consumables with me, especially with the saturation of MA follwers growing in my community, is going to cost me more money and time than the b/s paltry commission I “might” make. I told my father in law straight up, i don’t want to do it until I see where you guys are at in 3 months. God… the badgering i’ve gone through over this…no sex for a couple weeks either…. hahah

ok… So, i’ll come back in 3 weeks and let you know if I got my 300.00 check and to boot, I’ll let you know how much of it has to go back into buying BV’s b/c I know that’s what’s going to happen. God, it reminds me of the late nights playing with monopoly money and rolling dice in the streets!!! the wool over my eyes is already starting to burn…..

to be continued…

Thanks for the input. I see a lot of conjecture, claims and assumptions on both side of this debate. One that I don’t think is conjecture is that you are not the norm for MA, given the numbers in the MA annual report. Sure, if there are only 5000 Unfranchise owners, then there are 5000 owners making a 5 to 6 figure income, but you and I both know that isn’t the case.

I do, however, appreciate your insights. As I said on the other thread, http://www.grantingersoll.com/2007/08/25/making-money-on-market-america/, if you had been the introductory person to me and my wife all those years ago, this post likely would have never existed.

Good luck to you!