MLMs are ditching the Multilevel Marketing model in favour of Affiliate Marketing…
That’s what they want us to believe.
We’ve just seen the news that BODi, formerly known as BeachBody, is the next in line to make the change.
Indeed BODi is not the first to announce this. In months past we have seen Rodan + Fields, Seint Beauty and Herbal Alchemy make similar announcements. There have been attempts to rename MLMs in the past and Affiliate Marketing has been used as an alternative way to describe MLMs for ages.
I have a bone to pick with this, because in my opinion, it’s a BIG FAT LIE, as so far no MLM organisation singularly uses a genuine Affiliate Marketing strategy. They just steal the terminology to make themselves sound and look legitimate, which none of them are. Not one MLM can show evidence that the majority of their income comes from sales of products or services to third parties. The majority of their sales go to their sales force, the reps, distributors, the consultants or whatever they call their participants, who really are the customers of the MLM phenomenon.
As of September 1st, 2024 Rodan + Fields have implemented their new “Single Level Affiliate Marketing” strategy. I’d like to draw your attention to their “BRAND CONSULTANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES (U.S.) Version 21
EFFECTIVE DATE: September 1 , 2024” and have a look at what it says.
As of September 1st, 2024, Rodan + Fields will not be accepting “new brand consultants”, but existing ones remain and have to adhere to these new Policies & Procedures. The existing “brand consultants” are still referred to a “Independent Contractors” and in paragraph 5c they state the following:
Although the Company is not taking any Consultant Applications as of September 1, 2024, the Company may from time to time in its sole discretion allow individuals to sign up as new Consultants to earn commissions from the sale of R+F Products, subject to the criteria set forth above and additional criteria specified by Rodan + Fields.
So basically they can sign up new recruits at their own discretion, at any time, contradicting the first line in their new Policies & Procedures.
They are addressing a lot of the complaints we’ve raised in the antiMLM community, such as, but not limited to;
No more multiple accounts at one address, no more signing up your husband, dog, cat or children, unless specifically done by the books (all explained in these Policies & Procesures).
No more income claims, specifically claims that have no numbers such as this opportunity allowed me to buy a house or retire my husband.
Where a consultant can and cannot display and sell products, including advice against car boot sales and craft fairs, but at consultants’ discretion, however still no retailing to other shops or use of brick & mortar commercial premises, but in service by appointment offices and salons is allowed, no selling on marketplace, eBay, Amazon, etc.
No government agency claims or health claims, etc.
Strict rules on ‘before & after’ marketing, etc.
A rather interesting anti-solicitation clause…
To the fullest extent permitted by law, during the term of their Consultant Agreement, Consultant will not, directly or indirectly, solicit any Rodan + Fields Consultant or any Rodan + Fields employee for engagement as an employee, or as an independent consultant, contractor or distributor of any direct selling, network marketing, or social selling business, nor will Consultant solicit any Rodan + Fields employee to become a Consultant of Rodan + Fields during this period. For purposes of this paragraph, "Solicit" includes but is not limited to: (i) communicating information or offering to provide information about another direct selling, network marketing, or socia selling business opportunity to a Rodan + Fields Consultant or Rodan + Fields employee; (ii) posting or messaging information about another direct selling, network marketing, or social selling business opportunity on any social media site (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) utilized* by Consultant to promote their Rodan + Fields business where "business" is inclusive of information shared about the R+F Products, services, and/or former business opportunity of Rodan + Fields; (iii) tagging any Rodan + Fields Consultant or Rodan + Fields employee with a post on any social media site that provides information or offers to provide information about another direct selling or network marketing business opportunity; and (iv) taking any action that may reasonably be foreseen to result in drawing an inquiry from other Consultants relating to the Consultant's other direct selling, network marketing, or social selling business opportunity.
Note the language used here, ”another direct selling or network marketing business opportunity” in other words, Rodan + Fields are still equally “another direct selling or network marketing business opportunity” in their own words.
There’s a lot in Section 6 and it essentially is waiving all responsibility for anything that a “Brand Consultant” does and puts any and all responsibility into the hands of said “Brand Consultant”, meaning that in any legal matter, the “Brand Consultant” is always at fault, never Rodan + Fields. This is also firmly backed up with an Arbitration Clause in which the “Brand Consultant” and/or “Preferred Customer” (more on those later) waive their rights to trial by judge and/or jury as well as participation in class action lawsuits!
Then we get to the “recruiting” part, no more recruiting, right? Because they’ve gone to Single Level Affiliate Marketing, right? WRONG!! 😑
Section 7 says:
SECTION 7: A CONSULTANT'S NEW PREFERRED CUSTOMERS: Consultants must ensure that Preferred Customers enroll via the Consultants' PWS or via the R+F Website so that the Preferred Customer is aware of and has consented to the PC Perks Terms & Conditions, including the fact that the Customer is signing up for a flexible autoship program. Copies of the PC Perks Terms & Conditions can be found on [The Rodan + Fields website] and in the Library.
This is where the recruiting process is; the ‘customers’ are being enrolled in an auto-ship “Preferred Customer” program. They’re primed to place a $40+ order to sign up with this auto-ship program (Pay-to-Play) and it will be shipped on a free ground shipping basis and they get a “free product” if they place a second “qualifying” order within 30-90 days of enrolment to the Perks Programme. The “Brand Consultant” assigned to this “Preferred Customer” will receive their ‘sales commission’ based on the purchases of these one level downline “customers”.
These are those exact people who on the average MLM Income Disclosure Statements are not counted as participants, because they never earn any money. In fact in the new Perks Programme it states they are not allowed to sell the R+F products on to another party. This is no doubt the pool of which Rodan + Fields will be able to select the “new brand consultants” as mentioned in paragraph 5c.
Unfortunately I have not been able to trace a new Compensation Plan for Rodan + Fields, so I can’t tell you how much commission these “Brand Consultants” make or if the “Preferred Customer Perks” also contain a level of discounts.
What I did find is a Rodan + Fields Affiliate Program that one can sign up to outside of the “Brand Consultant” and “Preferred Customer Perks Program” and the registration is through Get Lasso, an affiliate marketing agency; https://getlasso.co/affiliate/rodan-fields/
The commission for true affiliate marketers is 12% and that’s it. Proper real Affiliate Marketing!
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This is what real Affiliate Marketing looks like! 👍🏻
This is it. That’s all that is needed. None of all the word salad in the previous Policies & Procedures or Compensation Plans and programs alike.
But wait! There is NOT ONE mention about this on the entire Rodan + Fields website. In fact a search of their website for the word ‘Affiliate’ is not found. So Rodan + Fields have not switched to any “Affiliate Marketing” strategy, they’ve put all this big news out and it’s just a nothingburger.
Okay, okay, but that’s just one example, I hear you say? Good point. So let’s look at another such MLM that claims to have changed to this “Single Level Affiliate Marketing” model, leaving the MLM model behind. Hold on to your seats, it may surprise you.
Back in July 2024, beauty MLM “Seint” announced it would transition its Artist Program into an “Enhanced Affiliate Marketing” model. The official announcement can still be found on their website if you search long and hard enough. For your convenience I’ve included a link here. 😊
the announcement page already links to the “Enhanced Affiliate Commission Guide” but here it is again. Let’s light out some of the things we can see in this guide and see if it’s really Affiliate Marketing, enhanced, single level or whatever BS words the MLM rackets want to throw in to make it look legit.
The Power of Social Selling. Okay we can argue about the technicalities of Affiliate Marketing being the same as Social Selling.
Lets look at some definitions - and I’ll let them speak for themselves:
Social Selling
Practice where a brand's social media channels are used to connect with potential customers.
Affiliate Marketing
A marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.
So make up your mind Seint!
Now let’s assume they simply want to discus their “Enhanced Affiliate Marketing” program and leave the Social Selling aside, because they’re only confusing matters - oh yeah, that’s what they do, information control, word salad, and other coercive tactics. So let’s look beyond.
SIGN UP begins with $50 USD | $65 CAD enrolment fee. TO MAINTAIN your status an annual fee of $35 USD | $50 CAD will be applied.
HELLO-O-O-O-O!!!
Affiliate marketing does NOT require you to pay anything to sign up or maintain your account! NO joining fees or annual fees in Affiliate Marketing!
Do I need to go on? Let’s just, for fun… 🤩
BONUS POOLS??? ROFLMA 🤣
Hilarious. This is such a pyramid scheme thing to do!! Everyone pays in and the people at the top get some of the pickings that we scammed off those people at the bottom.
Can you imagine you sign up as an Affiliate with Amazon and Amazon says; when you reach $30.000 in monthly sales (which doesn’t seem easily achievable, most people make maybe a few thousand in a year and it takes several years to bump that into the tens of thousands or hundred thousand a year, not in one month), but let’s say you could achieve $30.000 a month with the Amazon Affiliates Program, and the Amazon Affiliate Program has a clause that if you achieve $30.000 a month or above you will get a 0.5% share in the company’s total revenue every month. Amazon annual revenue for 2023 was $574.785 BILLION so you would get a payout of $2.873.925.000 - say that out loud: two billion eight hundred seventy-three million nine hundred twenty-five thousand dollars. That would be very generous indeed, unrealistically generous. This sort of agreement just doesn’t happen in Affiliate Marketing. Would be lovely if it did happen, considering our family income is mostly from REAL Affiliate Marketing we’d be multi billionaires by now, reality check here;
It does not happen in Affiliate Marketing.
Again you can see where this is going.
It’s all a BIG LIE!!
We can continue and also pick apart Herbal Alchemy, but looking on their website they claim things would’ve changed by September 1st, 2024, but it doesn’t look like it from their website.
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt if they’ve not managed to make their transition deadlines they haven’t updated the video on their comp plan since May 30th, 2023 so maybe they’re still working on things. Do let me know if you have more information!
As I was saying;
I’ve yet to see any MLM going full Affiliate Marketing and letting go of the pyramid scheme system that has made them so much money. They’re just repackaging their old racketeering tactics, and not actually changing the way they operate.
If they really were going Affiliate Marketing, then they would let go of a lot of the coercive practices they hold dear, namely;
1. letting go of Pay To Play; no signup fees, no auto-ship or ongoing commitments to put money into the game, in order to get paid out.
2. letting go of paying bonuses for recruiting new participants, a one off referral fee is acceptable, but ongoing profiteering of other people’s money under false pretences is not ok.
3. allowing players to recommend other brands, because in true Affiliate Marketing you can sign up with as many brands as you like, you don’t pay to play, you get paid by them only when someone uses your affiliate links, this can be pay per click, pay per view and/or pay per sale.
— all of which are genuine affiliate marketing features.
Stop thinking MLMs will change their wicked ways, they won’t.
As my friend David Brear said:
It should be pretty obvious that when you pile BS on BS, you just get a bigger pile of BS. You may quote me.
This was after he sent me this amazing video:
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