Multi-level marketing (MLM) companies view Millennials as prime targets for several reasons, capitalizing on their unique characteristics and current socio-economic conditions.<\/p>\n
Two days ago, something weird happened to me. I was mistaken for a millennial. It\u2019s not the first time that someone has thought I was younger than my chronological age, despite my grey hair, paunch, and irascibility. But this time the person mistook me for a millennial because of my writing.<\/p>\n
Never mind the current enthusiasm for millennial bashing: I considered it a compliment. Millennial bashing is what Alex from A Clockwork Orange describes as \u201cold age having a go at youth,\u201d occasional barbs that may be hurtful to those delicate flowers who are cut too close to the quick, but that are for the most part harmless\u2026until now.<\/p>\n
The errant document was an email. In it, I was given the full court press by someone trying to rope me into the multi-level marketing dystopia. It went on and on about how I, as a millennial, could get rich quick without really working all that hard. I just needed to get other people to work hard for me.<\/p>\n
Now, I have a long history of really unskilled con artists trying to rope me into what\u2019s now being branded as “social selling.” I remember years ago a nice but dim bulb (it seems the smarter you get the meaner you get) approached me at work. One morning, out of the clear blue, this coworker said, \u201cI like to help people make money.\u201d Without thinking I fired back, \u201cThen why don\u2019t you help yourself make money? You have four kids, a wife who is a stay-at-home mom and a job that pays less than an unreliable paperboy. You need money more than I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am not paranoid, but I was born with a healthy skepticism. Even as a child I grilled my parents about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny; I needed to know what exactly was in it for them. (As an adult, when my daughter asked me what the Tooth Faerie did with the teeth, I told her he sold them to a tooth broker who sold them to a guy in Hong Kong who forced little children to make jewelry out of them. If you\u2019re going to lie, especially to children, you ought construct an elaborate backstory that paints a rich if unlikely tapestry of characters and detail.) So, it is through that lens of skepticism that I view all \u201csocial marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The email targeted millennials, who it described as loving the hustle. By that I assume the author meant the fast pace of the modern world, not the 1970\u2019s disco move that is making a half-hearted comeback and must be eradicated at all costs. The missive went on to justify social selling to millennials, because \u201cfull-time jobs are no longer enough for this ambitious generation, as millennials diversify their income with side gigs like social selling –”<\/p>\n
First of all, full-time jobs are no longer enough for most people starting out, not because they aren\u2019t intellectually challenging or fulfilling, but because they practically pay in magic beans. The benefits (sic) can barely be construed as benefiting anyone, except greedy business owners, and the 40-hour work week ceased to exist in the 1980\u2019s. So now, besides being paid less, full-time employees work longer, get less paid time off, and have to pay more out of pocket to access their benefits. Let’s cut the crap and call it like it is — young people aren\u2019t getting their basic human needs met by a lot of full-time jobs and must take on extra work just to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
Next, I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s fair to categorize all millennials as ambitious. I have met some who by age 30 have a solid stock portfolio, hold interests in cool businesses like microbreweries or performance venues, and are driven to succeed. I anxiously await the day when they wrest power from the decrepit rulers of this country and set us on a course correction. But I have also have met people of the same age with the ambition of a slug, who behave like spoilt, entitled, attention-seeking bags of puke. I, for my part, was in the latter category at their age.<\/p>\n
No one has ever described me as ambitious. Although by all outward appearances, my teen years led some people to the erroneous conclusion that I was a go-getter. However, I must say that I never felt entitled, specifically owing to my parents actually saying, \u201cYou aren\u2019t entitled to anything.\u201d While some fathers imparted the wisdom they had acquired over decades, talks with my dad usually focused on the mono-theme of how I needed to, Get off my lazy (let\u2019s say rump). Stop sleeping to 1:00 p.m. and get a job. Of my six siblings and me, I was the only one, who as a teen, my parents had serious doubts would ever make a living doing anything.<\/p>\n
Despite all the doubting, I was working three and sometime four jobs at a time. Why? Well it wasn\u2019t because I was ambitious: I was required to pay my own way through parochial school, buy my own clothes, and pay for whatever food I ate outside of the house. Was I ambitious? Heck no. I just liked having money much more than not having money. To make that happen, I had to do more than work at my full-time, poverty-level-wage-paying job. Car repairs, gas, insurance, and beer all cost money, so I hustled. For the record, I never enjoyed the hustle. But, as one friend observed, \u201cYou are never going to find a job petting a millionaire\u2019s dog and watching his TV,\u201d and at least so far, he has been right.<\/p>\n
It was the line, \u201cas millennials diversify their income with side gigs like social selling,\u201d that actually made me laugh out loud. It as though Marie Antoinette, when told the peasants had no bread, had spun it, \u201cThe peasants are more health conscious than ever before and are recognizing that too high a percentage of bread in their diets just isn\u2019t good for them. They are losing weight, and we have all but eradicated obesity among the poor.\u201d While true and in French, Marie\u2019s take would conveniently ignore the larger problem.<\/p>\n
Multi-tiered marketing is right for some people. A sociopathic slime ball from my high school class purportedly makes a tidy sum (of course the sole source of this information is his incessant bragging), and I know a handful of people who successfully dabble in multi-tiered marketing. In fact, my sister actively sought out a product she was having trouble finding and became a distributor. She never bothered bugging her family and friends about becoming part of her down-line, she just wanted to buy the product. I bought from her regularly.<\/p>\n
My ex-wife (rest her soul) sold Tupperware, and I have the largest private collection of Tupperware in the world. I love Tupperware and will smack a stranger in their filthy maw should they disparage it. So I wouldn\u2019t say I am against social selling per se, but I am alarmed that the predators in these companies, promising big payoffs to young entrepreneurs, aren\u2019t telling millennials that the only way to make real money is to build a network below them. Doing that takes a certain amount of moral ambiguity.<\/p>\n
So despite my rambling preamble, here is what young entrepreneurs need to know about social selling:<\/p>\n
Now, having said all this, let me just head off the angry emails from the predators claiming to be legitimately helping ambitious, hustle-loving go-getters. I know that there are many, many people who have become wildly successful in social selling. One need only look at the income statements of the multi-tiered marketing giants to understand that a lot of people make a lot of money doing this. So, in many respects it\u2019s like real estate, insurance, or any commissioned sales job, you control how successful you are. Then what\u2019s the difference? Full disclosure. The real estate and insurance industries have far more successful entrepreneurs who do in fact use social selling to be successful. Word of mouth can mean the difference between becoming a millionaire and a broke, washed-up salesperson. But realtors aren\u2019t fed a pack of lies when they are recruited. Yes, they are told that they can make millions if they work hard, but generally they are told just how hard it is that they will have to work, and they aren\u2019t generally fed a line of bull how they will get rich overnight. Too many of the more predatory multi-tiered marketing companies (and certainly not all of them are that) appear to be misrepresenting the likelihood of success, not unlike the sleazy agent who promises the na\u00efve young starlet she will be a leading lady when he secretly plans to move her into porn.<\/p>\n
So listen up millennials: the birds of prey are circling; they mistake your desperation to survive with stupidity, and they take you for easy pickings. Prove them wrong. Do it for me.<\/p>\n