I thought it would be fun if we posted our fave lying catch phrases commonly used by MLMs.

Here are some of mine:

"Fake it till you make it"

"Make money while you sleep"Ahhh.... the lure of actually doing nothing for something that some MLMs promise to their recruits.


"We are in Pre Pre launch" This means, we are trying to line up people early because we need the money to actually launch our business and line our pockets and set up the heads of the Pyramids and give them their downlines.


"It's just like any other business...such as buying a franchise" - except when you ask to see their income from mlm (or even their upline who supposedly are successful) its suddenly personal income and none of your business. As if you would ever buy a franchise without looking at the working numbers of the same franchise in other locations.

" Its a ground floor opportunity" or "the time will never be the same to get involved" -yet on the other hand the entire compensation plan is for people to be continually signing up forever, with it being geometric so 2, 3, 5 years from now, there will need to be exponentially more people needed to be coming in to continue the same oppotunity...but somehow the opportunity is better now than it will be in the future!

" MLM has a system that cuts out the middle man and advertising costs," -yet now several layers of people get paid and MLM products are always more expensive than market.

"MLM is the easiest business opportunity in the world,"- that is until you ask them about their dismal failure rate and then suddenly MLM is what you make of it and most people will fail, because they didn't work hard enough.

"We have Celebrity endorsements"- ahhh, you mean D listers who are paid to be a spokeshole for you.

"I made ten zillion dollars in three months and quit my day job"- shows a pic guy sitting on a rented mercedes in front of a mansion that he does not live in or own.

"Anyone can do this and make money"-of course you will need to attend seminars that you pay for, training tapes and books that you also will pay for, pay various fees and after all of that, you are still broke.

"Our product is the most amazing product out there and it sells itself"- but the comp plan in not really about the product at all- it's all about recruiting others to your downline.

"Your enroller and upline become your family. They become your friends. They become the ones you count on." And when you have trouble making your monthly quotas, they suggest that you get yourself in further debt by opening new credit cards to make your qualifying orders. They tell you about the mother of 4 who was living in her car and managed to make her monthly orders. If you go to these people because you heard something negative about the company or MLMs, you will be told, "Those people are just negative and not worth the ****** - don't waste your time on it." Your concerns will not be addressed.

"You will get (for a monthly fee) your own persoanlized website". Of course it is the same exact cookie cutter websit that all the others members in your MLM have and pay for.

Individualism discouraged; group think prevails. Right from the start you're advised that there is no money in creativity, as the perfect "system" of success has been created. Although personal business ownership is touted, it is a farce. Distributors are referred to as "IBO's (Independent Business Owners). You may work for nearly a decade developing an international business, but not have the freedom to even put a newsletter into your group or call a meeting with your leaders that is not "pre-approved".

Rigid rules and regulations. Despite the claim of "personal choice" and "freedom," Distributors are bound by the rules and regulations of the MLM, by the regulations set by the Owners, by the rules set by their upline, and by the statements in their agreement that they must sign. The "rigidity" of the rules may also vary between groups.

"Own your own business". In MLMs, you do not own your own business, you do not own the product, and you are not in control of your destiny. The company holds all the strings--product supply, computer tracking, commissions, collections, customer service, order fulfillment, publicity, compliance, public relations, comp plan, everything. All you own is a position in a long line of distributors. You do not control the product you sell, the comp plan, what the company does or does not do, the money that is paid . . . distributors own nothing other than the opportunity to sign more distributors and manage the existing downline. You are at the mercy of the company, upline, downline, media, and the government.


"MLM is the best opportunity around."- Imagine you are a teenager in the mall, looking for an "opportunity" to work. You see a clothing store with "help wanted". You go in and ask for an application and how much the "job" pays, and you are told to wait in a very long line that extends out the door and into the mall. As you are standing in line, you notice a certain smell, a sort of stink. Perhaps this is why there are very few, if any, customers walking into this store, only nervous applicants.

When you get to the front, you are told that the "job" is really a "business" and will cost YOU to participate in. If you pay the nice lady sitting at a desk (there seem to be more desks here than clothing racks...), you can then sell the fine products they have on display. But you have to buy the inventory yourself on top of the fee to be "hired". And MOST IMPORTANTLY, you are told that to succeed, you must do what she is doing, recruit others to make them "successes" like her.

You do the math on the clothing profits, and indeed it is not likely for you to even make minimum wage just selling product, and besides this... there are all these other people in line as well. The profit, it appears, is to find others who will pay, like you, to be "hired" into this "ground floor" opportunity.

You should set up a similar store next door, you are told.
You walk out confused, and as you pass the long line , the thought strikes you that all these many people will be attempting to recruit EVEN MORE PEOPLE in geometric expansion to set up a store "next door".
What do you think, a good opportunity?

If such an absurd clothing "store" were ACTUALLY to show up in your local mall, could you really NOT see the difference between it and the other businesses: the way they hire, the likelihood of saturation, etc.?
Can "success" be had through voracious "recruiting" of competitors? How could this possibly be sustainable?

With MLM, of course, there is no mall or line--just nice meetings in homes; the odd lunch with a "friend"; the seminar at the hotel--so that you cannot see the absurd line forming of those whom you will be "competing" against for yet even more recruits.
Great opportunity, eh?