Little Bosses Everywhere (Book Review)
As someone who has never been involved with a multi-level-marketing ("MLM") scheme before, I am glad I read this book. It shed light on the abuse that happens to most of the people who sell under one of these companies. There is a promise of freedom and riches, but most fail and go into debt to try to establish themselves. For the vast majorityof people that sign up to sell in an MLM scheme, they lose money.
A lot of these companies, at least Amway and Mary Kay, profit off of convincing people, usually lower income women with lower incomes, and not by actually selling those products to anyone. To be a sales person, you are an independent contractor, and you buy your own inventory to resell. When you buy inventory, the person above you gets credit and profits from that sale. Anyone who has any success at selling does so, not by having actual customers, but by having people underneath them that buy product to then sell. It is the only way.
What this book does is go through the peculiar history of the MLM industry, which is always fascinating. Throughout the book it helps you connect with many Mary Kay saleswomen and how much money they have lost. The book does a great job at helping you to understand why someone would sign up, what the economics for most are, and why most of them will quit.
There are definitely connections of MLM companies lobbying for political changes, and she documents plenty of ties between these companies and the Republican Party and foreign governments (especially countries with lower GDPs, further predatory behavior). The book is an obvious hit piece against the MLM industry; however, it seems as though the author is more interested in attacking the Republican Party. It is as though the author wrote this to a left-leaning audience without the thought that anyone in the center or right might read it. At times she conflates MLM and the Republican Party as the same thing.
One good connection I thought Read made was between the relationship between MLM's and self help gurus. There is a market out there where people write self help books, give speeches, and do coaching that rely on the same tactics that MLMers do. While the self help book came first, the people who started and run MLM companies deeply relied on those books — both for inspiration and a way to motivate their downstream. Self help books and gurus have abused the MLM system, and its tactics, to further extort money out of the poor working class.
After reading this book, I view MLM's similar to loan sharks. These are voluntary activities, so I cannot say they should be outright banned; however, they are extremely predatory, and I would caution people strongly to avoid them. In fact, loan sharks are better because some people actually need loans for an emergency and the loan shark is their only option. This is a book I would give to someone to read if they were considering selling for an MLM.