“Make Money Drinking Wine”

Erin: [00:00:00] We’re live. Okay. Erin Clark, Jen Belt here. And today, um, we are going to tell Jen Belt’s story. So as this moves forward, Jen Belt is going to co-host this, um, discussion. We’re going to call this a discussion, and for those of you who listen to the first episode, you know what this is, this is not anti m l m.

This is not a Bash ML M podcast. This is just a discussion because we feel like. That the truth is good enough. Mm-hmm. We feel like when you know better, you do better. And you know, she and I, and a lot of our friends have had some, some decent experiences in MLM and we’ve also had some bad ones.

And we also feel like in the world today, in 2022, uh, if you’re listening to this, you know, soon after republishing it. Uh, we are in a weird space, uh, financially. People are struggling. Inflation is here. We just went through two years of a pandemic. We’ve never been more polarized, um, economically and, [00:01:00] and in politics and all the things.

Mm-hmm. and what happens, and I’ll, and, and Jen and I will talk about this, but what happens in a, in a period like this is people start to get a little squirrely and they start to try things and they get sucked into. You’ll never see more scams come to life than in a time when people are vulnerable.

So, we think that this discussion is more relevant than ever, and we’re very excited that you’re on it with us. We hope that you share this content. We hope that you get some value from this and that maybe you learn something and hopefully it helps you make. A better decision than we have in the past. So, Jen, um, Jen is here today.

I already know Jen’s story, so we’re going to kind of chat through this. She’s had two experiences in the quote unquote M MLM world. She’s also a business owner. She’s had tons of success in traditional business and other businesses. She’s a mom of two. She’s a Girl Scout leader. Uh, she’s a leader in her community and in the nonprofit sector.

And so I’m super excited to chat [00:02:00] with Jen. . Um, Jen, I already know the answer to this question, but back in the late nineties you said you had your first run in with what we call MLM. What did that look like for you?

Jen: So it looked like it was a, it was a company that provided a legal service and, um, It looks like a $250 buy-in and a requirement to recruit a couple of people that also pay $250 to buy in and several thousand dollars of training materials and paper materials and copies and presentation, and a lot of time and a lot of gas, and, um, a monthly membership that even after I enrolled three to four people into that service, I probably saw about $20.

Commission every single month. So, um, it was one of those times in my life where it was tumultuous marriage was not doing well. [00:03:00] I did not want to work in the private sector any longer. Looking for something that was on my own, that was self-employed, directed, that was, um, entrepreneurial. That’s my whole family has always been, you know, self-employed on the small business owners and, um, this seemed like something simple.

I buy in, I buy their materials, I get the training, I do the thing. I am a motivated person. I know how to talk to people. I’m not afraid to do cold calls. I’m not afraid to talk to business owners. I’m not afraid to talk to whoever and, uh, I’m not afraid to meet people. And it just seemed like there was a lot of success in my support team.

Mm-hmm…

Erin: So why not me? I never asked you this the other day, but how did you initially hear about that?

Jen: through, uh, I sang for many years with a, um, a wedding band that they had been together for like 25 years before I became their lead singer. And, um, that my friend Tony that was in there had also gotten [00:04:00] involved with them and introduced me to it.

And I was so, and, and it was fun working with him. So, like, I love Tony, and that just made, I was like, okay, well I’ll give this a try. I can do this too. I did.

Erin: Yeah. And we’ve talked about this, you believed in the concept, but you’re reasoning for joining MLM was not for a product per se, it was for the business, right.

Were Oh, totally. 100%. Mm-hmm, right? Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how did that go? You said that you, it was a lot.

Jen: of, it was a lot of work. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work. Um, without a lot of return of investment at all. We had, you know, we had a great support team. We had a lot of fun. We talked to a lot of people.

I met a lot of great people. Um, I’m still friends with a lot of those people. Um, but as far as the biz side goes, like that, just, it just was not. It just wasn’t panned out. And so, I slowly stopped going to trainings and going to weekly meetings and [00:05:00] inviting people to the, you know, business receptions that were being held at the local hotel.

And, um, I quit introducing people to it even though I kept the service for a long time. Um, and then that marriage fell apart and then I moved to Columbus and. I, I, I left everything there. I don’t even know what the ex-did with it. He’s probably threw it all away. He probably looked at it and went, oh my gosh, how much money did we send on all of this.

Right. You know? Okay. Live and learn.

Erin: So I thought, , you said that, um, You said that your friend joined you and kind of rocked it with you and attended the meetings. Mm-hmm. , um, and that you, and you mentioned that she’s got some major PTs d what kind of PTSD s d does she have? Where does her PTs d come from?

Jen: It just, uh, it totally comes from the, um, the, the buy-in to the talking to the meeting new people, the, you know, getting over the fear. Uh, putting yourself out there, stepping into your, your, you know, stepping out of your comfort zone. And just the Scarer hearing, rejection. [00:06:00] Hearing. No hearing.

No hearing. No hearing, no. Thank you. Hearing hell no hearing. Get out. Um, all of it. Mm-hmm. like, she just, that whole experience, like, you know, when I talked to her about it now and she’s just like, no, no, no, no. Thank you. No. No, no interest. She’s now my no.

Erin: So, oh, hilarious. So, you, so that, so that experience doesn’t sound, I mean, Listen, I have some friends that are going to be on this show that truly, like they really do need therapy.

Like the, the trauma hundred percent ML and PTSD is hundred percent. It’s a true diagnosis. It needs a diagnosis code, and it needs to be covered by insurance. This was like one of those mediocre, so I’ll tell you, I, I don’t even think I’ve ever told you this, but, um, my first MLM exposure was in college, and I went to a.

With this lady. Oh yeah. You don’t know about this. Yeah. Yeah. So I went to this little college beauty party and she had all these products that I couldn’t afford, and I was broke college student, but I w at the time was, um, working at the [00:07:00] library, doing an internship, bartending at the country club. And I was a mystery shopper, which is a whole scam in and of itself,

But I was doing anything to make a buck because I needed to pay my rent. Eat food and still, you know, drink Netty lights on the weekend probably. And so, I went to this party and was kind of like “meh” the whole time. And then at the end she had this little head scratcher. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Like the wire, like

Jen: the little claw ones. Oh my God.

Erin: And she, and we went around the room, and she scratched my head with the wire head scratcher and I was like, take all my money. The head scratcher wasn’t even a part of the business. It was an extra thing that she did at the end to sucker suckers like me to do.

And I bought like a three or a $500 kit thinking I was going to get rich. And it was called, it was a beauty. It’s like called beauty control. I think it’s still around anyways, it’s fine. But, um, and I joined and then I went to, I, I bought all this stuff. Um, and then I went to a big meeting on a Saturday with like the big head honcho that was, [00:08:00] Six figure income in the area.

And she came and trained us on how to be amazing like her. So, I went to that training and then I went to a training at her house a month later, and this woman started bawling her eyes out and losing it in front of the whole group because her marriage was in shambles, and she was getting ready to walk away from her business and this wasn’t worth it.

And. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so that’s so my and some old lady farted at the meeting. It was very uncomfortable. It was just this wild

Jen: and I was in college, and I just kept thinking like, what did

Erin: I have myself? Where am I? Yeah. So, where hell am I everybody for the next like four years for birthday, Christmas, Easter, Halloween.

They all got those. Because that’s what I had, because I wanted the freaking head scratcher, which I still have the head scratcher by the way. I think.

Jen: I have

Erin: two head scratchers. Oh, they’re so wonderful. But, but that, but so it sounds like your first exposure was a little bit like that. You spent a bunch of money.

You [00:09:00] tried, you went to some meetings, you tried, you probably worked a lot harder at it than me. I maybe did a couple of parties . . .

Jen: just remembered. I even went to the Vegas convention. I went to the Vegas convention for that girl. Yeah. So I was, I was kind of, even though I wasn’t making, I, like, I really put my, however, I didn’t go to any meetings.

That was the first time in Vegas that I realized that I need to not go to Vegas. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. But, um, but I was, I mean,

Erin: I would not go to Vegas because of MLM or because of Vegas. I’m gambling.

Jen: Vegas. Totally, totally different. Podcast episode was way more in debt because of Vegas. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Jen.

Jen Belt’s book is going to

Erin: be like the day I joined MLM and then became a gambling.

Jen: psycho and then realized I have an addiction to Blackjacks Texas. Hold him. Yeah. Yeah. I’m a card girl. Oh. So, yeah. But no, I, I mean, I was in, so, I mean, yeah, all that sounds very similar except that I did, like, you know, I was, I was drinking the [00:10:00] Kool-Aid.

I saw, yeah. I thought I, what I saw was the vision. But man, even with putting in the work, like right. The payout wasn’t there. Right. It just wasn’t, I was not making my return of investment of time or money.

Erin: at all. Yeah. At all. So, then you went into traditional, traditional business. I did. What did that look like?

Tell us about your,

Jen: your traditional business. It was way better. Um, so in 2006, um, my friend Lisa and I started, partnered up and started, um, a home. Uh, high-end finishing, interior finishing, um, company. We, we did some straight interior painting as well. We did trim and regular paint as well, but, mm-hmm.

our, what we were known for studio was high-end, finishing high-end cabinet finishes, high-end wall ceiling finishes, um, high-end trim finishes, floor finishes, concrete like we’ve worked in restaurants, we’ve worked in stores all around the country. Um, that was really, Fabulous. Like I loved owning my own [00:11:00] business.

There was very little startup fee other than like some business cards. Um, you know, paying for our LLC paperwork, you know, uh, paying for our vendor’s license startup on the website, all that good stuff, Adam, which is a fee.

Erin: What’s that? It is, oh, you had a friend do it. So, you got all that? I had a friend, yeah, I had a friend.

Jen: Like I, I designed the website, but I had a friend, my, my friend Laura that was, put it together in Canada. She did the website and hosted it for us and all that good stuff when we first got started. But, um, I mean, it was, I loved it. I loved, I, you know, Ruby Rose is still around.

Erin: Um, can I say that, um, it’s funny as your friend knowing that you did years of high end.

You know, finishes and art and wall and interior and you just got your cabinets redone very beautifully and refused to do it. Absolutely.

Jen: Absolutely. And it wasn’t even so much that I refused to, I just kept putting it off because I don’t want to do it. Like I know that I can do [00:12:00] it. I know I could save myself tens of thousands of dollars if I would just paint my own damn.

In my own cabinets and do my own stuff, and I’m like, I, I don’t.

Erin: I’m tired.

Jen: My eight-year-old body doesn’t want to get on a ladder or scaffolding or hunched over and scrub the woodwork before I. Prime it. Like I just don’t want to,

Erin: so, well, I think that every person that owns any sort of business, so you have your hair, ladies that you know have roots, you got your nail ladies that have the Janus nails in the salon.

You’ve got your contractor’s wives who have the outdated kitchen and bathroom. 100%. Um, and I have, I’m, I’m married to a photographer, and I must for my kids to, for family focus. Right, right. God’s sake. Because he’s too than everybody else’s. And, and we’re, we’re annoying. So, I’m like the hardest, you know, picture taking person ever to take your picture.

Right. Yeah, so Ruby Rose, um, kicked off minimal [00:13:00] expenses. The expenses came from the actual bids and the jobs. It was very skillset driven. Yep. We’ve stayed in that for a while. Um, why We did, we did have some.

Jen: other upfront costs. Like we paid for a lot of training. We did a lot of specialized product training because we used a specific product line.

Right. Still the only product line that I, I will use. Mm-hmm. Um, so we had some of that, but mostly that came out. And proposals like, yeah. Yeah. Lisa and I did good. It was fun. Yeah. But the hard part with owning your own business, that’s labor driven. And we’re the partners that we were paying two salaries.

Yeah. Um, and there’s a huge Feast or famine man, like, right? Yeah. There’s a busy season and there is a lull. And, um, that Fanon season was, And I, I eyeballed a lot of other MLMs that came my way with products that I really liked buying from my friends. Mm-hmm. and a lot of them really wanted me to come on like, you have a whole network of people that love you.

You would be great at this. And I’m like, but I would [00:14:00] must go all in and I’m all in

Erin: with my art. And right then

Jen: the economy crashed in 2008 and we had to revamp and do not just interiors and we go to artwork and then artwork fed the interiors and interiors fed the artwork, and that was really great.

Yeah, that feast your famine season, man. That was tough.

Erin: Well, you think about during an economic crisis, you know, we’re kind of in it right now. What is it going to look like? I was in college. Or I had just graduated college. I was in my first big girl job in 2008, and I had just bought a house, so I didn’t know I was in an economic crisis.

I was like, too busy doing who knows what, but I was fixing up that house that I had bought for $80,000. Yep. And completely redid that house, painted the exterior, remodeled the kitchen, the bathroom redid the hardwood, like I bought it when it had roaches and weed. For 80,000, I, we, we live in Missouri, so housing prices are cheap, and they wanted me to sell it.

I got married a couple years later, life [00:15:00] moved on, was going to sell that house, and they wanted me to sell it for 60. So that was my introduction to real life, real world economic. Shifts that really do affect us on a micro level, right? Yep. So in the, our business, and I’m sure in many, many, many businesses, when you’re doing something that is an extra cost or it’s something that people save money for, or it’s something that, you know, even you, you guys just read to these beautiful cabinets, but the cabinets are not going to come before school close or before the basics.

So, what did what? In 2008 is when you changed your business then, right?

Jen: Yeah. It had to pivot a little bit. We had to pivot because, um, we were noticing that like we were booked for, um, we, we were in with a lot of designers, right? So, when there was huge renovations and new bills and stuff, we were booked out for jobs.

But then when 2008 hit about halfway through that year, [00:16:00] uh, Bids started like we, we were able to keep some of the deposits, but they were like, we’re going to go with straight interiors. We’re, yeah. We’re cutting the $10,000 dining room ceiling. We’re not going to do that. Right. Um, but what we noticed was that even though somebody would no longer, or, or was choosing to not purchase a five to $10,000 dining room ceiling with multi-layers and foils and stains and all the rest of it.

A thousand dollars piece of artwork to hang in the dining room and give it the same vibe. Right. So, we just had to pivot mm-hmm. and figure out a way to, to still be relevant in that realm of work. Mm-hmm. But at a different scale. So, um, so smart. So, we actually, it was, um, Lisa’s neighbor, Darren, if Darren is watching this love my Darren, um, he was walking his dog past her apartment one day and she said, Hey, come look at some of this art that Jenny and I are doing and see.

Tell me what you think. Yeah. And he came in and he was like, [00:17:00] oh my gosh. Because he had been doing art shows and yeah. Was a well-established local artist, and he was like, mm-hmm. , oh my gosh, you guys, you need to get, you need to do some art festivals. Can you get enough work together? You know, within such and such time.

Yeah. And he called and got us into an art festival, local art festival and Eastern art affair. Mm-hmm. And that’s where we met Barb. And then that’s, I mean, literally I had Stevie Joe, that was June of 2010. Mm-hmm. was, um, I had Stevie Joe on June 10th. Mm-hmm. And on June. Lisa called and said, okay, so when you get back from the hospital, do you think you can whip out some more artwork?

Cause we’re doing a show in a couple of weeks at Eastern Heart Affair. And I was like, okay. And so, I did like, and then we just, and it just snowballed from there. And we learned about the whole art scene, which is a whole different realm. Art festivals, juried art festivals, getting into the art scene. Um, oh, that’s so funny.

How to have a booth, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the, but still, it always went back. The hardest part was, you know, summers were fabulous. We would pack. Eight to 10 art festivals all within the Midwest, right? [00:18:00] So that we can travel in our big Bertha, you know, art van. And, um, and then we were also doing interiors sometimes for, um, a couple of, of major retailers like soft surroundings and stuff.

We were doing their interiors as, as they opened stores around the country. And that was awesome. But then when it was quiet, there would be long stretches of time without any income, and it was. There were times I picked up serving shifts at my friends that worked at, you know, Logan Steakhouse and that I could just come and go as I pleased.

And yeah, Lisa picked up jobs at. Various restaurants or a yoga place one time or mm-hmm. , whatever. Just trying to make ends meet. Like it

Erin: was hard, right? Hard. I think Erin feels that I think anybody that owns their own business feels that, in terms of the Feaster famine in the, I keep using a photographer as an example because my husband’s a photographer, but you know, Family Christmas card season is bit busy and, and senior portrait season is busy, and sports are busy and he’s gotten into it.

[00:19:00] He’s had to pivot, right? So, pivoting into real estate and things that he really likes and things that are consistent and things that don’t necessarily take up just evening and weekends et cetera. Um, absolutely. You’re constantly looking for the next thing to kind of keep you busy. So, prompts to you guys.

I mean, I know we’re, we’re not talking to MLM right now, but what did you learn out of that, like that whole series of your life? What skills did you pick up that?

Jen: I really learned the value of, number one, networking. Mm-hmm. , I learned the value of networking. I learned the value of meeting new people, of not being afraid to step out of your comfort zone of, um, being yourself, being authentic.

Mm-hmm. I learned that it sucks not having insurance. , um, thing and, and until Jim and I were married, like I didn’t have any insurance. Like that part sucked. Yeah. Um, I learned a lot from owning my own business, but I also really, would see. What I really learned was that I had never want to go and work for anybody else ever [00:20:00] again.

I will always work for myself.

Erin: I, um, will, we’ll move on to the next M MLM experience, but there’s. This, uh, this whole quiet quitting thing, and I’m kind of obsessed with it. I need to go sit on TikTok for an hour as if that’s a really good use of my time. But I just saw this phrase for the first time today.

Quiet, quitting, quiet, quitting. It’s a new phrase, but it’s not anything new. And its basically collectively people are starting to talk about the concept of. Not going to work an hour early, not leaving late, you know, every night of the week. Not, you know, teachers not buying all their supplies themselves and doing extra on the weekends and doing all the things that have no return.

Jen: Setting the boundaries. Setting the boundaries.

Erin: It’s literally, that’s what it is. Yeah. Not giving, calling it your services for free. Yeah, right. Calling it quiet, quitting. And it kind of sounds a little bit negative and I like the term though because it’s a little bit more, um, it’s kind of like MLM exposed.

I want to leave the title of this podcast so [00:21:00] that it sparks a little something. Right. The truth is good enough. We we’re going to take back the curtain and I think that quiet quitting does that as well. Gets people thinking that it’s something negative when really all it is setting boundaries. Right?

It’s really all it is, is people standing up for themselves and I feel hundred percent. I think it’s a wild time for it though because we’re in this phase where people are more financially desperate than ever, and yet they’re still setting boundaries and that’s how bad mental health has gotten in the United States, and that’s how bad the hustle culture has gotten in the United States.

And that’s how bad employers have pushed their people to the max. You know, we’ve complained about. I mean, not even to go into politics, because I, it’s, we’re not even going in that direction. But we talk about the reasonings, why are there so many now hiring signs everywhere? Why can’t businesses get anybody to work?

And maybe it’s deeper than just stimulus, right? Maybe it is more than just.

Jen: people see their [00:22:00] value and they, they maybe, you know, got a little taste of what it’s like to. Right. Their own

Erin: time back and the world is changing. You know, you think about business owners and people that want to go out for themselves.

I feel like that used to be the minority because we were really training generations of people that wanted to go work in the factory and wanted to go and, and you know, the little kids said, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a teacher, I want to be a mom, I want to be this. And lots still have that. And those are so valid dreams.

But I’m going to tell you that I bet we ask. I bet eight out of 10. Say something about being a YouTuber or being, and, and I know that sounds cheesy and some people are going to say that’s a negative thing. It’s not. It’s not. It’s that it’s not. They’ve seen an entire generation of people; they’ve seen this huge class of people that have create their creators.

They want to be creators. And I think we’re going to see a huge, they created change from being deaf.

Jen: Yes. Say that again. Mm-hmm. . Agree. I said they, they’ve seen a whole generation, [00:23:00] our generation is watching a generation of people earning their own income through being creative online. Mm-hmm. and um mm-hmm, it is 100%.

Not cheesy and not right. It’s totally.

Erin: valid. Yeah. Well, and you think about an entire generation of kids that are watching their parents quiet, quit. So, they’re either watching people start to step out on their own and create and build and get paid for things that they’ve done right. It’s all paid for performance.

It’s not an hourly thing. And they also see a ton of people who are going into a job and feeling like, Dying. Mm-hmm, right? I must share this book with, with you guys, and I’ll look it up on my phone. It’s, these microphones are so sensitive, so I’m probably messing this up.

It’s called Raise Your Game, and it’s a very like, simple book. It’s a written by a coach, so it’s all like athletic comparisons. But he talks about, um, in 2015 they did a study and, and in that study, it said that [00:24:00] 70% of Americans hate their job. And that two. Two thirds of Americans are going into work and just totally in survival mode.

They’re going in and they’re sitting at their cubicles, and they’re just dying on the inside is basically how, how it described it. And I, I mean, I can’t tell you this is why I got sucked into MLM, right? This is why this topic is coming up because I felt. I was going to get the life sucked out of me at the job that I was working at.

And I was quiet quitting all the way back in 2014 or 2012 or whatever it was, found MLM thought it was going to save me, right? And it didn’t.

Jen: So, in, so in like 2015 or 2016, my um, business partner that founded Ruby Rose Studio with me had taken a job opportunity in St. Louis and moved. And so, we split and I got Riveros studio and um, was them [00:25:00] working on everything on my own and had pivoted again, found a, found my niche in like I was, I was no longer doing interiors.

I was just doing artwork. But then I started doing, um, a wholesale line, my Wildwood trees and those ended up being in, that was a whole, that was really getting out of my comfort zone. Talk about emailing small artisan shop owners that carry handmade. My goal is to email 40 a week and hoping that two of them would say, yes.

Show, send me your sheets to look. Mm-hmm. Um, but I ended up in 16 stores around the country. Oh. Um, but again, by the time 2017 hit. Fester famine was still a thing, and it was just me. And it’s that whole mentality of not wanting, I did it was the, there was one, one the last time that I had a bad bout of famine time.

My friend Jason, who was the GM at a, at a local steakhouse, um, I called him up and I said, I, I was pregnant [00:26:00] with Annie and I said, I just. To come and work for a few months while things are slow. I don’t have any jobs on the book. I don’t have any art orders. Mm-hmm. and we are broke. And, um, he’s like, come in.

He’s like, of course you’re hired. Just come in, you must fill out this paperwork, whatever. And we sat down and the first thing he said to me was, I know you’re dying inside here. And I was like, I was started crying and I was like, it’s going to be fine. He’s like, you stay if you need to or as long as you want to, whatever, it’s fine.

And so, um, and I did, I stayed, I stayed until I, I got a, uh, a bid, came in for a huge mural job for something. I can’t even remember what it was. We had some jobs on the book. So anyway, um, but in 2017, That was happening again. And I was, and I knew I could go find work for Jason, whatever restaurant Jason was working at, I knew I had a job.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I was like, I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it. Yep. And then that’s when, um, I saw a friend posting about a wine company.

Erin: Yeah. [00:27:00] So the next, oh boy, I, I wish I had a glass of wine right now, except for I, right.

Jen: I totally use a glass.

Erin: of wine talking about this right now, except for I kind of turned into a functioning alcoholic because of that wine business.

So, here’s complaint number two. Same, same. Uh, so we both were, so we were both in the same business. So, the next verge part of this story is a wine business. And, um, again, if you heard my episode, It’s almost very similar to Jen. Totally two different lives, but we were at the most vulnerable, most desperate point, and then came quote unquote wine, and then came whatever was next.

And for us, we looked at wine as something easy. We drank too much of it already. We could do it. Everybody loved wine. It was a new company, it was flashy, it was sexy. And that’s what got us. Um, what, you told me that you had lots of friends that had tried to recruit you in the past mm-hmm. Was it the timing of wine or was it wine?

What was it that got you?

Jen: It was wine and that the reason that I chose it, the reason that I chose wine was because, um, [00:28:00] the reason that I picked that, even after looking at other opportunities mm-hmm, was because, um, it wasn’t anything that I had to. It was a service.

Erin: and it was why, and it doesn’t compete . . .

Jen: with anything.

It doesn’t compete with anything. I like wine. My friends like wine. We all drink wine. I mean, it just, it really, and it was presented in a way that was like, this is going to be easy. This is fast. This is. You know, anybody can do this. And I, I really felt like it was, I was very. . .

Erin: hopeful. It really was. Do you remember, do you remember the phrase, make money, drinking wine, make money, drinking wine.

I mean, hello? Like, it was like the best tagline Got me hook, line, and sinker for a hundred percent. And really honestly, I mean, I’m not even dogging it, but really because I then later ordered a wine, like a non-MLM wine box, and I loved getting a box of, I did too wine. I really liked that. However, we’ll just do a little spoiler alert.

We were spending $80 a month on a wine. [00:29:00] Box. And then we discovered that that wine was being sold at the gas stations for like $7. Okay, so 25 . . .

Jen: was the one bottle. Cause you never knew what you were getting. No. So there were, so a, a few months in, I remember getting a bottle of wine and like just searching the label online and I saw that you could order it direct from the distributor for $6 and 25 cents.

And I was like, oh. Oh my gosh, I just paid $25 for this bottle of wine. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Erin: Yeah. Make money. Yeah. Make money.

Jen: Drinking wine, make money, drinking wine.

Erin: somebody was, there were people, I mean, there were people, so it, it also, um, and who was an expensive one to get into?

Jen: into?

Erin: 500 bucks? Did you spend 500 bucks?

500 bucks.

Jen: 500 bucks to get in and even considered signing Jim. As my first account distributor and, but, but we [00:30:00] didn’t, I script and saved and maxed out a credit card to sign myself up and, um, the plan was once that one was paid off, if I still needed a second distributor, I would’ve paid the additional 500 to sign Jim up.

Oh, I’m so glad I didn’t do that. So glad I did not do that.

Erin: Let me explain to you about the kits. So, Jen’s explaining a $500 kit, you have two options, and this is where MLM, this is where it gets hairy. This is where it gets, or one of the times where it gets hairy is that, for example, in a business that sounds as harmless as a wine business, right?

We could easily be having a glass of wine and there’s clearly a product. It’s not a scam. You’re basically selling wine to your friends. I feel no guilt about that. I never, I know I don’t understand people who get all flustered about their neighbor. You know, selling books, hoarding your business, not buy books from a friend, I’m going to go to Target or whatever.

I don’t, that’s not icky to me at all. I don’t understand that. Wine, [00:31:00] for me seemed fun and laid back and chill. And then maybe would also save our lives. What happens in MLM is that you have usually two options? One of them is to be a customer, and one of them is to come in and sell.

Mm-hmm, and the kits are outrageous. 90% of the time the kits are, are outrageous and it’s, they’re outrageous for a reason because they want to, that’s where the company’s making their money. That’s where the company’s making their money, and that’s where they pay their people to make their money. And so, what you want to do is go find more people to buy them . . .

Not to be customers, which is where the whole thing gets screwed up. You can’t be, I mean, there are real estate agents out there right now that are, I, I tr I got recruited by one that said I should come join her real estate team and should just recruit agents. And too, and I understand the concept of it because you want to go out and build your team.

Jen: t I had no idea what real estate, estate agencies work that way. I had no idea. Well,

Erin: there’s [00:32:00] a new agency. It’s like EXP or something like that. Grant Cardone is all up in it and it’s a really designing it like an MLM and maybe it’s great, like maybe the compensation is fabulous and maybe the team culture, and maybe they have great training, but their focus is not on selling houses.

It’s on recruiting agents. It’s on recruiting. So, I have an agent out of Michigan or wherever she’s from up north that said you could kill it with your network. You could just sign all these agents up. Okay. But again, we got set up for failure in a $500 wine business. Can you imagine being a real estate recruiter?

People must go get their license. Yeah, they got to do all the, all the things. You’re talking thousands of dollars, right? And then how many real estate agents. What is the, you know, we, we, this is about MLM, right? But I’m sure the statistics are alarming of how many people join an MLM and don’t have success, right?

You could look at the same statistics with small business and you could look at the same statistics with real estate. 100%. And I just truly think it’s where MLM [00:33:00] goes wrong, is that they spend all their time recruiting and setting people up for failure. So, right, so you spent your 500 bucks, then what?

Jen: So then, um, I was all in, like I knew that I would be if I ever decided to join something like that.

Mm-hmm. And, um, I hopped into where I met you hopped into team trainings and, um, saw this adorable hot mess mom and a school pickup line talking to us. And that was Erin. And, um, just, I loved our team culture. Really loved. We had a good team culture. Um, and, um, had wine parties and, um, started social media.

Pages for it. Winos for the Win. That was the name of my hashtag Winos for the win. Um, just really, I really focused on, but we, Jim and I hosted. I mean, it was something we could do together, right. We both loved wine. Jim used to work in a [00:34:00] wine shop like we loved wine.

Erin: Yep. I’ve got Annie night too, is that he was going to be the primary.

Right.

Jen: And so, we, um, we hosted wine parties, we had people over, I did a couple collaborative parties with another friend, like one that was doing LuLaRoe. We had a wine party, LuLaRoe shopping night. Mm-hmm. like we had, we just did some really fun things. I ended up signing one customer. Um, my friend who doesn’t even drink wine, she’s a vodka drinker.

but she wanted to support me, and she signed up for the $50 a month, two bottles of. Um, and I never earned a single dollar, even though she shopped with me for several months because you could not earn a paycheck unless you had enrolled and recruited two people each paying $500, one on each leg, and then you would get paid on your weakest leg.

Every month, and I never happened because I, I refused, I refused to, to pressure anybody to spend $500 to start a wine business with me. I [00:35:00] was just hoping and praying that somebody would see the value like I did. Right.

Erin: Um, and you refuse to take out more credit card debt and cite your spouse. So going into the detail of what she’s talking about here, wine was a binary.

Yes. So, there are compensation plans, um, that you know, and when we say compensation plan, it’s just as if you go to your full-time job and you ask about their pay scaler, whatever. It’s just how they pay. Um, based on what you do. Okay. Yeah. So, in wine and many other companies, they have what’s called a binary.

And what a binary means is that you have these two legs. So, they get accused of being a pyramid scheme, but this is what it looks like. So, you have two legs and. What happens is that you don’t get paid until you have people ordering in some capacity on both legs. Here’s where binaries get yucky and where they get scammy.

Besides for the fact that she never got paid a dollar on selling a product, she never got paid any [00:36:00] commission for that is that the way that binaries are sold is that you must get in fast, and you must get in on prime real. That is true in a binary. It’s true. And Jen is proof of that because whoever you signed with probably was already in prime real estate.

Um, she was in a spot where she had what’s called a heavy leg. So, what happens in a binary too is that let’s say that I signed up in a binary and I’m putting people in either of these. The people above me when they sign people, their people float underneath my heavy leg if I’m in the right spot. See what I’m talking about with primary real estate?

Yep. If I’m in the right spot, I get help from above, but I only get paid on the other leg. That’s what she’s talking about with the weaker leg. Okay. Yeah. I only get paid on the other leg, and so I’m never going to. Anybody under the strong leg now, because I’m going to only go to the weak [00:37:00] leg, so then whoever’s in the weak leg, they’re going to get placements, but it’s only going to be on one of their legs, which then means they’re only going to get paid on their weak leg.

And then it creates this funnel. So probably what happened to you is you were somebody’s weak leg person that they planned on building. They probably then never built it. You were the quote unquote bottom of the pyramid. And so, then it was all on you to balance both legs. Yep. Right. You had to come up with both.

Um, and the part that makes me . . .

Jen: mad though, the part that is most irritating with MLM companies with a binary comp plan is that it really takes me off that you only get paid on one leg because you enrolled all those customers, which means.

Erin: If, why are you, you, that

Jen: company is totally banking on all your hard work, and you see none of the commission for this side and only for this site, even though you did the work for both of them.

It’s such an [00:38:00] unfair comp plan.

Erin: Just, well, here’s, here’s the, I mean, here’s the, the part that you didn’t see though is that there were plenty of people that got just as screwed over, but they didn’t, they didn’t think they were getting screwed over because they did get placements, so they did. A whole bunch of stuff that they didn’t work for.

If you got in the prime real estate, if you got in soon enough, then you got some placements on one leg. You still didn’t get paid on that leg. But you sure did get a lot of emails saying You have another person. You have another person. You have another person. So, the way that they also create false, totally false hype is they post on social media that their team has grown by 400.

When they might be making $0, they might have signed nobody. They might not actually have any actual business, but they do have one heavy leg because all that volume has been funneled from all the people. Yeah,

Jen: because I, because that, this is my, I never experienced it too. I had no idea that any of that, even like when I see people post that mm-hmm.

my, [00:39:00] my organization just grew by 400,

Erin: overnight by 400, and I blinked mm-hmm. it never, never even dawn me that it’s from. It’s all from placements because it just falls for, for us, when we were there, we went left or right, we were going left or right, left, or right. Now what happened was we ended up being a strong leg, so we no longer got any help.

It wasn’t like we were going to get any placements because. My person that enrolled me didn’t need us to grow. She needed her weak leg to grow, right? So, she was only going to place in her weak leg. So, then we were constantly having to balance out. But if you were in our strong leg, maybe you got placements on your strong leg, but you didn’t get it.

It’s just a disaster. I mean, there’s so many gotchas and aha moments in what we’ve learned. And if you’re listening to this and you’re in corporate America, or you’re in, um, real estate, or you’re in MLM let’s say, or you’re building any kind of business, the term compensation plans drive behavior is so, [00:40:00] absolutely.

It’s very vivid here. Okay, so. I was building a business in a binary compensation plan. I would completely ignore everything except for what I get paid. Right. Mm-hmm. Because I must pay my bills. And at, at the time we were in wine, I had a huge tax bill because of a previous MLM flop. And I had a ton of medical debt because I had gotten well, well, frankly, because I had quit my full-time job and my husband had quit his job as a police officer.

And so, we were self-paid insurance, and we had a baby with kidney issues. And so, what we were focused. Were our own four walls, which meant we were only going to build our weaker leg, which that’s what people do. They, they’re not doing this for volunteer service, right? Compensation plans drive behavior. But what that also then does is it creates a very short-term business because you’re only building what’s not actually working.

You’re never going to work with your leaders. You’re never going to run with your runners. You’re never going to invest in people that are going to go do the dang thing, because you don’t need them. You’re [00:41:00] not getting paid on what? It’s such a sham. It pissed me off so bad like that whole thing was so

Jen: raunchy.

Well, and then within like two months with, by the second or third month, the marketing materials that were coming out of that company for us to share Yeah. Was so smarmy.

Erin: It was almost forgotten. Easy.

Jen: Mm-hmm. It was blingy. It was got rich quick. Yeah, it was fancy cars and big mansions and, and diamonds and wine and fun.

And it was just this very, it just sent off this vibe that was so like, join our drinking wine, get rich quick drink, get rich.

Erin: drinking wine. Mm-hmm. And it was, but

Jen: it was not even like, it wasn’t even classy. No. Like it just became so smarmy. Very predatory and shady. And predatory. Predatory. Totally.

Erin: 100%.

It’s so [00:42:00] crazy because that was my, I say third MLM, but now that I’ve told you my little head scratcher story Yeah, it’s, it was my first, your fourth. Um. But it was very slimy, and it was the most visibly slimy. So, a lot of them get away with it because they’re a little bit quieter.

What ended up happening with wine, um, and I think we can talk freely about wine because it doesn’t even exist anymore and we’re not even saying the company name. But what happened is it was just run by a bunch of kind of slimy people. And when you called customer service, they were like in some weird strip mall or in somebody’s grandma’s basement.

I mean, it was not legit at all. No. They were illegally selling wine to states that couldn’t purchase wine online. Couldn’t deliver wine. Oh my gosh. Do you remember like if you had, they would put ’em in unnamed boxes. They would put them in, I forgot about that. Sold boxes. Or you had to ship them to the next state and like drive them over, like, and somebody on your team would meet you at the state line and give it to you.

Oh, I totally. And we [00:43:00] knew none of that was even a thing. I mean, because you know, you have a lot of people that are just unaware and they join a wine business because it’s wine and it’s fun and it doesn’t, and they don’t even know that they can’t sell it, they can’t sell it in their state. And then you’re too far in and you’re literally, you’re 500 hundred dollars box of wine in.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And then you’re selling wine to people that are getting ’em in weird Costco boxes and. Something’s weird about this, but they got really squeezy and I think it’s because they saw a need, they saw a, a market that they knew they could capitalize on. Okay, so you’ve got two ladies right here that fell for it because it was wine, and it was easy and it was fun.

And what they turned it into was basically a party business. They were, they were, they wanted us to host these huge, fancy. We would, I never did this because I’m not fancy and I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off, and I didn’t have any money to do that anyway, so we were just using social media. We were doing little small home parties, but the gist of the big dog wine people [00:44:00] were these big snazzy parties.

And all their marketing materials were that all their trainings were that. And it looked like, just like what Jen was saying, where if you, if you did wine, you’re going to get rich and drive a fancy car. If you did wine, you’re going to. This beautiful, glamorous, glitzy person. And again, that is what happens in this industry is they don’t sell a product.

They don’t sell, they don’t train anybody, they don’t give anybody skillsets. Um, they, they advertise a life. Yeah, they advertise a mirage that makes people. Because if I, if I pay $500 and do what she’s doing, I will be her or I will be him. Yeah. And it’s so gross, so predatory and going back to where we are right now, it’s so predatory.

It’s like it, it turns into this crew of vultures, and they prey on the week. Yeah.

Jen: And then in turn it. [00:45:00] When, when people get burned like that, it’s what causes the PTSD, the MLM, PTSDs, it’s what causes it. And then in turn, that whole ex, that whole experience then turns into people’s stories that then spreads like wildfire, which then makes people hate anything that has to do with any type of home-based business, MLM or otherwise.

Yep. Um, and it just gives the whole industry this horrible ick. Predatory reputation. Right. It just does. Yeah. And it’s companies like that that cause. And

Erin: I also just think that it’s so purposeful. Um, I think that when, when the lifestyle is the, the big selling point and when the flash and the hype and the glam and the glitz are the big selling point, um, I think that leaders know it and I think they don’t care if they’re bringing on people to be successful.

I think companies don’t [00:46:00] care if people come in and do well. I think that their goal, and I’m seeing this in in a company today, I think their goal is to make quick money and to take advantage of a bottom row of people. And I’m not talking caliber people, I’m just talking people at the bottom of their own rung, right?

Yeah. People that are in their most vulnerable state, yep. Are going to join. They’re going to buy their kit. Maybe they’re going to refer a few friends, maybe they’re going to get a couple more kits. They’re going to build just enough hype and sell just enough blitz that it just keeps going long enough for them to flip it into whatever’s next.

There’s a company right now, they’re preying on people’s need to be a part of something, to be a part of something exciting, to make an extra buck. They don’t even have their product. And I just, I can feel it in my bones that I don’t even think they care if anybody has any long-term success. I think they just want to make a quick buck and in insist, I think they know that it’s

Jen: going to be a turn and burn.

I think they know that they’re going to be shut down. I [00:47:00] think they know that either they’re going to get shut down or they’re just going to shut down and, um, I do. I agree. I know what company you’re talking about. There’s just the other part that, that, with the two that I was involved with, there was no, um, there was no product to buy and resell.

Mm-hmm. So that part was very, um, that part I did not fall victim to. I did not fall Vic victim to buying my rank. I did not fall victim to overbuying product and having a garage full of inventory in hopes to resell it at some sale in a Facebook group with all my friends, like I didn’t have that. Um, and those companies, the companies that I was with, didn’t really lend themselves to that type of behavior.

Mm-hmm. So, but we know that, that they prey, like we know that those companies are the ones that. They’re not making their money off customer sales, they’re making their money off a distributor. So those are the [00:48:00] companies that have the higher buy-in, right? They have the higher joint fee. Yep. Um, you’ll see a lower joint fee in the companies that do have the ability where you can buy thousands of dollars of inventory to rank up and then resell it to make your money.

Those will have a smaller buying,

Erin: so, well, wine was a perfect idea. There are just red flags all around. wine was a perfect example of that, and it was the most red flaggy and I, I mean, I feel like such an idiot. I don’t even like to talk to people that did wine with me or that I, it’s just so embarrassing. We all got,

Jen: well, I don’t know if it’s embarrassing.

It’s just so interesting how we all got so. Like we weren’t, I

Erin: think it was wine, I think. I think it was. If it was any other product, I think it would’ve been more difficult. I think we would’ve seen the writing on the wall. Yeah. But it was wine. And we love wine. But the thing, the thing that’s always something to pay attention to is, again, you go back to the compensation plan.

Yeah. People are going to do what they get paid to [00:49:00] do with wine. We made like $2 off customers. You didn’t want people buying their $80 of wine even though they were also getting scammed. You wanted people to spend $500 on the kit. That’s what you wanted them to do because that’s what you got paid to do.

We made $250 every time we got somebody to spend 500, $500. Then go try to get more people to spend 500. That’s how we made ours. I was paying off the IRS and I was paying off kidney bills and trying to keep my family afloat. And I thought it was a brilliant idea. And I was like, we’ve all, I mean, we’re all going to just like totally rock this.

And it wasn’t until three months later that all the weird stuff started happening and I started looking at this organization like, oh my, oh my God, what am I doing? I mean, that’s where I get embarrassed. Like I, you’re, you’re right. And it’s very wild as to how we got snowed, but when I look back, the signs were all there.

you know? Mm-hmm. Anyway. Yeah. Well, this was all very interesting. [00:50:00] Um, Jen is going to, Jen’s going to lead some of these conversations, and she’s got lots of friends to interview, and we’re going to do a lot of this together, so you’ll get to know her very well. Um, I’m very excited about this. We are going to get better at this also and figure out where we want our cameras and what, what headphones we want and who, and what we’re talking about.

Um, and obviously, you know, this isn’t going to be all about MLM. I, again, I’m not. It’s not that I don’t care about it, I think it’s very relevant, but I think there’s a whole lot more that comes out of these experiences, and I think that, um, it’s going to be really valuable for people. And so, um, Jen, do you have anything else before we wrap up today that, you know, if somebody’s watching?

Um, anything else you want to add?

Jen: I, I just, I don’t know. Sometimes right now it is a very strange time and people are with inflation and the job market. . People losing jobs and people choosing to quietly quit whatever that freezes, like, don’t, you know, just watch for red [00:51:00] flags. There’s a lot of information out there on what to watch for.

Mm-hmm. don’t educate yourself before you spend that money on a buy-in. Don’t you know, just be careful everybody. There’s a lot of predatory companies out there. There just are. Yeah.

Erin: So but agreed. Go make you. Well, I’m very glad I met you. Um, and me too. No regrets. No regrets. No regrets. I think no regrets.

no regrets. And I think that, you know, um, for me, um, the, the most painful moments and the things that I’m a little bit ashamed of or the things that I’ve really fallen flat on my face, those are always the times that I’ve come out with. The skillsets and the grit and the character. It’s never, we’ve talked about this a million times in, in other aspects of our lives, but it’s never the mountains that teach us the lessons.

It’s always the valley.