Financial Feminist - 2. The Scandalous and Sketchy Truth Behind MLMs, with Jane Marie

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

“Hey boss babe!” In this episode, we break down every shady practice that draws so many women into the MLM world and what it’s like to be a woman in male-dominated spaces. Our guest, Jane Marie, is a Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist and owner of the LA-based podcast production company, Little Everywhere. Jane also hosts The Dream podcast, where she interviews men and women in the multi-level marketing and wellness industries. Follow Jane on Instagram: www.instagram.com/seejanemarie/ Official Financial Feminist Merch: herfirst100k.com/hfk-merch INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/herfirst100k/ TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@herfirst100k FACEBOOK GROUP: www.facebook.com/groups/362601367623070/ Not sure where to start with your finances? Take the free Money Personality Quiz to get tailored resources for your financial journey: https://treasury.app/herfirst100k/money-journey-quiz Pre-Order “Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love”: https://bit.ly/3PpHvlC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer. Hi team, welcome to Financial Feminist. I'm Tori Dunlap, money speaker and educator, founder of Her First 100K, and that girl who has 55 thriving named houseplants in a one-bedroom, 650-square-foot apartment. This is our first interview episode and damn, do we have a good one. If you've ever gotten that dreaded, Hey boss, babe, DM from a high school friend, you haven't talked to in a decade. This episode is for you. Our guest is Jane Marie, who is a Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist, casual and the host slash producer of the podcast, The Dream. Season one of The Dream

focuses on MLMs or multi-level marketing companies. Think Herbalife, LuLaRoe, Amway, Mary Kay, Avon, Young Living, Tupperware, the list goes on and on and on. During our conversation, Jane breaks down what an MLM is, including the shocking statistics that should be a red flag but somehow aren't whether or not mlms are actually legal and how we can interact with loved ones around us who are entrenched in these cult-like companies we don't just dunk on mlms although that was uh probably the most enjoyable part of the episode in the latter half jane is so vulnerable and just shares the harsh reality of what it is like to be a woman in a male-dominated space, especially when it comes to money, and especially as a mother. And fair warning, the last five minutes of today's episode

will probably make you cry, and then they'll make you want to kick ass and take names for the sake of yourself and future generations of women. Our conversation was such a blast, and I admire Jane and her work so much. If you love our show, if you love the Financial Feminist Podcast, please rate and review, subscribe, tell your friends. We appreciate your support of our mission and this movement. So enough of me, let's get into it. So if you wouldn't mind telling me and telling everybody who you are, what you do,

and then we can kind of launch into what season one was all about. Absolutely. So I'm Jane Marie. I am the owner, co-owner of Little Everywhere. We're a podcast production house here in LA. I used to be, back in the olden days, I was a radio producer at This American Life for about 10 years. And then I went into what is pejoratively referred to as lady blogging what is pejoratively referred to as lady blogging for a while and and then um and then I pitched a a sex podcast to Gimlet and they were like we don't make sex podcasts thank you no and then a couple weeks later they were like wait a minute would you do the tinder podcast so I hosted that show. And then that's kind of what started this whole company that we have now. I love how that's the distinction.

You can't host a sex podcast, but you can host a Tinder podcast. Yeah, I'm glad I pitched to them, though. That was the first person they thought of when that show came through. So it was really fun. I had a great time on that show. And then we started this company. So we do work for hire and we also do originals out of here. Through that, that's how we got connected with the folks at Stitcher to make the dream. to see if we could produce the show, like as an outside production house. And we just started talking about, she was like, I want something on MLMs. And that was like, basically it. She was like, do you, have you heard of these? And I was like, Oh man, sit back. Cause we're going to have

a fun time today. Not that I have time for it, but I probably kept her on the phone for an hour. That was the crazy thing. I'll let you keep going. But that was the crazy thing for me is that you had this, such this personal connection to it. So we can talk about that in a second. Yeah. I just know so many people who do it. So, um, I think by the end of that phone call, I slipped in like, how about I host it or something? And she was like, let me think about that. Then came back really quickly and was like, yeah, that will just be so much easier. And then we, um, we kind of got like all the freedom in the world to make whatever we wanted to make. We had, we had one like group creative meeting, but basically, um,

it was all in these brains that we have in our office here, like what the story became and what we got to do in season two and all of that. Yeah. I think it's so interesting that you, obviously award-winning journalists came in to talk about something that is so deeply rooted in your own life. So can you talk to me a bit about how you grew up around ML to hire a research assistant to figure this out for me. Now, there's so many different ways that they're set up, but the hallmarks of an MLM are that they have a tiered system that looks remarkably like a pyramid, but people might call it a ladder. They call it ladders. Some of them are turned on the side and they look like basketball brackets, you know, like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But like a March madness scenario. Some of them look like that. Basically there's somebody at the top and then they have a couple of people under them and then there's a few people under them and then there's you at the bottom

after all of these tiers. Some of them sell products, some sell services. They almost all require a signup fee. Right. And then there is a lot of encouragement to dump your own money into the service or product that you will be selling. And the pitch is like, this is your own business. You're a small business owner now, and this is way cheaper than buying a store on main street and the other thing is that there's no prerequisites for getting this job right at all right in fact like i don't even think you need to be an adult to sign up to do an mlm they'll just take anybody babies and anyway so your second poor child first poor child second poor child, first poor child, second poor child. Well, and the fact that, yeah, you grew up in, was it Michigan?

Right. And you had aunts, other family members who were so entrenched in this. So can you walk me through? Have, have. Have been. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

They are still doing this stuff. Oh my gosh. Well, and, and how, what was that like growing up? And, and was it just normal of like, okay, MLMs, this is, this is how you try to make money. I had very little clue at obviously growing up. Right. I knew about them. I mean, my grandma, Maxine was a Avon lady and that was really cool to me. Like she gave us all her samples and right. Unfortunately, she also gave us her samples for Christmas and for birthdays. You know what you're getting every year. When my aunt was selling Mary Kay, I was like, I loved it because there's a hand cream that I

really like. And she just always puts it in your stocking. That's what you get for Christmas is the Mary Kay. Um, but yeah, i had a grandma who did avon my mom attended tupperware parties when we were little and i drank out of the i mean i can pick i can smell the tupperware yeah sippy cups you know yep and the little widgets the little tiny containers were full of raisins um in my lunchbox or actually i used to use the widgets for when it was hot dog day at school to put relish in because they didn't serve relish with the hot dogs. So you brought relish? In a little Tupperware. How innovative of you. That's great. Thanks.

So they were not nefarious in any way. I didn't understand that anyone was losing out on anything, I guess, as a kid, you know, kind of growing up. As I got older, a few of my mom's friends started pitching some things to her that did raise my hackles a bit because they were like, one was like a super antioxidant drink that didn't taste very good. And you did have to sign up to be a seller or something. There was also one, I think it's called LipSense, which was like a lip gloss with like a sealant, a lacquer sealant that keeps it on all day. And then you have to use a special remover for it. That one still exists. And so these things kind of started creeping in and that's when I was like, oh, it all kind of put the whole thing together to be like, right, this isn't like a cute hobby. Right. Now we're talking to adult women who are like preaching

about this lip gloss and I'm getting creeped out. Totally. Yeah. Well, and I have so many, so many questions for you and so many things to talk about, but what you just touched on, they seem sexist as fuck. Like they seem, yeah, they seem so sexist and they're coming into communities largely of women. And I've done my separate research and women of color are more impacted than white women as well. Was that your, was that your perspective as well? It sounds like sounds like it was oh as a child and growing up yeah of course it's by design I mean it's on purpose right yeah right so you're targeting they're targeting these groups of women largely housewives women who you know want want either a little bit of money on the side or are sold this like American dream promise of these businesses

yeah it just seemed the whole time I was listening to the show, I was just like, Oh my God. You know, my work is largely on giving women actionable resources to better their money, to pay off debt, to invest, to save money. And this just seemed like everything, you know, wrong about the promise and it felt so manipulative and predatory. Yeah. Any thoughts about that? I mean, like I said, it's by design. Um, the groups, so you have to accept this premise first, which is that

there is no product to be sold. There is no service. is no product to be sold there is no service there are very few um mlms that like survive on the popularity of their products um the vast majority as we've seen recently with lula row yes nobody wanted to buy those gross leggings they're molding weren't they molding and shit so they you know then it ended up being a big lawsuit and i mean they've gotten a lot of trouble but it's because they convinced all these sellers that there was a market for these cheap ass leggings that were more expensive than the ones you can buy rolled up at the like end cap at joanne fabrics and which is not where you buy leggings oh you know, but I can get them for like $4 there.

You can dazzle them on the side. They already have like hot peppers all over them and food items. Wrap a feather boa around it. So understanding like that premise that this is really about the initial investment and the um there's a phrase they that former mlmers use a lot which is called churn and burn um the money comes from cycling through people at the very bottom level like just moving them in and out moving them so you target communities where either there's very little opportunity for upward mobility because of economic situations or a lot of times kind of religious belief, like what women should be doing with their spare time. You know, if they have spare time, if they're allowed to have a career in their relationship.

So you can imagine the different groups of people. And like I said, there's no requirements either. So you don't have, there's not a resume you put together to get this quote unquote job. Anyone, if they want to hand their money over to a recruiter can sign up. So maybe you didn't graduate high school and you're looking for something that isn't bartending right you know that seems and there's also just these like huge promises from the people at the top huge and they're impossible to achieve like just on the base, like the most basic like glance at any of these companies is, oh, the top one is the person who started it. The next tier is all of their friends and family. And then the next tier is like, who cares after that? Like nobody's making any money.

Right. And you're not going to squeeze into that. You don't, you don't work your way up into that maybe you could marry into it or something. Well, and is that part of the promise too? Can you walk me through how does the recruiting happen? What is the psychology when you first get started? Because when we read on paper, what is it? 99% of people who take part in an MLM lose money. When we hear stories and start reflecting on this, on paper, there's no way you would do it. But yet people do it. People sign up for MLS. People pay the lotto.

Right, right. It's the exact same psychology. It's the exact same. So there are some people who look, and there's been studies done about this. There are some people who would look at that figure, that 99% figure, and they see themselves in the 1%. Yes.

And it doesn't fall along any certain lines. Like that doesn't have anything to do with where you came from or who you are. This is just like basic personality differences between people. There are people who see themselves as the 1% and they think they can make it there because the promise is you can work your way up the ladder and to be a millionaire. But,

but the fact is that the people at the very top are all a close knit corp, you know, company that's built itself already. And it's really, you can get, I mean, Danielle, who we talked to in the show,

my friend from junior high, she was so fascinating to me. She's like way the hell up there in her organization. Way, way, way up. I mean, I think like there's only a few tiers above Way, way, way up. I mean, I think

like there's only a few tiers above her and she makes 40 grand. Right. You know, that was shocking to me. So I was driving home, listening to the show to prep for this episode again. And I literally, I had forgotten the 40 K number and heard the 40 K number again. And my mouth dropped open in the car. I was like $40,000 and we could give, I mean, please go listen to the dream as well, but let's give some context to who she is. So she sells, I think it was purses, right? And has worked her way up to like one of the biggest sellers in her state and was only making, I was shocked, 40K a year. She was doing it part-time.

She had kids. She wasn't doing this full-time, but. It's not part-time. It's not part-time. She doesn't log her hours like that. This is the other thing is they don't encourage you to do bookkeeping. They don't encourage you to log your hours. I would imagine that she's working at least full time. Like if you really think about the hours spent, but it seems passive because it's just like sending a text or shooting someone an email or the very gendered, you're just

throwing a party to talk about. Throwing a party. And you have to invite people to that party and you have to get the stock in from the company to throw that party. And that's a couple of days of work. And then, you know, recruiting is a couple of days of work

and doing these like rah-rah sessions with all of your downline people. I would guess that she does spend, you know, most of her time doing this right but they're not none of these companies when they send you like the welcome packet or whatever when you sign up yes there's like a little there's a lot of like fake like if you sell this much you'll make this much kind of charts and then forms that come with it that you can fill out that totally look like something that like melissa and dog would make for a five-year-old to like pretend to have a grocery store at home or

something where it's like two columns which is just like what you ordered or what you sold and for how much you know it does not include I spoke to to this one woman during that session with Danielle. I spoke to one woman who was like, yeah, I don't really make that much because I don't work super hard at it, but I make enough to cover my cell phone. And I was like, that's a cost of doing business. She was like, what? I'm like, no. You get to write that off.

But you can't do this work without a cell phone. So you're barely breaking even. Right, that should be a business expense that you get to, because in my business, you know, I get to write off part of my cell phone, part of my rent even, because I work from my house. And oh man. Yeah, so they're not encouraged to keep good records.

You're not encouraged to think super critically about this stuff and to think about how the structure of those businesses work and how you could possibly work your way up. Yeah. You know, it's just like, it'll happen by magic. Well, and this may be a very controversial opinion, maybe not so controversial. I just kept thinking cult the entire time. The entire time I was listening to the show of the psychological, you know, we're going to build you up and we're going to tell you that this is the way

to make money. This is a community where you get to meet people. And then when you're so entrenched in it after a while that you A, can't admit that you've quote unquote failed, right, or can't admit you feel so much shame where you can't get out. You have to just keep going because maybe tomorrow is when you make that sale or maybe next week. And then two, no one's talking about the shame. So everybody siloed and is kind of, I mean, has brainwashed the right word?

I don't know. That's what I kept thinking when I was listening to the show. It's just like, this feels like a cult. Yeah, it does to me too. And I think I have a lot to say about this that I don't really want to go on the record about, but like when I think about the religious stuff, I'm like, well, there's a lot of stuff in those old, old books. That's like pretty hard to believe but if you believe it you'll believe this you can become a millionaire selling perfumed soaps you know but i don't you know i don't want to bash anybody but the cult connection it's it's there in so many ways and first of all almost all of these companies have a great leader right yes um who gets up on stage with like fire cannons and like yeah

at these huge conferences and is kind of a i guess yeah lowercase g god yeah yeah yeah so there's always one of those it's not them the owner themselves it's a proxy or you know somebody who's because like with tupperware brownie Wise who really popularized the party system with MLMs she didn't own Tupperware she was just an employee but she became the face of Tupperware as opposed to Earl Tupper this old man that nobody wanted to look at but there is you know there's a personality there's a character at the top there's a lot of the same exact techniques like you were talking about to keep people in a cult, which is if any of this is going wrong, it's a personal failing on your part.

Yes, it is your fault if you can't sell. It's your fault if you can't recruit people. It's your fault. It's not the fault of us. It's not the system. It's you are not working hard enough or you don't want it badly enough. God, I just got a weird memory of like being a child and not getting an A plus on a report card

and my dad blaming me 100% for that. And now I'm thinking like, what if that teacher just didn't like me that much? You know, like it wasn't even a possibility. Right. Or didn't give you enough time in class or maybe you couldn't ask the question you needed to ask or yeah, very interesting. That's what's used on adults and yeah the idea that if you can't make this work you haven't tried hard enough and the try hard part is usually spending money yeah more money and more money to you know finally succeed at this thing and I've been to like one corporate quote unquote retreat in my life that was a day. And it was just at a conference room down the street from where we worked normally. And that was it. And I've never done anything else. These companies,

they have cruises, they have like, you know, like wilderness wilderness getaways and there's like a lot of team building exercises and things like that which also cults do not necessarily volleyball for everyone but beach volleyball top gun style yeah just think about those nexium people and how in a midnight volleyball they were oh no that's literally because I had just watched a bunch of those documentaries. And I actually studied terrorist groups in college. That was fun. I majored in, yeah. It was actually fun for me.

I studied communication and theater. And part of my comm degree was I was studying how ISIS recruits women over social media. Yeah. And I just see the psychological through lines of all of this, of just taking people who want a purpose, and we all do, right? So want to find their purpose in their life. Maybe they don't have a community or they feel isolated, giving them that community, giving them a purpose. And churches do this too, other communities, right? It's just, how are you potentially taking

advantage of this individual or of their personal finances or of their optimism? Because I think that's what they're doing is they're taking advantage of their optimism. The optimism that's there because they're fed lies. Right. Yeah. Right. It's not genuine optimism. Like I'm gonna do great at this job I mean it's the promises are bogus and so if you are optimistic I mean somebody told me I could be a millionaire in a couple of months for three hundred dollars your bullshit meter just goes yeah or I'm like okay that's right right I would love that. Right. You're either like, this is bullshit, or you're like, yeah, sign me up. Let's go.

And there's two types of people in the world, you know, when it comes to that stuff. One of the most interesting parts is you had somebody on your team sign up for an MLM. And just the upfront cost of signing up was insane. Can you walk us through what that was? I still have all that crap in the closet here. Oh, do you really? Yeah. Somewhere in our storage. Well, and what I loved is you're, you're a beauty blogger, right? And you're like, this stuff is shit. You're like, the products are terrible. Clearly you're not selling the product. The product is getting more people. They were in those like, you know how benefit cosmetics uses cardboard cardboard but it's supposed to be like an environmental choice or something it was like that this was not they did not say much about it

no it was like garbage and it all smelled really weird and it was like it the foundation made me itch and it was I didn't like anyway yes we had someone sign up I don't know what your question was sorry no you're good just walking us through like because I think't know what your question was. Sorry. No, you're good. Just walking us through, like, cause I think the number one question I had is like, when you walk into an MLM, if you signed up, how much money upfront are you spending to even get started? Okay. So it depends. One thing that some of these companies do is like $1 to get started $1. Right. Mm. And then you're in. Um, but especially if it's a party-based mlm where you have to gather people in your home or over zoom um you need stuff to show them right and with makeup in particular especially if you live somewhere that's pretty diverse like los angeles you need a lot of makeup for testers for people at these parties.

So even if the signup fee isn't much, how are you going to run the business if you have no product on hand to talk to people about or let them try? The party at the church that I went to with Danielle, she gave out a free bag to everyone there, like 30 bags, which I'm sure she purchased. Those are the costs. So it's like, but they're presented as investments. And once you can't recruit enough people to turn a profit, who can do that? I wouldn't be able to do that. I'd be mortified to walk up to someone and be like, hi, would you like to sell my crap with me? I can't. No, I don't have it. I don't have what it takes. But say you think you do, and then really you only get a few recruits and you're not breaking even, and you have all of this stuff on hand that was supposed to help you sell it. And then you quit.

I mean, that's just like a real easy thousand dollars to that company. Right. And then someone replaces you immediately. As Danielle said, they're a bathtub with the drain open. Right. Because the product is not the products they're selling. And this is the Hallmark MLM thing. It is recruiting people to sell products. Right. And so that's why so many people end up being quote unquote unsuccessful is that they're just trying to recruit people rather than selling the products. That is how you make money. That's how you grow your business. Right. And I think there's enough, meaning a handful of these companies where the products are decent enough to to contribute to the folklore you know the ideas people tell themselves because for example avon or um mary k or there's a couple

diet ones you know herbal life and things like that herbal life was one of the big ones i knew of before i listened to the show yeah people did want that stuff but that's because it had speed in it you know and speed like it had a like suit ephedrine or something in there and they got in trouble for it anyway oh my god and mary k i like their makeup brushes you know and there's so there's enough of those there's like a handful that are really probably selling some stuff right probably still churning through the people on the bottom rungs, just like every other company. But they're big enough that when you're pitching your MLM, that's maybe not one of those guys. It's people can translate it to that.

You know, they can compare it to that and say, oh, yeah, of course I can get that pink Cadillac. and say, oh yeah, of course I can get that pink Cadillac. Well, and the Mary Kay one was really interesting because this whole Jesus as a marketing ploy thing seems to be a hallmark in a lot of these MLMs where you're coming to largely women, Christian women, and saying you can reconnect with your faith, you can kind of sell on behalf of God, and that becomes a recruiting tool.

Yeah. I was just blown away by that. It definitely does. I don't know if you feel comfortable answering, but like, morally, how do you think that sits with people or in interviewing people? Like, how does that affect how they sell and how they live their lives? The moral question is what we're going to be tackling next. Okay. Because this is the thing I've come away from both seasons with is I'm not trying to re-traumatize anyone by bringing him up, but Donald Trump was raised in a church that preaches the prosperity gospel. And his father before him was also a criminal and like a slumlord and just

gross bankruptcies. And Donald did the same thing. He's been bankrupt a million times. So he just tries something, makes a bunch of money, sucks the money out, and then closes the company down and then starts over and goes on believing that he's doing good and that he's a good Christian. And I do want to get to the bottom of what that is, like where, how, I just don't understand it at all. It's in such conflict with the Christians in my family who also do MLMs, but you're supposed to have modesty and be humble. It is not about flashy wealth. I don't know how people square it. I'm figuring it out though. We're figuring it out. Yeah, and I think, like Danielle, the woman who is your friend who was selling purses, I think that that was part of the draw for her, actually.

The company is named after a— Right, Proverbs 31, right? So the purse company is 31. Yeah. Yeah, it seemed like a draw. She was like, I got to reconnect with my faith. I wasn't going to church before. And, you know, I had kind of lapsed in my faith. And now I feel this like renewed sense of connection to God.

And I grew up Catholic. I went to, you know, 18 straight years of Catholic school. Even that, it was one of those things that was just, yeah, this is her reality. Amazing. But for me, it just seemed like this huge juxtaposition of knowing that a lot of people you recruit will fail and knowing that this company is profiting off of you as well as all of the other people directly juxtaposed with this faith-based component I look at it as a another piece of the enticing pitch right right as well as it's a marketing tool exactly like yeah you can be a millionaire you can work your own hours jesus is right over here with us

and he loves you and um and he wants you to be rich and he wants this for you. So I think it's just more of part of the promises of these companies. Yeah. The false promises. So depressing. One of the things I've experienced now as, and I was wondering about you as well. I own my own business, started her first hundred K on the side of my nine to five, four years ago, built it up, quit my job. And now every time I talk about my business online, I have somebody who either slides in my DMS or comments. Is it an MLM?

Oh, and I've found so many other of my friends who are female business owners who clearly do not have businesses that are MLMs get asked, are you running an MLM simply because they are female owned businesses? Or because the business isn't clear to them what you're offering. I think I can picture those companies and I have friends that run a bunch of different, you know, like groups of creative women that get together for events or seminars and things like that. They do kind of line up with some of the tactics of an MLM, but as long as there's no

like join here button. Not even close. No, just for what I interpreted it as is we have this misogynistic notion that, oh, if a woman's a business owner, chances are it's an MLM. And chances are, you know, if she is promoting herself or promoting her business, it is because she has to recruit people. It's a working theory for me,

but it's been very interesting because I've talked with other business owners who are like freelance writers or coaches who teach people how to freelance write or TikTok's also just a crazy place where I get this all the time. But I'm thinking it's because we are, you know, we don't necessarily see a lot of female business owners at the forefront with, you know, something that's not an MLM. Well, it's that, but also think about, you said coaches, right? Sure, which I am one.

These coaching programs, so many of them are MLMs. Right, right. So many are, only take this coaching program from me and then you can get certified to coach others. And it looks very similar to an MLM. Yoga is the same way. I mean, it looks like you get trained by this particular place and you can get a certificate and you can train the next person.

Yeah, I think it's that also. That's a great point. That a lot of women run businesses online anyway, share some qualities with MLMs. Again, by design. Like the men who own these MLMs are watching. Right. They know what you want. They know what you're interested in and you're interested less in the quilted monogrammed purse than you are in the cruise you're going to take and do yoga at 6am on the cruise. Sounds like my hell, honestly. Yeah, right. I know.

I'd rather die. I'll be in the food court eating the unlimited pizza. That's where I will be. They get branded as entrepreneurs, these people who participate in MLMs. You're not really owning a business, though. You're a distributor. So is that part of the lie as well, is that you do get to own your own business? You are an entrepreneur when really, this is not your business. You didn't start it. There's a huge cognitive dissonance here when people explain what their work is with an MLM, where on the one hand, it's a small business. Yes, for sure. And then when you start to poke away at it, they go go this runs just like every other business and you're like well it's one or the other like either you're a bagger at a grocery store who

hopes to manage the place at some point or you have a small natural foods shop that you run by yourself you like it can't but but you're telling me that it's the natural food shop, but that it operates just like Safeway or whatever. Right. It's like, which one is it? I don't know. I don't know which it is. I do know what it is. Scam.

When you ask MLMs, you had this great cut in the show where it was like every single time they were like, no, we're not a pyramid scheme because pyramid schemes are illegal and we're not illegal we haven't been charged we haven't been charged that's supposed to placate us of like okay we're not a pyramid scheme because those are illegal and we would never do something that's illegal it's just bullshit like when i was a teenager and being like, I don't smoke weed because I've never gotten arrested for it. Like, what? You know, that's, it's just a dumb logical fallacy. It's not a good argument that just because you didn't get caught doing something bad doesn't mean you aren't doing something bad. Well, and a personal question to you, how, I couldn't stay, I mean, this is part of, you know, what you do as a journalist is stay unbiased as much as possible. But for me, you know, that's what I'm wondering. It's like, how did you, how did you go about researching? How did you go about talking to people and not just being like, this is bullshit. I was very lucky in that, like my family agreed to participate

because I love them very much and they love me very much, and we're, for the listeners who have heard the show, grandma and I are fine, like, Amy and I are fine, everybody's fine. When I came to them with the ask, it was, like, not unusual. I've been just kind of that person in my family forever anyway, you know, like, I'm gonna do weird stuff, and I want people to speak really openly about our pasts and all of that and so um I was lucky to have people very close to me who I love as main characters in the story I also don't feel like anyone who is at least in the lower rungs of an MLM I don't I don't have any judgments about them I feel yeah I wish I could convince them to do something else but I don't I don't have any judgments about them I feel yeah I wish I could convince them to do something else but I don't have like I don't know I people send me things like kind of making

fun of some of the women sometimes like strangers will send me screen grabs from I can't believe my sister just put this out on Facebook or my cousin sent me this thing and it's just not funny to me like I feel bad every time I see something like that because I'm like, shoot, I wish she was putting her energy into something else. But I can understand. Oh, and your heart goes out to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like, oh, man. I mean, back to the cult example, you don't blame somebody who joined the cult, right?

No. You don't shame them. They've received enough shame when they were in the establishment. So, yeah, that's so tricky. But having done the reporting and knowing what the companies, like all the bad stuff behind those closed doors, Joe Mariano, that guy I got in a fight with, that Dan got in a fight with, but that guy that was being so condescending to me,

of course they knew Jane and all that crap. He asked to come on the show. I did not call him. He contacted us. So how did he find out you were doing it? I think maybe his assistant was listening because it was mid-season and we were still recording. Oh, funny. He asked to come on the show and I felt like that gave me permission to just be myself in that discussion and hold his feet to the fire and not be super nice to this guy who I know is a

con man. He's a lobbyist for one. Okay, let's pretend he doesn't even lobby for the MLM industry. Let's pretend he lobbies for anyone. No, thank you. And then on top of that, he lobbies for probably pretty illegal organization. And people criticize me for this. They said, you know, you just, you weren't objective enough or you don't let people talk. And I don't let people lie to me. That's what it is. So. Which who can blame you for that? I let people talk until they start lying. And then I challenged them on that. And then it sounds like I'm not biased, but I had enough information at that point. He wasn't going to get something past me.

He thought he was. That's why he wanted to come on the show. Well, and I think, and this is a larger conversation about journalistic integrity and all of these things. But I mean, in a post-2016 world, I don't know if you can,

you know, any reporting where you call bullshit is going to, to some people, sound biased. And it's like, nope, you're stating facts. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And also, what boring show would that be? Like, if I was...

Oh, just a passive observer. Yeah. MLMs. Like, nobody wants to listen to that crap. They want to hear fun. I was worried when we jumped on that I was going to have to, like, because I'm clearly anti-MLM, where I was going to have to toe the line and be like, huh, let's have an academic discussion about it.

So I'm glad we don't have to do that. So if I'm a listener, I'm thinking to myself, the obvious question, how are they legal? Like, how are they legal? What kind of skirting around the rules do they do to make sure that they can stay in existence? They aren't legal. Okay, so this is the thing. They aren they shouldn't be they somehow yeah no they're not legal but it's very very hard to prove that you have to have a very robust ftc funded well with this as high you know on the list of their missions because these companies are mostly privately held and because they're cult-like a lot of the information is kept very secret and so the

investigation into these companies to label them a pyramid scheme is just a massive endeavor especially when you had for four years there a president and all of his friends in office who were like owners of MLMs. There was zero incentive for them to direct the FTC in that regard. And as soon as the show came out, actually, and a little bit after, I heard that it got passed around at the FTC and they started sending out work. Which, can I pause? How cool. It was so cool. How cool that, and I had a question about this later, but how cool that your work

has a direct impact for change. I mean, congratulations. That's just the coolest. I feel like there was a bunch of things. There was like the Herbalife movies, Betting on Zero, and then John Oliver did a segment. And then we did our thing around the same time that Samantha Bee did her takedown of, I believe it was LuLaRoe. It was starting to get into the public consciousness. I believe it was LuLaRoe. It was starting to get into the public consciousness, but then it certainly after the show aired, I'm seeing a lot more talk about the negative sides of MLMs. It's,

that's been a really positive outcome is that people are being more critical out loud because it's hard to be critical of like your sister or your aunt or whatever. But I think we gave them a little bit of permission by being so honest and having those tough conversations. But the FTC listened and they have been sending out a lot more warning letters. They don't really have the resources they need to follow up on each and every one. There's so many companies. We learned through the Amway case in the 70s, just what a grind it was for that one case. It was years of research. Well, and they ended up losing that case, correct?

Yeah, knocking door to door. Yeah, because the dudes were friends with the president or something, you know? Well, and what I thought was so interesting about that is they lost the case, right? And then that set the precedent for these other cases and it you know was fueled to the fire of all of these other mlms who are like oh well we're not you know we're not like this company that was is it prosecuted is that the correct terminology shut down i guess you know we are different we're we're this kind of company because we didn't get shut down right but that's just because there's not enough bandwidth. But you can go on the FTC's website

right now. It's really fun actually. And look through the warning letters that they send. Maybe some homework for me. Yeah. If you're part of an MLM, I guarantee you, you can find your company in the list of letters, warning letters that the FTC sends sends out a lot of times it's about claims that the companies make yeah but sometimes making this amount of money in this time no no about like um our vitamins cure covid and oh oh oh cancer and save children from starvation that's a way easier way to shut them down than proving that they're um that there is no end user of the product or very few end users, that the money doesn't come from them.

So it really is like, I see it as a criminal enterprise where the bosses are very good at hiding evidence and there isn't an elite squad of people going out after these companies at the moment. There could be, you know, we could decide we want to take this on, but the lobby is so huge and their ties to the chamber of commerce is really big and their ties to government are really big. And they have money

and they have power and yeah. Goodness. Yeah. You brought up your family's involvement in the show. I so appreciated you and your family and the vulnerability of having these tough conversations and of talking about this in the larger scheme of this kind of con. What would you say to people who are either thinking about joining an MLM themselves, run, that's the first thing, obviously, or have family or friends who are in part of an MLM? or have family or friends who are in part of an MLM, what do you say to them? Okay. My main answer to that, I do get that question a lot of like, what do I say to my best friend about her involvement in this shampoo company or whatever? Look, if your best friend is totally comfortable with pitching you an illegal pyramid scheme opportunity, you can be totally comfortable coming back at them with your actual feelings about it and everyone will survive.

It will be fine. You're not going to like lose touch. Chances are really, really, really, really, really, really high that this person isn't going to be involved with that company for very long. And then you guys can have a fun talk about it later, but don't tiptoe around these people that would like to rope you into a scam. They want to rope you into a scam. They may not know that, but you don't have to tiptoe around people who are trying to scam you. You can just say, Hey, I know this is a scam. Wish you wouldn't do it. Stop emailing me. I got a question. I got a question from a follower a while ago that was like, I clearly know they're part of an MLM and I want to support them, but I don't, you know, I can't,

I don't know how, because I don't believe in what they're doing. I don't want to lose touch. I don't know how because I don't believe in what they're doing. I don't want to lose touch. I don't want to fracture the relationship. And what I told them is you can say, I will support you no matter what. I will support you and cheer you on. I will not support your business. I will not support the thing you're doing. And my mom says this to me all the time. I'll love you no matter what. However, this thing you did disappointed me right and so it can be that of of you know I will support you and cheer you on and cheer on your success but I can't in good consciousness support what you're trying to do yeah this MLM yeah pick a new thing pick a new thing to do I mean and like I said they won't last long right statistically speaking they won't yeah they're gonna be they're going to be gone soon. I think like, yeah, my new answer is like, send them the show.

Yeah. Shameless plug, send them the show. Send them the show. But if they don't want to listen, then there's your answer, right? Right. So the other part of the psychology, and we touched on this briefly, is that once you're entrenched in it, and maybe somebody is listening who isn't an MLM, and they're like, oh my God, I haven't figured out how to get out. There was this whole bit that you did about

the psychology of not wanting to admit that you quote unquote failed. So we get in it and we stick it out either because we think we'll be successful at some point or because we can't admit to ourselves that it didn't work out. Right. This kind of sunk cost, that whole thing. What do you have to say to somebody who is in that situation? Cut and run. You know, I think try to relate it to anything else in your life that's a money pit. You know, if you got into a house or you get a car that's a lemon, you go back to the dealership, you know?

Not that you're going to get your money back. back to the dealership, you know, not that you're going to get your money back, but you know, when you're losing and there is no path to winning, the best thing to do is like cut your losses as they say, you know, and hopefully you've spent enough money that you learned a lesson. Like you got that out of it, you know, and I think following one's gut is like so underrated especially for women in this society I was raised my dad my dad told me if a guy was ever like rude or like touched me or something you know did anything that I didn't like that I was I had permission to break his jaw and then he like showed me the right angle because he he's a dentist and he was like, this is how you, this is how you break a jaw. They're not that hard to break. And if you get it right. And I

only did it once, but it wasn't that I had my phone in my hand. So I broke his nose, but given permission to just go, this doesn't feel right. And so I have to do something to get out of this. Maybe I have to do something extreme to get out of this, but I am going to trust my own gut over this person who I have suspicions about and who feels like icky right now and who is fine with taking all of my money. and selling me something, selling me a promise that doesn't really exist. And then makes me feel bad when I, when I can't realize that promise. Yep. Just get really honest with yourself. Look at the numbers again. Think of yourself as one of the 99%, not the 1%. You know, I think a lot of people who are involved, the shame is so

powerful. Yep. If we could just have permission to go, I don't want to do it just because I don't want to. Right. That's it. Great permission slip. Yeah. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't feel like it. I don't feel like it.

Unfortunately, shame is something that I end up having to talk about a lot in my work because there's this financial piece of, you know, shame that is so entrenched in our culture and especially for women of, you know, the reason you're not rich is because you buy too many lattes, right? Or in the cult, you know, in this example, I almost said the cult example, the MLM example, the reason you're not rich is because you didn't work hard enough, right? Or you didn't, you didn't sell enough or you didn't or you don't know enough people. No, the reason you're not rich is the cards are stacked against you. I just read this article the other day that was like, I was looking up VC funding, and it was about venture capital and where it goes. In 2019, there was record high in women founded,

or women at the C-level, record high investment in those companies. And the number was something like 2.8% of all of the money invested in companies went to a company that had a woman at or near the top. Okay. Record high. Record high. Record high. And the headlines were treating this like it was a good thing and i was just like progress that is horrible it's like mortifying i can't believe these people can live with themselves you know sexism is over we did it. We fucking did it. One in 50-ish companies where women are the boss get money, get investment money. I mean, come on. It's just, you know, yeah. It's not easy. It's not easy. I do own my company, but I always feel like I'm the one in the room who's ruining our chances.

Tell me more about that. What do you mean? You know, when we take on meetings with new clients or if we're talking money with people or if we're negotiating a contract, I feel viscerally, I feel the fact of my body in the conversation somehow is related to what the person on the other end feels like they can, just what they're going to do. I mean, and most, sometimes it's good. You know, sometimes it works in my favor, but I feel like if I'm being honest with myself, like I'm asking everyone else to about MLMs, if I'm really being honest with myself, I know that I'm ruining the discussion.

I know that I'm lowering my chances of making money. I know that that's just because of the body I inhabit, you know? Jane, you're going to make me cry. It's, I always going to make me cry. I always want to excuse myself. I have to, you know, we were talking to like a consultant the other day about money stuff.

And I said it out loud on the phone. I was just like, I'm really sorry that I'm here, you guys. You know, you like, I'm killing this whole, the fun. I'm killing the fun for us, for you dudes, you know you like I'm killing this whole the fun I'm killing the fun for us for you dudes you know because I'm I'm my presence is going to make this not as successful because of your gender because of you being a woman it's fact right oh oh there's so much to unpack there. Um, that's yeah. I, I mean, I don't know how much you know about my work, but I, I was lucky enough to grow up with parents who were really committed to educating me financially. They didn't grow up with a lot, but they made decisions where they were like, okay, when we have a kid, we are going to educate her and we're going to make sure that

she has the life we didn't have. So I grew up with that financial education and realized, of course, throughout high school and college that I was not in the norm and that it was a privilege. And with that privilege came a responsibility. And I was the friend all of my friends were coming to for advice and guidance and that sort of thing. And so for me, it's, it's been interesting because now doing this work full time, I am constantly in male dominated spaces and I'm sure the same thing with you. I usually see it as an asset rather than as a detractor because I know that, you know, I have a different perspective than any of the dudes in the room. That's very optimistic of you. Well, and that's what I'm wondering.

I'm like, I had never considered. I don't, that's so interesting. Before you even walk in the room is like not a possibility. You know, the stuff that they're just not considering before you even get on the phone, before you even walk in the room, they see Tori is on the call. They see Jane is on the call. Here's how this is going to go. And it's internalized misogyny. I don't think people do it on purpose, but they know it's just different when we're in the conversation. What are you thinking of right now? I can tell that you just recollected something. Literally, that's so funny you said you're such an interviewer I was like oh because I'm looking at

it from my perspective of I'm gonna come in the room and I'm gonna fucking kill it and you are you should be excited to talk to me because I have a different perspective right but you're looking at it rightfully so from the opposite direction which which is what is everybody else thinking? How is the energy in this room going to change when I walk in the room? Because you're exactly right. There was, there's all of this stuff going on on TikTok right now. And it's something that a bunch of female entrepreneur friends and I have talked about that you should have some sort of like assistant who is a man who is made up, but he sends the hard emails. We did a story about this with the company.

Did you really? Yeah, the podcast is called Pivotal. They did make up a man's email address. Brad at herfirsthundredk.com, yeah. Do you have one? No, I don't, but I want one because my team is all women. And I did that on purpose because I want to employ women, but it's very interesting. I kind of want to try try it for an episode that'd be very I would love to hear how it works out to have because I'm pretty not Brad though I don't like Brad

sure Matt no no not Matt either I'm trying to think of a more like a name that I really respect. You know what I mean? Dude, John. Edward. Edward. Yeah. Frank, you know. All the names from the early 1900s. Victor. Actually, I'm Victoria. I'm Victoria. So maybe it's Victor. There you go. Victor at herfirst100k.com. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see how it changes. Cause for me, I'm like, no, I'm going to negotiate for what I'm worth. And if you don't like it I yeah I don't I don't know what to do but that's all coming from me and you're looking at it from the perspective of how is the energy yeah how's the energy going to change when you walk into the room that breaks my heart because you're so right but oh how often do people want to negotiate with you from the point that you come in

at men it's an interesting question. How often do you hear, we're really far apart on that? It depends. I actually negotiate with a lot of women, surprisingly. There's actually a lot of women that, yeah, I either work with women at companies because a lot of the work I do is still very gendered. I'm talking to someone who does influencer marketing at a company and largely those positions are women. I mean, I teach women how to negotiate. That's part of my business. I teach women how to ask for raises and negotiate contracts and that sort of thing. This is a whole other conversation that I hopefully will have in season two about influencer marketing, about how no brand is charging what somebody deserves to get paid.

So oftentimes, like I just got literally before I hopped on here, I had a brand want me to shoot a TikTok video for them and pay me $300. Somebody offered me $200 to take a picture on Instagram with their backpack on. And I wrote back saying, I will do it, but I'm going to read this entire exchange in a video on my stories and be completely transparent about how this happened. I'm not going to say, I love your backpacks. I've never even heard of your company before. So, but if you want to send me one, that's how I would do it. Your name will still get out there and maybe it'll make a splash because it'll sound different, but that's how I'll do it. I didn't hear what they say. Yeah. I was going gonna say what they say oh and it's not even it's not an us problem right it's not

a you problem it's not a me problem it's it's the society systemic oppression bullshit problem yep all you have to do is like look at the pay gap all you have to do is look at that 2.8 percent record setting you know bc funding of women's all you have to do is look at that 2.8% record setting, you know, funding of women's. All you have to do is just look at the numbers and you go, oh, my God, I did start crying a few months ago. I was thinking about this. This is like one of those year end lists, like roundups of amazing women and this and that. Yeah. I got really upset thinking about that.

This isn't going to be fixed for my kid. Like it's not happening fast enough for it to even be fixed in her lifetime. And I was just like, so... It's just really heartbreaking. No matter how hard I work, I can't fix it. And it hasn't moved in so many decades, you know, and it just feels crazy. I feel it makes me feel crazy that she'll probably be a very, very, very old lady before the needle moves enough to like really make a difference. I was looking for, this reminds

me also, I was looking for a reporter to do a story the other day, a sports reporter. And I Googled like women sports newscasters. The first page of Google is only lists of who's the hottest. No. Yes. Yes. It's not like wonderful sports reporters or the most. Credible or impactful or it's, oh my God.

You can do it right now and you see like it's just, if that's your job, it's like. Well, I actually went to college with one. Okay. So I can connect you and she's an amazing black woman. So I'll connect you with her. Okay. I mean, this is my work as well is I try to fight the patriarchy by giving women actionable resources to better their money because I don't think we have any sort of quality for women until we have

financial equality and I think about that every day no matter how hard I work no matter how many women that I impact no matter how many conversations I have this problem is still so much bigger than me so much bigger yeah I. So much bigger. Yeah. I find it really hard to kind of like brush that aside during conversations about money when men are present. Like it's really hard for me to not say to them, I know you came into this conversation thinking you could pay me 25% less than the guy. I know you did.

And then you're upset when I asked for more. You're like, you should just be grateful. And now I'm an angry woman. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Pushy. I'm pushy. Pushy and grateful, aggressive. Difficult. Yeah. She's difficult to work with because. Because I have boundaries. She has my number. Yeah, because she has my number. Because I have standards. It's sad. It's sad. But sad but you know look I'm talking from a point of privilege I I do have a wonderful career I feel like I am setting a good example for my daughter and I'll just keep plugging away at it but I I wish I had better news for everybody about being a woman and trying to get your share of the pie out in the world. I know MLMs aren't it.

They are not it. Well, and I want to ask you one more question. Since The Dream premiered, we talked about this briefly. What has the impact been? Like, what have you seen? Well, I've seen the FTC ramp up their like letter writing campaign, which has been great. I haven't heard from a lot of people being like, you made me see the light, but a few, you know, like I've quit or I've had good conversations or hard conversations with

people that I know, but mostly I've just seen it come more into the foreground of our like cultural conversation you know around women and work and more open criticism of these companies yeah i think a few years back it was kind of like you laughed it off it didn't seem as evil and i think we showed that part of it that it's actually predatory and yeah and people get truly damaged by being involved with these companies like both financially and emotionally i think people are angered by that and it and it's moving the conversation which is great yeah yeah amazing where can folks find you um they can find me at little everywhere.com and then my handles on all the other stuff is cj marie s e jane marie like cj run well i so appreciate you joining us thank you thank you for your work

i cannot thank jane enough for her expertise her work and her vulnerability you can connect with jane at c jane marie and if you want more information about MLMs, Jane, myself, or the show, check out our detailed show notes at financialfeministpodcast.com. Can't wait to see you back here next week, financial feminists. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist. Financial Feminist is produced and hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Theme song and audio production by Jonah Cohen Sound.

Administration and marketing by Olivia Kulkana, Sophia Cohen, and Kristen Fields. Research by Arielle Johnson. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton and photography by Sarah Wolf. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and our sponsors, go to financialfeministpodcast.com.