Hi.
I wrote a book. - Here it is.
A whole book.
She wrote a book.
Yes, you did.
And I tore right through it.
It's a great read.
It's fascinating.
Thank you.
It came out today, so I haven't heard any feedback.
I don't know what anyone thinks of it.
Is this the first feedback that you're getting?
Pretty much, outside of the people that helped me
write it.
[GIGGLES]
It's a great book.
We'll tell you how much we enjoyed it.
This world is fascinating.
You go deep into the world of MLMs.
Yes.
And people call them by many different names, MLMs,
network marketing, direct marketing,
direct sales, pyramid schemes.
I can't call them that.
You can't.
No because I'll get sued.
You can't call them that, but right here on
the cover is a little--
[LAUGHTER]
I got a lot of help.
I got a lot of help with the cover art.
Yes.
What exactly is an MLM?
So a multi-level marketing company is a business
shaped like this, slightly.
But we can't call it a pyramid.
There's a couple people at the top.
And then they have their the up line,
the top sellers, who are supposed to recruit
usually five people each.
And then they're supposed to recruit five people.
And they're supposed to recruit five people, infinitely.
And the way the money flows is that each person who signs up
pays like a fee at the beginning to sign up.
Or sometimes they have to pay for some products and stuff.
But they're paying those fees.
And then they fail pretty quickly, usually.
And then more people sign up.
So that's where the money comes from.
And isn't it something like 99.--
99.9% make no money or lose money.
Only 1% make $1 even.
We laughed when you said infinity because infinitely--
because you can't keep doing that.
13 levels and you surpass the population of the earth.
Right.
[LAUGHTER]
Mathematically impossible.
Totally impossible.
MLMs specifically prey on women, these Tupperware
parties, the sex toy parties.
I know. And there so fun.
They're so fun.
And we get to hang out with our friends.
I want to make this about me for a second.
- Please. - Sorry.
Please.
Why stop now?
[LAUGHTER]
- Well, no, there are-- - Why not?
I would love to go to a nose-trimmer
party or a beef jerky--
There are MLMs for you.
There are, first of all, MLMs for you.
OK.
As soon as this is done.
Yes.
It's crypto.
Or there's telecom companies.
There are like lots of dude MLMs.
But 75% of people involved are women.
And it's because the companies go after people who
have some sort of economic precarity,
or like trouble moving up the ranks.
Here's the thing.
There's the pay gap we're fighting against.
If someone called you today and was like,
you could make another $1,000 a week,
just sitting in your house, and talking to your girlfriends,
and selling makeup.
And if that was true, I would be doing that.
for sure. - Where do I sign?
Yeah, where do I sign?
Let me do it.
So we all make less than men.
We all take care of the home.
We're all homemakers.
We take care of the children.
Especially at the middle age, we
don't have that kind of movement in the economy
that other people get.
And it's not just women because it's now becoming immigrants
or anyone who is a population that has hard time getting
really good, solid employment, which is everybody right now.
I also feel like they sucker women in with this promise of,
you know, you can achieve independence.
You can be your own girl boss.
And that's alluring.
Girl boss, yeah.
I'm 46 years old.
When I hear girl boss, I'm just like--
[LAUGHTER]
Boss babes and fempire.
But it's true.
My great grandma did Avon.
And it did help her feel like some agency in her life
because she didn't have a career.
She got pregnant at like 14, and had a bunch of kids,
and really didn't have like a job outside of that.
And it felt good to get on stage, or get a pin,
or get like a fancy jacket, and be around people,
and be lauded.
So I do think those things are really valuable.
And I think the parties are really fun.
They're actually super fun.
I don't know.
I did one in my house when I was like 20.
It was like a lingerie party.
And everyone came out and modeled their--
Tell me more.
--boudoir sets.
[LAUGHTER]
Go on.
You touched on it a little bit.
But besides just that you can make $1,000 a week,
there are some psychological components
that they recruit with.
Yes.
And to me, that's almost more powerful.
Yeah.
Tell me a little bit about what they do.
So the recruitment is just things
that appeal to all of us.
Like, you can have time, and money, and freedom.
And you don't have to have any qualifications.
And the world is yours.
And we have a secret.
You know, we have a secret that they don't want you to know.
So then they rely on these logical fallacies
that we all kind of rely on in our lives.
And one of them is honoring sunk costs.
Like, when you buy a lemon for a car,
and you get it worked on, and worked on, and worked on,
there comes a point where you have to be like,
I can't fix this car.
And I have to get rid of this car.
This is me at the blackjack table.
OK.
That's exactly right. - $1,000.
You might as well--
Now I'm in $1,000. What am I going to do?
Walk away now?
Like, no, I'm going to--
You invested all this time and energy, you got to stick--
All this time.
And how much time does it take for you to lose $1,000?
I bet in like small $1 payments.
[LAUGHTER]
So all night.
It's like the whole free-- I get a free--
I get a free martini.
But I've lost $2,000 at the table.
Right.
And then you've lost $2,000.
And I'm feeling the anxiety of even you just saying that.
Or I'm like, you can't walk away at $2,000.
So that's what they rely on, is that they know
we're all going to do that.
And there's a bunch more, like the idea that--
it's a truth that we feel losses much more than gains.
We feel them in our bodies, like as trauma.
And a gain is like, OK, great.
But a loss is like But a loss is like [GASPS] And so we And so we
do everything we can to not realize the loss,
to not experience the loss.
So we stick with a plan that's not working
for a really long time.
Is there-- can the government regulate this?
Help us?
I mean, isn't this what the federal trade
commission is meant to do?
You would think.
Is there legislation that can be passed to correct this?
Things are being worked on.
But I will say, just to give the FTC a bit of a break,
their purview is so enormous.
They are tiny, first of all.
They're like the size of the smallest MLM,
in terms of the people that are there
and the money they get to use.
They're tiny.
And their job is-- and listen, especially
after the pandemic and stuff, their job
is false product claims, credit card fraud, phishing, spam,
every kind of fraud, and your grandma
getting taken by somebody that she's
never met over the phone.
And when you put that up against MLMs,
where the people who are signed up are like excited about it,
it's hard to put that first.
Although, this is such a bigger problem than those things
in numbers.
So they have they have a tough task.
And I don't blame them.
They're doing the best they can.
So technically, MLMs are legal.
Hmm.
What can--
Hmm.
[LAUGHTER]
I believe they are not.
But they exist because--
I use this comparison all the time.
That's like being-- like, I'm a murderer because I'm in jail.
And then I'm not a murderer because I'm not in jail.
Right.
That doesn't even make any sense.
But those MLMs will say--
Should be illegal.
But they aren't being treated as such.
So what can be done?
If the FTC is not stepping in--
No.
--what can smart American people do to not be lured in?
Buy a book.
Buy my book.
[LAUGHS]
[CHEERING]
You do need five other people to buy the book also.
[LAUGHTER]
But for real, what's our defense?
It really is talking about it.
You know, that's the only thing we
can do because the government doesn't have the capacity.
And that's understandable because there are so many--
I talked to the FTC recently.
And one of the women I was talking to
was like, it's a very target-rich environment
right now.
And I thought she meant-- because I was asking her,
why don't we go after these companies?
It's a target-rich environment.
I thought she meant there's too many MLMs.
And no, she was talking about us.
She was like, this is the perfect environment
for these companies to come after you.
Like, we are all desperate.
We're all like wanting to realize the American dream,
and believe this is a meritocracy,
and believe this is a place where you work hard,
and you get rewarded for it, and all that
[BLOWS RASPBERRY], you know. - Right.
Whatever.
So talk about it and be aware of it.
Talk about it.
Tell your friends, you know.
They're fine pitching you some garbage hair product
or whatever, you should be fine being like, you know what?
Mm-mm. This is not cool.
And I think the tide is turning.
Thank you very much for talking with us.
Selling the Dream is available now.
Jane Marie.