Riveting Conversation: Shocking Insights On The Decline Of Network Marketing

This past week, I went live on Instagram to share the same sentiment, and I believe it belongs permanently on my podcast episode. So I will try to make this short and sweet as possible. But if you know me, that’s really challenging.

Because if I’m being real, my bandwidth for drama right now is minute. But I do believe this is information that everyone needs to have. I’m currently back to work full time at the golf course, struggling with my baby taking a bottle after her tongue and lip tie release.

My dad recently just lost one of his best friends. And that’s on top of all the spinning plates I already have going on, including the mentorship of over 100 different women in my UGC workshops.

I’m also building my Amazon workshop for you, so I can teach you how to monetize on Amazon as an influencer. I have 1 on 1 clients that I work with, my family. So to be real, like, my family and my clients, they deserve all of me. Right?

But I feel that this message is very important. So despite me quoting right now my favorite movie, My Cousin Vinny, right? Like, I don’t need this. I swear to God, I don’t need this right now. I haven’t slept in 5 days. I got no money.

A dress code problem. Right? How much more can we pile on to the top of the outcome of this case? Let me see. Is it possible? Oh, did you hear Lisa stamping her foot three times about her biological clock when I was saying that?

Listen, if you haven’t seen that movie, I don’t know if we can be friends. It is the best. Anyway, now before we continue on, let me say these are just my opinions. It’s my personal experience. These are my opinions. This is meant for entertainment purposes only.

Ain’t nobody trying to get a cease and desist letter. Okay? This is what I have seen, felt, experienced. It is not necessarily fact.

Introduction to Make Wellness

As I have shared on my social media a few months ago, a friend that I trusted introduced me to an up and coming network marketing company called Make Wellness. What intrigued me initially was this is someone, like I said, that I am very close with, trust her research, and she presented to me a bunch of products that I thought because as I’ve told you, I knew Beachbody was gonna be going down it was just a matter of when that could possibly be supplemented in for my Beachbody products.

And I’m always looking for things that are cleaner and, you know, gonna get me better results, yadayada. And so I had signed up in the beginning of August, and kinda forgot about it, to be honest, because of all those things that I mentioned before, like, what was going on.

So it really wasn’t on the forefront of my mind until Beachbody dissolved its network marketing structure and then all of a sudden, the floodgates opened.

And everybody and their mom, it felt like, you know, at the very least, a lot of leaders with massive organizations, I should say, started flooding over to Make Wellness. And right away, that was, like, alarming to me because I’m very aware of how many of these leaders have run their organization.

You wouldn’t call it the most ethical. Right? So right away, I was upset and I was annoyed because I was, like, what the heck? Like, this was something that I was super interested in. I knew about it first, you know, like, that kind of thing.

And I really started to take a step back because I’m saying to myself, okay, why? Why are these leaders going over there? Like, you can’t tell me it’s just because it’s such a great opportunity. Like, there’s gotta be more to this.

Now before I go on, let me just say the amount of messages that I have been receiving regarding Make Wellness or, you know, people who are like, hey, Maren, have you seen this? Have you seen that? Because, you know, I appreciate that. Like, I know there are people like, Maren, you were talking about this and you were so excited, like, but have you seen this? I get it.

I did receive a lot of messages in that regard. And I never wanna say, like, it was an unprecedented amount. Like, trust me, I’ve gotten tons of other message about other topics that have been, in my opinion, even more valuable than this. But with that being said, like, I have been getting a lot of messages.

This is something that is flooding the Internet right now. And I just wanna share with you my own personal experience, and I believe in an informed consent. So you need to make your own decisions just as I’ve made my own, quite frankly.

History and Experience with Beachbody

And I think that sharing my story will hopefully help you make that clear decision. Because I’ve been with Beachbody 11 years, it would have been in January. And in that time, I’ve had to defend my affiliation with Beachbody.

Like, people making fun of me, oh my gosh, you’re part of a pyramid scheme. You know, what? You work out from home, like like, just people are just ragging on me. Right? And I will be the first to tell you that network marketing is not for the faint of heart. There’s drama, there’s shady stuff that goes on.

There are lots of people who have, like, PTSD, quite frankly, from their experience. And I’ll touch on that. But truly, like, unless you’re fully invested in whatever it is that you’re promoting, like, I’m just warning you to not get involved.

And when I really started seeing the writing on the wall with Beachbody, I kept saying, I’ll never get involved with another network marketing company. I’m done with network marketing. I never got into network marketing for the reasons that most people do.

Quite frankly, like, I didn’t get into it for for money. I didn’t even know how much money could be freaking made, to be real with you. It wasn’t until I had already been sharing and, you know, selling challenge packs, yada yada yada, that I saw a video, a YouTube video of my star Diamond Upline who is one of the biggest coaches in the entire network, probably one of not one of not probably.

I know she is one of the most financially successful coaches. I didn’t even know the exponential growth that was involved with Beachbody.

My personal reasons for joining Beachbody and sustaining long term

Like I knew obviously you could make money, but I didn’t know the exponential growth. It’s not why I became a coach. I didn’t even become a coach honestly to, like, run challenge groups because to be real, those things were never really my bag either.

I was a you know, I am a professional athlete. I was a collegiate athlete. Like for me, working out was just something that was a part of me. I just needed a little bit of a kick start and and the right program.

And I would just talk about it on my own and love sharing with people. And I’ve been on social media since Facebook started in 2004. So a lot of the things were very innate in me. I didn’t seek community.

I didn’t seek financial opportunity. I legit was just sharing what I loved. And so I think for that reason, I was able to survive for so long. Because if you’re not in it for the right reasons, or you’re believing like these empty promises that a lot of people will give you, it can wear you down, and you can get burnt out.

There are a lot of people who have seen major, major success within network marketing, and they get super burnt out, and they can’t do it anymore. There are other people who, like I said, they get empty, you know, promised these things, and they’re just no clout behind it. It’s empty. And they get very pissed off, like, they feel like they were lied to.

And so I just feel like those people sure, they had a different experience than me. I never really was involved like that. And so for that reason, that’s why I’m bowing out from being involved with Make Wellness. I’m sitting back and just kinda watching it all unfold.

The Decision to Withdraw from Make Wellness

I canceled that $500 Founders box. I’m not doing it. And I’m sure you wanna know why. If you haven’t heard or seen my stories, this is really the the beginning of it, the precipice.

I’ll continue to share on social media as I’m sure more and more unfolds and just kinda like validates my decision. Because, like I said, I vowed never to get involved with network marketing again. I truly believe it’s a dying breed.

But I was like, okay, this is cool. And everything that has come to light for me has been a validation from God, being like, no, Maren. You were right. Trust the process. You’re doing the right thing. It’s time to move on.

So, first of all, there are a lot of women out there talking about these life changing products and this opportunity. And what’s so strange is that most of them have never even tried it. Never even tried the product.

Because the product is not available to the public. And a few of them did get samples, including my friend. My friend who introduced me to this, she had tried it. They sent her about 2 weeks worth of samples. And another girl that I’m friends with, same thing, sent her samples, and we talked about it.

So essentially, people who they thought were going to be super influential for bringing people over and joining, those were the ones who got it. And I don’t really have an issue with that because that makes sense. Right? It’s their sphere of influence.

Of course, why wouldn’t you do that? Now what I will say is, since a lot of this information has revealed itself, people who are part of the holistic sphere. So that’s really what I consider myself.

And even though I’ve been involved in network marketing, I don’t align myself with those people. Like, it’s it’s just not me. Did I do direct sales? 100%. You know, do I have that little badge of I’m a network marketer? No. Like, not at all.

So a lot of these women from my space, while they may have brought in a ton of people for sharing their link and stuff like that, they’re actually not on the top 25 for people selling the founders box.

And that’s because they too have bowed out from this. You want to know the people who haven’t?

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Integrity and Ethical Concerns About Make Wellness

If you look at the list of the top 25 people who sold the most founders boxes, they come from Beachbody. And they have massive downlines. So for me, that gives me major ick.

It’s it’s just not a good sign. Because like I said, I’m gonna repeat this word a lot throughout this episode. It’s about integrity.

You’re bringing over a ton of people, based on a product that, okay, maybe you tried it. Maybe you tried 2 weeks worth. But not for anything. If this opportunity’s products were so good, why weren’t you talking about it in August?

Why didn’t you leave sooner?

Why were you doing all this business, so to speak, behind the scenes?

You were trying to collect a check with Beachbody, stay compliant with Beachbody, you knew it was going down, you just didn’t know when.

You knew about this. You were in talks.

You’re friends with other founding, quote unquote, members of this company. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about it and have this plan in place.

So one of 2 things.

You’re either doing shady stuff, and still recruiting the Beachbody, still selling your Beachbody products, still acting like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, while still having your plan b, working it behind the scenes, and or you’re a fraud, and now you’re bringing all these people over because, quite frankly, you need to fill your bank accounts.

Leaders’ Motivations and Economic Realities

So I’m seeing and hearing this from several other top coaches and partners who they’ve left to go to other MLMs. Like, quite frankly, they were backed into a corner.

They had to make a decision. And I think it’s kinda worse coming from them quite frankly because at least you could make the argument that, well, makes new. So that’s why I didn’t leave sooner.

You know, we didn’t even have any products. It didn’t it just it just popped up since August. Whereas a lot of these other network marketing companies that these top coaches are going to, the companies have been around for years.

So to me, it’s like, well, you’re out here talking about these new products and top of the line, and they’ve been around for years, and they’re 3rd party tested, like what whatever these people are saying. I don’t even care.

I don’t follow them. I just know that they’re saying it because people send me this information. I don’t follow these top coaches. Other people do, but I’ve also seen that they’re stopping following them. So I think that’s funny.

But if the company was so great, why are you leaving now? And let’s be honest, like, you didn’t leave because you were locked into your down line.

And I totally get it. Right? I get it. You had the golden handcuffs. The money was coming in without you even doing anything. Right? Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

But where’s the honesty? There’s no honesty involved. You literally stayed with Beachbody because it was Easy Street. And now, as of couple days from now, November 1st, it’s going affiliate.

You’re losing thousands of customers. You’re losing all of your team cycle bonuses as of January 1st. And your back’s up against the wall, so you have to make a decision. So now all of a sudden you’ve discovered this non toxic this, USA made that, blah blah blah. Like, stop. Stop with the madness.

The Exodus: Respecting Those Who Left Early and Took Risks

You know, oh, these are the best supplements out here. Blah blah. Jesus told me this is the place that I need to be planted. Okay? That one, don’t even get me started on people using Jesus. I can’t. I’ve already talked about that in multiple episodes.

The people that I do respect are the ones that actually left a year ago. Right? They planted themselves somewhere else.

They started fresh. They took a risk. Right? They left income on the table, and they went over now, don’t get me wrong, I do believe and have heard that a lot of these people got paid, so makes it a lot easier to make your decision to leave, doesn’t it?

But I digress. And there are people though, I will say, that they were just willing to put their necks on the line, start fresh. They just wanted something different. They were tired of the same old drama. They were tired of same old products, and the end is just inevitable. I talked about this in my stories the other day.

The discontinuation of BODi products

Like, if you go to BODI.com and you look at the supplements that are available, if you go to, like, say, shop, I mean, there’s, like, nothing there. There’s the OG Shakeology. There’s the new Shakeology, that’s 0 Sugar. There’s energize, 3 day refresh, and, that’s about it.

So in my mind, that tells me, compared to say, the team Beachbody website, which has, you know, your beach bars, your recover, your hydrate, all the things. Right? I mean, they actually just cut like 4 or 5 products this week. There’s no more bevy. There’s no more focused energy.

So they’re cutting. They’re gonna probably keep it down to just those products that I mentioned.

In their newest program that they debuted, it’s not lost on me that now some of it could, in fairness to Beachbody, some of it could have to do with the fact that Shay Mitchell, who is a celebrity, it could be that she is in the program and that is why they don’t make any mention of actual Beachbody branded products like Energize and Recover, compared to people who are under contracts with Beachbody.

So say, Joel, Autumn, etcetera. So I will give Beachbody a little pass on that, because in the workout, they don’t use those types those those specific names. They say, like, oh, take your did you take your pre workout today?

Or, like, don’t forget to take your protein. Like, they’re super vague about it, but there could be very well a reason for that. A lot of times, it does just have to do with contracts and sponsorships and all of that.

But the website is what it is. When you go to BODI.com, all those other products are nowhere to be found. Oh, they also canceled First Thing, Last Thing. So I’m telling you, like, they are narrowing their scope big time.

So circling back to to what I was saying about these people who are kind of having this epiphany of, oh, my gosh. There’s no opportunity. I do feel sorry for the ones that were there first, because now they have these new people coming into the company. It’s already tainting it.

It’s already causing drama in many situations. And, quite frankly, the the little guys, the people, they’re seeing it for what it is. And I’m getting a ton of messages being like, I don’t follow so and so anymore.

Oh my gosh. I’m so disappointed in such and such. And I just sit here and I, you know, I’m just like, yeah. Freaking told you so. You know, they’re saying this is so gross.

The State of Network Marketing

This is awful. And listen. At the end of the day, like, just like I think Hollywood, that whole admiration for all of these actors and musicians, I think that that is dying.

It’s the same in network marketing. It’s a dying breed. The veil has been lifted. People understand that the whole industry, it’s not rainbows and lollipops. You’re not sitting around braiding one another’s hair.

You know? It’s like, people are starting to really get it. And look, I’m just telling you how it is. So these coaches, what they aren’t telling you is, they were making money hand over fist, and they couldn’t leave.

They didn’t leave until they were forced to. Okay? They were forced to leave, now they have to pivot.

And I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, your top dogs who have been doing this for, you name it, 6, 10, 12, 14 years. Okay? This is either all they ever known, like they are high school, college dropouts, went right into this.

Or they did have, say a corporate job or they were a teacher, and then they quit that. So now they have this big blank space in the middle of their resume. So what are they gonna do? They can’t go back to their corporate jobs. They can’t go back to teaching. They just can’t.

They’re not relevant in their field. And as much as it kills me to leave my little girls to go off and teach golf, I am very grateful that in the almost 11 years that I was in direct sales, I still stayed in the golf business. I stayed home with my little girl for 21 months, but other than that, I’ve always been working.

I’ve always been grinding. I’ve had streams of income flowing in from every which way, Specifically, with a skill, teaching golf, that most don’t have. So these leaders, yes, they have to go to a new place. And I’m seeing all these announcements.

Reality Check and Tough Love About Network Marketing

And this is nothing new too. This happens quite often, but it’s happening obviously at a more rapid rate because Beachbody was such a big network, and it’s been around for a long time. But these announcements are like, so and so hit such and such rank.

Oh, my gosh. Can’t believe you leveled up so fast. It’s like, no kidding. You brought your whole team with you, bro. Easy button. Easy button.

I mean, come on. Am I the only person that sees this? I can’t be. Like, I know I’m not.

It’s not because this new opportunity is, like, so groundbreaking, so much better than Beachbody. It’s literally because you brought your whole downline with you, bro. No kidding. And that’s what fires me up.

And this is some tough love, but it needs to be said. Okay?

Are you ready for it? I hope you still love me after I tell you this.

But if you did not hit those top achievements in your current network marketing space or your previous one. Let’s just call it your previous one, because you’re probably moving over to another one. Following your top diamond leader. Okay? If you didn’t hit it, let’s just use Beachbody.

If you weren’t in the legacy club. Okay? And I’m gonna use the legacy club. I’m not gonna use elite. I’m not gonna use 5 star or, you know, what I’m not gonna use those ranks because those ranks don’t mean diddly. It’s legacy club. Okay? Because that’s how you earn.

Like that’s proof in the pudding. The rest are just fake little achievements to dangle the cat in front of you. If you didn’t hit it in Beachbody, homie, you’re not gonna do it in the next place. You’re just not.

So what’s gonna happen is, you’re gonna be enticed to go over from point a to point b, follow your star diamond up line. They’re gonna do it because they’re gonna bring every Tom, Dick, and Harry in their downline with them, and they’re gonna survive, and they’re gonna do well, and you’re gonna be in the same damn place.

And I want you to know, like, it’s okay. Network marketing doesn’t have to be everyone’s thing. And then in the real world, there is only, you know, a 1% in every field.

Can you imagine if we could all be professional basketball players? No. Of course not. I mean, I think about myself as a professional golfer. In professional golf, there’s 100s of 1000s of male class a PGA professionals. There’s 1300 females that are class A PGA professionals. I mean, come on. Like, it it’s ridiculous.

So it’s not gonna be something that everyone’s gonna achieve, and that’s okay.

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What I’m sick of is these top leaders lying to people, and making them think that it’s even a possibility. Because quite frankly, they need you to come over. Because if you don’t come over, they can’t be successful. That’s how it works.

And I think it’s time for the little guy to stand up and be like, enough is enough. Okay. So this is a really long episode because I wanna kinda get it done and over with and be over talking about all of this Make Wellness and Beachbody drama, I just wanna be done and over with.

So with that being said, make sure you tune in to next week’s part 2 of this episode.

You’ll get the rest of the details, and then we can be done with it and just move on to a new chapter. So I’ll catch you next week.