The Evolution of MLM: Changing Landscapes and Opportunities

Alright. So, I thought I would share this week something that I kind of have touched on a little bit in previous episodes in regards to Beachbody, a k a Bodi, and how it is becoming an affiliate opportunity come January 1st. But I wanted to dive a little more into it and kinda give give you the behind the scenes, if you will.

Now before I continue, please note that everything that I am talking about is just my opinion. It is my own personal experience. It is for entertainment purposes. I just wanna make that clear before we go on. Ain’t nobody trying to get a cease and desist letter.

So, the reason why I want to make sure people hear this part of my story is because, as I’ve mentioned, the situation within Beachbody is not unique to just Beachbody. I truly believe that the network marketing model is dissolving.

I think that it is only going to stick around for those who, quite frankly, don’t know what else to do but network marketing. Meaning, the people who have lost their gigs, so to speak, whether it’s Beachbody, Rodan and Fields, Saint, Avocare, they have bills to pay, and they have families to feed.

And when you’ve been so immersed in this culture for so long, and you have holes in your resume, you have to make a leap to start supplementing that income really fast. And the easiest way to do it is to go into what you know. I mean, I know for me as a golf professional, it was seamless for me to jump back into working in the golf industry.

Now I only took off for let’s see. I stopped work I worked the 2021 summer season, but I took off 2022. And I went back to work late fall of 2023. So I really only missed one season.

But it was easy for me to get back into, and it’s what I know. I mean, I’ll be real with you. There are also other opportunities out there in the golf business where you can be a rep and you have more flexibility and time freedom and you can make substantial money, but it’d be learning a whole new skill all over, and that takes time.

So I can understand from both perspectives why these people in network marketing have jumped into other MLMs. It’s easy. It’s fast cash. They have big down lines. I also want people to be aware though, as I talk about the dissolving of network marketing, that you’re an independent contractor.

A Warning About the Changing Network Marketing Industry

And as much as these network marketing companies try to tell you that you’re your own boss, and you’re this and you’re they make the rules. And they can change whenever. And Beachbody is a perfect example where it literally, a year ago, the CEO is on calls with us.

And we’re getting gaslit by leaders in the network who flew out to LA and signed non disclosure agreements. Getting gaslit by these predominantly women that, you know, this is gonna be great for the company. This is gonna be fantastic. They would never do this to us, like there’s so many positive changes. And then here we are a year later and poof, it’s gone.

So I feel like I have been the canary in the cave for Beachbody, the network marketing model.

Like, I have been screaming this for a long time. There is a reason why for only that little blip of time that I just showed you where I straight up only worked from home. And even though I worked from home, I still had other streams of income, which is what is gonna lead me to my story about Herbal Face Food.

I was with Beachbody for almost 11 years, and I always worked full time in the golf industry. And then as I got more and more experience with social selling, I started creating other streams of income. I took a large chunk of my money that I earned predominantly from network marketing because I was in the point 1% of those who make it to that millionaires club.

I took that money and I invested it into stocks and my I created a portfolio for myself. Real estate, right? My husband and I bought our home at a fantastic interest rate. I invested. I had multiple streams of income because I knew inevitably this was gonna happen one day, and it did.

But a lot of people didn’t listen. And so I will continue to be that canary in the cave warning you and encouraging you to diversify.

So whether it is having a really strong full time job like I did, like in the golf industry, I was fortunate enough that my job is very seasonal, so I do have the time flexibility there. I know not everyone has that availability with their full time job, but I do.

I encourage you to sock away money and take advantage of the fact that you are paid on a 1099 and manage your write offs, put money in a SEP IRA so that your taxable income is less. So, for example, because I didn’t have a 401 k, I treated my SEP IRA as if it was a 401 k.

I just didn’t have the blessing of a great match like a lot of companies do. Right? Because it was just me putting away that money. But I was diligent with it because I knew this was coming. And in the last couple of years, I really started to double down and really started to become more brazen with my approach, and I became very vocal with my team and on social media about where things were going.

And some people listened and some people didn’t, to be quite frank with you. And the ones that didn’t listen to me are the ones who went straight to another network marketing company. Never created their own offer. Maybe they did some, you know, little things here or little things there.

And don’t get me wrong, just like I was saying how there are other opportunities, say, within the golf industry where you can make significant income, but, like, I would have to start all over and not totally learn a new skill, but it is very different teaching golf versus say like merchandising or, you know, being a rep for a clothing company. Creating your own offer is not easy by any means. Having your own podcast is not easy. I’m coming up on my 100th episode soon.

Like, that’s wild. And I remember when I got my equipment, my husband was like, you spent how much? I was like, it’s a write off. Telling you, you gotta know how to play that game. But I know for the most part, you’re one of the people who does listen to me.

Decline in Beachbody Income

And so what I’m gonna share with you is how people got bullied. So in the fall of 2023, my income had already started tanking, like, years. Right? So at the peak, it was multiple, multiple 100 of 1,000 of dollars.

And then little by little, starting in 2021, everything started to just fall apart. And every year, the income was dropping significantly. So, like, say from 2020 to 2021, it was, like, a 50 to $75,000 decrease. Then it was another 50.

Then going into the 2024, so fall of 2023, that’s when we got the news that the comp plan was changing significantly, and my income was gonna be cut in half. So no more 6 figures.

And I knew that whole year that it was coming. So when I heard about this company, Herbal Face Food, which I talk about all the time on my social media, I’m very low maintenance, you know, when it comes to my skin care routine, and I’m very particular about ingredients, what I’m consuming, what I’m putting on my skin.

I’m just very particular about certain things, especially stuff that you’re consuming and using every single day. So do I eat pizza? Yeah. I actually had some before I recorded this. Do I have Chick Fil A? Yes. I’m not saying I don’t, but you can bet your you know what. I have a very expensive water filtration system in my home that’s all saltwater and reverse osmosis.

Why? Because my husband and I and our babies shower in it every day, drink water from it every day, wash our clothes, wash our car. It’s the water we put in our pool in our saltwater pool. Like, those things are very important to me.

My transition from Beachbody to Herbal Face Food

And so I had a friend approach me about Herbal Face Food, and the ingredient list blew me away. Like, I geek out over ingredients like this. It’s honestly the reason why I became a coach in the first place with Beachbody is because Shakeology blew my freaking mind, and I wanted a discount. And I now I can say this on here because it’s my own personal podcast.

And like I said, this is my own personal opinion. This is my own experience. This is for entertainment purposes. But Shakeology changed my gut health. Changed it. And I know without a shadow of a doubt, it was Shakeology because, yeah, did I clean up my nutrition here and there? For sure. I definitely did. I’m not I’m not saying I didn’t. Before I did Beachbody, I drank a lot more. I mean, a lot more.

I could throw down double stuffed Oreos. Like, I’m talking like half the package, like, in a sitting. Like, okay. Right. So I definitely cleaned it up. I don’t do either of those things anymore. But I still eat Chick Fil A. I still have pizza.

I still do have alcohol here and there. I mean, I chase my toddler around. She’s 30 lbs, so I’m not working out 6, 7 days a week. Like, I know that Shakeology is what helped heal my IBS without a shadow of a doubt. Like, you can’t convince me otherwise, and there’s a reason why. Yes. Is it expensive? 100%. Do I think it’s for everyone? No.

I don’t because there’s so many ingredients in it that obviously something’s gonna trigger someone. But for me, personally, Shakeology was worth its weight in gold because I went from being diagnosed with almost Crohn’s disease and all of these other things, and I started drinking Shakeology, and it was gone. So you can’t convince me otherwise.

That’s what it was. That’s what triggered everything, becoming a coach, getting a discount, and my almost 11 year experience with the company. So when I saw Herbal Face Food have these ingredients in it, like xanethin, which is the most potent superfood out there. It’s a it’s an allergy. Like, I won’t geek out with all the ingredients in it.

Just know that, like, if I’m freaking using it, it’s legit. Is it expensive? 100%. But just like Shakeology, you get what you pay for. Despite the fact that you have a bunch of these wacky coaches who are now all of a sudden with another MLM saying like, oh my gosh.

This is so much better. This is so much cleaner. Are you sure it’s just because you’re not getting paid from new said company? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Because if it was so damn great, you would have been consuming it a lot sooner.

You would have switched over to another company sooner, but you didn’t. Because either it’s not that great and or so you were, you know, you were lying. You were lying to people that all these products at Beachbody were great and you knew they weren’t.

So you can get paid. Right? Like these people, I can’t. That’s a whole another podcast. We gotta stick to the story. So I was approached in June about Herbal Face Food. Now, sort of, like, Make Wellness, the product wasn’t officially out yet. Like, we couldn’t get our hands on it, but some people did.

Beachbody Summit in 2023 and the Herbal Face Food Discussion

And I’ll never forget going to summit. So summit is the apex of the the beach body season. Right? It’s but let me keep it real with you. It’s like, let’s gather all the coaches and convince them to work harder, convince them that everything’s great, and everyone would go.

And it was a good time because you got to reunite with people that you haven’t seen in a while or maybe you’re meeting people who you’ve only interacted with online, you know, and they joined your team, your your fitness challenges, whatever. You’re meeting them online, and then you meet them in person for the first time.

Like, it’s fantastic. And I love the people that were a part of my team. They’re like family to me. But I see that event for what it is, and it was controlling the masses.

It was group think. You get enough people in one room and tell them certain things over and over again, they’re gonna go home and preach it to the rest of their downline who maybe wasn’t there. Right? Like, it was the greatest magic show.

And when I went in 2023, I knew that that was probably gonna be the last summit I ever went to. And that was before I ever had any thought of having having a second child. Okay? And my second baby, had I even planned on going to summit this year, like, I couldn’t have gone. Right? Because I was due right around when the summit was.

But I knew when I went to that last that summit that I went to in 2023, I was like, I’m not coming back because it was that bad. It went from me going to my first in Nashville where there were almost 40,000 of us, which, oh my gosh, is an introvert’s absolute nightmare. But it was pretty powerful to shut down Broadway in Nashville for that super workout. I mean, you’ve never seen anything like it in your life.

But going from that to this summit in San Antonio where, honestly, the best part for me was, I’m not even joking, like, going to Bucee’s with my daughter. And I went with my mom and couple coaches on my team.

And I got to see it was an excuse to see my best friend. So my my best friend was one of the coaches in my downline. So that was it though. Like, I was so hot. It was it there were the peep the vibe was not there. It was so off. Everything was just not great.

And one of the big things that was the buzz was people talking about herbal face food. And the reason why they were talking about herbal face food is because at the time, she was still a a coach within the network.

She was the name, like, big time affiliate that was essentially recruiting for the company. And she god bless her. Like, I’m grateful that she did this and and took the leap because what she did is she knew what people needed.

She saw a hole in their portfolio that could be filled because Beachbody wasn’t doing it. Beachbody just kept doing the same thing over and over again. Like, I’ll never forget being at that summit and they’re like, and we’re rebranding snickerdoodle. I’m like, what?

Like, I love Shakeology, but when the only innovative thing that we’re doing is rebranding the packaging and changing a couple of names, like, no, you’re just not going to stay relevant. Sorry, not sorry. Because like I said, Shakeology hasn’t affected every single person’s life like it has mine. So they’re not willing to spend $130 a month and you can get fitness.

I mean, I don’t wanna say you can get it for free because everything has a price, whether it’s watching advertisements on YouTube or, you know, there’s some small fee or you or you have to you pay to join a gym because you don’t want to pay for the weights in your home or you don’t have the space.

Like, the everything has a cost, short of just walking outdoors with even that, that’s got a cost. Right? You gotta get sneakers. You might have to expose yourself to the elements, whatever. Everything has a cost. But Beachbody just was not innovative and hadn’t been for years. And the coaches were getting bored.

I know I was.

So it was something fun and new and exciting to talk about. And the way it was positioned was, well, it’s nothing that’s competitive because it’s skin care. It’s, you know, it’s not a supplement. It’s not fitness. And when you think about it, why not?

I mean, it makes sense that Beachbody doesn’t have a skincare line anymore. When I first started, they did. They removed it. So theoretically, product wise, there was no competition. But and here’s the big but. What this coach did is she was recruiting people to become affiliates

The way the compensation plan was is structured, I should say, because it’s still intact like this to this day, is you can become an affiliate, and then other people that you bring into the company as affiliates, you can earn a percentage of their commission.

Now I’m a part of other affiliate marketing companies that also do this, but a lot don’t.

Internal Conflicts and Company Policies with Beachbody

But I started to see who was getting involved. And I’m talking big names from the company. And next thing you know, like anything else, chat threads are made, there’s a Facebook group so you can see who’s involved.

But what happened was and, you know, I’ve seen this happen multiple times in my tenure with Beachbody, where people would get excited about something. Whether it was they wanted to do their own coaching or their own digital marketing, you know, whatever it may be, or they were an affiliate for this one. And it was rules for the and not me.

And what it was is you had large coaches at the top who were big money makers for the company that, oh, cool. You can have your own journal, or you can have your own life coaching business or you can be an affiliate for this skin care company.

But you, little guy, no. You can’t do that. And these poor little guys, like, was I a little guy financially? Relatively speaking, no. But obviously, there are bigger fish in the pond than me, and they have much more notable names.

So when corporate caught wind of what was going on because it was inevitable. Like, I’m telling you, at the event, it’s all people talked about, and it was a distraction. And they don’t like distractions because if you’re distracted, you can’t promote their new product, their new Shakeology flavor, or whatever. Right?

So they wanted to nip it in the bud. So then what happened was these coaches who happen to be all in I’m talking they were in chat threads. Now mind you, I don’t trust anyone. So you can bet your you know what? I was screenshotting things. I was saving the receipts, honey, of who was on Zoom calls with me, who was in the chat threads, what people are saying, and it honestly became like World War 2.

Because what happened was these big dogs obviously got spoken to. I know they did by corporate. And it was like, cut this out. This is gonna be an issue. And they actually made the coach who created the affiliate program, who was once a Beachbody coach, they made her leave. And what began to transpire is something that was so exciting.

At the end of June, everyone’s so excited. They get involved with Herbal Face Food. They’re trying it. This stuff works. So the very first person I recruited was a dear friend of mine, who is very well known in the crunchy space, who wholeheartedly, like, vets ingredients companies, so I knew people would trust her.

And I hit it out of the park because I just knew it was the right fit for her. And to say that she and I did well is an understatement, but it didn’t come without scrutiny.

Because what happened was once people got wind of the compensation plan and how well people were doing, It was like world war 2 and everyone was knocking on one of you felt like you were freaking Anne Frank hiding in the dang attic because you never know who’s gonna screen record you, screenshot you.

You were getting literally in the DMs, people were trying to catch you. They were they were trying to catch you in this whole recruitment trap entrapment. Because essentially, what went down was once they got rid of the leader from Beachbody who created this, they tried saying, oh, well, you can be an affiliate for the company, but you can’t recruit. And then you had all of these leaders in the chat thread that you’re like, okay. Let me get this straight.

I’m really supposed to believe that so and so, who’s best friends with this one, and she’s in the top spot of sales, I’m supposed to believe that she just let her go to the company and and said, you know what? I’m not gonna take my 10%. Like, stop it. Stop it, Linda.

Do you really want me to believe that? No. And I had people, because people knew that one of the people that I recruited to this, who had zero affiliation with Beachbody. I need everyone to be very clear about that. Never a coach, never a customer, just simply a friend of mine, a very good friend.

They were trying to poach her from me, and they would try to say, well, you can’t you can’t have her. And I’m like, how do you even know she’s mine?

You don’t know. And I reached out to herbal facebook. I’m like because I said, not for anything.

This is a legal issue. So you can’t have anyone but who is in charge of my payments, and obviously the CEO of the company, know who’s connected to who. And they assured me that that was the truth, and no one did. But people were lying. People were trying to poach other people from one another.

So if you were in the Beachbody camp, you were trying to narc on people because you were pissed because you didn’t have the balls to stay in it with Herbal Face Food because the company, you know, Beachbody, the corporate scared the living daylights out of them and basically said to, like, threaten them. Like, you can’t be talking about this. Like, it’s a distraction.

We’ll cancel your account just like we did to so and so. Right? So you’re that side that they were miserable and they were pissed because they had golden handcuffs on and they knew that they couldn’t they couldn’t give up Beachbody because they were making so much money with Beachbody, and they didn’t wanna start over with Herbal Face Food.

They didn’t know where the trajectory of Herbal Face Food was going so they they had a scarcity mindset. They needed and I get it. They needed to pay the bills. They had a lot of money coming in. Despite the fact that, like I said, only a few months later, the announcement of the income getting cut in half was coming, so shame on them.

And then on the other side is you had and this was a smaller side, I will admit. You had the people who were trying to pull anyone who was a Beachbody coach. They were trying to say, well, you have to give up all of your affiliates and hand them over to me. Yeah. No. I don’t think so.

And wouldn’t you know, they didn’t write me back. The reason why they didn’t write me back is because they knew they had no ground to stand on. They can’t tell me how I can make money. I’m a 1099 independent contractor. If they started telling me, no, you can’t do this. No, you can’t do that. No.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some small fine print certain things in there. But this was like the biggest gray area you can possibly imagine, and they didn’t want to put anything in writing that I could go back and sue them on.

I’m being dead serious. Because what you put in writing, just like anything you can put in this podcast, like I said entertainment purposes only. This is my own personal experience. You can have grounds to do that with.

So guess what? I just kept doing my thing, And I’m forever grateful that I understand business, and I understood that if Beachbody had put anything in writing, I would be essentially considered like an employee. Because they’re telling me just like, you know, the golf club I work for. There’s a handbook that we get when we sign and we and we become employees of the club.

And there’s things that we can do and we can’t do, and things that we can wear and we can’t wear, and, you know, PTO and this and like all of that. Right? Policies and procedures. And it’s not to say that Beachbody didn’t have policies and procedures. They just had really, really gray ones.

And I feel sorry for anyone that was gaslit by the company, by these leaders. I feel bad for the people who narc’d excuse me, who got narc’d out. And it’s funny, the ones that did the narc’ing, those are the same dang people that are now part of other MLMs.

They’re part of Make Wellness. They’re part of Hue and Grace. They’re the first people to be calling up compliance. Oh, you know, so and so has her husband’s business center open. Oh, so and so is doing herbal face food, like, just so you know, like, they’re not allowed to do that.

So and so’s got, you know, part of this MLM.

They’re the first people that jumped to another MLM. They’re not out of the business. They are not, you know, doing their own thing. They’re not back to working in corporate America.

Breaking Free from Network Marketing’s Grasp

They’re not, you know, have it they don’t have their own offers and their own coaching and mentorship. No. It’s like they’re stuck in this freaking network marketing hole, and they want everyone to go down with them. Preferably, they want them to go over to their company, you know, their new adventure. But those are the people. And so heed my warning.

Any company can pull the rug right from underneath you. They don’t owe you anything. Beachbody was almost a $1,000,000,000 company. They made some bad mistakes, and the easiest way for them to gain some capital back so they wouldn’t completely drown was by going to this affiliate model. I mean, now it’s like worth like the company’s worth like over 400,000,000.

I mean, that’s like, you made some bad decisions, homie. The industry as a whole is suffering. I don’t believe that it will be around for the most part in a few years. The only ones that will kinda keep it afloat are the ones that are, a, older. Right?

So they don’t understand or don’t wanna learn TikTok shop, don’t wanna learn UGC. They they you know, it’s an old dog. They don’t wanna learn new tricks. Those are also the people, like I said, who went over to these new MLMs. So you have the old OG companies.

Right? Like, I don’t think Herbalife is going anywhere. And that that company has been around forever. Amway. Like, those are the OG. Mary Kay, because those are older people who honestly, like those are the people who ask you, like, how do I do such and such on my cell phone? You know, I’m just keeping it real.

And I’m a millennial, but, like, millennials, Gen Z, like, they’re not about it. They understand that there’s other ways to make money online. Like I said, specifically, UGC, Amazon shoppable, TikTok shop, and they don’t wanna be affiliated with network marketing.

The only people who are gonna stay in it are those old OG companies and the ones that it’s all they know what to do and they don’t want to reinvent themselves, so they’re just gonna switch over to another company.

And those are the same damn people who I literally had to have eyes in the back of my head back in 2023 because I was like, who’s gonna snitch on me? But I stood boldly and I was like, alright. Go for it.

Because you know what? Snitches get stitches. And I dare any of you try to take this freaking money out of my pocket because the money that I earned from herbal face food in literally a matter of 6 months made up for the loss that I had with Beachbody.

Trust Your Gut: Standing Strong in Business Against Corporate Pressure

And I don’t know what I would have done had I not stood up for myself and stayed true to who I am and and understood business and understood that this was like, I trusted my gut and I knew that it was the right thing.

I also think it was important that as always, like I said, trusting my gut, aligning myself with a company and a product that I believe in, which is why I do believe I was so successful with Beachbody too because I did believe in the company. I did believe in the workouts and the supplements. It was only towards the end, the last couple years, that the business model was like, math’s not math in here.

And that’s why I stopped recruiting. But I know if this happened once, and it specifically happened to me, it will happen again.

Because there’s always gonna be something trending. There’s always gonna be another product or a company that people are gonna wanna get involved in. And I don’t care what network marketing company you’re in, it’s gonna be seen as a distraction. And your upline and corporate, they’re not gonna want you to get involved with it.

And next thing you know, you’re going to have people who are just coming after you. Lying to you, trying to manipulate you, trying to bully you, trying to scare you. And I’m here to tell you don’t let it happen.

There were a lot of people that had a lot of success with Herbal Face Food, with the actual skin care, and also promoting the product, and they gave it up. Now, did it match the income they were getting with Beachbody? No. But, they should have been stronger as leaders, in my opinion. Because at the end of the day, could Beachbody threaten them? For sure.

But they had no ground to stand on. And if you were a true business leader, you knew that. And kudos to the ones that kept going. Kudos to the ones that kept promoting it and basically said, you know, f the man. I gotta take care of my family and my own.

Like, rage against the machine. Because that’s what network marketing is, folks. It’s not your own business. It’s the machine. I don’t care what company you’re part of.

Stop trying to convince yourself it’s not, because it is. Whether you’re slinging shakes, slinging shampoo, got a new peptide, got something that’s non toxic hormones, it’s all the same b s.

Financial Diversification and Multiple Streams of Income

I encourage you to be different. I encourage you to be innovative. I encourage you to be ahead of the curve. And network marketing ain’t it. These other opportunities I just taught you about, if this is the first time you’re hearing me teach about UGC and TikTok shop and Amazon shoppable, welcome. I talk about it a lot.

I have workshops on it because I believe in it and I know that’s where people are making money. Don’t be a dinosaur, innovate.

Learn how I’ve diversified myself, because I’m not going back to network marketing. Been there, done that, got the t shirt. I learned a lot. And what I learned is what kept my head above water in 2023 when it came to Herbal Face Food.

I used my skills of recruiting, my skills of social media and sales to absolutely crush it. And it’s honestly the only reason I was able to pay my bills, was because of that company in 2023. So learn from me.

Don’t make that mistake that some of those other coaches did.

Trust your instincts, and know that you have what it takes to be successful. Don’t let anyone bully you or gaslight you, and tell you how you should be making money, or how you can be making money. They have their own agenda. I can promise you that they do.

As always, thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you. It feels good to get some of this off of my chest. It’s been a rough rough road, but this has been very therapeutic, the last few months being able to chat with you about everything that’s been going on within network marketing and my life and my business.

So thank you for that. If you have any questions, if you need someone to talk to, reach out to, mentorship, I’d love to continue the conversation with you. You can always reach out to me on Instagram.