0:00

Hey, Dream listeners. If you like this podcast,

0:02

you're going to love the book. Yeah.

0:04

I wrote a book. It's called Selling the Dream,

0:07

and it's coming out March twelfth, twenty twenty

0:09

four, on Atria. It's

0:11

about all of your favorite characters from

0:13

MLMs and some that you've never even

0:15

heard of. I hope check it

0:18

out. Previously

0:21

on the Dream, MLMs

0:23

came to the attention of the FTC.

0:25

They went after him pretty hard for about fifteen

0:28

years. Well, they was saying enough is enough. You

0:30

know what, I know what it means. It

0:32

means there's nothing incredible to discuss any longer.

0:35

Oh there's one word, am We. The Amway

0:37

decision by the Federal Trade Commission changed

0:40

everything. It invented what

0:42

it called rules. Who came

0:44

up with the Amway rules? Amway?

0:47

I always assumed it was the FTC that

0:49

came up with them. No.

0:52

No, In

1:05

this post Amway decision world, it seems

1:07

like MLMs are everywhere, And as

1:09

we told you earlier in the season, we wanted to find

1:11

out what they look like from the inside. So

1:14

we joined one a makeup company called Lime

1:16

Life, formerly known and referred to

1:18

in our tape as Limelight. Remember

1:20

they had to change their name mid reporting. When they

1:22

went international. Our producer

1:24

Mackenzie signed up, got a starter kit,

1:27

and ordered a bunch more makeup at the urging of her

1:29

upline. So last we heard from her,

1:31

she was struggling to kickstart her Limelight career.

1:33

She had zero sales from anyone other than

1:35

herself. Her posts on social media

1:38

were going largely ignored by everyone but me, her

1:40

mom, and her upline. And that

1:42

opening party. I sent out invitations

1:44

on Facebook, individualized

1:46

invitations to everyone, and

1:50

not a single person responded. And

1:52

I'm talking like my closest

1:54

friends, Like seriously. Some

1:56

people claimed after the fact that they never got

1:58

them. But you know face book, you can see if someone

2:01

opened it, and

2:03

I had a range of excuses, everything

2:05

from I would have to hire a babysitter

2:08

to it's a week night, to

2:11

my mother in law's in town, and

2:13

then everyone kind of ended it

2:15

with also, I don't really

2:17

get why you're inviting me over for a makeup themed

2:20

party,

2:22

so no party for us, which

2:25

is a bummer. I love a party and

2:27

was really looking forward to finally getting to know some

2:29

of the products while having my ties

2:31

with friends. Plus we already

2:33

invested a lot in it. Remember, Mackenzie's

2:35

upline just convinced her to spend around three hundred

2:37

bucks to Beef Upper Kit. We

2:40

asked around a bit to find out why friends ignored

2:42

the invite, and on the whole, no

2:44

one felt like spending money on babysitters

2:46

and expensive makeup in order to hang out with

2:48

us when they could just spend money on babysitting

2:50

and a cheap bottle of wine like we normally do.

2:53

As much as everyone loves Mackenzie, even

2:55

attending one party was way too

2:57

much of an investment. Oh and if you

2:59

think they said no because they know this is a silly

3:01

project for a podcast, you are

3:04

wrong. We didn't tell them.

3:08

I'm still feeling that like overwhelmed

3:10

feeling where I just I don't know where

3:12

to start, but I'm not doing anything.

3:14

I'm sort of like paralyzed by fear

3:16

because there's just so much I should be doing and

3:19

I'm trying to do it and it's not working. So

3:21

what are you gonna do? Well,

3:23

that's what I wanted to talk to you about.

3:26

I'm Jane Marie and this is the Dream

3:30

Episode eight Destination

3:33

Amazing Limelight

3:39

has all of these events that they

3:41

do everything from something called the Happiest

3:44

Hour. Wait, what is that? I have

3:46

no clue to

3:49

Limelight Palooza, which is

3:51

like this big cruise or something, or

3:53

that Caribbean destination

3:55

some kind of like sales conference or something.

3:58

Here is Limelight's CEO, and that stands

4:00

for Chief Empowerment Officer. I'm

4:03

not kidding. His name is Jacob Heiser.

4:05

We found this video of him from last year's Limelight

4:08

Palooza and he's possibly

4:10

having the greatest day of his life.

4:12

Yeah. It validates. Been here

4:15

validates all the time and

4:17

hours an effort you put into

4:19

everything you do while you're home alone or

4:21

in your office. So when you're feeling stressed

4:23

out and then you get here and you

4:25

really get to realize the impact

4:28

of who you are in the way that you touch

4:30

and affect people, and the impact that

4:32

you have on the world, it's

4:35

amazing. It's really amazing. How

4:37

do we get on that? I don't know. I feel like

4:39

Sugar Ray will be there. Yeah, well,

4:44

so that's why I'm here. I wanted to ask you.

4:46

There is something called Destination

4:50

Amazing happening in

4:52

San Francisco, which is just a hobinis

4:54

skip from here. Do you have to pay to

4:56

go to it? Yeah, so I was

4:58

kind of like doing the math it and the

5:01

happiest hour I think is like twenty five dollars.

5:04

The destination Amazing Sales conference

5:06

is like fifty or seventy five, I'm not sure.

5:09

And then yeah, flights are

5:11

cheap ish. And then I

5:13

was thinking I could stay in the hotel where the event is happening,

5:15

so I don't miss anything. It's a hotel event. Oh

5:17

yeah, it's a hotel. Do if these count toward

5:19

your income or anything, like how buying

5:22

your own supplies like counts

5:24

as a retail sale. No,

5:27

No, this is like personal

5:30

enrichment. You might think,

5:32

well, okay, so lots of companies

5:34

encourage you to attend conferences and

5:37

get training, but oftentimes those conferences

5:39

are run by a third party, some sort of professional

5:41

association or something, or they're part

5:44

of training and licensing people in the professional

5:46

sector. My dad, for example, is

5:48

a dentist, and every few years we'd go to

5:50

an American Dental Association conference. It's

5:52

usually somewhere fun, like Cancun or whatever,

5:55

and yeah, that costs money, but my dad attended

5:57

classes there on the latest route Canal techniques

5:59

or patient retention strategies or

6:02

other stuff you need to know to get your dental

6:04

license renewed by the state each year. And

6:06

if you didn't have the cash for one of those fun ways

6:08

of earning those credits, that was okay. You

6:11

can get them through volunteering at free clinics

6:13

or taking affordable courses at your local community

6:15

college. Yes, all of that costs

6:17

some money, but it's a legal requirement

6:19

to practice dentistry. There

6:22

are similar things for teachers. Schools

6:24

often promise a raise or a promotion if you're

6:26

teaching and want to seek a master's degree,

6:28

and often the employers help with those costs.

6:30

All you need to invest is the time. Even

6:33

an office retreat where you do trust

6:35

falls with people you don't trust, even

6:37

those are funded by the office hosting the retreat.

6:40

With MLMs, the very company you're selling

6:42

for in our case, one that does zero

6:45

vetting or training before charging you a fee to

6:47

work for them, also makes you pay

6:49

out of pocket to get the training they claim you

6:51

must have in order to be successful. Wait,

6:54

how much is this going to cost? Though? Actually

6:56

I think it's going to cost maybe

6:59

six ers seven hundred dollars. Oh my,

7:01

God, I mean, I need to stay in a hotel.

7:03

I'm over one thousand dollars now. No, we're way over

7:05

one thousand dollars now we're at to like fifteen hundred bucks.

7:09

So based on the videos that I've seen online,

7:12

this seems to be like the magic

7:14

bullet for people who are not

7:16

good at this. What are the videos? I found

7:19

a bunch where people talk about all the sacrifices

7:21

that they make to go to these events.

7:23

One of them is a girl who missed her best friend's

7:25

wedding to go to Limelight Palooza. I

7:28

almost didn't go to Limelight Palusa

7:30

this year because one of

7:32

my best friends is

7:35

getting married that same Saturday

7:37

and I'm supposed to be a bridemaid. And I

7:39

remember crying when I found out that Limelight

7:41

Palooza was that same weekend,

7:45

and it was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make

7:47

business wise. However, I

7:50

made like a promise to myself that this

7:52

year, no matter what, I

7:55

was gonna go because last year I

7:58

didn't go and I missed out

8:00

and my is my bad.

8:03

So this year I was like, I don't care,

8:05

I'm going. So I took her out to lunch

8:08

and I broke it down to her and I explained to her why

8:10

I had to be there. She was crying.

8:12

I was crying, but she's such a good

8:14

friend that she was like, you

8:16

need to go. So now I'm

8:18

telling you, guys what my friend

8:20

told me. You need to go.

8:23

If I would have called you, like a

8:26

couple of weeks before your wedding and been like so

8:28

sorry. But here's the

8:30

thing, I do think it's friendship

8:33

ending, or at least friendship reconsidering.

8:36

Yeah, but there is the promise

8:38

that it's gonna make you good at this. I've

8:40

researched this, I study this. I've been in direct

8:42

sales for a very long time, and I have failed

8:44

in direct sales for a very long time because

8:48

I never took convention. Seriously, if

8:50

you want to make some serious money in this

8:53

business, you must go.

8:58

Don't think for a second that we didn't call

9:00

this woman. We called this woman, and

9:02

we'll hear from her in an upcoming episode. You

9:04

don't want to miss that. In the meantime,

9:07

we sent Mackenzie off to San Francisco. I'm

9:10

at the hotel. I'm

9:12

riding the elevator up to Bayview

9:15

at the Grand Height for

9:18

Happy Hour. Mackenzie

9:22

arrived Sunday night just in time for the Happiest

9:24

Hour, which cost twenty five dollars

9:26

and included one free drink after

9:29

that. Cash bar wine

9:31

was fourteen bucks, cocktails fifteen

9:33

if you got a sprite that was eight fifty. And

9:35

this isn't even Limelight Palooza. From

9:38

Mackenzie's count, there were roughly sixty

9:40

or seventy people in attendance, all but

9:42

a handful of them women, and Mackenzie

9:44

said Happiest wasn't exactly the way she'd described

9:47

this cocktail hour. Surprisingly, most of

9:49

the folks she talked to were kind of downers. Their

9:51

businesses were stalled, they weren't reaching

9:53

their goals, and they were desperate to get the secret

9:55

to success. Okay, So I walk in and

9:57

it's this really casual look

10:00

cocktail party, and it seems like everyone's

10:02

kind of grouped off into their little clicks, which

10:05

I later learned were most likely their

10:07

uplines and downlines people and their team. Oh they already

10:09

did each other, yeah, okay, and

10:12

so I kind of found this group

10:14

that looked really welcoming and friendly, one

10:17

of the only ones. So I went

10:19

and kind of forced my way into their group and

10:21

started talking to them, and they kept asking me questions

10:23

like, you know, how's your business

10:25

doing, how much are you making, how much you're selling?

10:28

And You're like bad, nothing, nothing, exactly.

10:32

I just stared at them with a blank look on my face.

10:34

That fifty spread, that's right. So

10:37

I just kind of kept turning it around saying, well,

10:39

how's your business doing? What about you? And

10:42

then found out that most

10:44

of them were also struggling. I mean, they were pretty

10:46

optimistic, but they had all acknowledged

10:49

that they had hit some kind of wall and

10:51

were so they weren't there just for fun. No,

10:53

they weren't there for fun. One of the girls

10:55

who kept coming in and out of the group brought

10:58

cousins or something to it the

11:00

cocktail party so that she could see what

11:02

kind of culture it was and see

11:04

how much of a sisterhood it was

11:06

and how fun it was, so she could recruit them exactly.

11:10

Yeah, So I was asking everyone in my group

11:12

how they were doing, and they

11:14

were so nice and again

11:16

very optimistic, but all

11:19

acknowledged that that business wasn't doing

11:21

great and they were there to try to

11:23

figure out how to get better. So

11:25

that night, What they got was a bunch of mingling, expensive

11:28

drinks and an eight minute pep talk from

11:30

Dan DA da DA Chief Empowerment

11:32

Officer Jacob. Jacob

11:35

is a jet setter. It turns out he's running

11:37

this event in California.

11:39

It's illegal to record someone without their knowledge,

11:42

and we knew if we asked for interviews it would

11:44

end Mackenzie's time as a seller. So we

11:46

don't have any sound from inside the Happiest

11:48

Hour or from Destination Amazing the

11:50

next day. But Mackenzie did sneak away

11:52

to call me, Hi, Hi,

11:55

how are you? The question is

11:57

how are you? I'm

12:00

surviving. Sorry,

12:02

I'm just trying to find a space where it's like people

12:04

keep sitting next to me and I don't know who is. All

12:07

right, hold on, I'm

12:10

picturing you with like one of those nose

12:13

like eyebrowsing nose glasses on

12:15

and a newspaper with holes cut out of it. I

12:18

literally just just had my hood on

12:20

in a in a hotel lobby in a corner,

12:23

all right, And now I'm in

12:25

an elevator

12:27

banquette like hiding in a corner.

12:30

So I have I

12:32

don't know, no, I have to go back in I can't be late,

12:35

all right, wish me luck? Okay, good luck, I'm sir be

12:37

late all right? Bye bye? How

12:52

did it go? Okay? So on Monday morning

12:56

I woke up and went downstairs to the conference

12:58

room to destination Amazing,

13:00

which I actually had no idea what that

13:03

was getting into it, and I heard some people at lunch

13:05

saying they thought it was going to be more like product training

13:07

or something like that. But apparently in the fine print it

13:09

did mention that it was something

13:12

about how to be your best self and you

13:14

know, push yourself to the next

13:16

phase. So it was like a motivational seminar.

13:19

Yes, it starts off like you

13:21

know, it's in one of those stadium seating conference

13:23

rooms at Hyatt. To give you

13:25

a sense of Jacob's teaching style that Mackenzie

13:28

experienced while she was there, Here's a video

13:30

of him we found on Facebook called Fempire

13:33

Illuminating a New Possibility. It's

13:36

so easy to use

13:38

excuses because it means you

13:40

don't have to be responsible for your results.

13:43

You get to blame someone or

13:45

something else for why

13:47

you don't have what you want. It's

13:50

a really easy and comfortable

13:53

way to live. But

13:55

is that how you want to live. Let's

13:58

relate this example to a sport. Let's

14:00

say you were at a baseball game and the losing

14:02

team, in their interview after said,

14:05

well, if there were only two bases

14:08

instead of three, we

14:10

would have absolutely scored

14:12

three more points in that last round and

14:14

we would have won. Or

14:17

well, the other players have longer

14:19

legs, so they're naturally faster

14:22

and can outrun us. If our legs were

14:24

longer, we totally would have won. Bro

14:30

sounds crazy when we hear it in those

14:32

terms, right, but this is

14:34

essentially what we're doing in

14:37

our industry. There are certain things that we

14:39

can come to expect and

14:42

if we start thinking of those things

14:44

as conditions of the game

14:48

rather than as obstacles

14:51

that stop us from winning. In

14:53

our businesses, how

14:55

much more successful and

14:58

free from stress do

15:00

you think you and your

15:02

business could be? And you know what,

15:05

each and every single

15:09

one of you has the

15:11

ability to be that way right

15:14

now, right this very

15:17

second. We are human

15:20

beings being

15:23

each and every moment

15:26

is a new moment to choose

15:29

who you're being. So

15:31

that was a vibe coming from Jacob intense.

15:34

It was pretty intense, and it was it

15:36

very much felt like we were in

15:38

Oprah's studio, and Jacob was Oprah.

15:41

A lot of like cheering. Everyone's mesmerized

15:43

by everything he's saying. A lot of people are frantically

15:46

writing down every word. There

15:48

was just this energy in the room and everyone was really

15:51

hypnotized by it. And I get it because

15:54

did I already tell you this would the lipstick

15:56

thing? No? So I

15:58

get it because when I first sat down,

16:01

I had applied limelight lipstick

16:03

red or really red lipstick. You look

16:05

great and red, by the way, thank you. So

16:08

I've heard now, So I

16:10

sit down in this limelight lipstick because I want

16:12

to, you know, dress the part. And Jacob

16:15

is walking down the stadium stairs and he

16:17

does a double take and stops and looks

16:19

at me and says, oh my god,

16:22

this gorgeous woman with this lipstick.

16:25

It's incredible. Everyone look at this.

16:27

What is that? Of course, I say, it's

16:29

limelight lipstick. He says, oh, I knew it. I

16:31

knew it. And then people start truly

16:34

patting me on the back and like whispering

16:36

to me, and people are smiling at me from across

16:39

the room, and I felt like his light

16:41

had shined on me. He's

16:44

like a celebrity, this warm glow, I

16:47

was bathing in it. You

16:49

get a compliment, you get a compliment,

16:51

you get a compliment. I mean I get

16:53

it because from that moment on, or

16:56

at least at that moment, I felt

16:58

really special. Then

17:09

he gave us time to write her diaries.

17:12

I can't remember I who was calling them journals or diaries,

17:14

but something that felt really intimate. We

17:17

had to write down what our four

17:19

year goals were, so

17:22

gave us some guidelines for how to think about it. You know, it could

17:24

be abstract, it could be something really concrete. And then

17:26

people start getting up one by one, they're called

17:29

on to share their goals. And

17:31

I kind of was expecting, based on like things

17:33

I've seen online from other conferences like this,

17:35

whether or not they're related to MLMs or just kind

17:37

of like sales conferences,

17:40

some really energetic interactions

17:43

where people are like cheering each other on and saying,

17:46

like, you know, my goal is five years from now,

17:49

I see myself driving in like a Lexus

17:51

convertible, you know, wearing a mink

17:54

and I don't know, whatever, what if people fantasize

17:56

about eating caviar in one hand

17:58

and like steering with the other. So

18:01

the first woman gets up and

18:03

she's a mother of four children. She homeschools

18:05

them and her husband I think

18:07

something like something ridiculous

18:10

and unbelievable, like three jobs to support them.

18:13

And she's telling the story of how he never sleeps, he

18:15

never eats, He comes home just a shower and then go

18:17

back out, and so they're really

18:19

struggling, and obviously their relationship is struggling,

18:22

and her dream is to

18:24

allow her husband to get a good night's

18:26

sleep. She wants him

18:30

to be able to come home at the end of the night and

18:32

just sleep and not have to get dressed and go to

18:34

a second job. So she's doing

18:36

Limelight so that she can take that burden off

18:38

of him, at least some of that burden. So that was

18:40

one story. Another woman has a son

18:42

with special needs who isn't getting the

18:44

care that he needs in the school that he's in, and

18:47

she really wants to be able to either

18:49

put him in a different school or get him some sort

18:51

of support in the school, but

18:54

that requires her paying for it. So she's doing

18:56

Limelight so that she can have that extra income

18:58

to help her son who's

19:00

disabled. Who's disabled. There

19:03

is another woman whose

19:05

husband's in the military. I think he's been

19:07

in for four years. He's deployed

19:10

now, he's missed all the major milestones

19:12

of his kids growing up, and

19:16

she really feels like he deserves to spend

19:18

time with his children, and so she's doing

19:20

this so that she can allow

19:23

him to what she called retire from the military,

19:26

so that he can get another job that maybe doesn't pay

19:28

as well, but she can help supplement that income.

19:31

And then the one that really I sat

19:33

next to this woman and really

19:36

really sweet, normal,

19:38

down to earth woman from Michigan who

19:41

got up and same

19:45

story, Like you know, she wants

19:47

to help her husband. He's really over extending

19:49

himself. But the bottom line for her is that her

19:51

dad has not had a gravestone in the

19:53

ten years that he's been dead, and she

19:56

is doing limelight to try to raise the money

19:59

to get him

20:02

that tombstone. Oh. Also

20:04

another woman whose marriage is falling apart,

20:06

and she is doing this to get the

20:09

money to pay for therapy,

20:12

couples therapy for her and her husband. This

20:14

is really depressing. Yeah, So

20:16

at this point, I'm kind of a mix

20:18

of angry and also

20:21

sad on their behalf because I feel

20:23

like they want real information,

20:26

useful information. You guys have been talking about

20:28

that the night before, right, and I thought that's what

20:30

we were going to get. And then I get there and it's all

20:32

this vague gibberish. Yeah,

20:35

it's like empty, empty words. And so I'm

20:38

sitting here just thinking I wish I

20:40

don't know, I'm not a financial advisor, but that someone

20:42

would come in and say, like open a four oh one K

20:45

or start a savings account. And

20:47

I was also hoping for tips on how

20:50

to actually sell, like concrete

20:53

things you can do to sell products,

20:56

like this sort of Instagram post works

21:00

exactly. This is your call to action in your

21:02

email. Here's what you write exactly. It gets people

21:04

to click the embed a link exactly.

21:07

Use this photo. Yes, the things

21:09

that you would typically learn from a

21:11

professional development class

21:14

also kind

21:16

of unbelievable that people

21:18

in these dire situations

21:20

that this would be the thing. I

21:24

don't really understand it either, And I

21:26

tried to ask the woman next to me, like

21:31

why this, and I couldn't

21:33

really get an answer, although she's

21:35

done these before and

21:38

her husband is not happy with it. But he's not

21:40

happy because she's

21:42

spending a lot of time trying to

21:44

kickstart this business, and he

21:47

feels now like they spend no time together, so

21:50

that's their issue. But I went

21:52

in thinking this was going to be some like raw

21:54

Rah type event, and instead

21:57

it started off. I mean, people were crying by nine

21:59

fifteen, sharing these stories

22:01

of the things that are lacking in their lives and

22:03

what they're here for and what their four year goal with Limelight

22:06

is is to be able to get

22:08

their special the special

22:10

needs resources that

22:12

they're for their child or a tombstone

22:14

for a deceased parent. Like it's

22:17

not it's not like the

22:19

fancy vacations. No one. No one

22:21

was mentioning, you know. I think one lady

22:23

said she wanted to go on vacation, but it was more like, I've

22:25

never taken a trip with my family ever.

22:28

So it wasn't like, you know, we just want to move to

22:30

Paris for a month. It was more

22:33

than that. So already there

22:36

was something very interesting about

22:38

everyone

22:41

being made

22:43

to feel vulnerable, or like being encouraged

22:46

to feel really vulnerable. That was

22:48

something that was initiated from the very

22:51

very start of the day, and I don't

22:54

looking back, I don't think that's coincidental. I

22:56

think there is something to the fact that like, within

22:59

ten minutes, everyone crying. Everyone feels

23:01

like super connected to each other. There's this

23:03

emotional thing happening

23:05

in this room, and it feels like

23:08

therapy. It absolutely

23:11

feels like therapy. And that guy Jacob is the therapist,

23:13

and he's sitting there saying like, well, how

23:15

would you feel if this thing happened? Now,

23:18

talk me through that. What do you feel when

23:20

this thing occurs? But then at the end

23:22

of it all, he just goes like, oh,

23:24

honey, or give some Instagram

23:27

meme wisdom

23:31

instead of like, I think this traces back

23:33

to something that happened with your that you told me about

23:35

in our last session with your father, Yeah,

23:38

exactly. Instead of jotting down notes, he's

23:40

like dismissively throwing out

23:42

tomorrow's a new day and

23:45

then just moves on to the next person. And

23:47

the things he was having, you imagine, were not

23:49

like how would you feel when you sell

23:51

twenty lipsticks? It was like nothing

23:54

to do with makeup. Well, so this is this is

23:56

the other thing I realized now

23:58

having a day just a day's

24:00

distance from it. All

24:02

of these women were here because

24:04

they'd plateaued in their business. There

24:07

wasn't a single person that I saw who

24:09

got up into the microphone and said like, I'm doing

24:11

great and I just want to do greater. Every

24:14

single person was there because they

24:17

started off okay and now they're

24:19

just like really not making any more money or I

24:22

you know, one woman said, I've been I thought within

24:24

six months i'd be star director or whatever

24:26

the rank is. And it's

24:28

been two years and I haven't progressed past

24:30

Beauty Guide. And

24:33

that was a recurring as people got

24:35

up kind of the WHI are you here question? The

24:37

answer seemed to consistently be

24:39

because I'm not moving forward in my business

24:42

the way I feel like I should be. And mind

24:44

you, most people who join these companies get

24:46

out way sooner. So these are like

24:48

either die hard Limelight fans or

24:50

really desperate for this to work for some reason.

24:53

And then it became, you know,

24:55

the second part of the day was sort of well how

24:57

do you get there? And

25:01

very clearly identifying

25:04

the problem. The problem in every single

25:06

situation was the person. There

25:09

was never any other problem. I

25:11

mean, we've got slides where

25:14

Jacob is saying, is

25:17

the reason you're not selling because your

25:19

mindset is the wrong mindset? Is

25:21

it because you're not organized

25:24

enough. Is it because you're

25:26

not optimistic enough? Okay?

25:29

So we has these slides up and they disappear in

25:31

no joke, probably fifteen seconds. It's

25:34

much faster than I can write them down. I was trying to

25:36

take pictures of them. They're not online.

25:38

They didn't send them to us or anything. So

25:40

at the end of it, all I can remember is that we

25:43

all just really suck at this. That

25:46

doesn't really give you anything to

25:48

work with, no other than just self

25:50

loathing. No, and that's it. Like, so

25:52

all these people are here because they've identified a problem.

25:55

The problem is I can't move my business forward.

25:57

I can't. I don't know what else to do than what

25:59

I've been doing, and it's not working. And

26:01

his answer is, well, let's go back and look at what's

26:03

wrong with you. There are all sorts of

26:06

excuses that take the blame

26:08

away from the company a thousand percent. Not

26:10

not at any point, and in fact,

26:12

at multiple points it was stop blaming

26:14

the company, stop blaming the products.

26:16

Serious, Yeah, I mean it was,

26:19

it's not us like it if to

26:21

go back to the therapy analogy, like there

26:23

was a whole section of like what's

26:26

preventing you from being the best beauty guide you can

26:28

be. And it was like looking back at what

26:30

your parents taught you, what your

26:32

education was. All these factors go into

26:35

the type of beauty guide you are, and sometimes you need to reprogram

26:37

who you are. And then there

26:39

was this whole thing about showing like your inspired

26:42

future and creating this mood board a

26:45

secret yeah essentially, and like

26:47

put it as your screen saver and that,

26:49

but there was no there

26:52

were no practical steps

26:55

forgetting anywhere. It was

26:57

very much like let's open ourselves up,

26:59

talk about what's wrong, blame ourselves

27:02

for those wrongs, agree

27:05

that we're going to change them with

27:07

no tools about it, right, none,

27:11

And at one point they did this thing which which

27:13

also now thinking back on it is so cheap and

27:15

such a cheaters way. It's

27:17

like the cliff notes version for them. He's

27:20

saying, all right, so let's talk in small

27:22

groups about like best practices

27:24

for sales tactics, recruitment tactics,

27:27

and so he breaks us into small groups and then we share

27:29

what's working for us. And ironically

27:32

I haven't started yet, so I said, you know, I'll

27:34

take notes, but I don't have much to share in terms

27:36

of what's working. The girl next to me was

27:38

like, nothing's really working for me either. I

27:40

have a few tips, but nothing major. And

27:42

the two girls next to me said that they have

27:44

like one or two tips, but yeah, recruitment, they've

27:46

got nothing. So we only ended

27:48

up coming up with We were supposed to come up with twelve

27:50

ideas. We came up with like six because

27:53

we only had six that worked between

27:55

the four of us. And then

27:57

they pooled all of the ideas and shared

27:59

them for about thirty seconds on a PowerPoint

28:01

slide. So literally,

28:03

the only practical advice

28:06

on how to improve your business was

28:09

thrown up on a PowerPoint slide for third

28:11

I'm not joking. I didn't have time to even take a picture

28:13

of it. It was up and gone so quickly. So

28:16

we didn't talk about any of them. No one shared

28:19

any of them. And we had a couple

28:21

on ours that were kind of interesting and sort

28:23

of offbeat, like one of the girls does a

28:25

grab bag with all of the random

28:28

products she has and she'll say, you know, for twenty

28:30

dollars, get you know, surprise surprise

28:32

products, which I thought was kind of a cool idea. It just

28:35

creates interest or whatever. They

28:37

didn't even put that on the list. So the list was literally

28:39

like be

28:42

open and cheerful at your parties, always

28:45

leave your business card behind. I mean it was

28:47

stuff that was like, yeah, no kidding.

28:56

The thing though about this that like really struck

28:58

me is that he's sitting here saying like he thought a

29:00

four hundred thousand dollars house was so much,

29:02

and now now he's in New York and

29:05

like he's looking at seven hundred and fifty thousand

29:07

dollars houses and that's reasonable in New

29:09

York. And so that's his new that's

29:11

like what he's striving for for his new budget. And

29:14

it just felt really out of touch to me that

29:16

you've got these women in this room who cannot

29:19

pay their rent and a seven

29:21

hundred and fifty thousand dollars house is your

29:24

example, is your example of like, come

29:26

on, guys, if you just dream big enough, like you

29:28

could be looking at seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars

29:30

houses like me. As he's walking around in his

29:32

suit and speaking of suits, the

29:34

girl next to me like,

29:36

I don't even know what this means. I just need to say this.

29:39

So the girl next to me told

29:41

me that she went to Target last night and

29:44

bought herself a suit at Target to wear to

29:46

this event because it's

29:49

a business meeting. And so

29:51

you know, again that contrast of this guy standing

29:54

up there in his like what looks like a bespoke suit

29:57

and he's giving an example again of buying

29:59

these going shoe shopping on Fifth

30:01

Avenue or whatever, and

30:03

the girl next to me is like spending all of her

30:05

money on a Target suit so that she

30:07

can come to this and look professional. There's

30:10

just something really disconnected

30:14

and like gross gross

30:16

about it. There

30:23

were two women from corporate sitting in the back, and

30:26

you know they must do this all the time, obviously that

30:28

this isn't the first event like this they've done, but

30:30

they're sitting there and as at the end, there was

30:33

this closing, closing

30:36

moment where women were invited up

30:38

to share what they've learned for the day

30:40

or what he was calling their AHA moment.

30:43

I think Oprah coined that, but anyway, so

30:46

there are there are aha moments. And

30:48

the last one that spoke was

30:51

a woman who said that up until a few months before

30:53

she joined Limelight, she had been feeling suicidal

30:57

and she joined

30:59

Limelight, and now she feels some sort of camaraderie

31:02

and something else that was missing

31:04

from her life. And she really feels like Limelight

31:06

is sort of giving her this second chance

31:09

for whatever reason. And

31:11

I looked up and I looked behind her and

31:14

the two women from corporate. One

31:17

is like staring straight ahead, not even

31:19

registering this. The other woman

31:21

is typing furiously at her

31:23

computer, and she'd been typing

31:25

all day. I'm guess. I'm guessing that she

31:27

was still working, and she's probably there

31:29

but had emails to send or orders to

31:31

fill or whatever. But this

31:34

woman is talking about how four months

31:36

before she joined Limelight, she a

31:39

mother of two children, was contemplating

31:41

suicide. Everyone

31:44

in the room was crying, and this

31:46

woman at the at the end of the row was

31:49

hitting send on her email.

31:52

It was a really troubling, troubling

31:55

moment for me, because God,

31:59

I feel emotional. I

32:07

think people

32:10

came to this because they have hope. They

32:15

have hoped that something good is going

32:17

to come out of it, and that this

32:19

will improve their lives. And some

32:21

of their lives in some ways sound

32:23

really shitty right now. I mean, some

32:27

of the daily struggles these women are going through

32:29

are real struggles. I

32:31

mean, this isn't about getting a nicer car. I mean,

32:33

it's

32:36

more fundamental than that. And you

32:39

see that they're there and they're

32:41

hopeful, and they think this thing is going to change their

32:43

lives, and they're pouring their hearts

32:45

and souls out to the room,

32:48

and the woman from corporate is

32:50

emailing. She

32:53

isn't even listening, she's not even paying

32:55

attention to what's going on, and

32:57

Jacob is standing at the front going, yeah,

33:00

girl, you know you got this girl,

33:02

and giving some like hashtag wisdom,

33:07

and it just felt so gross.

33:09

At the end of it, I could not wait to get out

33:11

of there. I could not wait to

33:14

be away from the whole situation.

33:16

I felt extremely dirty

33:19

being in there and witnessing it. And

33:22

when I went home and started thinking that a

33:24

year from now, probably

33:27

most of these women are not going to be in a better situation

33:29

than they're in now, if anything, because

33:31

they're investing money in this opportunity,

33:34

and it's just really really disturbing.

33:36

I mean, and they did it on purpose, and

33:39

they did it on purpose. I've

33:47

never been to a work conference where any of

33:49

this has happened. Neither have I

33:52

Neither I have been to a lot. I would quit if that

33:55

was my job. Look, I think it's nice to

33:57

be vulnerable with your colleagues,

33:59

and I think it's important for people to be open

34:01

and honest and trust each other. But like that's

34:03

at the bar after the conference, right after you've learned

34:05

all of the actual stuff you really need to go back

34:07

to your office and implement. There

34:10

was nothing. So

34:19

the whole conference was share

34:21

your share your goal, then

34:24

talk amongst yourselves and figure out how you're going to get

34:26

there. But none of us are being successful

34:28

right now, so how is that going to be useful?

34:31

And then the only other thing that was tangible

34:34

thing was

34:37

this Excel sheet where

34:39

you plug in like based on where your average

34:42

sales are now and how many parties you do. If

34:44

you were to continue that for like six

34:46

months and then try to like add a party or

34:48

maybe sell two more products a month, where

34:51

could you get in twelve months and

34:53

then and then eventually four years

34:55

financially. But it's completely arbitrary,

34:57

and they don't tell you it's it's this

35:00

is to help you visualize that. You know, if you're

35:02

selling two hundred dollars a month now, if

35:04

you could just bump it up to three hundred next month

35:06

and then four hundred the month after that that by the end of

35:08

the year you'll be making fifteen thousand

35:10

dollars. But they don't tell

35:12

you how to do it.

35:14

It's just like add add

35:18

money, yeah, sell more like

35:20

duh Okay,

35:22

I know this whole thing is a ruse designed

35:24

to keep people in it and spending money.

35:26

But lie to me at least

35:29

pretend you think I'm smart enough to actually

35:31

do this and treat it

35:33

like a real business meeting. How hard is it?

35:36

Like, just pretend like you're at a business

35:38

conference. Yeah, I mean there,

35:41

you can get a this is actually true. You can get a book

35:43

at the library that gives you real

35:45

ways to be successful in business. Fucking

35:48

take a book out of the library and read it to me at

35:50

the conference, right, do something right,

35:52

don't just sit there and have it be a

35:55

farce. I

36:05

think really early on we

36:07

used to jokingly have conversations about

36:09

like, are people who start businesses like this

36:12

in on it? Do they know that what

36:15

they're setting up is taking advantage of people?

36:18

Or is it just Oh, this seems like an interesting

36:20

business model. Let's try this. And I

36:24

think maybe the only one around here who

36:26

really was like, I don't know maybe they just think it

36:28

seems like it's a nice business

36:30

model and they're not realizing that there are people

36:33

on the other side of it, or whatever. I

36:35

kind of tended to give people the benefit of the doubt.

36:39

After yesterday, there is

36:42

no doubt in my mind that everyone

36:44

involved in that entire

36:47

organization knows exactly what they're doing.

36:49

They literally were just confronted with the

36:51

faces and the stories of the people

36:53

they're affecting and couldn't even bother

36:56

to look up from their computers. We

37:09

reached out to Limelight for an interview, and we heard

37:11

back from Jacob by email. It

37:13

sounded exactly like you'd imagine

37:16

he's still deciding whether he wants to listen to the show

37:19

let alone talk to us

37:27

next time on the Dream, as promised

37:30

the woman who missed her best friend's wedding

37:32

for Limelight Palooza, I

37:35

was terminated by them. Why

37:38

I was let go under

37:40

false accusation. The stuff

37:42

that you didn't see behind the scenes, was crying

37:45

in the corner of my apartment because

37:48

I was just so stressed out, and I'm like, oh my

37:50

god, I need to make

37:52

this money, but at what expense. The

38:15

Dream is a production of Little Everywhere and

38:17

Stitcher. Written and reported by

38:19

Me Jane Marie, Dan Galucci,

38:22

Mackenzie cassab Lyra Smith, and help

38:24

from Claire Rolinson. We

38:26

are edited by Peter Clowney. Our

38:28

fact checker is Michelle Harris. The

38:30

Dream is executive produced by Laura Mayer,

38:33

Chris Bannon, Dan Galucci and

38:35

me. We appreciate you subscribing,

38:38

rating, and reviewing the show wherever you

38:40

listen, Hello

38:47

the Dream listeners. Have you had a personal

38:49

experience with MLMs. We want to hear

38:51

from you. Leave us a voicemail at seven

38:54

one five six zero zero zero

38:56

three two six, or send us an email

38:58

at This is the Dream podcast

39:01

at gmail dot com.