Part 1: Beauty experimentation

I started accidentally. A friend of mine at the university invited me to a presentation. I was very impressed because it was my first time seeing a beauty business presentation. That opened a great new world for me.

I love beauty products, and I joined immediately the German company “LR Health and Beauty Systems”.

I ordered my starter package with the hopes of becoming rich and fulfilling my goal for a long time. By the way, my original aim has always been to be a creative writer, writing in Austria’s art cafes. I wanted to earn passive income and travel the world.

Today, my goal is different, but that is another story.

Everything made me excited and curious first months. I ordered products, keeping my outlook beautiful, and I tried to make people I know buy them too.

Unfortunately, people do not have much need for beauty products since they look to pay their bills.

I kept going monthly for a few years, meeting many people and trying to sell them products they do not need but giving them the hope to be beautiful and successful.

As time went by, I found out that my list of potential customers finished and got rejected many times, cutting ties with friends because of the MLM. I do not blame the model but myself. I did things that I never wanted to do in the mad search for passive income for something I didn’t want to do because it gave me hope.

As an introvert, I like meeting new people frequently but not daily.

As a writer, I do not love making presentations. But, I am good at doing it because of the needed skills for another of my work projects. While I was in my newfound delusional passion for MLM, I read many books on leadership and self-help. I studied every product of the company, and I made many sales.

Was it worth it? For a short time — yes. For a long time — no. Everything I did, made me far away from my life’s goal.

That made me uncomfortable, wondering why I do this?

I never had a single person under me because when they asked me if I earned from the business plan, I said no, and I could not lie. That was a clear sign I am not fit for that field. I continued to believe I could be successful and went on team training and all, but I couldn’t go with the lying crowd.

One day, that Beauty experimentation finished. A customer and reader of my health and beauty blog called me. She had a tumor- the beginner stage and looked for health products that could help her. I explained everything I knew about the products she wanted.

The caller asked me if these products could heal her. I told her the truth they may not heal her, but she should try and meditate to feel better. The woman ordered these products anyway.

Was I successful in sales? I do not think so, and I cried much in silence after the call. I am not sure what happened with that client after I sold her the products, but I saw the truth behind what I did until now and stopped being a saleswoman of beauty products.

I bought the company’s products whenever I needed them. They were more expensive than regular ones because many researchers work on them and the whales above me should earn more money. That proves MLM I knew was a pyramid scheme using people’s lives and hopes.

I learned a lot from “LR Health and Beauty Systems” in health terms and how teamwork should look. But, it is not my thing to lie and sell hope to people, especially people whose life is at stake. Today, I am a proud consumer of Korean beauty products in massive shops. These products are pretty good in price and quality. Next article, I will share more about my MLM experience.

My article was published on Medium originally. I edited it.