Hey there,
I have just one thing to say. Your sister is being brainwashed, and while I believe she is responsible for what she says and does, the people who are "training" her are very good at this. My mother elected to go to a "training" weekend with her upline as opposed to supporting her son who was in the hospital, trying to get over a crippling illness. Her justification was there was nothing they could do to help anyway and missing this weekend retreat could set their business and our future as a family back. I'm thinking her son did not want to hear that.
I would say do not allow your sister the luxury of getting away with treating you that way. Do not support any form of her business. Draw some very straight and deep lines in the sand and do not let her cross them. I believe eventually she will come around, then you can be there and hopefully get back to where you were. Love does find a way in families. Good Luck
Tyler
To: mlmsurvivorsclub@yahoogroups.comFrom: tink134@yahoo.comDate: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:35:04 +0000Subject: [MLM Survivors Club] Sister Dissed Her
Hello,I am new here, and also to MLMs in general... so bear with meplease! I found this group while doing a simple search about MLMs andwhat they are all about because my sister has recently become aconsultant for Arbonne International. I wanted to get some informationon how companies like hers can impact families and relationships.Judging on the rules of the site I assume the first thing I should do isintroduce myself and the reason I am here, so here goes...I am in my early 20's, I have a BA and am currently working towardsan MA. I work full-time in the Environmental field and love it so far,although as I've heard many times over, this is bound to change afterI've been working full-time for a few more years! =P Favorite things:I love to travel, especially to urban areas, I snowboard, read anythingand everything I can get my hands on, and love to be outside doinganything (or nothing) at all. I also value and love my family verymuch, which brings me to why I joined this group.My sister and I have not always been close because we are about 10years apart in age, but we have become very close in the last 6 or 7years. I usually speak to her a few times a week and we live near eachother, so I visit when my schedule allows... not as often as I wouldlike, sadly. I used to live with her and her family on breaks fromcollege. She is a stay at home mom and has a husband and two children. She has always been a positive force in my life, sometimes more of amother figure than a sister really... but has always been a greatsister!Months ago, she told me that she was going to become a consultantfor a company called Arbonne International, which I had also heard ofthrough a college friend. I honestly told her to be careful and to makesure she did background research on the company before she got in overher head. She probably didn't like getting advice from her littlesister, but what's done is done. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything,but I was worried that she was getting caught up in something that couldturn out to be a scam. At first, she seemed to be doing so well, shealways sounded excited and happy... she was making a lot of new friends,and other women she is friends with were also signing on. She invitedme and my coworker to her "Launch Party" and gave me a catalog to lookat before the event. I arrived early to give her a hand with food/drinkpreparations, and was excited to see her friends, who are always a lotof fun.The "Launch Party" turned out to be something completely differentthan I had expected... the women were very concerned with selling thebusiness, not the actual products. The business was pushed for over anhour, and it just confirmed my suspicions that the company might not beso shiny and wonderful. I was trying not to be negative though... Ithought the women getting carried away with the Mercedes Benz and thechance to get together to have wine & cheese once or twice a week andthe chance to do something different was maybe causing all this buzz. So I tried to keep out of it and just let her do her thing.I came over one day and saw all the inventory she had purchased. She asked me if I would want to become a consultant for the $29, andthat I would get a discount, etc. I said No. I reminded her that I ambut a lowly Graduate Student making an entry-level salary while payingan outrageous rent. She didn't mention it again for the rest of theday. I helped her format her e-mail and listened for what seemed likehours about the company and the products, she was excited... I was happyfor her, but still wary of what might happen.Each time I visited or talked to her on the phone after that, shetried to get me to become a consultant or to get my friends to becomeconsultants. I told her to forward me the e-mail she was planning onsending out to her friends and that I would pass it on to the women inmy address book. She did, and I did. Still the pushing continued. Every conversation was ruled by Arbonne... she had gotten a Blackberryto manage all the e-mails, everyone in her neighborhood and all theirfriends and relatives were becoming consultants, she was printingbusiness cards and pamphlets and getting a briefcase and more inventoryand a travel case for all of it and attending what seemed like a dozenparties a month.I felt like I was losing my sister entirely!Then I was diagnosed with a heart problem. I was told that I wouldbe undergoing an exploratory surgery to determine the cause of myheart's irregular beating. I called my sister. I cried a lot. I toldher I was scared and that I was skipping work for the rest of the day tocome over. I was there for about 15 minutes before the conversationturned to Arbonne. I knew my sister must be "drinking the Kool-Aid." Why else would she be so preoccupied??? I couldn't explain it.The surgery was on a Wednesday, my dad had flown in the nightbefore and we were to be at the hospital at 6 AM. My sister had calledearlier in the week to tell me that although she felt bad, she wouldn'tbe able to make it over to my place much during the week after thesurgery. She hoped to at least come to the hospital for a little while,but she was so busy with Arbonne that she wasn't sure. My dad wasstaying in town for the week to help me out and I was happy, I hadn'tseen him in awhile. The surgery went fine, and the night I returnedhome, my sister brought dinner to my apartment (she hadn't ended upcoming to the hospital).My sister had also brought a get-well present. Three of the fivepieces of a face wash kit. She also brought her breifcase with herbinders of information and I could tell she couldn't wait to starttalking about the company whenever the moment arose. She had alreadytalked about it 5 times by the time we were cleaning up after dinner...and at one point I said to her that I was happy she had given me theproducts, that now I could try them out and tell my friends, that maybethey would buy something. She again started pushing them becomingconsultants. I told her what I had always been telling her about it. My friends are young and just starting out. A lot of them are inGraduate School, the others are in entry-level jobs. They do not havemoney to spend on expensive skin care or on buying an inventory. Theydo not have time to spend on building up a customer base or a "Downline" They see Arbonne as a Pyramid scheme.I had said the WRONG two words. The rampage that ensued at thispoint cannot be adequately described in words. She screamed in my facefor the next 30 minutes. In front of my dad, on the night I returnedfrom the HOSPITAL. "Just as my job had trained me to do what I do", herjob had trained her that people with my attitude are negative andclosed-minded. She stated this with an anger and force that I hadrarely seen in her before. I was ignorant. I was closed-minded. Ididn't support her. I wasn't proud of her. I was an immature brat. Icouldn't be happy for someone else. If I didn't support her, then Iwasn't someone she wanted to be around. (!?!) I could barely get aword in... and when I did, I used the chance to state this fact. Shesaid that I always had to be right. At one point she told me that myfriends would have to buy thousands of products to make a difference andto even begin to help her out at this point, me and my "two friends." That one really hurt. She knew it had been hard for me recently... thatI had only a few close friends in our area... I had graduated, mycollege friends and I all moved to different cities!I am shocked that my sister could be so rude and act so horriblytoward anyone, let alone me! I feel as if I don't know her any more andwe haven't spoken since the blowout. I felt terrible for calling whatshe was doing a Pyramid scheme... I felt that I shouldn't have put downsomething she was so excited about and maybe I should just call her andtake the blame for what had happened.Then I spoke to the college friend I had first heard about Arbonnefrom. She said that a close friend of her parents' had become aconsultant and that she had done a complete 180. She was no longer theunique, informed, well-spoken and well-liked person she had been onlymonths before. She was now pushing my friend so much that the friendhad to be rude back to her. She was forced to be completely rude to along-time friend of her family, which made her feel extremelyuncomfortable. I realized then that maybe I hadn't been entirely atfault for the argument.... and then I found an entire message board onYahoo! called a "survivors" club! This has backed up my initialreaction to Arbonne.So this is why I decided to join this message board. Phew!If anyone is still reading this by now... I just wanted to get my storyoff my chest, and to see if anyone had any advice on how to deal withthe situation. Should I try to repair the damage by apologizing? Should I give her time to realize that she's lost a sister and a friendand maybe she will come around?I really have no experience with MLMs or anything similar. I've readconflicting stories about Arbonne... I don't know WHAT to think aboutthe company itself. From what she said they "taught" her... it soundedlike brainwashing and I was shocked she's be taken in by it! Please letme know if there are any articles in particular I should read about itor if anyone out there has some advice! Thank you so much![Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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