Hindsight is 20/20- "Anna's Story"
I'm offering this blog on behalf of a young woman who would like her story shared, but is extremely worried about negative backlash. For the purpose of this article, I am going to refer to the contributor as "Anna".
Anna contacted me a few days ago and hesitantly began to divulge details of her LuLaRoe nightmare. Let me start out by telling you the very first thing she said to me: "I've been really scared to speak out. When I had my going out of business sales, I was getting so much hate from consultants- it was really bad. And I'm still around $20,000 in debt. I wish I was joking." Now, before any of the LuLaLoyal get situated on their high horse and start proclaiming the idiocy of the contributor for "allowing" herself to get that far into debt, I am going to jump in and aggressively slap the horse's hindquarters so that you might ride off into the sunset like the hero you wish to be. This statement of debt, as I am learning, is extremely common. A lot of women are not comfortable divulging that they are this far in- mostly for shame. The cult mentality brainwashes you, there's a level of wanting the lie to be real. You believe what you're told and do what they say to do- because you want the success they offer. Cults and schemes like this prey on women's deepest needs to belong, to fit in, to provide for their children, and to "be something more". Often, I hear these women finally took the jump after a large shift in their life. A birth, a death, a divorce, etc. They are struggling to find an answer, and lo and behold- there is LuLaRoe.
Anna's debt isn't unique. After hearing her story, I went into a secret group that I'd been added to and asked the women in it how many of them were still in debt. Immediately, 5 or 6 answered with amounts ranging from $5,000 to $30,000! Thirty THOUSAND dollars. Where do you put all those leggings? I asked Anna how and why her number was $20k. She simply stated: "My mentor told me to go all in. Max it all out so I could keep up with the demand." She also stated that she wasn't the most business savvy person, feeling taken advantage of by that fact. "My upline sure made a lot of money off of me." She explained to me that she didn't really feel like she knew the full details of what she was really getting involved in. Her decision to share her story with me was also coupled with her request that I share what she learned while involved in LuLaRoe. She said she felt if she could share how it really is, maybe she could save some other woman from being taken advantage of in the same way. She bullet pointed her lessons as below: 1. You will need more than $5000 to get the business going at first. (MommyGyver author concurs- $5000 for the initial package, and over $2000 in supplies and such was my experience.) Anna invested $10,000 initially. 2.She was baited to onboard with the understanding that it would only take her 20 hours a week to make "full time pay". She states the enrollee learns very quickly that this is NOT a part time job, and can even exceed full time hours. (This is also MommyGyver's experience.) 3. Before you onboard, you are told you will earn back your initial investment in 3 months. After you onboard, you are told to reinvest for at least the first 6 months. (I found this point to be subtly brilliant. This was absolutely the way it worked for me as well, and before she pointed it out, I never made that connection.)
4. You will not be told you need a business license until after you onboard. (This one hit me hard when my mentor got on a video and told us all that she carries 60 pair of leggings in her car trunk. I was instantly taken to New York mentally and remembering the guy in Hell's Kitchen trying to sell me perfume out of the trunk of his car. Also, the graphic I provide here- a lot of these options can get you a ticket. You'd need a permit for a lot of this, and no one tells you that! Oh and let's not forget to hock leggings at your kid's birthday party- or at the dentist's office. Hi ma'am! Would you like some donut patterned leggings to go with that root canal?)
5. All the returns, all the defective merchandise will be your problem. You will have to jump through hoops to get your returns handled. You will have to wait a while too. 6. The answer you will get from DeAnne and Mark for every issue is- "The company is experiencing growing pains." (Ok, but like- at a billion dollars, maybe you can call in some expert novocaine for that?) 7.This will not help your family emotionally. You will spend every waking hour on LuLaRoe. You will be told to hire an assistant, a nanny, or a housekeeper. If you can't handle it, you will be told there are a lot of successful women who have businesses. Work harder. (I reference the housekeeper and spaghettio's comment DeAnne made on a conference call.) 8. The mentors and higher ups use blocking. If you have any negativity or are questioning something, they will remove you, block you from groups, or block you all together. (Author confirms other stories of girls being shunned by uplines and blocked from mentor groups.) 9. If you leave, you will get hate mail, threats, death threats. This lovely sisterhood chased Anna off social media for 6 months because she claims the members of her team were making threats of physical harm against her and her family. (MommyGyver has received a death threat and other veiled threats like "You don't know who you're fucking with." for exposing the nature of the company.) 10. You are encouraged to open and max out credit cards, take out loans, etc. You may be forced into bankruptcy like Anna claims she is now considering. 11. Tax time! Did you get a refund? Many are reporting owing the government money after all the "profit" they made. (Besides Anna, MommyGyver can think of two other examples immediately of consultants owing money come tax time. One consultant owed more than she actually earned for some reason.) After Anna gave me this retrospective list of things she'd learned, I asked her to circle back to the death threats made.
Anna is looking through her documents to provide MommyGyver screenshots of the threats. I'm not comfortable quoting a death threat without screen shot evidence. She continues on and explains that the consultants also told her that she was useless and should go kill herself because she couldn't make the business work. She was a 'scammer' and deserved whatever or whomever might come after her. We will await those documents, but until then, I felt that her list of lessons learned would serve as a good "If hindsight were 20/20, I'd kick myself in my own ass for considering this." You tell me if this has been your experience too.