That MommyGyver is Crazy!
By now, you either know my style of writing, my brand of snark, and my ability to drop a little shock into what I write- or you don't. I've been watching the feedback and smiling. Is this chick batshit crazy? What is with that insane rant about LuLaRoe? Simple: Shock value. Here's the thing. Readers read a blog or a news article, or even a book for one of many reasons: -entertainment -education -drama -emotional response -current events ...just to name a few. There are outlets like CNN for the serious. Really serious. Don't crack a smile or you're fired kind of serious. There's Fox for the half of the time news. The other half the time, they're talking out of their rear ends about who even knows what. There are blogs, commentaries and the like for public opinion. There's the Kardashians for your train wreck value and feeding that drama llama. Then there's the Mancows and Howard Sterns of the world for the shock value. And then there's the topic du jour: LuLaRoe. Let's dissect this for a moment, shall we? Here's the CNN of the LuLaRoe topic: People (customers and consultants) are losing money. Lots and lots of money. The LuLaRoe business practice is poor and questionable, if not fraudulent. The company, instead of marching forward with a solid business plan, dives head first into a mountain of potential- only to come out covered in the raw sewage of reactive business management- as witnessed by monstrosities such as the Happiness and Make Good Policies. The Fox news angle of it all: All the quasi-announcements and "game changers" they present. Disney, for example. Game changer. Now, Deanne Stidham talks about how LuLaRoe going international will also be a game changer. Fox news. All day. Blog and commentary: Right here! The Kardashian perspective: If I had to bet, I would think think that Deanne looked at the Kardashian show one day and had an "A-ha! Moment". She said, "Look, I can mix fashion and controversy and a completely vacant look into a foundation of absolute fluff- with no ACTUAL context or quality and make a mint from it. I'll act like I'm completely cracked out on corporate training calls and get these desperate housewives talking! After all, no press is bad press, right?" And so here we are, watching the trainwreck with that flinch you get when you brace yourself before you see a collision. In fact, I've been sitting here watching, stuck in proverbial mid-flinch for several months. It's a procession of crash after crash after crash. There's definitely a fat, fed drama llama around here somewhere. And then, there's the Howard Stern angle. The crass, loud, bold... he says things you all wish you could say in a way that entertains the people that follow him in a way that they "get". Not everyone likes him. Some would venture so far as to say that they hate him. But he's cashing those checks in spite of your hatred for him, isn't he? So, when you message me and say- "I know you're known for dropping an f-bomb now and again, but what drugs were you on when you wrote that last blog entry?" I smile. I'm not nearly interesting enough to have drugs in my life. I'm legitimately just a mom who loves her kids, loves her friends, and loves not being taken advantage of. I get mad as hell when I hear about women who want to contribute to their households being taken advantage of- mainly because I've been in that role. I've been the main breadwinner in my household. I know the satisfaction and the power of it. I am a worker and was not made to be a stay at home mom. I'm all go, go, go. Even before this blog, I should have had a personal assistant because I really don't stop for one moment to breathe. Things like dry cleaning get forgotten and emails don't always get replied to in a timely fashion. When my sons were born it knocked me down a few notches. My body was failing me and I was ordered to stop going at the pace I was. I was to BE a stay at home mom if I liked it or not. Luckily my job at the time allowed for me to work from a home office and travel as I could. When LuLaRoe came into my life from the perspective of a focus of this blog, I stepped down and away from my paying job. I waited months before monetizing my blog, and even now, it's only paid advertising and affiliate links. No pay per impression, no pay per click. MommyGyver was never intended to be a major source of my income. What evolved from that is surprising to me and very welcome. My income from the blog is advertising and affiliate link related only. More valuable than money to me, however, are the contacts and connections I've made. Deanne is wrong. More money does not buy you better friends. Doing the right thing does. But I digress- in the interim between the inception of the blog and where I sit right now, I was "just" a stay at home mom. What I learned from this experience is that there is no such thing as "just" a stay at home mom. It takes a level of patience and skill to hold your household together. I know that going from making quite a bit of money to making nothing at all- and relying on my husband for the first time ever to support me/us/our lifestyle alone- was the hardest thing for me to accept. I can venture to assume that I'm not alone in that feeling. The LuLaRoes of the world bank off of that guilt women have, their desire and want to contribute to the income of their household, and their desire to lessen the workload on their husbands. It was a fantastic idea that afforded a lot of women the dream of being a real and tangible source of income for their families. It is THIS draw that drew my own attention in. These women are taking loans and second mortgages in the hopes that they will be able to free their families of their financial burdens. Help their husbands. Live more comfortably. Selling this dream is a joke and Deanne and Mark are laughing in their McLaren allllllll the way to the bank. So when you ask me WHY, that's why. How about when you go back to my article about the mentor (or coach, I've heard she's either) telling the women on her team that they will not wear leggings TO A LEGGINGS COMPANY CONVENTION or dare wear an article of clothing other than for its designed purpose- LEST YOU BE CALLED OUT ON STAGE AND HUMILIATED PUBLICLY IN FRONT OF THOUSANDS OF YOUR PEERS, yeah... I have a major problem with that. Am I crazy? Maybe, but I assure you it isn't due to my choice of colorful language to express a serious disgust with this type of behavior and my shock at the level of tolerance for it from the women participating.
What's crazy to me is the acceptance of the ultimatum. You pay thousands of dollars to participate in a program to sell leggings. Leggings you can't wear to your convention because God forbid you be humiliated for doing so. Why aren't more of these participants standing up and saying "I don't think so!" or better- "I dare you." I'd be one of the I dare you's. I dare you to embarrass someone for their choice of clothing in my presence. In a country where women had to fight not so long ago for equality to men, who work just as hard as men, all while raising children, holding down the fort in their homes and the litany of other responsibilities women now have- to have a company OWNED by a woman- acting in a way that intimidates and oppresses the very same women who have made her fat on the hog is absolutely preposterous. And then there's the folks that dismiss this entire topic as "It's just leggings". No, it's not. It's not even about the product. Apply the actions of this company to any other industry in this country and the outcome is the same. People go to jail, company gets either bought out or shut down, and people lose money. It doesn't matter WHAT they are selling. It matters that they are using that product to sell a dream, and a dream is not a marketable commodity. Dreaming is free. Action makes consequence. I call for the consequence to LuLaRoe's actions to be investigated by the government because people are getting hurt. I often get emails telling me about depression spawning from participating in this company. Being told over and over again that you aren't good enough. You aren't working hard enough. You are unsuccessful because you are a failure. (It has nothing to do with quality or oversaturation whatsoever!) In the liquor industry, we often laughed when a company would present their vodka to us. Another vodka. Everyone has a vodka anymore. We knew the moment the bottle was placed on the table that without millions and millions of dollars in marketing and something REALLY different about it- it was just another vodka that would MAYBE sell in, but never sell out. It is classic, textbook, supply and demand issues. There is always someone that makes yours just as well for a fraction of the price. Why would they come and buy your vodka? So aside from the internal market oversaturation of LuLaRoe consultants, the legging hawking hopeful also has to look at the competition from outside companies. Pricing and comparability there. Quality. Let us also not forget the impact season has in fashion, from fabric to print. What about the legging trend as a whole? Regardless of other items available- the leggings are the staple. They built a company on a trend. It is simply not sustainable. Yes, I have experience in this arena to speak on it. Yes, this is the opinion based in experience and expertise. The consequence of all of that? Eventual crash and burn. Business goes through multiple levels of growth and plateau. Flatlining. Without another true product to spawn another upward trend, after a plateau- it is typical that a product based company would then begin its downturn. Based on the rate of growth coupled with the negative press, litany of legal actions against them, my prediction is that without complete and total redirection, the downward spiral of this brand will happen faster than they grew. Every action, every decision creates consequence. We are now observing those consequences in the constant struggle to reactively remedy issues that could have been prevented from inception. As for the consequence of my article in question? 57% new reader interaction. The method and tone of message delivery doesn't affect the validity of the message. The message is- "I am outraged that a company claiming to support and empower women would dare threaten to shame and publicly humiliate the very same women that pay to make this company EXIST." My delivery, and the verbiage and tone I chose outraged many. As a result, they shared it. It got people that were intrigued reading more. Reading deeper. Much of the feedback I saw as I watched quietly was- "I've never even heard of LuLaRoe, but if this company is doing this type of thing, I'm glad I haven't." or "I don't know why this lady is so pissed off, but damn! Read this." Indeed. Read this. Laughable that my mastery of the English language comes into play because I chose a phrase like "cock holster" instead of the less shocking and infinitely more wordy- "Place that you put a penis for safe keeping". I chose the words carefully- if you accept that or not. She preaches submission to one's husband often. She tells her following (who are often not of the same religious affiliation as she) to submit to their husbands. Do what they ask us to do. Well... unless I'm living on another planet, there's one thing husbands ask for... so the phrase "cock holster" was extremely fitting. Language is a beautiful thing. I speak several of them. Studying language is actually a hobby of mine. For example- I find the complexities of some languages fascinating and even more so, the definition of a single word and how the use can alter a meaning just so to deliver a subtlety in a message that would have been missed by a different choice. If my use of fifteen-dollar words is what garners respect from the sesquipedalian reader, then understand you are of the minority. The majority of the world can not understand or are extremely intimidated by language that they can not easily pronounce. A large draw of my blog is the approachability of my words. I'm not writing a medical journal or a thesis on global economics. If there's a fancy word thrown in here or there, that's enough for my reader. This blog isn't about stroking my intelligence's ego- or yours. It's about delivering a message, information, and an opinion in a way that is readable and entertaining. To the 80,000+ consultants that are affected by this company, they get it. To the thousands of customers that read me, they often get it too. Their favorite consultants are going out of business faster than they are coming in. They want to know why and they'd like to chuckle a little too while they're here. So before you point a finger and ask if I'm crazy, ask yourself if you're talking about me. If so, mission accomplished. Thanks for being here. You are appreciated.