The MLM world is full of people hawking everything from anti-aging potions and scented candles to diet shakes and leggings in a business structure that is often alleged to be a pyramid scheme. That’s because, according to critics, the only way to make money in most of these businesses is not to sell their pricey products to the public but to convince others to join in and do the same thing — in other words, by recruitment.
In 2017, 18.6 million people in the U.S. were involved in direct selling with MLM companies, according to the industry’s lobbying group, the Direct Selling Association, which says retail sales in the U.S. were $34.9 billion that year. Both numbers have fallen since 2016.
Since then, however, a raft of much smaller MLM companies have proliferated. iMarketsLive, which CEO Christopher Terry calls a “virtual company,” is one of them. Although it lists New York City as its headquarters, iMarketsLive is actually run out of Terry’s Las Vegas pad, with tech support from people in Russia, China, and Pakistan.
It may have been only a matter of time before the worlds of high finance and MLM connected like this. After all, for years hedge funds, private equity firms, and moguls like Carl Icahn and Warren Buffett have been taking stakes in the bigger MLM companies, like Herbalife and Pampered Chef, a Berkshire Hathaway company whose products are pots and pans.
For my profile of this latest MLM, and its quirky founder, click onto the link below.
Michelle Celarier 