[montyzuma]

Im not quite following you

are you saying that out of 200 companies only 1 was legit?

NO,I dont believe it is a silly thing to say,
I would think that the dissatifaction level is very much higher for a mlm company the a traditional one.

apart from the fact that due to the nature of the beast, it is open to abuse.

i disagree that mlm is a good method of distribution
it adds on another burden of cost to the supply chain.
and there are few marketing methods that have had to change their name due to the bad publicity (network Marketing)

In america where it has been going for longer
in March 2008, the FTC removed Network Marketing (MLM) companies from the proposed Business Opportunity Rule:

Another criticism of MLMs is that "MLM organizations have been described by some as cults (Butterfield, 1985), pyramid schemes (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997), or organizations rife with misleading, deceptive, and unethical behavior (Carter, 1999), such as the questionable use of evangelical discourse to promote the business (Hopfl & Maddrell, 1996), and the exploitation of personal relationships for financial gain (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997).

I have found that personally, any criticism of a mlm scheme usually ends up in personal abuse.

the few who promote them usually have a vested interest.


MLM's are also criticized for being unable to fulfill their promises for the majority of participants due to basic conflicts with Western culture. There are even claims that the success rate for breaking even or even making money are far worse than other types of businesses "The vast majority of MLM’s are recruiting MLM’s, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit. Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLM’s is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company. In part, this is because encouraging recruits to further "recruit people to compete with [them] leads to "market saturation."

[punk rocker]

[tinkapace]

[Honest John]

Kleeneze = Scam

End of!!!

[tinkapace]

[montyzuma]

someone won the lottery last week as well
(but lots of people didnt)

1 swallow does not a summer make

Shall we leave people to make up their own minds?

[tinkapace]

[montyzuma]

Kleeneze has been going for a number of years, i agree.

Do you have facts for the turnover of the people selling on the ground floor?

Or the amount of money the average door stepper makes?


Of course you are going to have high earners such as you have shown but for everyone of them there must be a good few struggling along.

[tinkapace]

[Honest John]

[Honest John]

[tinkapace]

[gumboil]

I ran a Kleeneze business for around two years.

Please be aware that the income cheques you are shown are GROSS INCOME.

For those of you unaware, this means that traditional business expenses need to be deducted from that amount i.e. petrol, stationery, order forms, snappy bags, printing, replacing lost catalogues, VAT, internet cost, telephone, postage, advertising etc etc....

When you've totted all these costs up, you then deduct the total from your gross income and what you are left with, is what you've actually earned. So don't be too impressed with what you see on 'income' cheques!

If you are unfamiliar with bookkeeping methods and considering starting a Kleeneze (or any!) business, I suggest you learn some skills in the area.

I was sold Kleeneze on the basis that I could make around £200 or so per month, on a very part time basis. I actually ended up putting in an average of 30 hours per week on top of my 40 hours per week day job.

I felt and still do feel, that the number of hours work required is seriously understated. Together with the numerous operational problems, long hours and negligible profit, I threw in the towel with a considerable amount of relief.

p.s. In my best ever month for turnover, I came away with 15p profit!

[tinkapace]

[gumboil]

[quote="tinkapace
As I always say there are successes and failures in any business you failed I did not. I and many in my team make a good living. When most jobs are advertised they are advertised at Gross salary. So thee is no difference there then. Individuals Tax is different, as with Kleeneze expensed are different too. My Brother earns less than me in a Job and spends more than me in getting to and from his Job than I spend in running my Business. We have another lady in our team who saved £240 per month when she went full time in traveling expenses. She also now pays less tax !!.

I have NEVER made a loss even my first month I made a profit I earned £390 and spent £150 to join and £30 on fuel that was an instant profit of £210.00

Every single month since then I have made money. My own Daughter made £200 her first month part time for an outlay of £75

I do accept that for every success there is a failure just like everything in life. To expect othewise is silly. To base your own success in life on the failure of another is just as stupid.[/quote]

Firstly, I never said or indicated that I felt I had failed. I gave it my best shot and it didn't work out. I don't consider that as 'failing'. I took a measured business decision and decided to cut my losses.

When jobs are advertised, yes, the gross pay is indicated but your only deductions will be TAX/NI/pension - the usual things you would expect.

The income cheques shown are subject to TAX/NI/pension etc PLUS all the running costs of your Kleeneze business.

I am sure there will always be circumstances where people are better off not staying in a traditional job, taking other factors into account.

All I was trying to point out was the fact that income cheques are NOT 'take home pay'! I feel this needs to be highlighted. (And yes, expenses will be variable between individuals but they must be taken into account).

I'm not attacking network marketing, I think it's an excellent business model.

[waterloo]

On average it takes around 3-4 hours to put out 200 catalogues. Using the 30 hours average per week worked I could drop and pick up 1000 catalogues in 15-20 hours leaving me 10 hours to deliver products.

The company average per catalogue is £1 worth of orders but lets say I only get 50p. In 4 weeks I'd get £2000 of orders and my GROSS INCOME would be just over £600. There would be some business expenses. I reckon about £100 for petrol, £100 for extra books, £7.50 for internet service and maybe £20 for printing and other bits. There is no VAT as I don't earn over £64,000 per annum in income. In any event VAT is payable by the company ON TOP of your gross income. No advertising costs at this stage or postage as I'm not team building.

Overall this leaves me with NET PROFIT of over £350.

Achieving the company average of £1 per catalogue would earn GROSS INCOME of £1305. My expenses would be no different so my NET PROFIT would be over £1,000 in 4 weeks.

If I never team build I can still earn £1,000 net profit every 4 weeks with no extra expenses each time than those in my first 4 weeks.

I'd have to ask what activities 30 hours per week were spent on that only produced 15p profit.

[montyzuma]

Hi waterloo

Welcome to the forums

We rarely get someone jumping in with such a concise first post,
are you at all connected with Tim? just a thought.

[waterloo]

Only by the fact that I know about Kleeneze

[tinkapace]

[tinkapace]

[gumboil]

[waterloo]

No I haven't forgotten it. My initial investment would be £300. £120 joining fee including 200 catalogues and a further 300 catalogues at £180.

I wouldn't need 1000 catalogues as personally I would do two drops a week using all the catalogues each time. About 10 hours per drop in total putting out and in including picking up stragglers.

In my first 4 weeks I would cover all my outlay with my GROSS PROFIT. From the next 4 weeks onwards my expenses would be as stated so after 8 weeks in business I'd be making £1,000 net profit every 4 weeks.

Stock levels run at 98%+ and I would just add out of stocks to the next order after they are in stock again.

I'd use a system for deliveries convenient to me that doesn't require going back time and time again but gives quality customer service.

Given that most other businesses take anywhere between 18-24 months to reach a level where they make any profit whatsoever I'd be happy with my first 8 weeks in business being over £1,000 in profit.

[tinkapace]

As an example I went out this morning at 9:30 and got back at 11:30 I picked up 87 books and took £250 in orders so at 21% profit plus bonus that makes £90 earnings for 2 hrs work I am off now to do another pick up this afternoon. There is however the time it took to turn round the 87 books and there wil be delivery time but even still its a fantastic half days earnings. BTW I traveled 5 miles (I log it every day)

[gumboil]

[waterloo]

Assuming it takes you 2 hours to pack and deliver the goods your hourly rate would be £22.50. That's how you earn £20-£30 per hour with this business. Maybe not from day 1 but once you have a solid base of customers it's simple to do.