Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Emily Lynn Paulson author of “Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing”

Transcript

Emily Lynn Paulson author of “Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing” · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations.
0:06
Speaker 2: It's the show that she is the secrets of success
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Speaker 2: experience firsthand by Marketing and Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I
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Speaker 2: will know he's giving me advice on many occasions. And
0:14
Speaker 2: in case you didn't notice, I'm not broke. You know
0:17
Speaker 2: he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and industry decision make
0:21
Speaker 2: because it's what he likes to do, it's what he
0:23
Speaker 2: likes to share. Now it's time to hear from my man,
0:26
Speaker 2: Rashan McDonald money Making Conversations.
0:29
Speaker 1: Here we go.
0:30
Speaker 3: Hi, this is Rashaan McDonald. Was so eloquently spoken by
0:35
Speaker 3: the one and only. Hey, I welcome to money Making
0:38
Speaker 3: Conversation masterclass. Wow, you know I have a great show today.
0:42
Speaker 3: I feel I have a great show every time I
0:44
Speaker 3: opened his mic, so I kind of like put myself down,
0:47
Speaker 3: Like I said, I got a great show today. Rashawn,
0:49
Speaker 3: you you need to look.
0:50
Speaker 1: In the mirror.
0:50
Speaker 4: Brother.
0:51
Speaker 3: You just kind of slammed yourself. Now, just kidding. I
0:55
Speaker 3: think today is as it is every week. There's no
0:57
Speaker 3: perfect time to start following your dreams. Because I recognize
1:00
Speaker 3: that we all have different definitions of success for you.
1:03
Speaker 3: It may be the size of your paycheck mine is
1:05
Speaker 3: inspiring you to accomplish your goals and live your very
1:08
Speaker 3: best life. It's time to stop reading other people's success
1:11
Speaker 3: stories and start.
1:12
Speaker 1: Living your own.
1:13
Speaker 3: People always talk about their purpose a gift. You know,
1:15
Speaker 3: if you have a gift, not gifts, because a lot
1:17
Speaker 3: of people say gifts. You have to be focused. Focus,
1:20
Speaker 3: focus on one thing, get it right, then move on.
1:23
Speaker 3: Don't focus on a lot of things and get them
1:25
Speaker 3: all wrong. Lead with that gift, and don't let your friends, family,
1:28
Speaker 3: or co worker stop you from planning or living your dreams.
1:31
Speaker 3: Let's get money making conversations started. First guest, you know
1:35
Speaker 3: it's going to be Emily Lynn Pauls, and she would
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Speaker 3: take us into the world of multi level of marketing,
1:40
Speaker 3: which I know nothing about. It's going to be an interview.
1:43
Speaker 3: I don't want you guys to miss You can't miss it. Emily,
1:46
Speaker 3: she's on the line right now.
1:47
Speaker 1: She's waiting.
1:47
Speaker 3: She's waiting to talk to Reshans. She's waiting to tell
1:50
Speaker 3: everybody her life experiences in that world. And it's a
1:52
Speaker 3: great book. I read the book. It's a very thick book.
1:55
Speaker 3: So if you're a person who likes to read little
1:57
Speaker 3: bitty books do not. Her book is great. It'll keep
1:59
Speaker 3: you focus because it's very funny, it's very uh whoh,
2:03
Speaker 3: it's a lot and it's great. And then second guest
2:06
Speaker 3: guess would be me. I'll be on the show today
2:08
Speaker 3: of Coase. She said with Shane, you're always on the
2:10
Speaker 3: show because you're hosting the show. Ah, well, yes, yes, yes,
2:13
Speaker 3: but you'll be able to talk to me today because
2:14
Speaker 3: I want to talk about how to be a successful
2:17
Speaker 3: business owner. Wow, I'm gonna tell you the mistakes I
2:21
Speaker 3: made because in order to be successful in anything, I'm
2:25
Speaker 3: just gonna tell you you have to have made mistakes.
2:27
Speaker 3: We are gonna get this show started. She is on
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Speaker 3: the line. My guess is Emily Lynn Paulsen. She's the
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Speaker 3: author of Heyhun Sales, Sisterhood Supremacy, and the Other Lines
2:36
Speaker 3: behind Multi Level of Marketing. Emily signed up for this
2:40
Speaker 3: Sisterhood free cars, the promise of a successful business of
2:43
Speaker 3: her own. Instead, she ended up with an addiction, broken friendships,
2:47
Speaker 3: and the rubble of a topo pyramid scheme. My guest
2:51
Speaker 3: rose to the top and in her tell all book
2:53
Speaker 3: you read about an eye opening, funny and dangerous personal
2:56
Speaker 3: story rising to the top of the pyramid world and
2:59
Speaker 3: multi level marketing as we all know of it. I
3:02
Speaker 3: know nothing about this. Please welcome to the money making
3:04
Speaker 3: Conversation master class I spoke to earlier. She's passionate about
3:08
Speaker 3: what she has to say. Emily Land Paulson, how are
3:10
Speaker 3: you doing, Emily?
3:12
Speaker 5: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
3:14
Speaker 1: Well, Emily, where are you based at?
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Speaker 5: I am actually in central Oregon, so other coast.
3:20
Speaker 3: I've been out there. I've been to Portland, Oregon a
3:23
Speaker 3: couple of times. Really really really woos the.
3:26
Speaker 1: Area up, a lot of good fishing and hunting, correct,
3:29
Speaker 1: am I.
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Speaker 5: Right, that's right, yp So.
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Speaker 3: You've always lived up in the in that area of
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Speaker 3: the country. Did you go to college up there? Schooling
3:37
Speaker 3: up there? What keeps you in Portland, Oregon? Because I'm
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Speaker 3: assuming it's not Portland, organ is Central Oregon? Because the family,
3:44
Speaker 3: I'm sure keeping you up there now.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I've kind of been all around. I
3:48
Speaker 5: grew up in Montana, was in California, then I was
3:52
Speaker 5: on Pennsylvania for a while in Seattle. This is really
3:56
Speaker 5: just where we kind of met in the middle. We
3:58
Speaker 5: wanted a little more world can you.
4:02
Speaker 3: All West coast. See, I think you've kind of doted
4:05
Speaker 3: over the Pennsylvania. Now what what what made you dot
4:07
Speaker 3: over the Pennsylvania and drug you right back? You said
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Speaker 3: my Dana Califonia see at Pennsylvania. Hold hold, hold old.
4:15
Speaker 3: How did you get to Pennsylvania and what made you
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Speaker 3: go back?
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Speaker 5: It was a little detour. So it was my husband's
4:21
Speaker 5: job took us out there outside of Philadelphia and we
4:24
Speaker 5: loved it. We loved it, and then it was his
4:25
Speaker 5: job took us back. So we've been mostly on this
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Speaker 5: side of the country.
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Speaker 1: Cool. Well great.
4:30
Speaker 3: I'm based in Atlanta and my show is UH is
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Speaker 3: streamed and is also a podcast, is live right now
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Speaker 3: and I try to bring on guests that tell to
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Speaker 3: educate me. And the first thing I got to ask
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Speaker 3: is what is multi level marketing?
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Speaker 5: Yeah? So multi level marketing, you know their corporations and
4:50
Speaker 5: they use a business model that involves getting contractors, so
4:55
Speaker 5: just people, do you sign up to independent contractor sell
4:59
Speaker 5: product the family and friends, and then they recruit other
5:02
Speaker 5: people to do the same. So you know, it's different
5:06
Speaker 5: in direct selling. You know, just selling a product to
5:09
Speaker 5: one person direct from the company. Is that you have
5:12
Speaker 5: these levels of pay, and you're rewarded for recruiting other
5:16
Speaker 5: people to sell the same thing. So it's the multi
5:19
Speaker 5: level thing that makes it different from just regular sales.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 3: So now I've always heard this all my life from insurance.
5:25
Speaker 3: People try to get me to sell insurance, but there's
5:28
Speaker 3: always tied to you, well, you got to get more
5:30
Speaker 3: people to sell. That way you get more people. Then
5:32
Speaker 3: also you make money off the people you get. Is
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Speaker 3: that am I mistaking?
5:37
Speaker 1: That's it?
5:37
Speaker 5: Nope, that's that's it. Yep.
5:40
Speaker 3: So I so the whole purpose with people have always
5:42
Speaker 3: approached me about multi level marketing. If I always said, hey,
5:45
Speaker 3: we'll show they're making money over there. Brother, you're missing out.
5:48
Speaker 3: I said, who over there? What do you got to
5:50
Speaker 3: We'll see what happens. Is you you you selling insurance,
5:52
Speaker 3: but really you sell insured, but you want to get
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Speaker 3: other people beneath you, and then you want those people
5:59
Speaker 3: beneath you to get other people beneath them, and then
6:02
Speaker 3: you want people another level underneath you. So now you've
6:05
Speaker 3: got all these levels beneath you, which enables you to
6:09
Speaker 3: get paid based on their efforts.
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Speaker 5: Correct exactly?
6:13
Speaker 3: Wow, and how did you get involved with that? Does
6:19
Speaker 3: you sound like, you pretty smart to me. When I
6:21
Speaker 3: when they told me that I ran, I ran for
6:23
Speaker 3: the heels. I went, oh, I'm not going to do this.
6:26
Speaker 3: This is just sounds weird to me. It means that
6:28
Speaker 3: that means that I'm telling other people that just work,
6:31
Speaker 3: so I won't work technically.
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Speaker 5: Correct, right right. Well, so the idea is that you know,
6:39
Speaker 5: you you're basically going into business with your friends and family.
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Speaker 5: That's how it sold, right, And I think part of
6:46
Speaker 5: the reason is, you know, like you, I didn't really
6:48
Speaker 5: understand what it was at first either, and instead of
6:52
Speaker 5: maybe doing more research on my end, I thought, Hey,
6:54
Speaker 5: here's my friend who's telling me about this, and I
6:58
Speaker 5: trust her. She seems trustworthy. I don't think she'd lead
7:01
Speaker 5: me astray. And I thought, you know what, what's the harm?
7:05
Speaker 5: What's the harm in trying this out? So I really
7:08
Speaker 5: kind of ran with ignorance, I guess in the beginning,
7:10
Speaker 5: instead of you know, like you did, run the other direction.
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Speaker 3: Right, But it's but it's the call of potential money
7:17
Speaker 3: making opportunities.
7:18
Speaker 1: They pique your interest. That's what piqued my interests, you.
7:21
Speaker 3: Know, because because because everybody who's making money is very
7:27
Speaker 3: vocal about it a very they live, they drive nice cars,
7:31
Speaker 3: they live in a good house.
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Speaker 1: They're very and almost like religious about it. They preach
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Speaker 1: on it.
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Speaker 3: They almost like make you feel like you missing out
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Speaker 3: an opportunity, like you're not a smart person for participating.
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Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Well, and you hear the stories of the
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Speaker 5: very very very small percentage at the top, and you
7:49
Speaker 5: hear so you hear it so much that you think, oh,
7:52
Speaker 5: this must be most people's experience, because that's what I'm hearing.
7:56
Speaker 5: But what you don't hear is that you know, ninety
7:58
Speaker 5: nine percent of people are not there, They're not at
8:00
Speaker 5: the pinnacle, right, So you kind of hold on to
8:03
Speaker 5: this hope. Well, gosh, I could be that person, I
8:06
Speaker 5: could drive that car, I could make all that money.
8:08
Speaker 5: It could be me right right.
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Speaker 3: Well, guess what, hey, hun Sales Sister, who is Supremacy
8:14
Speaker 3: and the other lines behind multi level Marketing? I'm speaking
8:16
Speaker 3: to Emilyley and Paulson about this book, And the reason
8:20
Speaker 3: I brought on the show was that, you know, we
8:22
Speaker 3: hear a lot of but we always want to get
8:24
Speaker 3: to that finish line. We always want to be able
8:27
Speaker 3: to make a lot of money in our life. Well,
8:29
Speaker 3: you walked away from forty thousand dollars a month.
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Speaker 1: You quit. That's a lot of money.
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Speaker 5: It is, it is, And you know that was at
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Speaker 5: one period of time. I didn't make that every month
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Speaker 5: of the entire time. You know, that's one thing about
8:44
Speaker 5: multi level marketing too. It fluctuates a lot, and it's
8:49
Speaker 5: you know, very it's like a house of cards built
8:51
Speaker 5: on sand really like. So for me, I got to
8:56
Speaker 5: this place where I was doing all the things and
8:58
Speaker 5: it was working for me. So I was in that
9:00
Speaker 5: very small percentage, and I assumed because it had worked
9:04
Speaker 5: for me, that other people, if they did the same
9:06
Speaker 5: thing I did, it would work for them too. And
9:09
Speaker 5: over time I realized, well, shoot, this is not working
9:12
Speaker 5: for other people. Why not? And it was because mathematically
9:15
Speaker 5: it couldn't. You know, there's only so many people. Things
9:18
Speaker 5: get saturated. And I really was making money because so
9:24
Speaker 5: many other people were losing money. And that was a
9:27
Speaker 5: realization that made me, you know, make my exit.
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Speaker 3: Okay, cool, now, all let's started for you. Twenty fourteen,
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Speaker 3: I believe that's when I've read in the book yep
9:35
Speaker 3: or twenty fourteen and.
9:37
Speaker 1: Walk us through the steps. Where were you in your
9:39
Speaker 1: life before you got into this world. Were you happy?
9:42
Speaker 1: Were you working?
9:44
Speaker 6: You?
9:44
Speaker 3: Did you use marriage? You had kids? What did you
9:48
Speaker 3: Were you looking for a part time job? Are we
9:50
Speaker 3: looking for extra income? What pushed you in this direction
9:53
Speaker 3: that made you just take off the blinders and just
9:57
Speaker 3: see nothing but the opportunity.
10:00
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, So I was, you know, a stay at
10:03
Speaker 5: home mom. I had been out of the workforce for
10:06
Speaker 5: almost ten years because I, you know, stayed at home
10:09
Speaker 5: with the kids and my husband, you know, traditional kind
10:11
Speaker 5: of roles. He worked out of the house, and I
10:14
Speaker 5: really just I wanted something like I just wanted some
10:18
Speaker 5: escape from the mundane. I wanted to be able to contribute.
10:21
Speaker 5: You know. It had been a long time since I'd
10:23
Speaker 5: had any recognition for anything really, and so when this
10:29
Speaker 5: came into my life, it was it kind of filled
10:32
Speaker 5: all those pain points. It was like, Okay, well this
10:34
Speaker 5: is it could be potential money. You know, there's some
10:37
Speaker 5: really cool products that I could use. It's something outside
10:41
Speaker 5: of what I'm doing now. It gives me a little
10:43
Speaker 5: escape to go do something, meet with friends, you know,
10:45
Speaker 5: go have wine whatever, go to these like retention events.
10:49
Speaker 5: And I thought, you know, I just I just had
10:51
Speaker 5: hope that it could be something, and then it was
10:53
Speaker 5: packaged up with this community of other women who were
10:56
Speaker 5: all doing the same thing. So it really just fell
10:59
Speaker 5: into my lafe this time when I think I was
11:01
Speaker 5: just lonely, I was looking for other options, and I
11:05
Speaker 5: just had a lot of hope that it could fill all.
11:07
Speaker 1: Those needs lonely though. Yeah, what was the product?
11:14
Speaker 5: So, yeah, it was wellness skincare. You know, there was
11:17
Speaker 5: a kind of a wide range of products, but it
11:19
Speaker 5: was mostly you know, skincare products.
11:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been approached with the vitamins. I've been through coffee,
11:27
Speaker 3: I've been approached. The very first time I was approached
11:29
Speaker 3: was insurance. I remember I was in college. It was
11:31
Speaker 3: insurance in bar. I'm just letting everybody know. You know,
11:34
Speaker 3: it's not trapped to a white community or a Hispanic
11:37
Speaker 3: community or a black community. Its multi level marketing is everywhere.
11:41
Speaker 3: It's everywhere, and it's whoever was pitching that story. But
11:43
Speaker 3: it's always the person at the top of the pair,
11:46
Speaker 3: a bit at the top of it that's singing the
11:48
Speaker 3: highest praises about making money. Because the more people that
11:52
Speaker 3: get underneath them, then guess what the money goes up.
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Speaker 1: That's the whole process.
11:58
Speaker 3: So their their role is to convince thousand people that
12:00
Speaker 3: being underneath them and they live in the wealth of
12:03
Speaker 3: your hard work. And so you're in So you so
12:06
Speaker 3: you were you excited?
12:09
Speaker 1: Right?
12:09
Speaker 3: You somebody told you they do you go to a class?
12:12
Speaker 3: Did you go to a seminar? Did you do something
12:15
Speaker 3: on the line? How did you get your training?
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Speaker 5: You know, there really isn't any training. You're just joining
12:21
Speaker 5: up a friend and you basically are signing your your
12:26
Speaker 5: social Security number and your credit card number and and
12:29
Speaker 5: you're basically doing you know, you're putting your livelihood into
12:32
Speaker 5: this person's hands. And so they're telling you kind of
12:34
Speaker 5: well you're smart.
12:36
Speaker 3: Okay, I go, you're smart now, you know, so you
12:42
Speaker 3: walk right into this. I heard the word lonely in there,
12:45
Speaker 3: so I can under you susceptible whenever the emotions are
12:49
Speaker 3: tied to decisions, okay. And so now this is a stranger, correct.
12:55
Speaker 5: It was actually a friend. It was a friend from
12:57
Speaker 5: high school, you know, a distant friend, but someone who
13:00
Speaker 5: you know was raised in the same town. I was
13:02
Speaker 5: in someone who I trusted and I had this supposed
13:07
Speaker 5: proof on social media that she was succeeding. And so
13:10
Speaker 5: I kind of trusted that if I did what she
13:12
Speaker 5: said that that would work for me too.
13:15
Speaker 1: And what was what would work for you.
13:17
Speaker 3: I'm just asking these questions because you know the story,
13:20
Speaker 3: and I'm just trying to pull the story out of
13:22
Speaker 3: you a little bit more detailed because of the fact
13:24
Speaker 3: that you know in some ways, you know there's there's
13:27
Speaker 3: a bigger story behind all this because a lot of
13:29
Speaker 3: people are falling. I want to use the word victim
13:32
Speaker 3: because we all make decisions. And you know, if I'd
13:34
Speaker 3: have chose to get into selling insurance, or selling coffee
13:38
Speaker 3: or selling vitamins, that was my decision. It's when you
13:41
Speaker 3: get in and how the approach of how you have
13:44
Speaker 3: to be successful is what the decision that made you
13:47
Speaker 3: come out of it?
13:48
Speaker 1: Come out of it. But it took you a while.
13:50
Speaker 1: How long were you in the in the How long
13:52
Speaker 1: were you selling?
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Speaker 5: Almost seven years?
13:57
Speaker 3: Okay, so he was in there for a minute. Now,
14:01
Speaker 3: you didn't just dive in and just come on back
14:03
Speaker 3: out there.
14:04
Speaker 5: Oh No, I was in deep. I was in really deep.
14:07
Speaker 3: So for twenty fourteen, twenty twenty one, basically you was
14:12
Speaker 3: in the world of multi level marketing. Now let's talk
14:16
Speaker 3: about because everything's based on I don't want to use
14:18
Speaker 3: any words that sound negative, but everything's based on a pyramid.
14:22
Speaker 3: You know a lot of people at the bottom and
14:25
Speaker 3: you go up to the top. How did you start
14:27
Speaker 3: building your your Could I use the word followers or
14:30
Speaker 3: your sales team?
14:31
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, certainly followers are downline. It's usually called downline.
14:36
Speaker 1: How did you start building that?
14:37
Speaker 5: Honestly, I did the same thing that my friend who
14:41
Speaker 5: you know had me, who enrolled me did. I just
14:44
Speaker 5: started talking to people. I started talking to my friends.
14:47
Speaker 5: And one thing that I had going for me is
14:50
Speaker 5: that in the area I was living in at the time,
14:52
Speaker 5: and I was living in Seattle at the time, there
14:54
Speaker 5: were not a lot of people who knew about this company,
14:57
Speaker 5: who knew about these products. So I had that on
14:59
Speaker 5: my as When people heard of this, they're like, oh,
15:02
Speaker 5: those look cool, I've never heard of this before. Sure
15:04
Speaker 5: I'll try them, And so I didn't. I wasn't competing
15:07
Speaker 5: with anybody, and so I had that going for me.
15:10
Speaker 5: I also had going for me the fact that you know,
15:12
Speaker 5: first of all, these are all buy in organizations. You
15:16
Speaker 5: have to pay to play. So I bought the whatever
15:18
Speaker 5: thousand dollars kits to join. Wow, right, not cheap? Right,
15:23
Speaker 5: these like these things are not inexpensive to join. But
15:27
Speaker 5: again that's all danced around because you know you're getting
15:30
Speaker 5: all this products and you get to try everything. And
15:33
Speaker 5: to me, I was kind of like, oh sure, I
15:35
Speaker 5: like all this stuff. You know, why the heck not?
15:37
Speaker 5: And I obviously you know, so I had that going
15:40
Speaker 5: for me. I had the.
15:41
Speaker 3: Privilege thought, I want to go to this break and
15:43
Speaker 3: when we come back, I want to finish this conversation
15:45
Speaker 3: because what happens if I let me let you continue,
15:47
Speaker 3: you won't finish the thought.
15:51
Speaker 6: You are now tuned into the money making conversations.
15:54
Speaker 1: Minute of Inspiration with Rashawn McDonald La.
15:57
Speaker 4: Nay Love what You Pray of You A and M
15:58
Speaker 4: University and You Texas for about four years and got
16:01
Speaker 4: her engineering degree. Lonnie worked as an engineer for IBM
16:04
Speaker 4: and other companies for more than ten years. Did she
16:07
Speaker 4: realized that engineering was not her passion. Stand up comedy
16:10
Speaker 4: was her gift.
16:11
Speaker 7: I just think everybody should tell their journey, and especially
16:15
Speaker 7: people of color. People don't understand how hard it is
16:19
Speaker 7: for us to make it. That's why I want everybody,
16:21
Speaker 7: especially during the pandemic, to share their story, you know,
16:24
Speaker 7: and so this is my story. I grew up in
16:26
Speaker 7: Detroit and the Brewster Projects, and it just takes you
16:29
Speaker 7: through that whole life thing, because you know, some people
16:32
Speaker 7: only know me from real or from Chelsea Ladley or
16:34
Speaker 7: you know the shows that Rashan will put me on.
16:40
Speaker 7: So but you know, it's a whole journey.
16:44
Speaker 4: If you want to hear this full interview with Lonnie Love,
16:46
Speaker 4: visit Moneymaking Conversations dot com.
16:49
Speaker 1: Keep winning.
16:51
Speaker 6: Now let's return to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rashan McDonald.
16:56
Speaker 3: Thank you for returning. And I'm speaking of Emily Lynn
16:59
Speaker 3: Paul's about her journey. You know, she has a background
17:02
Speaker 3: as a chemist. She's an advocate for the truth. She
17:04
Speaker 3: talks about in her book The Journey of this fascinating
17:07
Speaker 3: World of Multi Level Marketing. She sees it as a
17:11
Speaker 3: cult and the virality of misinformation. And they preyed upon
17:14
Speaker 3: her and she felt her world of isolation because she
17:17
Speaker 3: was a stay at home mom and that isolation they
17:20
Speaker 3: use a lot on a lot of women who will
17:22
Speaker 3: stay at home mom all feel isolated. And as you
17:25
Speaker 3: as you were telling your story about getting involved, that
17:29
Speaker 3: that played a major role in you you spend a
17:31
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, so you immediately got to recoup your investment, correct.
17:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you got to recoup the investments. And that's
17:39
Speaker 5: why a lot of people don't ever make money, because
17:42
Speaker 5: you're starting out in the negative to begin with.
17:45
Speaker 1: Right.
17:45
Speaker 5: So for me, it was you know, talking to friends
17:48
Speaker 5: and family and trying to get them to try the
17:50
Speaker 5: products I was selling and trying to get them to
17:53
Speaker 5: join the same way I did. And what happened, well,
17:58
Speaker 5: you know, just as luck I should have it. In
18:01
Speaker 5: my case, I did have friends who are interested, and
18:04
Speaker 5: like I trusted my upline who I joined, you know,
18:07
Speaker 5: they trusted me. They said, well, you join this so
18:09
Speaker 5: you know you're a smart person, right like, you wouldn't
18:12
Speaker 5: lead us astray. And so they joined as well, and
18:16
Speaker 5: so pretty quickly I recoup my investments and then started
18:21
Speaker 5: you know the love bombing where I was getting you know,
18:24
Speaker 5: mentioned in team newsletters and tagged on social media, and
18:28
Speaker 5: I was getting little gifts in the mail, and I
18:30
Speaker 5: was all of a sudden getting you know, rewarded and uh,
18:34
Speaker 5: you know noticed for things that I hadn't been noticed
18:37
Speaker 5: for in a really long time.
18:39
Speaker 3: So you're saying that. Now, let me ask you this.
18:42
Speaker 3: Let me ask you to Emily, this book is about
18:45
Speaker 3: this book you wrote. Okay, you just talked about your
18:47
Speaker 3: level of isolation, your level of insecurities, and like I said,
18:50
Speaker 3: pick attention. That's being brought to you. A stay at
18:54
Speaker 3: home mom, a great stay at home mom. You know
18:56
Speaker 3: you educated obviously because I mentioned you a chemist. So
19:01
Speaker 3: is this something just happened to you or this can
19:05
Speaker 3: happen to anyone.
19:07
Speaker 5: Well, that's gonna happen to anybody. It really can. And
19:10
Speaker 5: you know, there's a reason that a lot of the
19:12
Speaker 5: stories in multi level marketing start just like mine, like
19:15
Speaker 5: oh I was lonely and then I joined, or you know,
19:18
Speaker 5: I had just lost my job and then I joined,
19:20
Speaker 5: or just gotten divorced. It really does. There's a lot
19:24
Speaker 5: of pain points and MLMs really do prey on that vulnerability.
19:29
Speaker 5: So anyone in any kind of vulnerable position is susceptible.
19:34
Speaker 3: Now in twenty fourteen, there's a journey in all this.
19:37
Speaker 3: You're getting your friends, the people you know, and they
19:39
Speaker 3: getting their friends people they know, They getting relatives and
19:42
Speaker 3: love would underneath them.
19:44
Speaker 1: That's what the whole that's how multi level of marketing works.
19:46
Speaker 3: You get other people to be underneath you, they get
19:49
Speaker 3: other people being underneath them.
19:50
Speaker 1: That's how it works.
19:52
Speaker 5: Now.
19:52
Speaker 3: So now what I immediately hear is that you've invited your
19:56
Speaker 3: friends to this world. They committed. One thousand dollars can
20:00
Speaker 3: get you a certain kind of a way, okay, but
20:03
Speaker 3: you get you Your success is being reaped off the
20:06
Speaker 3: fact that you brought them on.
20:07
Speaker 5: Bull mm hmm exactly.
20:11
Speaker 1: Now when did they start looking at you sideways?
20:14
Speaker 5: So you know, I I kind of started looking at
20:17
Speaker 5: the sideways when I was, you know, coaching them, just
20:19
Speaker 5: like I was being coached to, you know, reach out
20:22
Speaker 5: to people to you know, do these cold calls to
20:25
Speaker 5: do all this income producing activity and personal development. And
20:29
Speaker 5: yet they weren't growing the same way I was. And
20:33
Speaker 5: you know, mathematically they couldn't because obviously we were in
20:36
Speaker 5: the same network trying to recruit the same people, and
20:38
Speaker 5: it just doesn't work that way. So, you know, a
20:42
Speaker 5: lot of those platitudes like you know, take it till
20:46
Speaker 5: you make it and you know, just keep grinding, you know,
20:49
Speaker 5: you'll right, like it's you hear a lot of those things,
20:53
Speaker 5: and a lot of those things are repeated, so you
20:55
Speaker 5: just think, gosh, if I just keep working harder. It's
20:58
Speaker 5: this meritocracy where you know you don't want to quit
21:01
Speaker 5: because you think, if I just did one more thing,
21:04
Speaker 5: one more cold call, maybe that will be the thing
21:06
Speaker 5: that you know, pushes me over the edge, it makes
21:08
Speaker 5: me successful.
21:09
Speaker 3: And that's why you were saying okay, because we mentioned
21:11
Speaker 3: in your bio it said, you know, you made up
21:13
Speaker 3: to forty thousand dollars a month. You used to reach
21:15
Speaker 3: on hold up, hold up, hold up. I didn't do
21:16
Speaker 3: that every month, but once you start making money, you
21:20
Speaker 3: kind of like hooked. So if you made up to
21:22
Speaker 3: forty thousand dollars a money, the possibilities starts to drive you.
21:26
Speaker 3: At what point in the in this lane of opportunities
21:29
Speaker 3: from twenty fourteen to twenty to twenty one, did you
21:32
Speaker 3: feel you peaked as a representative or as a person
21:36
Speaker 3: in emaill.
21:38
Speaker 5: I would say twenty seventeen. And you know, something interesting
21:42
Speaker 5: happened at that point is I got sober, which you
21:45
Speaker 5: write obviously read in the book. And that was a
21:49
Speaker 5: big part of my awakening, really was I wasn't drinking anymore.
21:53
Speaker 5: I wasn't, you know, sending cold messages after having a
21:56
Speaker 5: couple of glasses champagne, and I realized I started seeing
21:59
Speaker 5: a lot of this stuff. I started seeing that my
22:02
Speaker 5: team wasn't really succeeding the same way that I was.
22:07
Speaker 5: And that's when, you know, slowly kind of the wheels
22:09
Speaker 5: started calling off the bus a little bit.
22:12
Speaker 3: Now it says you got cancer, correct, yep. Now I
22:19
Speaker 3: I'm a cancer survivor twenty fifteen. Not to make you
22:22
Speaker 3: feel guilty or anything, what type of cancer did you get?
22:26
Speaker 5: I had cervical cancer.
22:27
Speaker 3: Okay, mine was thyroid cancer and I was twenty fifteen,
22:30
Speaker 3: and I went through the surgery, and I feel, you.
22:33
Speaker 1: Know, you know, a cancer, no one says one cure.
22:36
Speaker 3: As long as you live in life and taking the pills,
22:38
Speaker 3: then you live a good life and pray that everything
22:42
Speaker 3: continues to go your way. But cancer is powerful because
22:45
Speaker 3: once they tell you have cancer, you can just run
22:47
Speaker 3: you up the heels and make you wonder what's going
22:50
Speaker 3: to happen to you next? Now you got cancer, and
22:53
Speaker 3: use it for pity to grow your MLL business base.
22:59
Speaker 1: How and why?
23:02
Speaker 5: Yeah? So again, like I said, the really the low
23:06
Speaker 5: point is always used, right, So you're already primed to
23:09
Speaker 5: look for people's vulnerabilities and so when I found out
23:12
Speaker 5: I had cancer, it's my upline, and other people in
23:16
Speaker 5: the company suggested like, hey, how can we make something
23:20
Speaker 5: good out of this? And of course I'm thinking like,
23:23
Speaker 5: well that would be great. You know, I'd love a distraction.
23:25
Speaker 5: What you know, what can I do? And so it
23:27
Speaker 5: suggested like, hey, well why don't you have a little
23:29
Speaker 5: like event and then you can give your your portions
23:33
Speaker 5: of your profit to charity. And like, on its face,
23:37
Speaker 5: that sounds all lovely and good, but it's requiring people
23:43
Speaker 5: to buy something from a company that then benefits, you know,
23:47
Speaker 5: all of the people in the upline.
23:49
Speaker 1: Fundraiser basically, right, a fundraiser.
23:51
Speaker 5: For the product, right right, right. And you know, obviously
23:55
Speaker 5: I donated my profit. You know, I made good on
23:57
Speaker 5: my donation, but it still gave me a signal boosts
24:00
Speaker 5: in the company. It still gave all of my uplines money,
24:03
Speaker 5: and you know, obviously benefits the company the most because
24:06
Speaker 5: it benefits the people at the top the most. And
24:09
Speaker 5: so trying to do something that like seemed charitable. But
24:13
Speaker 5: I could have just said, hey, do you want to
24:15
Speaker 5: donate twenty dollars in this charity. I didn't have to
24:18
Speaker 5: rope in a product purchase. So you know, look, it
24:22
Speaker 5: made you look.
24:22
Speaker 3: Good and you got the hype, you got the sale,
24:26
Speaker 3: you got the you know, the moving on up the lane.
24:29
Speaker 3: You got more people involved, and you knew the fact
24:31
Speaker 3: that every time I told somebody I had cancer, then
24:34
Speaker 3: people wanted to somehow rescue me. I'm just talking personally,
24:38
Speaker 3: wanted they felt sympathy for me. They always said what
24:40
Speaker 3: can I do for you? So when you announced that,
24:44
Speaker 3: then you had the perfect lane of opportunity and you
24:48
Speaker 3: basically took advantage of it. I'm not saying you're a
24:50
Speaker 3: bad person, but that's what that's what can do. That's
24:54
Speaker 3: what can happen when you tell people you have cancer.
24:56
Speaker 3: And so at that point, why.
24:59
Speaker 1: Did you did you? Did you?
25:02
Speaker 3: I'm sure guilt took over right and feel and you
25:05
Speaker 3: first started feeling bad?
25:06
Speaker 5: Correct, Yeah, And this was again like when I when
25:10
Speaker 5: I stopped drinking. This is when a lot of these
25:12
Speaker 5: things kind of started to hit me. Like, you know,
25:14
Speaker 5: that wasn't on the up and up. And you know, again,
25:17
Speaker 5: when you're when you put your trust into these people,
25:22
Speaker 5: you know in this I would say commercial cults. You know,
25:25
Speaker 5: in this group that you're listening and repeating everything they're saying,
25:30
Speaker 5: and you're being coachable, and you're doing what they're telling
25:33
Speaker 5: you to do. It's really easy to just fall into
25:35
Speaker 5: that trap of Okay, you know, you say this is
25:37
Speaker 5: a good idea and it seems like a good idea,
25:39
Speaker 5: and then looking back and realizing, you know what, that
25:42
Speaker 5: wasn't such a great idea.
25:44
Speaker 1: Now, let me ask you this, Emily, how did you
25:46
Speaker 1: get out? Because to me, it's like seven years.
25:48
Speaker 3: That's a lot of people you you, and I'm sure
25:51
Speaker 3: there's a lot of people underneath you, a lot of friends,
25:53
Speaker 3: a lot of cousins, a lot of their friends. And
25:56
Speaker 3: then can you just like walk away and say I'm out?
25:59
Speaker 3: Don't they feel like angry?
26:01
Speaker 5: Yeah? Oh, it was a long process of you know,
26:05
Speaker 5: waking up and realizing you know that that was part
26:08
Speaker 5: of it, is like, wow, I've brought so many people
26:10
Speaker 5: into this, how can I just leave? You know, I
26:12
Speaker 5: stayed in for a long time.
26:13
Speaker 3: Kind of well, that kind of like validated its reality
26:17
Speaker 3: because you was in for a long time. You know,
26:18
Speaker 3: people just don't hang around something that's not good or
26:22
Speaker 3: just the deceptive that long and so and so you
26:26
Speaker 3: were in there, like you said twenty fourteen or twenty
26:29
Speaker 3: twenty one, five years, six years, seven years, I'm I'm
26:33
Speaker 3: if you tell me this is a good thing you've
26:35
Speaker 3: been at five years, I'm going to listen.
26:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to listen.
26:38
Speaker 3: And so now, you know, but if you're telling me
26:41
Speaker 3: you leaving and I'm I'm following your advice, did, I
26:45
Speaker 3: will tell you right now I'm mad at you.
26:48
Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Yeah. So yeah, I was, you know, just
26:51
Speaker 5: real honest about the process. As I was kind of
26:53
Speaker 5: realizing that I didn't like a lot of the behaviors anymore.
26:57
Speaker 5: You know, I stopped doing the cold calling and the
26:59
Speaker 5: reaching out, and I didn't recruit people anymore, and I
27:02
Speaker 5: didn't sell the products anymore. I didn't terminate my account,
27:05
Speaker 5: I didn't leave, but I, you know, talk to my customers.
27:09
Speaker 5: I talk to people on my team and just say, hey,
27:11
Speaker 5: you know, I'm I'm uncomfortable with uncomfortable with this. I'm
27:14
Speaker 5: not going to be actively selling this anymore. I'm basically
27:17
Speaker 5: going to go dark. And I kind of assumed, like
27:20
Speaker 5: I'll just stay, you know, until my paycheck drives up
27:23
Speaker 5: and then that'll be it. Right And then obviously, like
27:28
Speaker 5: I decided to kind of go into recovery advocacy. I
27:31
Speaker 5: put this on the back burner COVID happened. I mean
27:34
Speaker 5: it was kind of like this whole series of events,
27:37
Speaker 5: and you know, during COVID, I really realized I could
27:40
Speaker 5: not be associated anymore because there was so much problematic
27:43
Speaker 5: and predatory activity in MLM that that's what made me finally,
27:49
Speaker 5: I'll sign it. Send in the termination form.
27:57
Speaker 6: We'll be right back with more money making Converse Stations
28:00
Speaker 6: Masterclass with Rushawn McDonald.
28:03
Speaker 8: HBCUs represent Black Excellence. If you attend or are an
28:07
Speaker 8: alumnus of an HBCU, we want to hear.
28:10
Speaker 1: About your story.
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Speaker 8: for success, and now we want everyone to read about
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Speaker 8: your black excellence. More information is available at HBCU College
29:07
Speaker 8: day dot com. You can click my HBCU story to
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Speaker 8: share your story.
29:13
Speaker 6: Now let's return to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rashaun McDonald.
29:18
Speaker 3: Wow, you know, Abily or you know, I want to
29:20
Speaker 3: thank you for coming on my show. And I'm just
29:22
Speaker 3: just saying that because you know, you told me a
29:27
Speaker 3: side of you that is uncomfortable, you know, because it
29:31
Speaker 3: sounds kind of manipulative. It sounds kind of like, you know,
29:35
Speaker 3: you did what you wanted to do to be successful,
29:38
Speaker 3: and then a lot of it was tied to drinking
29:41
Speaker 3: a lot of an addiction and you once you once
29:44
Speaker 3: you cleared up that addiction, you started to see your
29:46
Speaker 3: world a lot clearer and it took you on the
29:48
Speaker 3: path of I want to say, redemption.
29:50
Speaker 1: Is that the grect word?
29:52
Speaker 7: Yeah?
29:53
Speaker 5: You know, I just try and at this point, like
29:55
Speaker 5: do the next right thing and you know believe, I
29:57
Speaker 5: really believe like the best apology has changed behavior, and
30:00
Speaker 5: that was really my reasoning behind writing the book, Like
30:03
Speaker 5: I fully throw myself under the bus, you know, just
30:05
Speaker 5: say like, hey, I was complicit in this, I did this,
30:08
Speaker 5: and this is why you need to hear about it,
30:11
Speaker 5: because this is what goes on and this is what
30:14
Speaker 5: to look out for.
30:15
Speaker 3: Well, well, you know, one day for sure, as my
30:19
Speaker 3: listeners are listening to this, what advice would you give
30:22
Speaker 3: them them if somebody approaches them about an MLM. Let
30:26
Speaker 3: me ask you this. First of all, what do you
30:28
Speaker 3: need to look for to make that will let you know?
30:31
Speaker 3: Is an email a multi level marketing platform? What should
30:35
Speaker 3: they look at?
30:36
Speaker 1: Yeah?
30:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, So if you have a person talking to you
30:40
Speaker 5: wanting to join a business right you know, and asking
30:44
Speaker 5: you for a buy in, if you have to pay
30:46
Speaker 5: to join, I mean that's a pretty big red flag,
30:49
Speaker 5: you know. Look, you can always just give it a
30:51
Speaker 5: little Google like say is this blank company in MLM
30:55
Speaker 5: and you'll find out. But generally, if you have to
30:58
Speaker 5: sign the dotted line and join, you have a sponsor
31:01
Speaker 5: or an upline that is a multi level marketing company.
31:05
Speaker 3: You know, my daughter I remember when she graduated from college. Recently,
31:09
Speaker 3: she like, there are a lot of people are using
31:12
Speaker 3: it as kind of like a form of employment opportunity,
31:15
Speaker 3: and so she was going in they were saying her
31:17
Speaker 3: sal it was fifty thousand dollars a year or sixty
31:19
Speaker 3: thousand dollars a year, and she gotta make all these
31:21
Speaker 3: cold calls.
31:22
Speaker 1: She had to buy this.
31:23
Speaker 3: So I just tell everybody is a lot of people
31:25
Speaker 3: are using this as a form of employment. They call
31:28
Speaker 3: it an employment, but it's not really employment. And like
31:32
Speaker 3: you said, doe to research Google a company and it
31:35
Speaker 3: will help you get there. But more importantly, if you
31:37
Speaker 3: have time, and I recommend that you have time, Emily,
31:40
Speaker 3: how can we reach out to you? And if where
31:42
Speaker 3: can we buy this book as it don't sell right now,
31:44
Speaker 3: Hey Hans.
31:45
Speaker 5: You know what, it comes out in one week, but
31:47
Speaker 5: you can pre order it anywhere. You know, always support
31:50
Speaker 5: your local bookstore if you can. And I'm on all
31:53
Speaker 5: platforms at Emily Lynn Paulsen.
31:55
Speaker 3: Well, Emily Lynn Paulson, thank you for coming on Money
31:58
Speaker 3: Making Conversations her book, Hey Hans, Sisterhood, Supremacy and other
32:02
Speaker 3: Lies behind multi level Marketing. Thank you for coming on
32:05
Speaker 3: money making a conversation mar Basterclass, you are fantastic.
32:08
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me, Thank you for joining us for
32:23
Speaker 6: this edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Money Making Conversations
32:29
Speaker 6: Masterclass with rough Shan McDonald is produced by thirty eight
32:32
Speaker 6: to fifteen Media Inc. More information about thirty eight to
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Speaker 6: fifteen Media Inc. Is available at thirty eight to fifteen
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Speaker 6: media dot com. And always remember to lead with your
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Speaker 6: gifts