Crownless Princesses

PyramidScheme

Be on the lookout for these posts on your social media during September 2019. This is what the SeneHuns have been told to say. They're sounding desperate, don't you think? Numbers dropping, hun? 🤔

What to say to your victims, oh, sorry, we mean potential recruits ...

Target being your own boss:

Target work/life balance:

Target family and lifestyle:

Here's what to say to your downline:

#recruitment #PyramidScheme

Transcription:

Teacher Christmas gifts at daycare done 🎉 Bet these will be the best gifts they have ever gotten. Not to mention so well deserved for looking after my cheeky monkey 🤣🙈 Have you got your gifts ready for everyone to help promote what you do? 🙋🏻‍♀️

Her comment below the photo: We put a candy cane, pink champagne LipSense and protective gloss, business card, a thank you/Merry Christmas note. The WOW factor is sure to get them in the door and then we will help them explore the rest of the range. Xx


SO. This is what it's all about, folks. Giving gifts to promote what YOU do. Not to purely show appreciation to some hardworking people (who have real jobs). Using influence techniques to gain new victims customers.

#LipSense #SeneGence #PyramidScheme #influence #antiMLM

“Wowing” is what SeneGence calls the process of going out with stripes of LipSense (or their eyeshadow, ShadowSense) painted on your hand, and using this to approach anyone and everyone about how great your lipstick is, and how it doesn't smudge, and trying to get their contact details off them so you can book a demo or party. Just handing them your business card isn't enough ... no, you need to get their info, to really do your job properly.

Here are some pro tips for you:

Translation: What is WOWING? It's meeting new victims, accosting strangers and making them feel uncomfortable, and trying to get people's contact details so you can pester them endlessly.

Translation: If you're not always wearing stripes of makeup on your hands, you're not really trying, are you? And if you're not doing it everywhere, you're also not really trying. Always look cute! Become obsessed with your appearance! If you fail, well ... guess whose fault that is?

Translation: Here's your scripts of what to say to manipulate others. A Beauty Book is a 'free gift'? Fuck off. It's a catalogue, that costs a few dollars. The 'free prize' drawing is purely a way to get people's contact details, for future harassment.

Translation: Give out 10 Beauty Books a day, otherwise you're not really trying. Push for a sale on the spot. Carry inventory with you AT ALL TIMES. And honestly, no, EVERY WOMAN who tries it doesn't want to buy it. They mostly just want you to GO AWAY.

Please just fuck off. PLEASE.

#LipSense #SeneGence #PyramidScheme #antiMLM

It's more like 37 things. Original grammar & spelling retained 🙄

====================================================

From a SeneGence Queen to her minions

1) Order your inventory. All orders in your first 30 days can be purchased at 50% if it is 300PV+ [over $600 USD worth]

  • Let's face it — no one wants to buy cosmetics from an “empty store”... If you have it – you will sell it.
  • You will up sell items because you have them in stock.
  • People don't want to wait for their cosmetics
  • Avoid restricting your sales ... always have inventory on hand.
  • Your customers will pay for your inventory orders if you are booking each week.
  • Ask your upline field leader for suggestions of what to order per season.
  • Try to order a minimum of 300 wholesale (300PV)... you will NOT make money or save money ordering below this level. (Shipping is too high & Discount is too low!)

2) Get customers .... Swipe the back of your hand with the same lip colors you put on yourself every morning.

  • Make this a habit.
  • It will start conversations with others... they will want to know what is on the back of your hand. DO NOT WAIT until your inventory or supplies arrive .... use whatever lip color you have to start “wowing” others right now.
  • Set up bookings NOW for when your kit & inventory arrives next week.
  • Hit the road running... (and remember, it's never too late to get started...)

3) Know your Schedule.

  • Buy a diary just for SeneGence.
  • Mark out the times you cannot do SeneGence due to outside work, family, etc.
  • CIRCLE all of the time slots you can do SeneGence. Try to FILL each CIRCLE with a BOOKING.
  • Use your CIRCLE TIMES to find new customers, host demos, do follow-up calls with clients, or to interview clients to become distributors.
  • CIRCLES that are FILLED with these types of activities = $$$$$.

4) Training is Key to Success.

  • Soak up as much information as you can each week.... start by listening to the CD's and DVD's in your kit. Watch the video.
  • Attend trainings, local trainings & conference call trainings each week.
  • Write each training event on your calendar.
  • Book yourself for training first.
  • Learn Something New Each Week.

5) Shadow another Distributor — Learn by watching an experience distributor.

  • Take advantage of these opportunities whenever possible.
  • Contact your upline to schedule a shadowing experience.
  • Learn how to Earn.

6) Carry your Testers & some Product on-hand at all times!

  • You never know when you might sell something...or sponsoring someone!
  • Be prepared to swipe others with color & to book an appt. on the spot.
  • Use the 3-foot rule... if there is a woman within 3 feet of you – you should talk to her... Start the conversation by saying... “Have you heard of SenseCosmetics?” or “Is that Lipsense you are wearing?” or “Have you seen this lip color before?” or “I'm launching a new line of all-day cosmetics in the area, have you heard of SeneGence?” THEN... proceed to asking her if you can show her a SAMPLE of the lip color on the back of her hand. SWIPE. Ask her if she can rub it off. Ask her if she would like to try it... BOOK the appt.

7) Give EVERYONE 2 Choices!

  • Swipe them with color – then say “We are looking for Customers and Distributors” ... “Would you like to have a look at the full product range” .... Let them decide if they want to purchase or sell themselves.

8) Spend MOST of your time NOW Booking Demos, Booking Individual Appointments, etc.

Book, Book, Book...Everything * Everything comes from BOOKINGS. * Everything counts as a booking too... 1 on 1 appointments, group demos, tradeshows, trunk shows, referrals... etc.

9) Offer the entire line of products to everyone; you will increase your sales and your re-orders.

  • Sell LipSense first and then offer then the other products.
  • Follow up your new customers and ask them if they would like anything else (perhaps a mascara or eye liner) Book a demo.
  • Each Hostess can have 2 demos for you. A lippy party and an Eye party.

10) Do Customer Care Calls within 48 hours of purchase.

  • Check back with them, this is how you retain your customers.
  • Give them another call every 2-3 months after each purchase for re-orders.
  • People get busy & will appreciate your help and you will love the increase in your re-orders by making the phone calls yourself.
  • Good follow-up insures Great re-orders!

#antiMLMmovement #SeneGence #advice #LipSense #PyramidScheme #uplines #frontloading

Photo by María Victoria Heredia Reyes on Unsplash

Hello Anti-MLM world! For purposes of the blog, you can call me MaidenDisenchanted.

A little bit about myself. I am currently a SeneGence Distributor, disenchanted and maneuvering my way out. I signed up in early 2017 just before everything went out of stock. I tried LipSense in 2016, and immediately fell in love with it (I had used long-wear lipsticks for years and this was the best I had ever experienced). I still love LipSense! But over the course of the last year, I have come to realize that the business opportunity is just bad.

See, I had originally signed up just to get a discount on my own products. I honestly wanted almost every color, and thought signing up was the way to do it. Yet, I still had a “launch party” and invited some friends to try it. And I even sold product at cost to them, because I wasn't going to be doing this as a business (yes ... I know that's against the rules). Well I was honestly floored at how many people wanted LipSense! So, I decided to give the business thing a go (and sell at retail, or only discount up to 15%). And then everything went out of stock.

Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash

I had been a demonstrator for another MLM (rubber stamping), about 10 years ago. Their commission was only 20%, so I was thinking I could run my LipSense business the same way (have parties and place orders). And with SeneGence, the commission would be a lot bigger, right? Well … not quite. First, there wasn't enough product to take orders, compile into a party, and order. And wait, if I actually did a party, I was stuck having to give away product for the hostess rewards! My old MLM had a smaller commission, but at least they provided the hostess benefits and everything was generally in stock!

But, I wasn't smart enough at the time I was realizing all of this. I thought that because so many people I knew loved LipSense that it would actually be profitable for me to just buy product and sell it. So I started buying colors, one at a time, as they came in stock. I spent HUNDREDS on shipping costs alone in 2017! But at the same time, I really was selling, and I was selling a LOT! And I ranked up just three months after signing up!

At times I had more Facebook parties than I could keep up with. (My husband came to dread times when I was doing a Facebook party because I would literally disappear. I would be “home” but not really “home.”) So I justified how many orders I was placing because I was genuinely selling at least enough to offset what I was ordering. But then I was also justifying a lot of expenses in materials, mirrors, shelves, brochures, etc. I thought this business would work in the long run. I did vendor events (but I barely broke even on them, and I spent hundreds of dollars in supplies to get ready), only to decide I didn't really like spending all day on a weekend away from my family. Vendor events were way outside my comfort zone.

I had an active Facebook group (and I spent WAY too much time on it!), and I was introduced to people I would have never met otherwise. Some of these women have become close friends, and I am grateful that I didn't run my business in a way that people felt “sold” every time they talked to me. I really kept my personal life and “SeneLife” separate for the most part.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

However, it was not until I started compiling my records to do my taxes that I realized what the real damage was. See, first I was getting things like my 1099 from SeneGence and my credit card processors. I realized that I had moved over $12K last year and I thought that was amazing! Until I saw that I had spent closer to $20K in product orders, supplies, and shipping etc. And SeneGence doesn't make it easy for you to track how much you ordered. Yes, it's all there, but if you want to total it out … you've got to do that yourself. I had about $3K in inventory left at the end of 2017. It was eye opening to realize I had given away so much product in giveaways and incentives. I had often done free shipping and no tax, so I was eating a lot of costs. There was literally NO PROFIT, even though I moved THOUSANDS of dollars in product.

Prior to seeing the exact numbers in my tax documents, I had already begun seeing large numbers of distributors going out of business. In many cases, these distributors had bought more than I had, and for the same reasons. When nothing was in stock, you bought what you could, when you could. And many of these distributors were realizing that inventory left over at the end of the year is taxed as an ASSET and isn't deducted from your income. So they were having to pay taxes on the product they overbought! I was seeing GOOB (going out of business) posts in groups on Facebook selling product cheaper than I could buy it directly from SeneGence. I was really concerned that so many had overextended themselves, and then I started feeling like a jerk keeping these deals from my own customers and expecting them to pay more from me.

And then I started seeing the posts in my team group pages that were encouraging FRONT LOADING* every month.

I ran across a two-part video of a leadership training by none other than Joni Rogers, the Founder and CEO of SeneGence:

Inventory Build Part 1

Inventory Build Part 2

It was EYE OPENING. For one, Joni mentions in the first part that not building inventory (front loading) is “Hold[ing] back [your] opportunity to sell.” Seriously!?? Taking on more inventory than you can sell is just putting yourself in debt, or spending money that could go ANYWHERE else. If product had been in stock, I want to say I would have not stocked up as I did. But then again, this is where the SeneGence compensation plan manipulates you to buy more. Remember, in order to get 50% off, you have to order $1,500 in retail product! To get 40% off you have to order $600. And pay sales tax on the retail value!

In the end of Part 2, she refers to a woman with a $100K budget of her husband's money as “Ms. Rocks-a-lot.” (I guess this was me.) It really showed me what SeneGence really thinks of its distributors. They are dollar signs, plain and simple. The entire premise of Joni's method of encouraging inventory and budgeting it is an assumption that EVERY booking will net $500 in sales. This has been proven to be false. (Yes, I had some parties get way over $500, but I had others that barely qualified at $150.) Plus, with market overflow as we currently are experiencing (and so many going out of business—understandably), I feel it is absolutely dishonest that Joni is encouraging Crown Princesses to use this dishonest method of accounting to their new recruits.

And then I saw these types of graphics flowing down from the Amethyst Queen (or Ruby Queen? I can't keep track) way above me.

I mean, really?! There is so much in this post that is misleading. The assumptions in the numbers here are that every person who signs up will spend 300PV every month ($600 retail at 40% off). This is simply not true, especially for those of us who got wise as to how much we were ordering.

Additionally, when I was doing two Facebook parties in a week, I was spending multiple hours every night in that week to prepare and engage in those parties! And I sponsored only ONE person EVER as a result of a party. Granted, I have never been a fan of MLM pyramid style compensation, so recruitment was never a priority for me. The only people who signed up with me were people who came to me asking about it and wanting to do it. And I have never encouraged any of my team to keep inventory or recruit. And, I was mistaken to believe an income could be had by selling LipSense alone.

What I have referenced above is only a drop in the big fat bucket of misleading information flowing down the ranks of SeneGence distributors. And there is absolutely no forum to question any of the Kool-Aid in team Facebook groups. I have been called out for being negative, just because I questioned the numbers in posts like the one above. I thought by openly questioning them, perhaps other distributors could avoid making the same mistakes as so many of us.

So, I am leaving SeneGence. I am lucky to be one of the few that didn't take on tons of debt, but I spent money that could have taken my entire family on a cruise! It makes me sick to think about that. I am trying to figure out how to get rid of my inventory. I love the products … guess I could have a 10 year supply … if it actually is any good after that long.

And if this post helps someone avoid making the same mistakes I did, then it has been worth it. Even if you want to stay with SeneGence, please read the above, get all the information, keep detailed and accurate records, and DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID!!

— MaidenDisenchanted

*Front loading or inventory loading is the practice of buying a large amount stock up front, generally more than you can sell easily.

#SeneGence #LipSense #frontloading #inventory #MLM #antiMLMmovement #antiMLM #pyramidscheme

SeneGence is a pro at 'pay to play'.

What does this mean?

If you're a SeneGence LipSense distributor, and happen to have a downline (people who have signed up under you), and they purchase products from SeneGence — woo hoo! You get a commission! Actual money!

(Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash)

BUT! (You knew there was a but, didn't you?)

To be paid this commission — to 'play' — you have to place an order with SeneGence that same month.

And it's not even 'Buy something, get the full amount owing to you'. Oh no. It's much more complicated and nasty than that.

This is easier with an example. Let's say your downline, Lisa, places a nice juicy order, that's worth 800 PV.

Note well — commissions are only paid on items that attract Points Value (PV) — various things like makeup applicators, stickers, bags, testers and other supplies do not earn PV. So if Lisa is ordering heaps of non-PV stuff, you'll earn nothing on that part of her order. Commission is not based on the amount of money spent, but the PV of the order/s of that month.

OK. So Lisa's bought heaps of stock that is worth 800 PV. And you've potentially earned $80 commission (10% of the 800 PV). Woo hoo!

Now, if you want to earn the first $10 (yes, TEN DOLLARS) of the commission value (CV) owing to you, you need to place a 100 PV order that month too, which you'll hit if you buy eight tubes of LipSense. This is pay to play — if you want to 'play' (earn commissions etc), you have to pay.

This will cost you well over $100, depending on which country you're in. A 100 PV order is $200 USD, at 30% off. So that's $140. Now add on their over-priced shipping & handling fees. So it might be more like $160 all together.

(From the Distributor Compensation Plan)

BUT, if you'd like the rest of the commission owing to you, that $70 (Lisa's $80 – $10), you have to have ordered 300 PV over the month to 'qualify' (and the proviso about products that attract PV applies here too — you can't stock up on applicators, testers and supplies to do this).

A 300 PV order is expensive. It's $600, with a 40% discount — so you'll be roughly $360 out of pocket. And that's a lot more stock to sell (or pile up in your house).

This 'remainder of what's owing to you' is called the Group Sales Volume (GSV) Bonus. It's very complicated, hard to understand (intentionally), and there are other ways of achieving it, which involve having a big downline etc. We're trying to keep it simpler here, so we all have some chance of understanding it. You can see a PDF about it in more detail here.).

So, to get the full commission owing to you from Lisa — the initial $10, plus the remaining GSV of $70 ($80 total), you will have to have ordered at least $600 worth of stock (costing $360 USD, when the 40% discount is taken into account). Add on shipping & handling.

To earn that $80 from Lisa, you've just spent more than $360.

If your downline commission is less than the amount you have to pay to earn it, you're actually going backwards financially. Sure, you've got more stock, and maybe you're selling $600 worth of product every month ... but most don't.

Guess who wins this particular game (hint it ain't you).

Unless! Unless you're recruiting heaps of downlines, and they're building THEIR downlines, and so on. In which case, you can make an income. Maybe.

And it's not just commissions where SeneGence gets you to pay to play. This is just the tip of a most expensive iceberg.

Further reading

MLM Attorney: Required Purchases, the MLM Pay to Play Dilemma

MLM — The Truth: Red Flag #3: Pay to play purchases

MLM Legal: What does the phrase “pay to play” mean?

#paytoplay #SeneGence #LipSense #MLM #pyramidscheme #antiMLMmovement

AMC_header_new

We're very pleased to announce that The Anti-MLM Coalition is up and running — an international group of writers who are working to explain and expose the practices and abuses of multi-level marketing companies. We Crownless Princesses are proud to be a part of the group. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The website is a collection of all the anti-MLM resources we can find, with feeds from a ton of blogs, as well as new content written by our members, allies, and guest writers. If you're interested in sharing your story, use the contact form on the site, and someone in the team will be in touch.

#SeneGence #LipSense #antiMLMmovement #MLM #scams #pyramidscheme