The Impact of MLMs in Schools by Sarah Haidar

Make sure to listen to Sarah in Episode 61 of The Teacher As…Podcast.

Sarah’s Twitter

When I was 17 and very vulnerable, I was recruited to sell Cutco knives through Vector Marketing. During my time, my focus was to make as much money selling the knives in as little time as possible. After leaving to go away to college & reflecting on the experience, as well as seeing friends who were in it leave, it became apparent to me that something was inherently flawed with their business model. I did not know what to call it nor would I connect the dots to other MLMs until I had some friends joining other various companies. I noticed the same cycle of someone joining, their entire social media presence changing & then often in a few months those “MLM” posts disappeared & went back to “normal”. This was during the time when these companies had really just started utilizing social media to recruit. The similarities in posts between people in different companies was fascinating to me.

What finally led me to do more digging was when a teacher I knew did Lularoe and I had bought leggings that ripped from another distributor. She handled it very calmly & had such positive things to say about the company. Something about that interaction made me want to learn more, which is when I discovered anti-MLM content. After going down the rabbit hole, I began noticing them more everywhere, especially in schools! Sometimes there would be fundraisers held using MLM products! We’d often get samples and catalogues in our mailboxes from someone in the building who worked for the companies. I’ve even been “sold to” through children for their parents in an MLM. All of this got me to think about the impact that has on future generations who will inevitably continue the cycle based on how commonplace these companies seem to everyone.

I started by including some anti-MLM information whenever I had conversations with colleagues and the topic would come up. Sometimes if I befriended a colleague on social media they would notice an anti-MLM post and ask for more information. Most of those interactions were not with people actively involved in a company but these conversations can start to shift the perspective in public schools around solicitation & MLMs. I am working to get more people around me educated about these companies in hopes that they continue that cycle of informing others instead of joining another MLM. Ideally, this will impact the students and parents of our communities as well. I know the impact of my work might be small but it is no less important!