Ah, Utah County.

[NorthwestUteFan]

I can't figure it out. If it were a Mormon thing you'd see it in SLC/Ogden too, no? And I'm not saying those places are free of it but the epicenter is almost always the UC.

I literally do no know anybody in the UC involved in such a thing, nor did I for the 15 plus years I lived there (disclosure: I was a kid for 11 of them).

I don't want this to be a Utah bashing thread. I'm just curious as to why this phenomenon is so prevalent there.

I have seen friends and family members go through this. The only one who actually made a go of it is the neighbor who bought a big chunk of his brother's Nu-Skin downline in the mid 90s. (the brother was on the 1st level at Nu-Skin, and the downline had literally tens of thousands of people in it - suddenly my neighbor had $50k+/month in 'walkin around money')

1) there is a very long history at work in the state: AmWay, Shaklee, Pritikin, and others followed decades later with Nu-Skin, Herbalife, Meleleuca, Noni, Xango, and others.

2) A local, well-trained, energetic, sales force consisting of returned missionaries who are skilled in the application of Commitment Pattern and HOtFaRtS ('Helping Others to Feel and Recognize the Spirit' - do they still use that term?) when resolving concerns about theologies and philosophies which can be difficult to explain and justify. Note: Honestly teaching, explaining, and justifying the gospel is probably much easier that honestly selling most of the MLM products at their inflated prices.

3) sales meetings which build on the same commitment pattern and positive community feelings which make people feel invigorated and can be vaguely reminiscent of church meetings. Sometimes the company will claim direct ties with revelation.

4) a 'unique' product, or claims of a unique benefit.

5) Hatch-Waxman (I think) - the law that allowed 'dietary supplements' to make claims to provide specific health benefits without actually proving claimed benefits in clinical trials, so long as they don't claim to CURE said ailments. Thanks, Orrin! (When is going to retire and move back to Pittsburgh?)

6) Vastly overpriced products with relatively low overhead promise quick, high returns.

7) HUGE (!!!) built-in friend base through the church for downline propagation. When your ward has 500+ people, stake has 2k+, etc., it becomes easy to find people harvest a few suckers to 'bring in under you'.

8) most of the companies seem to focus more on building the downline, while allowing their 'independent sales people' to focus on actual product sales. "Seventh level pays double the commission!" The parent company wants to have thousands of 'independent sales people' selling a few products per month, rather than having a smaller number of salespeople with huge sales. I believe many of the companies require all of the independent sales people to pay monthly/annual dues or pay a 'fee' to order the product, which means more dues per actual sale to the corporation.

[YOhio]

I like the tried and true approach of identifying a little-known fruit from a third-world location and squeezing it into magical healing juice. How can you lose with that action?

It's pretty embarrassing that the high profile corporate sponsors in Utah are all MLM-related. The Jazz have the Nu-Skin dancers, RSL has Xango plastered on their chest and there's the Usana Ampitheatre.

[Parrot Head]

I've got a friend working for this one that needs to be added to the list: REVVNRG. Brazil, acai, Provo, yada yada yada.

The results even shocked me. Average markup of 300%. One as high as 700%. The only discernible difference is that the MLM stuff is marketed as certified therapeutic (and claims to be the only one that is), but when you start digging you see that the certification is both meaningless and also a self-certified registered trademark. IOW, it would be impossible for anybody else to get this certification because only the MLM is allowed to use it.

I'm familiar with these sorts of certifications. In a former company we had one of those certificates for being a Green Site! on our website. Basically, the web design company through this together, put some extra black on the sides of the site and claimed it used less energy. This claim was based on that rumor that if Google changed their site to a black instead of white background, it would end global warming, save 4 trillion trees and give us all dancing monkeys. Google and other refuted this rumor, but our company never was that big on working from facts and data.

[landpoke]

Dancing monkeys are for sucks. Monkey butlers is where it's at.