The rise and fall of 'Rejuvinat'
The rise and fall of 'Rejuvinat'
My thoughts on what happened with R+F and the current state of the MLM industry.
First, before I proceed, I want to remind everyone that everything I say about MLM reps comes from personal experience—I HAVE BEEN THERE.
Second, I am not heartless. Yesterday, I spent hours chatting with people dealing with this via phone, text, and DM. I have many friends who have been impacted by this.
Third, I tried to warn you.
And last, I’ve decided to turn on a paywall for future posts about R+F as well as comments/notes because fuck that. You can read my work, but if you want to argue with me or leave hate comments, you can make it worth my while.
So, what happened?
Yesterday, Rodan + Fields announced it would leave the MLM industry. They will still (for now) exist as a company and (for now) pay their reps as affiliates. No more pyramid, no more teams, no more recruiting.
To put this in perspective, had this happened at the height of my #bossbabe era, my paycheck would have been slashed from $40K to a few hundred dollars a month.
For the 90 percent of the Rodan + Fields contingent who was making very little or losing money, this change won’t matter much, other than leaving reps with bruised egos for trying to recruit into a system that no longer exists.
For those who were earning any income off of a downline (that is, the people they recruited, their customers, and the team they recruited), this has devastating consequences.
Why is R+F leaving MLM?
The same reason that Seint, Beautycounter, and others have: consumers are waking up to the fact that MLMs aren’t a good thing, and revenue has declined for the past five years.
The company's founders chose the MLM model because, at the time, it was a money-maker. In the early 2010s, you could make some serious cash by telling a bunch of stay-at-home moms that they could ‘own their own businesses.’ I joined in 2014, believing the rhetoric that the founders ‘wanted to create more woman millionaires than any other company.’ Yes, I truly believed that.
With the rise in social media in the mid to late 2010s, MLM’s flourished! You could find anything you wanted on Facebook. Needed an eye cream or a collagen powder, even some earrings? Your Facebook friend list had you covered!
Over time, Facebook and, later, Instagram began to suppress the posts of MLM reps. Why? I mean, why not? Why would Zuck want to give you a free platform to sell your shit when he could sell advertising? By the late 2010s, we had begun to see the shift to influencers and paid ads. By the time the pandemic hit, you didn’t need to buy from the lady down the road; you had retailers and influencers in your face selling you anything you whispered near your phone the day before.
And then, 2020 happened. *Shudder*
While there was an uptick in reps targeting women to use their products to cure Covid and have financial freedom, which caused the FTC to take action, the MLM industry never fully recovered.
What are the R+F reps saying?
The responses are all over the board. From radio silence to “God will provide” to shock and rage and lots of blind delusion.