If you are in Multilevel marketing, please stop claiming you are an ‘Independent Business Owner.’

INDEPENDENT

adjective – not influenced or controlled in any way by other people, events, or things:

• • It’s hard to obtain truly independent financial advice.
  • We make use of available research facilities and licensetechnology from independent sources.

The above definition is from The Cambridge English Dictionary.

Questions to ask yourself

• Do you set your own terms and conditions?
• Can you change suppliers?
• Can you change the policies?
• Do you have any say in your activities, over and above what hours you work or the prices you sell at?
• What are you independent from? Apart from employee rights and wages.

BUSINESS

noun. (SELLING) the activity of buying and selling goods and services:

• • My brother’s in business.
  • He’s in the frozen food business.
  • She set up in business (= started her own company) as a management consultant.

This definition is from The Cambridge English Dictionary.
A question to ask yourself:

• How much product do you actually sell to people?

There are other definitions of business. One means ‘excrement’ and another is the name given to a group of ferrets. Maybe you own one of these?

OWNER

1. 1. A party that possesses the exclusive right to hold, use, benefit-from, enjoy, convey, transfer, and otherwise dispose of an asset or property.

This definition is from The Business Dictionary.

Questions to ask yourself

• Can you sell your business?
• Can you transfer your business to someone else?

SO WHAT ARE YOU?

• You work for a large corporation, probably based in America, headed by some very rich people.
• You pay to work for this corporation.
• You are bound by a lot of very restrictive rules.
• You can be terminated by the corporation.
• You try to bring more people to the corporation so they can pay to work for them.
• You are not paid for your time or skills.
• You are not paid the minimum wage. You may not be paid at all.
• You are not an employee. You have no employee rights.
• You are the customer.
• You are a victim in a very clever scheme devised to extract money from you.

Reproduced with permission from BotWatch. Updated 3 March 2024

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[Elle:] As well as enjoying Bot Watch‘s humorous article on what defines an “independent business owner”, we highly recommend taking a look at these too:

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• Dear MLM Rep: You Are Not a Small Business Owner by Sammiches & Psych Meds
• Why MLM is NOT a Business by Lazy Man & Money
• 3 Obvious Reasons You’re Not an Entrepreneur if You Work for a MLM by Anyman Fitness

Also, my post below which takes a look at presenters with a genuine belief that it is indeed “their business“:

• You’re About to Lose Your Younique Presenter Status? It’s Really Not Your Fault by Elle Beau

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