It Happened To Me: I Was A Multi-Level Marketer
It Happened To Me: I Was A Multi-Level Marketer
Girlboss, gatekeep, gaslight, get the hell OUT, Goddess 175!
Part one of this Two Bossy Dames exclusive may be found here.
Karen: Was everyone in Aphrodite ostensibly white and straight?
Holly: I’m pretty sure everyone was white, yeah. As for sexuality, the founder, Amanda, was very open about being bisexual, and at the same time, constantly emphasized her relationship with her husband, who would even do the Aphrodite parties with her on occasion. Lucille also said she was bisexual, and I’m sure I said it, too. We were all married to men, though, as were most Goddesses.
Karen: Oh, so it was like…the modern internet.
Holly: Exactly like the modern internet! There were also no narratives in which the toys and other products were going to be used by women together — it was always either solo or with a man.
[Note: Since part one of this interview ran, I have listened to the audio book of Hey Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson, which I recommend wholeheartedly. Paulson was an incredibly successful “hun” for years in an unnamed MLM company, rumored to be Rodan + Fields, and she gets into the white supremacy of it all and the numbers bear this out. Per a 2022 industry overview by the Direct Sellers Organization, women make up 75 percent of direct sellers and discount buyers and a whopping 83 percent of the total number are white.]
Karen: Was there any sort of education involved in the training or at the sales meetings?
Holly: Yes, they were actually big on training, which I appreciated. Of course, the trainings were unpaid, so the education was limited to those who could afford it time- and money-wise. There was a really well-stocked lending library at the Rhode Island headquarters with a ton of books about sex and sexuality and a bunch of erotica for people to borrow. They actually published a few of their own books, including one that came with the original kit. It was called Wet and all of the stories were somehow water-centric AND the book was waterproof so you could read it in the tub!
But anyway, we were expected to be relatively knowledgeable; like, if someone asked us a question about their clit, we were supposed to be able to answer it and make recommendations for the kinds of products that would do what they were looking for.
Karen: And did you have these sorts of frank conversations with customers?
Holly: Oh yeah! I would always do the ordering portion of the party in private. You could do it either way, but I preferred setting up in another room away from the party because I felt like people preferred to shop alone. People would tell me insane shit — one woman just launched into a story about how she had been sexually abused by her uncle and was ready to try sex again and hoped this would help! I was happy to be able to help her but I was not prepared for a horror story.
The monthly meeting had some training, but they were mostly opportunities to network with other Goddesses, which was important if you wanted to work as many parties as possible. Especially busy people could pass parties they didn’t have time for on to you or could partner up with you if they were doing an especially large party. It was also the chance to hobnob with the owner, who was very extroverted and charismatic and always made the Goddesses feel good and seen and as if we were all in something together. Finally, one of the high-performing Goddesses would do their party presentation for everyone so we could see how she did it and observe and learn.
Another monthly perk, I guess you could call it, was the newsletter. It was a literal paper newsletter that came in the mail that contained a letter from the owner, a testimonial from one of the Goddesses about how the company had changed her life, and some stats about money. Finally, there was a box that would list the top five saleswomen of the month and how much money they had made.
Karen: Did you have a down line? [People she recruited to join Aphrodite and work under her, thereby generating income for her. The down line is what makes MLM literal pyramid schemes.]
Holly: I didn’t; the only money I ever made was from selling the products at parties that I had already bought wholesale from the company. There were a few “legacy Goddesses” who had been there from the beginning who said the money made from their down lines paid their mortgages, and some primarily made money from their down line and just did a few parties a month because they liked it. Of course, you did have to have something like two or three parties a month if you had a down line, whereas there was no minimum if you were just selling.
Karen: What kept you in?
Holly: There was a sort of sense of a sisterhood in that the company did want us to succeed, which was something I’d never experienced. I’d never had that “girlboss” energy around me before and it was intoxicating! Goddesses made flash friendships with each other that would be really intense for a few months. I felt isolated and had lost a lot of friends because I had kids young, I didn’t really get along with my husband, and I don’t have a functional family, so I felt like this could be my family. I didn’t think that explicitly to myself at the time, but I can look back and see that now.
Once a year they had a big conference in a completely forgettable hotel. Goddesses weren’t allowed to bring partners or kids — if you went, you went solo. You had to pay to go, of course, and they’d hired speakers to come in and do sex ed type stuff. There was a big banquet at the end, which was a chance to dress up — the idea was to be hot but professional. The year I went, I wore a vintage suit — it was the only time in my life up until that point that I’d had the chance to wear a suit in a professional context. There was an entirely forgettable speaker but there was also a woman who had set herself up as a sex educator and she also did very specific kink work that revolved around sploshing dressed as a clown.
Karen: WOW!
Holly: I immediately went home and dialed up the internet to see what that was.
Karen: What kind of money were you expected to make at the parties?
Holly: A good party was one at which you’d sell $1,000 worth of merchandise. A really crazy one was $5,000; I did one $5,000 party during the two years I was a Goddess, which made me the fifth most successful Goddess that month. I got my name in the newsletter that month and a little bonus. I don’t remember ever hearing about anyone doing over a $5,000 party, which just goes to show how small time it all was compared to the way MLM businesses worked just a short time later.
I had a few pretty successful parties; I really tried for a little while. The biggest problem I had was that I didn’t really make any money. My husband didn’t understand that I couldn’t spend or keep any of the money that I was bringing in because it had to go back into my “business.” Of course you have to spend money to make money when starting a business, but in an MLM you never stop spending! I was constantly working at a loss.
[Note: Per a 2018 study on MLM companies funded by AARP, of the adults surveyed with MLM experience, 91 percent joined to make money. Twenty five percent made a profit, 27 percent broke even, and 47 percent lost money.]
Karen: Do you think Aphrodite was programmed to make it hard to make money?
Holly: Yes and no. I think with any sales job, you really need to be a certain kind of person and have a certain kind of hustle. I did not love the hustle. I have social anxiety and at the time I was easily cowed by the idea of someone being mad at me. I don’t have that anymore. Back then, I was constantly embarrassed and constantly afraid of being more embarrassed. I’m naturally very extroverted and loved doing the parties, honestly, but the larger scale stuff was hard for me. There were a few women I met who had these kinds of parties regularly. They went through different companies — Aphrodite was not the only one, there was a small boom at the time. I think they really just needed an excuse to have a girls’ night, do Jell-o shots, and get the free gifts.
We were expected to make ourselves business cards (at our own expense, of course) and go to nail salons and boutiques and other places where women were and hand out the cards. I physically could not ask people to look at or display my cards. I also got freaked out about it being a sex toy thing. I don’t know if it’s the Catholic in me or what, but I couldn’t just walk into a place where I knew no one and ask them if they were interested in a sex toy party. I did have one really successful party in a nail salon, which was my first $3,000 party, which got me an honorable mention in the newsletter. And there were only five women there — the owner of the salon and four women who worked there. They had a bunch of cash to spend and were champagne drunk.
Karen: How did you end up quitting?
Holly: I was having a real return of Saturn moment. I liked doing the parties and they got me out of the house, but Aphrodite was a huge source of contention with my ex. He would complain that he had to “babysit the kids” when I went to meetings or to do parties. He didn’t think I was making enough money or getting enough free gifts and he resented that I knew people he didn’t know. I didn’t want the kids to figure any of this. Furthermore, my whole life was spinning in a new direction. I was starting to think about leaving him, and Aphrodite did give me some of the girl power/boss babe courage that I’d been lacking since getting married. I had been feeling really bad about myself and I learned ways to feel good about myself, and for that reason, I don’t regret it at all.
I’d been having a hard time booking new parties because I wasn’t getting out there, and furthermore, there was starting to be saturation in the sex toy party market. At this point it was early 2006 and I had a series of really bad parties. The last straw was the night I drove two hours into Vermont and got incredibly lost despite printing out Mapquest directions [we pause to laugh in Old] and I lost service on my flip phone about 20 minutes from her house. The woman claimed to have invited 30 people, so I was banking on maybe 15. There was one — her. She called someone else who came over in her flannel pajama pants and slippers and we sat together in the living room. I asked if they actually wanted anything and she admitted that she just wanted to have a party and get some fun stuff. They asked me if I still wanted to “do my thing” and I did one little bit and then left to drive two hours home, furious.
At this point I owe Aphrodite money, ok? I’d also started breaking up with my husband very slowly. As I was driving home, I was listening to a college radio station and the song “You Ex-Lover Is Dead” by Stars came on. I’d never heard it before, and didn’t know who Stars was, but I thought it was beautiful. It got to the line “I’m not sorry I met you, I’m not sorry it’s over, I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save” and I just started sobbing and I realized THAT’S IT. I’m done with sex toy parties, I’m done with my marriage, I just wish I knew who does this song. Shortly thereafter, a guy I’d just met burned me a CD of an album he thought I’d like and guess what it was?
[Note: They have been married for 11 years and run a very successful business together.]
I took this as a sign and settled my debt with Aphrodite. I had to pay them off in installments, even though I only owed them about $300. I still have some of the stuff; I have twenty year old sex toys in a rolling suitcase. They’re probably discolored and deteriorating. I kept in touch with some of the other Goddess for a little while — we were MySpace friends but that’s about it and it faded out. We didn’t really have anything in common but the “business.”
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