Hi everybody.

I am looking into an opportunity for extra income.
I have researched a few companies and have found to "Forever Living" to be the best one (I haven't found any complaints about it anywhere) and I am almost signing up, but I'd like to hear from you if you have ever tried or heard anything about them.

Thanks!

If it is a multi-level marketing scheme you should study that subject before spending any money.

See [www.vandruff.com]

Many people lose money through such schemes.

well it is a network one.
But I actually bought two of the products to try on myself before signing up and I am really happy with the results!
I've off work for 2 weeks with back pain and after just 2 days of using their products I feel 85% better!

What is your purpose here?

Seems like you are here to sell something?

my purpose was to hear information about those products from other people.
To see if anyone has had a bad experience about them, if anyone has ever joined and knows something bad about their program.
As I do not want to join a bad program like herbalife for ex.

Quote
carioca
I've off work for 2 weeks with back pain and after just 2 days of using their products I feel 85% better!

85% better? How did you come up with that number? It seems like a really strange way to describe your back pain. I don't ever recall using a percentage to describe my healing process.

Well what I mean is that I am not 100% better yet, but I am a LOT better.
I am not trying to sell anything. I am not even part of the company, I was just sharing the fact that I did try it and liked it.
what I am looking for is info on the company itself.
Find out if anyone has joined them and if they liked their program.
I'm not sure if they are MLM, they are network selling, if it means the same, sorry but I don't know.

[b:c3654753bb]A good question Carioca,and you are so right to be trying to find out more about a company that is so mega rich that nobody dares criticise it.[/b:c3654753bb]This company also seems to have the world Aloe Vera market pretty much all sewn up in their own mega monopoly...or that's how it seems to me.

When you try to find out about the basic constituent of over half their products ( Aloe Vera Barbedensis Miller) ,you discover that the books,articles and internet information (which at first glance may seem to be from an independent source) are written by very well paid employees of Forever Living Products.

I fell hook line and sinker for the typical salesman "Bait and Switch" method of marketing when I replied to an advert looking for "Business Partners"....of course it turned out to be a recruitment campaign by an FLP
distributor looking for fresh,innocent blood.I was the perfect candidate (no surprise there) and got the job. My interviewer (who I'm now stuck with"forever" as my "upline" manager! ) turned out to be an ex-car salesman,so you see I didn't really stand a chance! I didn't know much about aloe vera ,or multi-level marketing and I was new to the internet and green about all the scams out there. I believed him as he was clean,polite,respectable and professional and I bought into the "dream" (around $400 or £199) on my second visit (he gave me 24 hours to think about it) and I left his lovely (but now I think well mortgaged) home with my box of products to sell.

Of course people [b:c3654753bb]didn't[/b:c3654753bb] clamour to buy the products as they are above normal retail price and anyway first you had to convince them about the necessity of Aloe Vera in their life (and give them informative leaflets or samples, which you've paid for!).

It becomes embarrassing taking money off your family and friends and nobody wants to spend all that money to become a distributor for such expensive products.Minimum wholesale order is £50 or a little less than $100 and delivery is another £6 or thereabouts.

The nearest distribution centre is a long way away, as is the training centre so I can't collect the products or get to the training( you have to pay,but not too much) easily.

I've spent a fortune so far and managed to sell a few products and some customers do regularly come back for more BUT they don't want to become distributors,even though they can then buy at wholesale prices (still expensive!) as they would have to order at least £50 and anyway they don't want the whole weight of Forever Living round their necks.

From endlessly hassling me at the beginning, my manager soon dropped me when I didn't recruit.He doesn't care how many products I sell, in fact he doesn't much care about the products at all, he wants me to RECRUIT my sisters and friends into this mugs game because THAT is what will really push him up the bonus heirarchy and line his pockets ( and pay the mortgage on the house he bought that he couldn't really afford, and the finance on his brand new jaguar he told me he has just purchased).

The house and now the jag. will impress the next victims who answer his Newspaper Ad.His wife,of course is still working full time as a nurse.( Why? If he is doing so well.)I now remember that his house was awash with boxes of products....now i think it was stuff he bought in without any customers to sell to in order to push himself up the ladder and increase commissions( but the commissions structure is so complicated I must admit I haven't understood it yet).

At my interview I didn't ask any of the right questions...I should have asked him how many of all the people that fell for his fairly hard sell and bought the first box of products ,were now successfully recruiting.

The products are generally nice. The skin products are creamy and do seem to condition and protect the skin and the Aloe Vera Gelly in a tube is good for cuts ,bruises and burns.The size of the packaging is generous (ie.big American size dollops of Aloe Vera cream ).

I drink the famous gel and I do believe it is probably better than other brands as they grow the stuff organically themselves on vast plantations in the West Indies and process it right through to the product. I cross my fingers and hope it really is good for me as no convincing medical studies have been carried out (although surely a company as rich as FLP could afford to pay for independent studies to be done??)

Many of my customers do really appreciate the products and find them efficacious (often in new and surprising ways).My sisters use certain of the products on their horses and find that they work better than other things they've tried (for skin conditions etc).However they daren't follow the FLP Vet's recommendation and give the drinking gel to the horses as they need such a large dose and it is so expensive!!

It's slightly disconcerting when a top level Manager dies of cancer while still very young, as happened recently to FLPs long serving American top man in Britain 'though there was no secrecy about this.I haven't heard of any Herbalife, Mark Hughes style scandals 'though in some ways the company is quite secretive so there may be skeletons in cupboards.

I've examined my inner being as regards my inefficiency at recruitment....the thing is...I used to belong to a religious cult,only exiting a couple of years ago after 30 years, and anything that smacks of blind faith or evangelism makes me squirm....I JUST WON'T DO IT. There is definitely hype ,evangelism and faith rampant in the organisation (we are constantly exhorted to attend official fuctions and training sessions (it all costs $$$$$££££) and read all these self help,brainwash books ( " Feel the Fear but do it Anyway"-type stuff).

Greed is everywhere ,even though officially FLP distributors are"nice". Luxury holidays in the resorts owned by Forever Living are offered as incentives to push us to meet what would be impossible targets if you only used a soft sell approach.The only way of realising the FLP dream,it seems to me,is by being a wolf in sheeps clothing,like my upline manager, and doing it by deception and stealth( although I'm prepared to concede that even he doesn't understand the negative implications of this style of marketing).

I've decided to carry on for a bit as I've learnt quite a lot about the company and the products and paid about £800 into my effort (earning about £400 back...the rest I've used myself ,given away as presents or are still sitting in my cupboard!). I've already received about £35 from FLP as a bonus incentive for buying all those products. I have learnt a lot,though not necessarily what I expected to learn! I quite enjoy telling potential customers about my own experience of the products and making a sale and I do get positive feedback even though I don't ask for it ! It's nice when a product seems to help someone. However I guess there may come a time when I decide to cut my losses and bail out.I've been a distributor for just over a year and have been held back by a family bereavement.

Now I've got all this off my chest maybe I'll do better ( but I won't hold my breath).Thanks,Carioca for giving me the opportunity to clarify my feelings!

I refuse to do hard sell or tell lies either about the products or the "business opportunity". I've still got to learn all about the Bee Products ( again,they keep their own hives in Arizona)......I've got some as they come in the "combi-pack" which is a bit cheaper than buying the products separately...but I dunno exactly what they do.As the company is not allowed,by law, to make specific health claims about their product's ,its all a bit nudge nudge wink wink...and pretty impossible to get hard facts about health benefits. sigh.You are fed the information in dribs and drabs which you have to pay for at training sessions....this is the info which will help you become a better informed ,more professional recruiter and move up the ladder ...but ,of course ,as a lot of money is generated by the beginners stumbling around ignorantly ,making mistakes but nevertheles still enthusiastically selling products , desperately buying leaflets and samples and DVDs ( there are only 3...to give to potential prospects) and bags to put their products in when they go to a sales "launch" etc etc...To give myself the best chance and full of optimism,I spent a fortune on surplus stuff.

One things for sure....barring a miracle,[b:c3654753bb]I [/b:c3654753bb] won't be giving up my Day Job!!

It's truly NOT NICE and in fact rather mean of me....but as my polite and charming manager told me when we last spoke on the phone that
he[b:c3654753bb]"couldn't waste time helping people who didn't help themselves"[/b:c3654753bb] ( a switch from"good cop" to "bad cop") I rather hope he defaults on his mortgage payments and his Jaguar Car goes back to the Garage....and that's the annoying thing...every time I sell a product I'm paying for his jag. GRRRR!

Hi Lexy,
thanks so much for your post.
It is mind opening and I hope relieving for you to get it all of your chest!
I'm coming to the conclusion that the best way would be to start my own company, but that would involve a big investment that I can't afford.
It's good to know somebody else's opinion in regards to the quality of the products.
I already have to deal with too much stress to want to get another manager on my a$$ forcing me to reach targets (I was told by the lady that contacted me that there were [b:48287c2b9e]NO[/b:48287c2b9e] targets!).
I guess I'll be OUT of this (unless I change my mind or can't find anything better).
Thanks!

...as it really did focus the way I really felt about it all.

FLP is cult-like in many ways....negativity or criticism is [b:9490438cea]not tolerated[/b:9490438cea]
and I'm sure that by pointing out some of these aspects of FLP I am breaking the company "code of practice"...which I received in the original literature with my combi-pack,but I never read ( but I [b:9490438cea]will[/b:9490438cea] as I feel motivated now to take NOTHING more on blind faith but to really inform myself as far as possible).If anybody discovers this post I may even get fired! (tee hee)

The company is extremely puritanical and "goody goody" on the outside (formal dress only for recruiting,a product launch and even for the fortnightly "sizzles" = cult code language for a non-paying "get-together" focused on some aspect of the business) and yet reeks with deviousness if you look behind the veneer.For example I visited a website that specialises in reports about business/work from home type schemes ; there was a report about FLP ostensibly from an independent distributor but the report was oh so "on message" using the kind of terminology that you hear over and over in this cult that IMO it was obviously orchestrated from head office( a beautiful mansion in Warwickshire) and disguised as a report from an ordinary salesperson.Not one word of negativity,obviously.

Keep your eyes wide open ,trust your gut instinct and don't be deceived.

If you want to be crispy,squeaky clean, like a star from a soap opera,like Dallas then you fit in with the aspirations of a top FLP Soaring Manager or whatever they are called.You can win holidays in their crispy, squeaky clean resorts (they own quite a few around the world) including ,very appropriately the original "Southfork" ranch used in the real Dallas TV show.You can slowly metamorphosize into an FLP "on message"zombie", always saying the right thing and only giving a [b:9490438cea]full[/b:9490438cea],straight,honest answer when it's safe to.

I am quite sure that at the mega rich,at the very top of the hierarchy don't have to obey any of the rules when they are away from the training sessions and conferences that the minions pay to attend.

Having said all that,Carioca I will not dissuade you from FLP...but go in with your eyes open.I like most of the products I have tried and will continue to purchase them for myself even if I don't get it together to sell them.

I don't want to read a load of cra##y ,new-agey ,mystical stop-having-your own-thoughts-and- feelings-and-smile-and-be-positive books and turn into an FLP automaton.I don't want to lose my personality.

BEWARE.A lot of FLP spiel is about how rubbish the products of other companies are in order to justify the high cost of their own products.

They have a set "proven" successful "plan" that you are supposed to follow in order to do a successful product launch.The emphasis is always on recruiting new distributors rather than selling the products .Shame, that cos I think I'm rather good at selling the products!! I've never had any thanks form my upline manager re. all the products I've sold....just an uncomfortable silence because I haven't recruited.

On the plus side, most of the people I've met seem pretty nice. When you order goods the employees of FLP are helpful ( that [b:9490438cea]is [/b:9490438cea]a good job IMO ...on the end of the telephone line at Head Office as a regular worker.I mean this is a mega rich company, they will always get their salary ,and a pension no doubt!).

I'm going to keep going for a while Carioca and give it another go!. Are you interested in earning an extra $300 a week? :D