I got sucked into Herbalife several years ago while seeking to escape a dead-end job. It started when I answered an ad in my local paper that offered an opportunity for me to be my own boss, or something to that effect. I called and was immediately directed to the person who would become my mentor, whom I'll call Marie. To her credit, she was supportive of me from the start, and as a previous poster mentioned, she put me on a three-way call with her own mentor.
They told me to stop looking for a business opportunity because this was it, that I would prosper because I was getting in on the ground level of their organization. This is a caveat: be wary of anyone who urges you to sign onto an opportunity because you can get into the ground level and thereby secure a good spot for yourself. What this ground-level claptrap really means is that their organization is unstable and loses a lot of members.
Anyway, I jumped into the deep end right away and purchased what they called my registration kit, which contained all my start-up materials, including some of the products. I immediately put money into promoting my business with ads and flyers, exactly the way Marie told me to do it. She said she was making a nice buck from Herbalife and that she had built her business using the same methods. I believed her. I also began using the products and was thrilled at the weight I lost. When I look back on pictures of myself from that era of my life, I love how good I looked. Sadly, that was the only benefit I received from my involvement with Herbalife.
The months passed and my success was marginal, even though I was doing all the things Marie told me to do to build my business. But I continued to struggle, and after six months, I threw in the towel. Hardly anybody wanted to buy Herbalife; I lived in a working-class area, and most people would have rather spent their money on beer and football pools than on nutritional supplements and weight-loss aids. Those who were interested in weight loss chose Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers because these companies were more visual than Herbalife, plus Herbalife required self discipline, since it was up to the consumer to take the products as directed. There were no weekly meetings or weight-loss counselors to keep people on track.
There was also the multi-level-marketing aspect of the business, as ideally my customers were to take off on their own successful Herbalife distributorships. But none of the customers in my pitifully-small customer base was interested in the least of doing that. So I was forced to come to the conclusion that Herbalife was not going to be a money maker for me, let alone a career.
When I left Herbalife, Marie said it was 100% my fault that I failed, that I didn't work hard enough at growing my business. Needless to say, I was furious and never spoke to her again after that. I exhausted the remainder of my Herbalife products and have never bought any more. The products were actually great. The bad taste in my mouth comes from my two-faced mentor and the fact that Herbalife, as well as most MLM opportunities, was not a stable source of income.
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