Well, here we are. Halfway through this series.
Unfortunately, what we find after looking into a number of these pyramid schemes is that they seem to target women. Women that do not have time. Women that want to lose weight fast. Women that want to make money. Women that have the time to spend on Facebook all day to advertise their products. Women that want to keep off the weight without working for it. Women that are social. Women that have lots of friends (or customers as the pyramid schemes seem to look at them as). Women that can wear the products and be able to market it to their friends and make a profit for these companies while they go bankrupt.
The best women that these companies want are college students because they are more active on social media and that would carry the assumption that they have more friends to market too - which means more profit. These companies prey on women that want to make money but they do not have the time to get a job because they are at home taking care of the kids. Their husband is probably at work and earning an income that helps pay for the car, the mortgage, the groceries and everything that you need to buy for the kids.
This means that when an opportunity presents itself that looks like you can make money at home - these women grab at this opportunity. Maybe they do this because they feel guilty that they are not bringing in any income - or they their husband has to work five or six days a week and they are staying at home all day with the kids. Yes, this is something that takes a lot of time, but society has also tried to make it seem that staying at home with the kids all day is something that is easy. Even though that actually consumes a lot of time, women still want to be able to do something that brings in a profit for their families - and that is where the pyramid scheme comes in.
A lot of women feel like this is something that they can do to contribute to their family, which is why they dedicate themselves to selling their products. They feel like they are able to accomplish something in the time they are home with their kids. They feel like they are able to contribute to the profit coming into their household, and that is why when someone tells them that what they are doing is wrong. They end up lashing out at that person because they feel like they are actually doing something productive with their lives. How do you approach someone that is stuck in one of these pyramid schemes? How do you talk a friend out of joining one of these, or help her (or him) get out of one of these if they want to leave it? That is something that will be discussed in our final part of our series.