Money, Dreams, and Coups: An Expose of Multi-Level Marketing

By Mike Putman and Mike Flory

“I'll show you unreasonable. Do you want to step outside? Let's step outside and I'll show you unreasonable.”

We are Mike Putman and Mike Flory, Putty and Flory as the team called us and to distinguish between us.

That quote was the tail end of a conversation—more of a yell fest on one side—between a leader in a multi-level marketing (MLM) organization and Flory. It was a reaction to his statement, when asked to weigh in, that the selection of a new CEO (after just ousting the incumbent) was not a popularity contest.

If you’ve ever bought Advocare products or Ambit Energy services, you’ve interacted with an MLM company. Amway, Mary Kay®, Herbalife—these are some examples of widely known MLMs. Also known as network marketing, MLMs are a sales strategy that have been around for a long time, but that have exploded with the advent of the internet. While it’s hard to count the number of MLMs., it’s safe to say that the number of people working within this structure is in the tens of millions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9781304648761

Book preview

Money,

Dreams

and

Coups

By Mike Putman and Mike Flory

Copyright Year: 2024

Copyright Notice: by Mike Putman and Mike Flory. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2024 Mike Putman and Mike Flory. All rights reserved.

Published by Mike Putman and Mike Flory

First published in 2024.

ISBN 978-1-304-64876-1

But I don’t want to go among mad people, Alice remarked. Oh, you can’t help that, said the Cat: we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.

How do you know I’m mad? said Alice.

You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Contents

INTRODUCTION: WALKING THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

PART 1: CONNECTING WITH THE MADHOUSE

1. The Beginning of the Beginning

2. Reverse Robin Hood

3. The Kool-Aid Tastes Good…

PART 2: WHEN LIFE LOOKS LIKE EASY STREET

4. Taxes? Who Pays Taxes Anymore?

5. Welcome to the Jungle

6. Cheech and Chong Run for President 

PART 3: WE’RE ALL MAD HERE

7. Show Me a Signature!

8. Crystals, Clairvoyance, and a Whole Lot of Crazy.

PART 4: HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

9. Cracking the Whip

10. Bring in the Expedia Guy!

11. Portraits from the Pyramid Pinnacle

PART 5: AND THE CULT GOES ON

12. Yes Woman, Crap Weasel, and The Mange

13. Global Growth: Can You Say Meteoric?

14. Altruism Inc.

15. Meanwhile, Back at the Madhouse!

16. An Oasis in the Desert

PART 6: TROUBLE AHEAD, TROUBLE BEHIND

17. Boys, Girls, Beds, and Booze

18. Off with Their Heads!

19. The House of Cards Collapses

CONCLUSION: WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN

Introduction: Walking through the Looking Glass 

I'll show you unreasonable! Come on, you and me, let’s step outside! I'll show you exactly what unreasonable looks like! In retrospect, I suppose we can’t blame our college professors for not teaching us how to brawl. They covered things like economics, and financial literacy and leadership development well enough. Pugilism, however, was strangely - even conspicuously - absent from the university curriculum. It’s almost as if our teachers didn’t expect that someday we’d be offered the quintessential knuckle sandwich from a grown man in a suit and tie. Odd, I know. 

But let’s back up for a moment. 

Collectively, the two of us go by Mike: Mike Putman and Mike Flory that is. To make things easier on you and to distinguish between the two of us, we’ll just go by Mike P and Mike F from here on out. The way that we came to know one another, your illustrious narrators, was through the somewhat serendipitous opportunity to work together alongside an MLM in the vacation travel market for a period of about five years.

Now, if you’ve ever been to a Tupperware® party or bought Avon cosmetics, chances are you’ve already interacted with a multilevel marketing company—often called an MLM for short. Amway, Mary Kay®, Herbalife—these are just a few of the household MLM names in the US.  Multi-Level marketing, also known as network marketing, is a sales strategy that has been around for a long time, but one that didn’t really experience its first growth boom until the advent and normalization of the internet. While it’s hard to place an exact count on the number of MLMs in the US, it’s safe to say that the people working within these structures number in the tens of millions. 

Yeah, they’re a big deal.

Some MLMs are genuinely good organizations, both for consumers and their representatives. They offer great products, have solid infrastructures and have a foundation grounded in legitimate business plans. On the other hand, some of them are…less reputable. Unfortunately, many MLMs strongly prioritize money over people and it’s perhaps for this reason that when an MLM goes bad, it goes very, very bad. 

Our up close and personal experience inside the topsy-turvy world of multilevel marketing was the inspiration for this book. The experience, as you will come to see, was at times ridiculous, and at others, downright surreal (see: solicitations for hand-to-hand combat). 

To understand everything that came after, and to give a certain texture to what the workplace was like in our very special MLM, we have to start in the middle of our story. We have to start with the coup d'état.

***

The day began fairly predictably: there was a meeting, there was a boardroom and there was a conversation. Looking back, however, the first clue was that there was a smaller number of top performers in the room than was usually present at these things. Something felt off. It didn’t take long to figure out why. 

As everyone was still settling into their seats, Wayne, one of the company’s two co-founders, stood up to address the room. With the practiced air of a Judas, he turned to look at Mike A, the other co-founder and CEO and the third Mike of this book thus far. Without so much as a preamble he began, Mike, I love you like a brother, but you're not doing the job of a CEO. You're not engaged. You're not in touch with the field. We want somebody who really believes in the business. You don't believe in the business. And we don't believe in you anymore. Ready. Aim. Fire!

We were startled but not alarmed, yet. CEO ousting is not unusual, and this kind of open confrontation was also probably not uncommon. And it was true that Mike A had disengaged to a large extent, so the need to replace him was both warranted and real. What happened next, though, put things squarely on the road to Crazy Town.

One by one, every person in the room stood up to give Mike A - their acting CEO - a piece of their minds. Everyone but us, that is. What was even more bizarre was that the attacks on Mike were not limited to his professional capabilities; more than one person chose to take a personal stab, swinging well below the belt line, even to the point of questioning his mental stability. 

Adding to the surrealism of the event was that these were sales reps, way down on the ladder (professionally speaking) berating the CEO of the company which paid them all handsomely, even by MLM standards! In the corporate hierarchy, this was the equivalent of a bunch of angry privates and sergeants telling off their general. It was a brutal, unnecessary, and amazingly unprofessional scene. 

It’s also something that would never be allowed to take place in a non-MLM organization. 

The reason that these sales reps could loudly, and safely insult the CEO is rooted in the nature of an MLM business structure. The top performers are the ones with the power in the organization because they are the engine for the revenues the company rakes in. This power gives them a degree of leverage not seen in any other type of organization (for good reason) and it allows them to call the shots if enough of them push back on executives. Tenured MLM’s have built-in checks and balances to guard against these power struggles, newer ones are more susceptible, and then there was WorldVentures. 

The meeting didn’t end with summarily firing the co-founder and CEO, though. Once Mike A was driven from the room via a litany of verbal pitchforks and jeering, things continued to resemble a scene from Alice in Wonderland. This is right around the time where Mike F (one half of your narrator duo) was told to put ‘em up! 

Aside from just being the co-founder, we recognized in Wayne two distinct talents: his ability to give birth to an ego the size of Texas, and the superhuman endurance it took to maintain the self-delusion that he was/is the next Steve Jobs. It was from this brilliant leadership that the proposal came: Dan S. would become the new CEO. Being the generous leader that he was, however, Wayne then called on each of his disciples, including (and especially) the people who had no corporate governance authority, to offer their own nod of approval. 

One by one, these people, who rely on the company for their massive pay checks and lavish lifestyles, spoke at length and with an embarrassing amount of gushing emotion about how Dan was just the right man for the job. Meanwhile, the seat where Mike A had just been sitting was literally still warm.

Our jaws dropped. 

Sure, Dan had experience in the MLM space, but he didn’t exactly do a lot. People liked him because he was a good-looking and charming guy who smiled with a full set of teeth. He was the eye candy salesman, a perfect billboard for the company. But we had seen a different side of him—an unethical business professional who was more than a little willing to bend the rules in his favour. Surely, we weren’t the only ones who saw past the charm?

Apparently, we were. Either that, or the people in that room were cut from the same cloth as Dan. Every person called upon in that meeting worked to outdo the previous person in heaping praise and accolades on the man. 

Until it was Mike F’s turn.

You know guys, he said, this is no way to pick a CEO. I like Dan and Dan's always been great to me, but this really is just an incorrect way to pick a CEO. Unfortunately, I can't answer right now. 

Them was some fightin’ words. 

The full array of verbal artillery in that room swivelled until Mike F. was locked in their sights. He was treated to the same flavour of criticism and insult that had driven Mike A from the room, and subsequently, the company. It was then that an individual named Wes, who was the most vocal of the group, stood up and began shouting directly at Mike F.

We don't trust you, and you don't belong here! he ranted. "I've tried to give you this and I'm trying to make you do that and you won't listen to me,' 

Mike’s response was simple. Yeah, Wes, because you're asking me to do things that are unreasonable.

Well, that was just too much for ole Cowboy Wes; he delivered his challenge to duke it out with Mike F. on the spot.

Thankfully, the fist fight didn’t happen. Mike F didn’t take the halfassed bait and remained calm and professional, defusing the confrontation. The meeting continued on its weird course, but the sour taste of that experience would come foreshadow all of the chaos and insanity that was to come later on.

***

As we’ve inferred, this was not an isolated incident. Nor was it the only coup at the top. There are a lot more stories to tell with a motley cast of characters: Wayne and Dan, and Mike A in the early days; Eddie, a man with sparse experience whose lust for the number two spot in the company drove him to the point of delirium; Jon, a relatively minor management cog who was, along with Eddie, suddenly and inexplicably promoted to a Co-President level position. 

There are stories about the inordinate influence that a couple with a cult-like spiritual following exercised at the topmost levels of the company and how this affected the entire enterprise. There are stories of unethical money grabs, lies and gaslighting, and the paranoia that can pervade a dysfunctional MLM company. And over all of this, there are the stories of how a group of people, overloaded with ego and devoid of scruples, drove a company into a precarious position and pushed out anyone who didn’t agree.

The aim of these stories, beyond just entertainment, is to illustrate what can happen when charisma triumphs over good business sense, in any kind of company, and how the fallout from the wrong leadership can cripple the organization. The stories tell the tale of how well-respected businesspeople can end up with severely tarnished careers when they attempt to lead such an irrational enterprise in a rational way.

Good news—our stories are not all downers. We tell our own stories here, where we come from, how we each entered the business world, what we learned along the way, and how those learnings impacted our lives. It is the story of the good ones, like Myron, from whom we learned a lot about business, and Kelly, whose friendship we continue to value. And it is the story of how, amidst craziness and drama, lasting relationships form, deep learning experiences occur, and life goes on.

In any bad situation, there is the seed of good. We can learn from mistakes and create new opportunities from failure. We are telling our story, in all its craziness, because we hope that our experiences will inform you and offer insights into yourself and the company you lead or work for. Should this be for which you work? 

Mike Putman

Michael Flory

February, 2024

Part 1: Connecting with the Madhouse

1 – The Beginning of the Beginning 

Mike P 2007

My goodness, I thought, there’s enough hot air in here to float a giant blimp.

Over the course of my professional career, I’ve been to my fair share of business gabfests. This one, however, scored in the 99th percentile. I had come with the expectation that I’d be presenting my findings to a small group of executives. Emphasis on the small. Instead, I was sardined into a room with 30 – THIRTY – people, including the company’s two founders, Mike A and Wayne. 

As part of the initial introduction, a few different suits stood up and said a few words about the company, gave me the soft, run around sales pitch. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Then it was time for the founders to speak – and speak they did. For the better part of two hours, they just talked at me. It was an onslaught of sound, one big garbage heap of words that they just kept adding to for reasons beyond my comprehension. 

Was this some variation of psychological warfare? You know, break the enemy’s mind before you break his body?

I looked at my watch. I had absolutely no idea when this was supposed to end, but surely, they were running out of things to say, right? The closer it got to happy hour, the more concerned I became that a certain glass of Laphroaig was anxiously awaiting my arrival at the hotel bar. 

I turned my attention back to the...Talk? Presentation? Diatribe?

Mike A. appeared to be winding down, but I wasn’t counting on anything. He and Wayne were tag-teaming this verbal upchuck with such enthusiasm it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that they might close another hour. 

So much for that glass of scotch.

… and with all these benefits, we have a potential market in the hundreds of millions, Wayne went on. The weak spot in the picture is in the product we have to offer members, and that’s where you come in. Good grief! A pause! 

I jumped into it like a drowning man clambers into a lifeboat.  That’s a great overview, Mike and Wayne. Thanks! I said just a little too enthusiastically.

Reviews for Money, Dreams, and Coups

[jferrara · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A harrowing tale of corporate malfeasance - but ultimately a valuable lesson in business ethics, personal development and friendship. A fun, fast-paced read.