The Dark Realities About LuLaRoe Has Been Revealed In The Epic Documentary That Chronicled Its Rise And Fall

This company is more than just about their "buttery soft" leggings.

Chelsi

• Published in Interesting
• July 23, 2022

Are you really a modern-day person if you haven't been almost encouraged to join an MLM? If not you, then you probably know a family member or a close friend who sold their products to you.

They also probably asked you if you wanted to earn X-amount of money for much less work. You can join their boss babe network all for the small membership price of a few thousand dollars.

With the constant rising prices of goods, commodities, and housing, can you blame people for wanting to earn a quick buck? They fell for the prospect of becoming wealthy within the comforts of their own home and the perks that come along with joining this network of business owners.

In MLMs (Multi-level Marketing), there are no employees, only entrepreneurs who are their own bosses. These entrepreneurs resell the company's products directly to consumers and they also have to persuade others to sign up and be business owners themselves.

It sounds too good to be true, right? The idea of getting rich by becoming a business owner appeals to a lot of people who are tired of being cogs in the machines of someone else's empire or homemakers who want to have their own source of income.

MLMs target these people and make money off of their backs. We have seen endless stories of people who fell for the MLM business model.

They're basically a pyramid scheme where the people at the top of the pyramid make money from the people below them. One example of an MLM with a questionable business practice is LuLaRoe.

The explosive documentary was the result of a collaboration between Discovery+ and BuzzFeed

It was jumpstarted by reports written by one of BuzzFeed's senior reporters, Stephanie McNeal and here are some of the things we learned:

1. Husband and wife duo, Mark and DeAnne Stidham founded their leggings empire in 2013

DeAnne started out by selling maxi skirts at flea markets and behind her car. When it grew, it was patterned after the MLM business model and they call their resellers consultants.

2. The company had unprecedented growth. They had 1,000 consultants in 2015 and two years later, they had 80,000 people selling their products

3. The sign up package for neophyte consultants ranged from $5,000 - $10,000

4. LuLaRoe management convinced their consultants to get the money they needed for the sign up package at all costs

They had a lot of suggestions to make this possible. This included asking for loans from family and friends, selling what they already owned, GoFundMe, and taking money out from their retirement plans or their kids' college fund.

5. They targeted predominantly white stay-at-home moms to become their consultants

Their main hook was "full-time income for part-time work." In reality, consultants worked 24/7 to meet their monthly targets.

6. In the early stages of LuLaRoe, pioneer consultants were asked to write down 50 people they knew that could be potential recruits

7. To qualify for their annual cruise, consultants had to meet the criteria of selling $12,000 worth of merchandise for six months consecutively

8. The founders, DeAnne and Mark, were treated like legends. Their faces were even on some of LuLaRoe's infamous leggings.

9. You HAD to share your "Why" during events. One of their staple event performers, Elijah Tucker, described this as a sob story that makes you relatable.

10. At one of the events, Elijah was made to go onstage by DeAnne where he shared his own Why

He said he wanted to be successful so his mom won't have to work another day in her life. DeAnne then called on Elijah's mom on stage as a surprise.

She was in the audience but had no idea what LuLaRoe was. DeAnne onboarded her as a consultant on the spot in front of a celebratory crowd.

11. Consultants had to use #BecauseOfLuLaRoe on social media every time they posted something positive about their lives

12. Consultants were not allowed to post anything negative about LuLaRoe and their products. If they did, they were forced to delete it.

13. If consultants fail to meet their targets or their sales were sluggish, the founders blamed it on consultants and their negative thinking

14. Consultants had to order boxes of merchandise blindly

They placed orders after orders without knowing what the designs were. Some resellers described this as addictive as scratch-off lottery tickets.

15. This type of "trust-fall" ordering created a consumer/ consultant hysteria around the products

Rare prints that rarely showed up on products were dubbed "unicorns." The ultimate LuLaRoe unicorn was the plain black leggings. We are not kidding.

16. Consultants were pressured by LuLaRoe management to keep ordering boxes after boxes of products even when they were not selling as fast

17. The upper management of LuLaRoe was mainly staffed by relatives and children of Mark and DeAnne

18. The couple believed if you were wealthy, you were blessed by God. They used the prosperity gospel to prey on hardworking people.

19. The 4 graphic designers in LuLaRoe were tasked to create 1,000 "unique" patterns daily

20. The unreasonable task forced the design team to stack one unflattering print on top of another just to meet their quota

21. According to a warehouse worker, they had to handle and store up to 15 million units of LuLaRoe merchandise daily

22. They had so much product that they had to store some of them outside

At one point, it rained then it was sunny the next day. The water seeped into the packages which resulted in molds and degraded the fabric but they were still shipped out to consultants and in turn, their customers.

23. A former LuLaRoe consultant, Christina Hinks, began exposing the company through her blog MommyGyver

After her revelations, she received death threats and tons of hate mail. She was also dropped like a hot potato by the network of women she relied on.

24. Some consultants say the culture in LuLaRoe was cult-like

They had to dress the same, look the same, and spend their entire days pushing LuLaRoe products. Consultants who chose to leave the company were immediately treated like a pariah by those who were still active members.

25. Sam Schultz who was LuLaRoe's head of events and DeAnne's nephew was charged with multiple felonies for scamming people

He scammed some consultants within the LuLaRoe network. He had also asked people to invest in a medical marijuana farm that didn't exist.

26. They changed some of the policies in 2017 to "get away from being a pyramid scheme"

It was the brilliant idea of DeAnne's son, Jordan Brady. For example, consultants used to make commissions off of the merchandise bought by their downline; in the new policy, they only made money from the merchandise sold by their downline.

27. LuLaRoe paid $4,000,000 to settle the case filed by the Washington State Attorney General in 2019

28. LuLaRoe is still a very active company. They recently held their conference in Cancun, Mexico

Their ex-consultants are still paying off their debt and bankruptcy payments while the company is acting like nothing bad happened

So, boss babes, be wary if your friend is aggressively insistent on signing you up on their side gig in exchange for a few thousand dollars. If it looks like a pyramid scheme and they call it a chain distributor, it's still a pyramid scheme.

Do not fall for the flashy social media posts and "ask me how I got this brand new car" updates, they're just baits. The LuLaRoe documentary is a must-watch cautionary tale on the dangers of MLMs.

Chelsi