Why Perfectly Posh may be sliding downhill

Put essential oils, naturally-based ingredients, adorably packaged soaps, and an animal cruelty-free mission in a blender and what do you get?

Either a really gross smoothie, or a beauty and self-care company that’s perfectly primed to become a girl’s next best friend…

Of course, it comes with a heaping spoonful of network marketing. Does this mean I’m involved?

This video explains everything:

Make sense? Either way, here’s the full review on Perfectly Posh.

Overview

Ann Dalton is the 5’1 powerhouse who created Perfectly Posh back in 2011. Within 5 months, they already had consultants in all 50 states.

By 2014 they were already doing $50 million a year in sales. [1]

She actually started out with MLM-giant Scentsy, where she was granted exclusive rights to create their marketing materials.

This background is a big reason for Perfectly Posh’s success. So many cosmetics MLMs don’t know how to keep up with marketing and design and, as a result, their products are seen as grandma’s makeup. Perfectly Posh’s branding and package design are very trendy and appealing.

Not only are their sales killing it, but the buzz is there. They’ve already got around 45,000 consultants…a number that’s been growing so fast, the company can hardly keep up with demand.

Naturally, they’re also really big on empowering women to be ambitious entrepreneurs who bring home the bacon.

 “The company was started with the firm belief that we all need pampering experiences to take care of ourselves. When we women realize this, we’re unstoppable. It’s critical we take a little time to rejuvenate, so we can spend the rest of our time giving back to those we love in the world around us.” [2]

A littleee hyperbolic. Do most women like a good bubble bath and a lavender foot scrub? Of course. Are those things going to make them unstoppable? Uh, no.

Lots of MLMs, especially in the beauty product niche, focus heavily on recruiting women because the stay-at-home-moms looking for part-time work-from-home opportunities are known to be one of the segments most likely to jump at an offer like Perfectly Posh’s.

These MLMs package their recruitment as empowering women, but some people consider it exploitative and manipulative, especially given the fact that 9 out of 10 of these women will basically never make their money back.

Their profile on Glassdoor, a website where users can review employers, suggests the empowerment message might be smoke and mirrors. They’ve only got a 2.4/5 rating, and one user even claims,

“She [the CEO] is one of the most evil, rude, arrogant, and downright untrustworthy people you will meet. I am yet to talk to someone in my short time here that has an ounce of respect for her. She refers to the consultants as “drunk, fat, idiots that are clueless.” [3]

Ouch.

Products

Their products are actually pretty well-reviewed (by customers who actually receive their orders on time).

Beauty and bath products are all made from naturally-based ingredients, and they’ve even got a line of vegan products.

• Hands + Feet is their line of hand creams, moisturizers, foot balm and foot scrubs, and so on. They come in fun flavors like Castaway Coconut and Black Cherry Attack. Hand cream goes for $9-15 while their foot scrubs go for around $20. A little pricey.
• Face + Lips is their line of face masks, facial moisturizers, face washes, lip scrubs, lip balm, and shaving products. Cuban Cool lime mint lip scrub and As Good As Gold moisturizing skin stick are some bestsellers. Moisturizing skin sticks go for $12-14 while face masks go for $22.
• Body is their line of body products that include soaps, body scrubs, body wash, and body butter in flavors like Easy Peasy (lemon) and Gender Bender (a gender neutral scent). Soap bars go for $9 which is pretty spendy for a bar of soap.
• Hair products include shampoo, conditioner, split end treatments, hair oils, and hair masks ranging from $14 to $23.
• Bath products include bubble bath, bath oil, and bath salts. They’ve got everything from Bravocado to Calmy Chamomile to Bubble Up, and they sell 6 of them for $22.

They’ve got products on Amazon, and they mostly have great reviews.

One of the most popular items, the BFF Exfoliating Daily Facewash, has 4.5 stars and 23 customer reviews. [4]

Opportunity

It costs $99 to join and get your starter kit, which isn’t cheap, but it’s pretty standard for newer MLMs. [5]

The kit does come with 14 of their best selling products ranging from body butter to scrubs to hand cream and “bath honey”.

New consultants get some decent training materials and access to their Prep Academy, which is filled with marketing materials and training videos. It includes a structured training program for your first 30 days, and you get points for completing trainings that can go toward free product.

There are other ways to earn points for free product, such as rank advancements and attendance at events.

No one ever said no to free stuff, but what about cold, hard cash?

Consultants get paid commissions weekly. This is convenient, but they pay out on a company-branded Visa card which means you get charged a fee for withdrawing your paycheck. Kind of annoying.

Personal commission starts at 20% for “Protégé” consultants and ranges all the way up to 31% for “Platinum Premier” consultants. If you can get up to 30% personal commission, that’s almost in-line with the industry average…but still a little below.

Downline commission doesn’t start until you’ve hit the third rank level, and at that point you’re earning 1-2% on your first three levels. When you get to higher ranks, you’re getting 2-6% on up to 8 levels deep. Not bad.

However, to get up to those higher Premier levels where you’re making even an acceptable commission rate, you need to consistently sell $500 per month, have a team that sells $6,000 per month, and a company that sells $20,000 per month.

Those might not sound like huge numbers, but when you’re selling bars of soap through network marketing, trust me…they are.

Recap

So the compensation plan is nothing impressive.

They’ve got good products, but if money is the motive, I don’t see many people getting rich off selling bubble bath.

The biggest clue that this MLM really isn’t doing so hot, though, is the fact that they have an F rating with the Better Business Bureau. [6]

That’s pretty bad. I’ve seen plenty of shady MLMs still manage to pull off an A- or a B.

Can they redeem themselves from that epic failure?

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If you really enjoy the products, this might not be a bad company to give a try. Just don’t expect it to replace your 9 to 5 job anytime soon.

But if you like automated ways to build passive income, there are better ways.

(and you can trash those old MLM habits, too)

via http://mlmcompanies.org/perfectly-posh/