Why is it Difficult to Make Money with Scentsy

If you attend a presentation promoting Scentsy, or any MLM, you'll hear all about what is possible. All you have to do is use the products and convince others to do the same. It's a simple enough theory which rarely works in practice.

To qualify as a 'lead consultant' with Scentsy, you need to personally order $500 worth of product per month, and have one 'active frontline consultant', who also orders $500 product per month. We believe this will qualify you as a 'lead consultant' with 500 PRV and 1,000 Group Wholesale Volume (GWV).

To be a lead consultant you need to remain active and recruit one friend who also remains active. This sounds pretty easy, until we look at the results. The 2015 income disclosure shows that in 2015, less than 24% of Scentsy consultants achieved the rank of 'lead consultant' or higher'.

It is possible to earn up to 9% in wholesale commission if you reach the rank of Director. In 2015, only 1.81% of Scentsy consultants were ranked at the level of 'director' or higher. This means that less than 1 in 55 Scentsy consultants qualified for 9% wholesale commission

We evaluated the Scentsy opportunity using Dr Jon Tayolors 5 Step MLM evaluation. This test is designed to find out if new recruits are likely to make any money from joining a network marketing opportunity. We found that Scentsy raised all five red flags in this assessment. We will look at each of the red flags and why we believe they are a concern in more detail below

Red Flag 1 - Constant Recruitment of New Members

We read through a copy of the Scentsy consultant guide, this document is like an instruction manual for new consultants. There is advice about everything you need to do to achieve financial freedom with Scentsy. In the business building section, they state 'There's no better way to grow your income than through building a team'.

The compensation plan is designed for constant recruitment. The only way for you to reach higher commissions is to grow a larger team. The only way for your recruits to earn more, is to also recruit and build their own teams.

Red Flag 2 - Promotion Through Recruitment

You will never need to personally purchase more than $500 per month worth of product to remain active with Scentsy. To qualify for promotions, you will need to grow your wholesale volume and your active downline. Recruiting is how you qualify for promotions with Scentsy

Red Flag 3 - Pay to Play

To remain active, and maintain your rank with Scentsy, you need to buy $500 worth of product per month. We believe that some consultants are ordering more product than they are selling, just so they can remain active.

Dr Taylor warns that pay to play can lead to hyper-consumption resulting in members buying more product than they can consume or sell. Eventually products start to get stockpiled as members fill their storage areas with unopened boxes of hopes and dreams.

Red Flag 4 - Most of the Rewards go to your upline

We found wholesale bonuses of 9% and directors bonuses of 15%. These incentives are included in the price charged by Scentsy As a new consultant your upline will get 24% of every dollar you spend with Scentsy

The price you have to charge your customers will include these generous MLM mark up. This means that the retail price will be expensive, making it more difficult for you to compete with all the alternate aromatherapy products in the market.

Red Flag 5 - More than 5 levels in the payout plan

According to Dr. Taylor, once there are more than 5 levels in a compensation plan, then it becomes very difficult for new recruits to turn a profit. He believes that at this point the system becomes 'an exploitative money transfer scheme, or product-based pyramid scheme'.

How Good are Scentsy Products

Any salesperson will tell you that the best way to make money, is with quality products. It doesn't matter how skilled the salesperson is, making money is easier with good products that are well priced. As we have not purchased or used any Scentsy products, we have relied on the internet to see what others are saying about Scentsy products.