I love Timehop. As a date person, it’s amazing to have an app that lets me know what I had for dinner seven years ago, and reminds me of all the places I’ve been both physically and emotionally. But there is one time of the year that I absolutely abhor popping up on my Timehop: my ItWorks phase.

 

I think if I had any clear explanation of how these things work in advance, I never would’ve signed up for anyone’s team, like ever. But I have an opportunity now to tell my story and hope that anyone that’s ever thinking about joining someone’s team will at least be armed with the information beforehand. Because Lord knows, a distributor who’s rubbing her mitts together isn’t striving for transparency.

 

This is how ItWorks (you can pretty much sub ANY name of a direct marketing company here; you can also be sure that anyone making a profit off of this system is deeply offended already) works:

 

Step One: You have a “friend” via social media that is tagged in a post by someone you don’t even know: “Welcome ________________ to my team! You’re a rockstar!”

 

Step Two: Do you like extra cash? Yeah ya do! And now Friend knows how to get ya some. Would you like to earn an extra ten thousand dollars a month? Heck yassss. If you’re really weak, you go ahead and message them asking how.

 

Step Three: You message them and ask them how. Because, really, you just want to know how. You done messed up, A-Ay-Ron. You done messed up.

 

Step Four: “Oh, I’d be glad to show you how. It has changed my life, and I am changing lives. And I’ll be with you every step of the way. We actually have a special going on right now. If you pay $99, you’ll get 4 wraps, some postcards, and a bunch of paraphernalia you have no idea what to do with. You can sell those wraps for $25 each and you will make your money back right away! And trust me, people are going to want to want those wraps.”

 

Step Five: Talk to your husband in terms he won’t understand because you don’t understand, and go ahead and swipe that card for $99.

 

Step Six: YOU’RE A BUSINESS OWNER! If you don’t tell the world, your upline just did! Chances are, you don’t even freaking know your upline. If you’re lucky like me, she’ll scour through your Facebook photos and find the one from Doppelganger Week and choose that one. And then add it to a poster she made on Instaframes that says: “She believed she could, and so she did.”

 

Step Seven: Send your upline a friendly message that says: “Hey, that isn’t me. It’s Michele Williams.” And you’ll have a good laugh. But then she may ask you to go ahead and say that’s your picture when you’re selling the wrinkle cream, cuz Lord knows your six forehead wrinkles won’t cut it.

 

Step Eight: Crap. Now people are asking you how they can make $10K in one month because you were instructed to post that right away, and you’ve had 3 glasses of wine since this all went down and haven’t even had time to tune in to a conference call or read all the materials in your en suite, or is it esuite? Either way, there’s a lot of crap in there. So, message (you don’t even know her well enough to text) your upline/ trainer/ deranged Dawson’s Creek fanatic, and she says: “Tell them you’ll be happy to help them once they pay their $99. Remind them that they are going to make every penny of that back right away. OMG, I am so excited to watch our team grow! You are rocking it, girl!”

 

Step Nine: Well, it’s been two hours and you’ve either completely conned your friends or been unfollowed by them. Haters gonna hate because Wrapstar Krista done retired herself AND her husband selling these things. I’m about to take my life to a whole notha level (if you don’t understand this lingo, or think it’s just a cute little thing someone said, it’s actually a company motto or something) #askmehow

 

Step Ten: You are so in. You don’t even care about your family and friends anymore. If they don’t want to buy from you, they are dead to you. Plain and simple.

 

Step Eleven: If you aren’t selling to your grandmother after you’ve been written out of the will, you just aren’t selling it hard enough. You have got to have that “Wow factor.” Take a picture of your legs at the pool and let them know you just made money sitting by the pool. If you don’t have pool (or worse, legs) two hot dogs and a back drop of a pool will suffice. People just really want to know that you can make money from doing nothing. As long as I live, I will always be on the quest to make money from nothing.

 

Step Twelve: Work way too hard for someone who is “her own boss.” Stress because people constantly message you and tell you the product, in fact, did not work. Standard answer: “Did you drink 5 gallons of water like the package said, and only eat ¼ of an apple and exactly 15 black beans?” Sink a little more into yourself until you’re afraid to go out in public for fear that you might be seen by that one girl you went to school with from 5^th grade until sophomore year of college, before you dropped out to sell ItWorks. Realize you sold your soul just in wanting to know: How can I make $10K in one month?