A few weeks ago, I wrote about a guy that was trying to apply an honest approach to MLM. The gentleman responded to the post with a comment, asking me why I didn’t link to his web site (I linked to the article) and why I didn’t post the entire press release.
Yesterday, I ran across this blog posting, A Mama’s Rant:
About a month ago I attended a Tastefully Simple party at my friend, Julie’s home (she’s a consultant). Tastefully Simple is one of those multi-level marketing things, like Pampered Chef or Southern Living at Home. It features gourmet food products that make your life easier - dip mixes, spices, jams, beer bread mix, etc.
I wrote about the party on my cooking blog, This Mama Cooks! I raved about the products (they were pretty darn tasty) and I provided a link to Julie’s consultant site.
After thanking me for the post, and getting a couple of sales out of it, she forwards me an email from the home office:
Hi Julie,
I received the following link from another consultant furious with this site. There are multiple policy violations on this site Julie. Even if this is not your site, you must talk to this individual and have her remove all Tastefully Simple Intellectual Property from this site. There can be no company name, product names, links to your website or to Tastefully Simple. Can I have you talk to this individual and have this information removed as soon as possible? I am going to check this again in 2 days to ensure that this information has been removed. If it is not, I am going to have to give out a policy violation to you since it is your name on the website. Let me know if you have any questions for me Julie.
Thanks,
Travis Bruns
HQ Office Live Coordinator
Tastefully Simple
travis.bruns@tastefullysimple.com
EXT. 1724
Obviously the first guy didn’t grasp the fact that I was posting his message to thousands of potential readers, and therefore thousands of potential customers for him. Understandable. He doesn’t get the net. But Travis Burns, the Tastefully Simple HQ Office Live Coordinator, has no excuse. Good press for any MLM or an individual within an MLM is hard to come by.
Wake up MLM. When someone says nice things about your product on a blog, thank them, put them on your Christmas card list, send them some samples and for goodness sake, take the free press!
MLM Business Opportunities Blog | Carol Anderson by Invitation - CAbi Clothing on November 3rd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
[...] Update 11/3/05: A portion of this post was removed because MLM Hates Good Press. [...]
MLM Blog on November 3rd, 2005 at 12:27 pm
MLM Hates Good Press
MLM Business Opportunities: A few weeks ago, I wrote about a guy that was trying to apply an honest approach to MLM. The gentleman responded to the post with a comment, asking me why I didn’t link to his web
Mary on December 17th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
great post. Sounds like Travis is a control freak.
Suse on March 10th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
That story really amazes me! Indep. Consultants spend alot of time and money marketing themselves and their product and to have their home office make a statement like this?………I understand corporate branding and other issues, however….An endorsement like this? This is what all indep. consultants pray for!
Kelly on April 17th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Although I agree that publicity is nice… as a fellow TS consultant, I want a level playing field when it comes to potential customers, online orders, etc. TS has a “consultant locator” where you can type in your zip and find a consultant in your area. Also, TS has a “name and image” to uphold. What if I put out a horrible site that people thought was the TS home page? Image is everything - as is equal opportunities for consultants. Thanks for the time.
Brenda Clarkson on April 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Just came across this post after doing a search and it caught my eye. I would have to agree with “Kelly”. I’m so glad she posted because there are always 2 sides to every story. You seem to have bashed TS and don’t really know if Travis ever replied again. Who’s to said that reply was never posted from 2 years ago. I also read earlier that Usborne books are very supportive of their consultants. TS is also VERY supportive of consultants and too also provide a great consultant forum so we all can stay connected and support one another. I’ve been with numerous home-based companies before and TS truely is a perfect fit for me! It’s not limited to a hobby or a gender. Everyone eats and it is consumable.
Also, This company is really for the best interest of their consultants. Even though Travis just mentioned it is against policy , “Kelly” mentioned WHY it is a violation. Instead of focusing on this one bad experience look at what else TS has to offer. Have an open mind and look at all the reat things this company has done of the community and it’s consultants. There has to be some reason we were inducted into the Inc 500 Hall of Fame of fastest privately growing companies . Also, have you seen the May edition of O on the newstands now!!!
Thanks for listening.