Well, I finally signed up and became an independent consultant for Arbonne last night! Isn’t that exciting.
I know I mentioned joining forever ago - you can find the post here, but it took me a while because my upline said that it was easier to have someone with you the first time you placed an order so you could see all of the cool offers you were eligible for.
I really like that I feel like I’m not alone in this, and even though I’ve told everyone I’m not going to really go out and try to find people to join, they are still willing to help me, and train me.
Of course if someone finds me and wanst to join I wouldn’t mind taking the time to sponsor them - it’s just very time consuming and frustrating trying to find people who are willing to join a direct sales business…of course if I keep hinting at the fact that people in ND can join without paying anything…we’ll see.
If you have any questions about Arbonne, or if you’d like to place an order leave a comment, pm me on the forums , or email me at mystical.beauty at yahoo.com, and I’ll send you my consultant ID.
I know there are a lot of people who haven’t heard of Arbonne, or aren’t to familiar with it (like my mom, or my mother-in-law before the Arbonne meeting) so in a nutshell it’s a direct sales business, which sells botanically based skincare. The line was developed in Switzerland in 1975, and brought to the US in 1980. Rumor has it they will be expanding to Canada soon.
Oh yeah - they also sell makeup! What fun!
September 2nd, 2006 - 2:18 pm
Congratulations!!! Best of luck to you!
September 10th, 2006 - 5:42 pm
How much was your initial investment?
September 12th, 2006 - 11:32 pm
I joined Arbonne this month too and so far I really enjoy it. The support and Arbonne University is fab!
September 13th, 2006 - 5:48 pm
Hi Michelle, my initial investment was 29.99 for the kit, plus $5.00 shipping and handlng.
I know in ND it’s illegal to pay to join direct sales company, so you could join for free.
I emailed you and answered the questions you asked in your email, did you get it?
September 13th, 2006 - 5:55 pm
Hi Julie, I’m glad you are enjoying Arbonne! I hope you have a very successful business.
September 19th, 2006 - 11:53 am
Thanks!
January 27th, 2007 - 2:11 pm
I guess it’s about time to tell you that I’ve given up on Arbonne. After repeatedly asking my sponsor to send me the company emails, I was told by her that she didn’t send that information to wholesale buyers.
Because I did not purchase 4-6 RE-9 kits to pass around and let people try for a week (in case you’re wondering this practice is allowed by Arbonne, but is not considered to be the best practice) she wouldn’t send me company emails anymore.
I am not willing to try to bring people into a business when I know that I can’t give them all of the information they will need to run the business successfully, because I don’t have it. Even though the company does offer training materials, and some consultants run their business with no information from their sponsors, I’m not willing to do that…
If I am going to run a business I want all of the information I can get about it, especially when the information is about how to comply with company policies. After all if we don’t comply with the policies, then Arbonne can close our business down.
I emailed Arbonne about the situation a month ago, right after it happened, and asked for clarification about their policies and procedures, and asked if I could have someone email the information since my sponsor was not sending them to me, since I hadn’t purchased the kits.
I still have not recieved a response from the company.
After 2 weeks I called the 1-800 number provided for the company, and was told that only the Vice Presidents were supposed to get the emails from the company, and if my VP and my sponsor didn’t want to give me that information, there was nothing they can do. The person I spoke with on my phone did call the VP, who called me, and talked to me, and had me put on my sponsor’s sponsor’s email list.
Since this person is also a member of the 4-6 kit regime, now I know I’m not going to find out anything different from her - after all in the last training meeting I went to when she was present she was bragging about how she had a relative who wanted to sign up and buy one cream, but she and her sister wouldn’t let her off the phone until she’dsigned up and bought 4 kits - at a cost of $266 per kit (minus the 35% consultant discount) that’s a bit of a jump from the $72 cream she wanted originally.
I do have to add that the VP recommended 4-10 kits instead of the 4-6 kits I was told about originally! Wow!
Anyways, the second person has taken me off of her email list, so I guess I’m done.
I haven’t bought any new Arbonne stuff since I was removed from my sponsor’s list originally. It’s a good thing she did it when she did, because I was planning on buying a website from the company, and I’d already started promoting it to my friends and family.
I should add that Arbonne doesn’t have a minimum amount of products you have to purchase to remain a consultant, but you do have to purchase $100 worth of products per month to recieve your commissionts.
As it was I spent Christmas telling everyone that I if they were still interested they could sign up, but I’d been removed from their mailing list because I hadn’t purchased the kits…when I explained why they wanted me to purchase kits (to pass them out and let everyone try the kit for a week in their home, then pass that kit to someone else to try) I heard a universal “gross.”
I guess I’m not the only one that doesn’t want to use stuff that’s been in several other people’s bathrooms for a week at a time.
After all those stories you hear about “I put Nair in my boyfriend’s shampoo,” I’d be a little bit worried about what had been done to it.
So that’s the story. I do have the email address of a person in compliance, so I might try to email him, just to get a final answer, but I’m not sure yet.
After all, I’m sick of wasting my time on the company.
I’ve already removed all references that I’ve made promoting the products (I think), but I figured I’d leave this up here and let you know what’s going on since I know people are searching for the information.
4/1/2007 Update
I still haven’t heard anything back from the email complaint I sent to Arbonne. I sent it through their email system, and I got a confirmation, so I guess they just don’t care.
That’s pretty sad. I hate to think that the same people are out their, brining people in, then refusing to train them if they don’t spend enough money. I did place orders, and I did order catalogs and other startup supplies, so it’s not like I didn’t order anything…but my sponsor didn’t get commission on the stuff I ordered, so she obviously didn’t want to waste her time on me since I wasn’t making her any money.
That’s life I guess.
There will always be unethical people in a business, but it’s up to the business to decide what they want to do about it.
In this case it looks like Arbonne doesn’t care.
March 31st, 2007 - 11:41 am
that STINKS! You were legitimately interested in the biz aspect of it and you were shunned. That’s is unethical. In Arbonne University, they make it VERY clear that the only startup cost involved in the biz is the $29. That’s it. Anything above that is not correct and the word “investment” thrown so loosely around is completely against the policy (check modules). Sounds like your upline is not schooled in Arbonne. And it is also the responsibility of your sponsor to hep you get into activity which does NOT include buying start-up kits.
I am sorry this happened to you.
July 27th, 2007 - 5:35 pm
Hold your horses, they finally responded to my complaint today (7/27/007) that I made December 29, 2006, and said they will investigate.
That’s a bit of an email backlog.
July 31st, 2007 - 4:45 pm
Well, I got an email saying that Arbonne was through investigating, but they couldn’t tell me anything about it due to their confidentiality policy.
Considering that it took them 7 months to respond to the email, I think the 4 day turnaround, which included a weekend was pretty fast.
I really doubt that they did anything to her.