This week we’re continuing the conversation revolving around the controversy of the LulaRich documentary. Kristen is focusing on the glorification of hustle culture and how we, as network marketers, play a part in either perpetuating or eliminating hustle in not only our own lives but in the entirety of the industry.
And while that might sound like a tall order, remember one thing: Kristen is working to change the face of the industry. This benefits all of us, from the very top earner to the newest recruits. Building a sustainable business model we can all be proud of is the true end goal.
So follow along as we wrap up the LulaRich series with these topics:
- The TRUE cost of succumbing to the hustle
- Why LuLaRoe’s trademark recruitment motto of “Full-time pay. Part-time Work” started an avalanche of unmet expectations and a mass exodus from the company
- The importance of transparent messaging and why doing so can lead to an increase in retention
- How slowing down to grow, and taking time to put your systems in place may be the antidote to hustle
- Why it’s important to remember that the effort to pay ratio changes as you move through your business, and how residual income is an end goal
LuLaRoe’s messaging was right about one thing. There is no amount of success that will compensate for failure at home. When we allow hustle culture to take hold, it doesn’t just affect your business. It affects your entire life. Most of you joined the industry to create a life you love and a business you can be proud of. That’s why you must work with integrity and purpose while throwing hustle to the wayside.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
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Transcript for Episode #71: The LuLa Doc: Boss to Burnout Part Two Cost of Hustle
Kristen Boss (00:00): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business. In today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way.
Kristen Boss (00:49): Hey bosses, welcome back to another week of the podcast. Today, we are bringing to you part two of the two-part episode, where I am covering and discussing the valuable lessons to take away from the LulaRich documentary and what we need to learn from it and what we can do better. I hope you loved last week’s episode. This week, we are wrapping it up with a powerful lesson that we all can learn. And it really goes back to my philosophy as a coach and why I do what I do. This week, we’re going to talk about the cost of hustle.
Kristen Boss (01:29): But I really want to talk about what I was seeing with the reps and what was happening on the front end of the business. So they have their mantra like strengthening families and bringing help. There is there’s honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that mantra and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to help women be home with their families and financially contribute to the home. Like most women do want that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So, but what I noticed is, as I was watching the interviews with these women is like, this is at the same time. Remember LuLaRoe’s exploding. It’s in 2015, 2017, actually a little earlier than that. 2014, 2017. This is also when the social media landscape is exploding. This is also when the boss, babe hustle culture is also exploding. Why? Because we’re seeing more and more women step into owning businesses online.
Kristen Boss (02:24): And that’s when like the hashtag boss babe, I think just absolutely exploded. And it was like, everyone got drunk on the vision. They’d just got so high on it, which is great because we want women to feel empowered. We want them to feel like they can go out and do anything. However, I saw a couple of things that really kind of surprised me as a coach, but then also I’m like, but I’m not surprised because I talk about this very thing. This is why I teach sustainable habits, sustainable business. This is why I teach people to work their business this way so that they don’t end up, you know exactly where these women are interviewing on this documentary. So these women, they join because they’re like, I want to be more present with my families. I want to be, you know, really focused on my children.
Kristen Boss (03:13): I want to bring you know, bring money home. And they, these women started to see a lot of success. And what I thought was interesting was what they were told and all their little signage. It says, you know, full-time pay with part-time work. And I do think that can be very misleading because when we, that is the end goal, that is the, like I’ve talked about the phases of growth, how residual income is, is the final phase of your network marketing career. That’s when, like you put in a lot of work and at the very end you have, you can expend minimal effort, minimal energy for maximum pay. But in the beginning, it’s actually quite different. You actually have to put in more work. And eventually, you know, at the beginning, it’s like almost, yeah, part-time work. Actually. I think the more accurate same would have been part-time work, part-time pay.
Kristen Boss (04:08): And then if you want full-time work, you’re going to have, you’re going to have to do if you want, full-time pay, you’re going to have to do full-time work. Anybody who’s telling you something different is not being fully honest with you. I don’t actually think that’s ethical marketing. Now, can it be down the road? A hundred percent, absolutely many of my clients, they now work part-time and they make more than full-time income, but that is not how it starts. So you have these women saying, I want to provide, I want to do this. This is exciting. I want to contribute to my home. I want to be present with my children, check, check. Great. And then they see, oh, full-time pay for only part-time work. And what that does is that sets up a certain expectation that I’m going to make a certain amount of money for less work.
Kristen Boss (05:03): And anybody who’s selling you something that sounds too easy. It’s probably because it’s sleazy. Just like, just notice that. And also just notice, are you being honest in your own marketing? Are you telling people like, Hey, you’re going to have to put in some work, you’re going to have to treat this like a career? You’re gonna have to treat this like a job. And we have a saying in the industry, you work it like a hobby, you get paid like a hobby. And you know what? Some people joined this business because they only want hobby pay. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with someone who wants to join this business and just close the gap by $300 in their finances every month, you can totally do that without it feeling like a full-time job, you can do that. Part-Time. So I saw these women kind of jump and go all in and they borrowed money.
Kristen Boss (05:50): They took out loans, they sold breast milk. They did whatever they could because they were that bought into the vision. And I, that kind of grit. I thought these women were truly admirable. What broke my heart as a coach is when I saw them start to buy into the hustle culture message and to quote them, they said, and I got to pull up my note here because I was like, you know what? This is, this is totally the stereotype of hustle. But they said I did this to spend time with my family to spend time with my kids. And it slowly started to feel like I had to choose one or the other. If I wanted success in my business, I had to stop choosing my family. And many of them did that and I saw my heart was broken because now these women are speaking three, four years later, and their faces are full of regret because while the mantra was sold, we’re doing this for your family.
Kristen Boss (06:54): And family comes first. Family actually ended up becoming the sacrifice. And this isn’t just a, you know, a single company problem. This is what I see happening in the industry collectively is that people join for their families, but they end up sacrificing their families in the name of hustle and grinding and put your nose to the ground and just work as hard as you possibly can. And then eventually once you get there, then you can look up and then you can enjoy the reward. And actually one of the gals that they earned that they interviewed, who was the top earner. She said, you know, I worked so hard. I did this to be with my family. And she, this is what she said, direct quote. She said I feel like I had failed to accomplish with the whole point was, which was to strengthen my family.
Kristen Boss (07:40): If I was, I felt as if I was to be committed, I had to choose one or the other, not both. I had a bunch of financial rewards and the rewards that I can talk about the rewards I used. I had, I used to justify being away from my kids. And she said, and she said, she regretted it only because listen because she worked herself to the bone, there was another woman, same woman. She actually, her name was Courtney and she was in corporate and she’s like, I just want it to match my corporate income and stay with my kids. But she started buying into the lie that you have to work harder, work longer than everybody else, and look more successful than everybody. And there was just some rhetoric. I think that was passed by the, you know, by the founder. And I don’t want to get too much into that because I think we can collectively buy into the lie that, you know, more is better.
Kristen Boss (08:43): I’ll feel better. This is the cure-all. And anytime we pin our hopes and dreams and make anything like the answer to all of our problems we kind of create trouble for ourselves. And so what ended up happening is this gal, Courtney, she, she was doing well on her business. She was just crushing it. And she worked really, really hard. And here was what I saw happen. She talked about one month, she hit a massive, massive bonus in her business. And she went out and she decided to go buy two luxury cars with that bonus cash. And when I saw that everything was immune, he said, no, no. Why would you do that? I’m like put it, put it in savings, put, put that money aside, have a tax strategy. Like, but she just went out and she said, I just, every dime that came in, I spent it all because I thought I had to live a lifestyle.
Kristen Boss (09:40): My life had to look flashy because flashy is what would sell this business model. And I see this happening a lot. And she even said she was maxing out her credit cards and she just kept going into debt. And it shows her a quick clip of her on a zoom call saying, you know, I felt like I deserved a Louis Vuitton. So I went out and bought one because I deserve it. And I work hard and I just saw the rhetoric of hustle there. And Hey, listen, I’ve got nothing against you. Treating yourself when you have earned a hard one bonus and you want to like do a little splurge. I get that. But if it’s smart, not in a way that’s blowing all your money. And, and now what happened was because she kept maxing her credit cards and spending every dime she made.
Kristen Boss (10:27): She then started to feel indebted towards her business. Now our business had to produce an order to pay off her debts that she created and her business had to produce to keep up with her lifestyle that she moved into too quickly. So she, that was like, and I see she’s not alone in this. She, I felt like she was a lesson, such a valuable lesson. I was like, oh my gosh, she’s not the only one we have to talk about this, this idea that you feel like you have to tell this lifestyle and and exhaust yourself and go into debt to tell a lifestyle in order to sell people into it. And that is, that is what is harmful. That is what causes harm to yourself and to others. And, you know, she said eventually she had depression and anxiety. She felt like her job wasn’t even a choice anymore.
Kristen Boss (11:20): This is the cost of hustle every single time when, and it was shocking because it showed a before picture of her like it showed a picture of her when she was actively working her business and the woman on camera. I mean, she’s, she’s still a beautiful and lovely woman, no matter what, but she looked like she had aged 10 years. She, she looked like she had lived three different lives since then, because the stress was insurmountable on her because she kept buying into, if more will be better, I’ll just keep spending money and making money. I’m just going to hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. She bought into the hustle culture. And I really believe that it exploded in those years, the same time the company exploded hustle, culture exploded too. So you have all these women, they’re like, I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing this to be with my kids.
Kristen Boss (12:17): And then these same women later in the interview said, yeah, but I gave up my relationship with my kids. Yeah. But those are the very things that suffered. And I stopped seeing them and I felt guilt and I thought was, so what was so fascinating was like these women, they, you could just see, like I said, you could just see regret written all over their faces. And it was absolutely heartbreaking for me to watch as a coach because I’m like, it didn’t have to be that way. It did not, they did not have to sacrifice their families. They didn’t have to sacrifice their sleep and their health and their wellbeing and their emotions all for, for the sake of, you know, glorifying and chasing the hustle and the bigger paycheck. And so this is the lesson. This is one of the big lessons that I was like, I have to talk about this.
Kristen Boss (13:06): This is why I teach a sustainable approach. This is why I say to be so straightforward and honest in your marketing and tell people like, Hey, you can totally do this and part-time hours and make a part-time paycheck. But if you are telling people that they’re going to make millions of dollars overnight in part-time hours at the beginning, you are not selling the full truth. That is misleading. We have to talk about that. And I was so sad when one of the people that they interviewed at the end, who was, who was in corporate, you know, it was, it was the husband mark. He said, you know, if you’re misled, that’s on, you know, if we mislead people, it’s on us, it’s on me. We have to own that. So what happened was this. So that’s what I saw happen on the distributor letter level for the reps.
Kristen Boss (14:01): And several of them ended up talking about like, they ended up getting divorces. Their marriages were a mess. They missed years of their lives with their kids, all for just chasing, chasing, chasing, and what they were left with was exhaustion and stress and regret. That is always the cost of hustle. You don’t get to get out, get out of jail free card. When you hustle. There’s always a cost. This is why I say to work purposefully and work with intention and work with integrity. And so what happened was on the corporate level because they did not slow down and work on their systems and work on the backend of their business, really implementing just basic things like software. And they even burned out their designer. Their designer was pressured to come up with a hundred prints a day. And she eventually, she burned out.
Kristen Boss (15:01): She’s like I got so burned out. And so, because they didn’t slow down and create infrastructure, what happened was everything started to suffer on the front end of the business. Suddenly the quality of the product suffered the quality of customer service to the customers also suffered because what they said was every facet of their business was completely under massive amounts of pressure and on the brink of implosion. And it was in what I saw was like, that is a posture of scarcity. If you refuse to slow down and create healthy systems and make sure that things are healthy on the back end of the business, it’s always because you’re afraid of losing money on the front end. No, no. I got to strike while the iron’s hot. I got to just keep going walk while I can. And, but that mentality of refusing to slow down, always able to always catch up with you.
Kristen Boss (15:56): And it always catches up with the customer experience and the quality of service and, and the fulfillment on what you sell. What was happening was there was a posture of sell, sell, sell, sell from the corporate side without thinking of like, how can we make sure we’re fulfilling the orders? And we are fulfilling good customer service, and we are doing everything we can to have a great infrastructure on the backend. And so everything imploded, the quality of the leggings are to fall apart. The customer service fell apart and the distributors in the field were unhappy and the investigation was about how their compensation was structured. And just a couple of other things that happened there. They have since changed their compensation to be fair and equitable and to actually meet with the federal court and laws that govern the network marketing industry. Like listen, the network marketing industry is a regulated industry.
Kristen Boss (16:58): There are, there are rules in place to make sure that people can make money safely and without harm to others. That’s why that’s in place. And so, yeah, corrections got made over there and I’m, I’m, I’m glad for them. That’s good. I hope they’ve learned their lesson, but we have to ask here, what’s our lesson. What is going on here? The lesson was everyone bought into something. It started good. It started good. And that’s most of us it’s most of you, you joined saying, I want to do this. I want to be home with my children. I want to make money from home. Good, good, good. All a hundred percent possible. But somewhere along the line, you lose sight of that. And you get caught up in the hustle. You get caught up in more and faster and faster and faster at the we’re going to do this at the micro level, at the cost of your family and your health and your emotions and, and your relationships and your quality of life.
Kristen Boss (18:00): It’s so fascinating. I literally see people trash, their quality of life, and their pursuit of a better life that’s done here. The irony is that like they literally destroy the quality of their present life and their pursuit of a better life so that they only experienced misery. This is what hustle does. And then it creates burnout and resentment. And the look on those women’s faces. I hope one day I can meet them and hug them and say, I’m so sorry you bought into not this isn’t it wasn’t a network marketing problem. It is a hustle culture problem. And it literally made me so sad to watch these women throw away their lives. They didn’t know how to work sustainably. They didn’t know how to slow down and work strategically and have systems in place and work from a place of health and joy and purpose and intention.
Kristen Boss (19:00): Why? Because they didn’t see the owners of the company exemplify that either the entire culture, the entire strategy was just further and as fast as you can. And what happened was quality. It’s interesting. What you saw at the corporate level was like, let’s just do everything as quickly as possible. It doesn’t matter about the backend and the quality of the leggings fell apart. You are no different. If you keep going with yourself and you say, well, I’m just going to keep going and going and going, and I don’t need a rest and I don’t need a break. You’re going to fall apart. Just like those leggings are, you’re going to melt and be torn and be shredded and be exhausted because you refuse to slow down and work with intention and work with strategic growth. Instead of this desperate, I have to get there faster than everybody.
Kristen Boss (19:45): And I’m scared. And I’m worried, that’s the lesson here for us. That is the lesson I saw from the four episodes, you know, and I wouldn’t encourage you to watch it only because when I watched it, I was very much watching it from a place of how can this serve the industry? What is the valuable lessons that we can move forward and do better and serve people better? How can we do this better? What’s the lessons I’m going to extract from this. But I also watched knowing that there was a story being told and the author of the story has a certain lens and the lens of that particular documentary, do I think it was meant to like completely discredit a network marketing. I don’t, I actually think it was focused a lot more on the personality and very poor decisions that the two founders made.
Kristen Boss (20:47): I really think that was the primary focus. Do I think there were guest speakers on there that were definitely against the industry and not for the industry? Absolutely. Do I think the documentary was made to help grow belief in the industry? No, not really. I think it just really wanted to focus on this one particular story because I w I won’t lie. It was absolutely fascinating to watch just watching decision-making happen, watching like the psychology of everything that was going on, but I watched it thinking there has to be a lesson here for all of us. There has to be a lesson where we go forward and we do better, and we serve better. And we’re better because of this. What’s the lesson here. So here’s, here’s how I want to wrap this up, because if you were sitting there and saying, like, I feel like I sacrificed all these things and I’m burnt out, I’m angry, I’m resentful.
Kristen Boss (21:47): Every- it costs me. I feel like the leggings that are about to split, split down the middle, I’m so fried. So stretched. I want to offer you that it’s not the business model. It is not like network marketing that did this to you. It is a story that you might have believed about yourself that threw you into hustle that had you chasing and burning the midnight oil and exhausting yourself. And here’s why, here’s why I saw women doing this and why people do this. They do this because, you know, they want to improve their quality of life. They want freedom. They want choices. They want to be out of debt. And I think all of those things are truly wonderful, but I think we have to, we have to be so careful with our messaging and how we sell, because like I said, if it’s, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Kristen Boss (22:48): If people are promising that you’re going to make a million dollars overnight and caution warning, right? But this is a business for somebody who, who does want to have income options. This is a business for somebody who wants to work this like a business and make money. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and say, yeah, full-time income. Part-Time Work. No, that’s the end game. But at the beginning, you have to be willing to put in the work. And I’m not talking about hustle and exhausting yourself to death. Because what was interesting was that the very end of the series, it closes out with a commentary from DNH. You hear her, like, it must be from a training she did. And the commentary ends with this. She says you get to be the boss. It’s lucrative. Right? She says you get to be the boss.
Kristen Boss (23:44): It’s easy. Just decide you put your whole heart and whole soul and put your head down and decide and work really, really hard for 90 days. And then her voice just keeps trailing off. You know, she’s like, you get, you get to be the boss. It’s easy. Now there are parts of this business that are easy and being the boss, being in charge. Yeah. That is really lucrative. Why? Because we want to be home. We want, we want to be in charge of our own destiny. Destiny. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I find this message of is it’s easy, is a little dangerous. And what was fascinating was, you know, she’s saying it’s easy. And then the next minute she’s, you know, they were talking about and glorifying a particular earner with a giant check on stage. And the person that interviewed her said, you know, you could hear them in the background.
Kristen Boss (24:35): They said, Hey, so how much did that person have to work to make that kind of money? And she responded she’s like, oh shoot. She was putting together 16 parties a week, 16 parties a week for two to three years. If that is, I want to meet that woman, a man, if that, if I could find her, I’d love to interview her because I guarantee you she’s hit burnout on so many levels. So you can’t say it’s easy. While also glorifying somebody who’s working 80 hours, 80 hours a week. Like, I don’t want to glorify that anymore. I’m tired of glorifying. The woman who is literally working herself to death. I’m not about that. Now am I about the woman who wants to work with intention, intention, and purpose, enjoy, and deep service to others and working smart and still spending time with her family.
Kristen Boss (25:38): Yeah. I’m all about that. Here’s the thing hustle culture would have you believe that the only way to reach your dreams is working 80 hours a week is doing 16 parties. A week is sacrificing. Your family is, you know, not putting your kids to bed for the, you know, for a year. They would have you believe that. But my message is, is that is not true. It is simply untrue. Sometimes I joke about turning the academy into hustlers anonymous because so many students that come there are learning to unwire their brains unlearn from the hustle because that was the only way they learned to build the business. They totally burnt out, exhausted themselves and wanted to quit. But now they’re unlearning the hustle and they’re learning to work from a completely different way. And they are seeing results. Their quality of life is improving. Improving their quality of life is improving while they are pursuing a better quality of life. Listen, if your quality of life is suffering in the pursuit of a better quality of life, something’s wrong. Now, I’m not saying you quit. I’m not saying you throw in the towel and say, this doesn’t work for me. I’m saying you need to evaluate, you need to put boundaries in place. You likely needed to have focused work. You need to have family time and rest time and have priorities in place.
Kristen Boss (27:10): I was absolutely heartbroken at the end of the documentary. When one of the women was literally crying on camera. The one though, you know, went out and bought those cars. She had to sell the cars. You know she’s, she’s separated. She’s separated from her husband and she’s declaring bankruptcy from maxing out her credit cards. And she said, you know, it destroyed my life. Now she would say the company destroyed her life. And maybe I, you know, I don’t know enough of her story, but I can say, you know, the lie, the lie of hustle and having to be the perfect image of success and maxing out your credit cards and going out and buying cars before you’re ready and working 80 hours a week, that is what destroyed your life. Believing that that was what was required of you to have success and to have the life you wanted.
Kristen Boss (28:03): That is what destroyed your life. And I’m here to tell you that does not have to be a reality, and it certainly doesn’t have to be your truth. And that is not the only way to have success and results in this business model. The documentary was not a lesson or, you know, a cautionary tale about joining this business model. The documentary was a cautionary tale for believing the lies that hustle tells you for telling you that, you know, yeah, it’s about your family, but you know, if you have to sacrifice your family for a short period of time, then go ahead and do it.
Kristen Boss (28:45): You know, I thought it was interesting and ironic and sad. When one of the quotes I saw from I saw on the documentary that was on one of their pamphlets. It said, you know, there is no amount of success that will ever compensate for failure in the home. And I fully agree with that. But what was happening was so much failure at home was happening because these women were, were going so hard because that’s what they thought they had to do. So please, the lesson for us today, what is the lesson? The lesson is honest, work, honest, pay marketing with integrity, ethical marketing, where you actually tell people like, Hey, you can make great. Part-Time pay doing this business and listen, most people want part-time pay and not over-promising. This is what I saw. There was this massive over-promise. This is everything you get to have.
Kristen Boss (29:46): And then there was this massive, under-deliver both in the product and the reality, like here’s the business. And then, you know, the under-deliver was, the product was falling apart. And then the over-promise with the hustle is like, you get to have this beautiful, glorious, perfect life with everything you ever wanted. And what ended up happening was like, you’re going to, a lot of these women’s stressed credit card debt divorced, separated, unhappy, and miserable. Like it’s the over promise and under deliver. I saw it at the corporate level and at the hustle level, just if it was just the, this was the theme I saw.
Kristen Boss (30:28): So where do you go from here? Where do you go from here? As you learn to work smarter, not harder. You learn to have boundaries. You learn to prioritize family time while also prioritizing time for work. I’m not going to sit here and say, don’t work at all. Just magically come to you. You do have to work hard. Growing a business from home is hard work. Do you have to die doing it? Do you have to like put everything in your life on hold and stop living your life and stop enjoying your life and liking your life? No, no. There’s a better way. This is why I call it purposeful social selling. So funny, my last name is boss, and it just feels funny that like you would think that my, you know, and listen, I hustled like the rest of them, actually in that same period of time, 2016, 2017 was like some of the darkest years of my life because I hustled myself to the brink of exhaustion, to the brink of depression and anxiety.
Kristen Boss (31:29): It was horrible, but I didn’t know any different because that was the only message I heard. This is all it takes for success. And I so wish I wish this is the podcast. I wish I found like I’m giving, I am doing this podcast because it’s a podcast I wished I had listened to five years ago. It’s a podcast I wish I had because I probably would have been less miserable. I probably would’ve figured out, oh my God, I can actually lay down this hustle and work with intention and still see results. Are you crazy? Yes, please. So friends don’t believe the lie work with intention, work with purpose serve well, and let’s elevate the industry, shall we? We’ll catch you next week.
Kristen Boss (32:22): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you loved today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you’re ready to join, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals. In the academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry for a while this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
