Young Living MLM Review

Young Living MLM Review - LogoIn this Young Living MLM Review I reveal the details of this MLM program and let you know if it will be worth the effort of your time for the money you can make as a distributor. So, let’s dive straight into it!

OVERVIEW

The Young Living Firm has been manufacturing essential oils from their own farms since 1994. They sell these Essential Oils and Accessories to many parts of the world via their distributors world wide. They have had a lot of controversy over the years regarding product ingredients and have had numerous complaints. But, more about this later. Young Living was started in 1993 and has been around for 26 years so far. The area that the company serves is international. But, its Headquarters is based in Lehi, Utah, United States.

  • Product Name: Young Living
  • Website: www.youngliving.com
  • Product Type: Multi-Level-Marketing
  • Price: $100
  • Founder: Donald Gary Young
  • Rating: 2.55/5
  • Verdict: Not Recommended

What is Young Living MLM?

Young Living is a Multi Level Marketing company related to Wellness Manufacturing and Distribution. They provide essential oils and also have a range of related products including accessories.

How Does the Young Living Program Work?

Just like any other MLM, you are rewarded with discounted products which you can sell at retail to your customer base or for you to use personally. But, if you are looking for more then you can build a network business. You do this by recruiting sellers who become your downline for which you will be rewarded when the product is sold through this downline network. Be aware, it is hard to earn a living this way as you have to know a lot of people to maintain and build your downline numbers. You will also need to learn ‘sales persuasion techniques’ for yourself and your network to ensure success.Young Living MLM Review - Essential Oils

Beyond product rewards and commission, if you are looking to earn a living doing this, then be prepared to…

  • have the time to build the business
  • be away from home and your family recruiting, building your network and supporting downline
  • pay for essential business costs i.e. petrol, admin costs, babysitters etc
  • pay a lot of money to make money
  • train to sell if selling is not your thing

Can You Make Money With the Young Living MLM Program?

The Young Living company has put this Compensation Plan together and makes a claim that ‘it is designed to help you achieve abundance’.

Build Your First Blog Before Your Coffee is Brewed!

Learn How to Start Your Own Fun Blog using My 4 Step Formula

It’s worthy to note here that MLM networks are often referred to as a Pyramid Schemes which are often illegal and unsustainable. Unsustainable meaning that you run out of people to recruit to the pyramid. More about how this affects Young Living to come.

Having everyone achieve abundance in your network from you and all the members in your downline, is near impossible without determination, dedication, focus and a plan from every member. Supporting someone who does not come with these traits can be very taxing on your time and energy. So don’t expect that everyone in your network is going to achieve abundance.

Are the Young Living Essential Oils worth the price?

While Young Living is known for it’s Essential Oil offerings, the product line is exstensive. But, the items are overpriced making it harder to sell. It’s also possible to find similar products at lower prices.Young Living MLM Review - product list

The Young Living Compensation Plan

To give you a bit of an insight into the Young Living Compensation plan let’s look at ‘volume’ to start with. Here is an example of ‘volume’ in this context.

  • PV or Personal Volume – is the total monthly volume of your own personal orders. Required each month to qualify
  • OGV or Organisation Group Volume – is the monthly volume of your entire network.
  • PGV or Personal Group Volume – The monthly volume in an organisation, excluding any Silver or higher rank volume and any qualifying leg(s) volume.
  • Leg is each person recruited and sponsored by you – is considered level 1 and a separate leg within your network.
    Young Living MLM Review - Members Qualifications Chart

The point is there needs to be a certain amount of volume to qualify and get paid. This volume is expected each month. You have to spend money yourself to achieve this volume each month. Hmmm… not the best idea on the planet.

Retail Profit – The benefits of Retail Profit is being rewarded with wholesale pricing which can save you up to 24% off retail prices.

Unilevel Commission – Recruitment commission or Unilevel Commission is paid to you for any product purchased by a Young Living Member personally recruited by you. However you must qualify first by generating a Personal Volume or PV of 100 points in the same month.  Making money with any MLM requires a great deal of time especially the recruiting side of it. It also requires you to spend money each month to qualify for rewards and commissions.

What Is A Young Living Member Rank?

A Young Living Member is ranked on the size of one’s ‘Volume’. The more volume the higher the ranking. There are 10 rankings in total. When you start out you are ranked a Distributor, followed by Star and all the way up to Royal Crown Diamond.

Young Living MLM Review - Young Living Member Rank

Young Living Income Disclosure Statement 2018

Please note that the following Income Disclosure Statement is in relation to active US Young Living Members only.

A red-flag indication is that most members are at the Distributor level, a whopping 88.8% to be exact. On average they are earning a measly $4 a year. Another red-flag indicator is that it takes years to earn a decent living which is still pretty low at the Gold average level of $47,253 for example, and for all the effort it takes to get there – over 4 years.

Young Living MLM Review - Young Living Member Annual Incomes

The upside though is that it is possible to achieve the higher rankings with money, time and effort and some luck on your side.

Pros of a Young Living Membership

  • Support is given to you from your upline and the distributor who recruited you.
  • Commission and Incentive based
  • Rewards and bonuses

Young Living Membership Cons

  • Required to pay monthly to qualify for payment
  • Minimum PV is required – as with most MLMs you are required to achieve a minimum Personal Volume to qualify as an active Young Living Member
  • Too many complaints and lawsuit
  • Products are overpriced
  • Lack of crucial training
  • Lack of crucial support from the top

Escape the MLM Rat Race

Network marketers are shifting from MLM to Affiliate Marketing.
See the platform that they’re switching to.

Why it’s hard to Make Money with Young Living

MLM, or Network Marketing is focused on the mass promotion and selling of products rather than helping individuals to have abundance and financcruiial freedom using their model.

Young Living relies on a team of distributors (its members) to promote and sell their products, but lack the crucial support and training, relying too much on it’s own members to personally supervise newer members. This is reflected in their Income Disclosure Statement.

According to some, members of MLM have been encouraged to ‘aggressively” recruit new members and to encourage their recruits to do the same. For most Young Living members this might be an approach that goes against their own standards and/or beyond their own ‘sales persuasion’ skills.

Because supervision of a new recruitment is left to the upline or the one doing the recruiting, there is a tendency to remove responsibility from the Company or Firm to provide crucial support and training to its members.

Young Living MLM Lawsuits & Complaints

The Better Business Bureau or BBB has listed 83 complaints in total to date. Twenty of these complaints were closed in the last 12 months. Not the best track record for sure. Most of the complaints had to do with problems related to Product and Service.

Class Action Complaint against Young Living

On 4 12 2019 a Class Action Complaint was filed against Young Living and the plaintiff is Julie O’Shaughnessy – a screenshot of the first page of the Court document follows.Young Living MLM Review - Class Action Complaint

The nature of the complaint involves Julie Shaughnessy accusing Young Living of operating as an illegal pyramid scheme. She claims that the true intent of Young Living is to falsely represent to its members that their efforts will result in spiritual and material riches as long as they continue to solicit additional recruits to become Members of the Young Living family. Albeit, while requiring monthly payments from members.

Julie also points out that based on Young Living’s own public disclosures at the time of this Class Action Complaint, 94% of total members earn an average of $1 per month in sales commissions, and more than half of those who joined in 2016 alone made no commissions at all. Worse still, these same Members were nevertheless required to spend hundreds of dollars on Young Living products to remain active members.

This probably is a good reason to be cautious about the MLM model. As while percentages and dollar amounts might change for each MLM Program, the model itself is flawed and exclusive in the sense that just 1% of members are likely to have the success that Young Living in this case is suggesting to its members.

Is the Young Living Opportunity an Illegal Pyramid Scheme?

The Young Living Opportunity is an MLM and although they might look like, feel like and act like a Pyramid Scheme they are not operating illegally. Amway is one of the world’s most well known MLM Companies. And after a 4 year battle in court, Amway was cleared of operating illegally as a pyramid scheme and was found instead to be offering a legitimate business opportunity.

My Final Thoughts

Many millions of people in the world will have a connection to a MLM company one way or another either directly or indirectly – whether that be with a MLM product, or with the MLM business opportunity itself.

But, thanks to the internet, there are so many opportunities now that weren’t around even 15 years ago. Better opportunities that costs way less in time and money.

An Alternative to MLM?

You don’t have to be limited by Multi Level Marketing when it comes to making money choices, especially when you can literally work straight from your computer and without leaving the house. However, you do have to have the right tools and know-how to make it work.

So, here’s a comparison between Young Living MLM and Wealthy Affiliate, a purpose built platform for affiliate marketing. Both promote and sell products, one relies on recruiting, the other doesn’t, and they differ in the tools, support and training they each provide.

Escape the MLM Rat Race

Network marketers are shifting from MLM to Affiliate Marketing.
See the platform that they’re switching to.

Build Your First Blog Before Your Coffee is Brewed!

Learn How to Start Your Own Fun Blog using My 4 Step Formula

Rina Walker

Rina Walker - Founder of EarningOnline.come

I am Rina Walker the founder of Earning Online and have been running a successful affiliate marketing website and blogging about earning online opportunites since November 2016. The niches that I am involved in include Wealth Creation, Permaculture, Action Cameras and Social Enterprise - all of which I have a great interest in.

I'm also involved in helping, supporting and coaching online entrepreneurs of all levels to build and run their own successful web-based affiliate business.

8 thoughts on “Young Living MLM Review”

  1. I have always thought it hard to make any money from MLM models, how many people would you have to recruit to make it to say platinum level? is the time spent and money spent compensated back through earnings once you reach this level?

    I have long thought that MLM is a type of pyramid scheme and Julie Shaughnessy lawsuit strengthens my feelings on this. 

    I have heard of Affiliate marketing but do not know a lot about it, is this not just another type of too good to be true selling tool?

    Reply
    • Hi Darren

      Thanks for your comments and questions.

      To answer your first question – It takes a lot of effort from your downline i.e. all who have been recruited under you as a result of your recruiting efforts and are part of your network. 

      Each member must qualify and remain active each month and this doesn’t really happen especially as your network grows. Some members will just buy product for themselves at wholesale, some will try to build the business and then slow down as money and resources start to dwindle. According to the Young Living income disclosure statemement 2018 less than 1% will even reach Platinum. So, out of 100 people in the network less than 1 will reach Platinum.

      If you are the lucky one who does make it to Platinum, you would have to weigh up just how much you have spent in time and money to get there and weight this against what you are making – according to the IDS again, your annual income would be anywhere between 35k to 990k and it would take somewhere between 9 and 193 months (16 years).

      There is a tendency to overhype the opportunity but the figures don’t lie. For most people, this opportunity is too good to be true and maybe they need an opportunity that’s time and money friendly like my #1 recommendation 🙂

      Reply
  2. Thanks, Rina, for another very comprehensive review.   Over the years my wife and I have attempted to make a little extra money by being involved in different MLM programs.   Unfortunately, when we first began our search there was no way we could have “Googled” the pros and cons to get an honest assessment of these programs.   We have spent countless hours and way too much money on schemes while considered legal had no real benefit.   Just recently my daughter – now a mother of two became involved in yet another program that promised the world, but in the end, absolutely failed to deliver. 

    I found your review refreshing in the fact that you provide both the positives and the negatives of Young Living.   I am very concerned about the number of BBB complaints they have received and as you pointed out 88.8% of their members were only at the basic Distributor level.  This sounds very familiar to what my wife and I have experienced before.    Despite all of this we are still looking for a real opportunity to earn a little extra money.    Is there any hope for a program that actually works?

    Reply
    • Hi Steve! 

      Thanks for your comments and question! 

      It’s pretty obvious that MLM has it’s flaws and the model is probably outdated and past it use by date. 

      The internet has opened the door to homebased business and laptop lifestyles and I recommend you check out opportunites such as affiliate marketing. In comparison to the MLM option, affiliate marketing is hands down the better option, because it’s mobile if you want it to be, or you can stay put if you’re the stay-at-home type, its low cost and even free to get started – no buying products in or trying to qualify to get paid. 

      Have you checked out my #1 recommendation yet? Because that’s the way to go! 

      Reply
  3. Hi there thanks for the information. From what it seems, this MLM platform is not advisable for anyone to engage in as it is rather too costly to startup, stressful and time consuming. It’s just like wasting all efforts to arrive at nothing. I’m still curious, is it truly a legal pyramid scheme or another way of money looting?

    Reply
    • Hiya Philebur!

      Thanks for your comments and question! I understand that it feels and looks like a pyramid scheme but that is not the case at least from a current legal standing. For some, Young Living gives the impression that it is more interested in the money so you are right to ask the question. 

      Perhaps someone from Young Living is able to respond to this and give another perspective though?

      Reply
  4. For every buisness model there is a thresshold that guides all the promotion and I can see that Young Life MLM has more that 6 ranks with minimum and average to maxed out earning…I just have one question what is the requirement to get promoted? Is it refferal based or sales based…thanks a lot for sharing.

    Reply
    • Hiya David! 

      Great to have your comments and questions. Great questions they are too! MLM can definitely be confusing for sure but hopefully it will be clearer to you once you’ve read the following.

      There are two ways to create earnings with Young Living, and you already mentioned both, that is from sales and recruiting or referals as you mentioned. 

      The more you recruit the more likely you are to go up another level or rank. Also, as long as you qualify, you will earn as a result of all those you have recruited and who are part of your network, and who have qualified. 

      I hope this explains it for you David. Honestly though, there are far better ways to earn a living and if you check out my #1 recommendtion you will see why. 

      Reply

Leave a Comment