Why I Joined and Why I Quit MONAT

It was my first summer married (2018). My husband and I had just moved to San Antonio for his summer job (which also provides the income we live on the rest of the year) and I was terribly alone. I was taking an online class at the time (calculus) and trying to teach myself calculus for hours every day while my husband worked from 9am to 9pm. It was pretty miserable. Due to being alone all day, I ended up spending an unhealthy amount of time on social media. Both scrolling and sharing. But with no real point. It wasn’t fulfilling. I wanted to be contributing in some way. I loved helping people. I was passionate about a lot of things so I didn’t know what direction to go in. And did I mention I was VERY alone? I kind of went through a little identity crisis. That much time alone will make you nuts. Hahaa.  

It was also my first year of marriage and I was going through all sorts of growing pains from that as well. I’ve never been the kind of girl whose plan was to get married and rely on her husband for everything. My plan actually never included a guy. Sure, I had relationships but when I imagined my future all I saw was a powerful CEO - someone self-made and financially stable. Someone who didnt need no man! And now here I was in San Antonio, Texas having followed my husband out here and feeling totally purposeless and a little useless. Trapped, maybe? Idk. I also felt like since he was the one making all the money I had to ask permission to buy things that weren’t necessary. THAT WAS THE WORST. It felt like I was asking my daddy for his credit card and I hated it. I wanted to be contributing financially in some way but couldn’t because of my school workload. He was totally okay with that but I wasn’t. 

I also had just decided I wasn’t going to med or pharm school anymore because I didn’t want to either have kids during school, wait to have kids after school (I’d be like 30), or go to all of that schooling and then not use any of it because I was too busy taking care of kids. I was also knee deep in trying to figure out what my extremely difficult, nearly accomplished bio degree could do for me or what I could do with it. I was a CASE. hahahah. It was probably the middle of the summer when I saw another girl who’s husband worked for the same company as my husband just in a different region posting about this awesome opportunity. She highlighted being able to work from anywhere (umm, who wouldn’t want this?), making money from social media (hello I spent HOURS on that shiz), and these awesome hair products. It sounded like being an influencer of sorts. She also talked about how much money she had been able to make in a super short amount of time. It sounded too good to be true. I continued to watch. She continued to succeed. So I reached out out of curiosity and almost desperation.

On our phone call I learned about the compensation plan, which sounded pretty good. She played into how I already spent a lot of time on social media so why not get paid for it (that definitely spoke to my soul haha). She told me how it was possible for me to make as little or as much money as I wanted depending on how much time I was willing to put in (I’m an all or nothing kind of gal so there were stars in my eyes). She also told me that I would have to purchase a set of the products (rude awakening to the fact that this wasn’t a get sent free product to promote kind of gig) to be able to join the business. That made me hesitant but she let me know that the kit was fully refundable within 30 days if I decided I didn’t like them or the whole thing just wasn’t for me. She told me how easy it had been for her to recruit girls to join her team and get customers because the product basically sold itself. She showed me a couple of the girls in her upline and told me how much they were making. Like 20k-100k a month. I was SHOOK. She went into the science of the product and why it was so good and how her hair was thriving after just a couple washes. Other perks she mentioned was the community and 24/7 support I would get from virtual training to group chats. This was over 2 years ago so things are a little fuzzy but all I know was that once I got off the phone I was SOLD and I didn’t even know the name of the company. I didn’t even realize that little detail til I brought it up to Adam. I needed to discuss it with him because the starter set of products she had suggested I buy was $299 and that’s kind of a commitment for something I had never even tried before but I saw it as an investment and a huge possibility. He didn’t. He called it a scam right off the bat. He shut it down so quickly it made my head spin and my heart sink. He was incredibly unsupportive and skeptical from the beginning. He then asked me if I even knew what the name of the company was and if I had done any research on it. Embarrassed, I told him no. He said I needed to look into it before I jumped into any sort of commitment like that. He was right. So I asked my friend and she told me the company’s name was MONAT.

Instead of going to the company website I googled MONAT and saw some pretty terrifying things. Hair loss, scalp sores, flakes. I brought this up to my friend and asked if the company had addressed these issues publicly yet because they were BAD. She first talked about a “detox” process that MONAT products put your hair through (I ended up going through a couple of these and it sucked. It sucked explaining it to people and talking girls down when it happened to them too.) She said that because the ingredients are all natural, the formula strips the hair and pulls all the impurities to the surface which manifests itself differently in everyone. Some experience more shedding which seems like hair loss but isn’t (a growth phase which I understood due to my bio background), extreme grease that can last for days sometimes weeks, a dry flaking scalp and then some people were just plain allergic. She said most people putting up these reviews didn’t understand the detox and didn’t stick with it long enough to ride it out. The media can blow things way out of proportion and that made sense to me. She also claimed that there were certain people in the beauty industry that had it out for MONAT and had planted bad press. She also sent me a CNN case study where they had done a bunch of testing and had proven that the products were safe and that all of the claims were false. That helped. Lastly, she told me none of her customers had ever experienced anything bad and that her hair was the best it had ever been. I had seen her hair on social media and could tell it looked better. I also didn’t think she would lie to me so I trusted her.

I brought it up to Adam again and he still wasn’t supportive. I told her he wasn’t down and she was nice and understanding about it. I continued to follow her for the next 2 months and watched as she just got more and more successful. I thought to myself, if she could do it then I definitely could. She continued to reach out and it got harder and harder to say no because I really wanted to do it. Finally, I told Adam I really would love it if I had his support but that I was going to do it anyway and SHOW HIM that I could do this. I joined the beginning of September and hit the ground running. 

Before I continue, let me explain real quick how MONAT works.

The main ways you make money with MONAT are 

1. Customers that only buy product through you. They can either buy retail (which is exponentially more expensive) or join the VIP program which has a one-time startup fee of $20 to join but gets the customer a discount, free shipping over orders of $84 or more, and a free product. (This is what we pushed or what I was trained to push because they became recurring customers.) The same 30 day return policy applied to them too. The only catch with the VIP program is that the customer is then signed up for flexships. Kind of like an autoship program but the date the product ships can be altered and continually pushed back. You just have to remember to push it back and not everyone does which makes for angry customers when they get charged $84 or more and when returns aren’t free. You make 30% off of retail customers and 15% off of VIP customers. 

2. Recruiting girls to be on your team. You make a one-time flat rate off of the girl signing up depending on which product pack she choses. But that amount is nothing compared to how much you can make if she does well in the business which brings me to the next way you can make money:

3. Bonuses. Bonuses come with hitting ranks. There are different requirements for hitting each rank but they all involve a goal for your personal sales, a goal for your group sales, and a goal number of active lines beneath you (girls who have brought in at least $200 of personal volume that month). Every time you hit a new rank, you get a bonus. But ONLY when you hit a rank for the first time do you get a bonus check. If you maintain a certain rank month after month then you are only making commissions off of your own personal customers. Once you get to a certain rank, you start making a percentage off of your group sales (revenue brought in by the girls on your team) but that rank is tougher to hit. This is why when people post the average monthly earnings of the MONAT ranks it can be a bit misleading because the income can really fluctuate at each rank. But you really can make a TON of money doing this if you are successful and climb the ranks quickly. 

There are other ways to make money but these are the most basic ways. Side note, I liked that you could be your own boss and work whatever hours you wanted to. I also liked the fact that you could outrank the person that brought you in. They can’t just sit there and do nothing while you’re killing yourself and just rake it in because of you. I thought that was pretty cool and very fair. 

Back to the story: Things didn’t take off for me as quickly as I had hoped (like I didn’t hit my first rank my first week like the girl who recruited me did. I learned she’s a special case.) but I was in it for the long haul and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I think I hit my first rank my second month and then the third rank the month after that. My third month I hit my smart start  bonus and a new rank and I paid our rent and bought groceries for the month with the money. That was definitely my highest high. I had never seen a check that big. But then I got stuck at the fourth rank for months which was extremely discouraging because the real money starts coming in when you hit the fifth rank (MMB) and I was doing everything I could to get there. It was NOT easy and I was spending SOOOOO much time on social media interacting with girls, posting CONSTANTLY, going live, reaching out to people I knew and people I didn’t, listening to trainings, and creating tons of content. I was dedicated. I would even get up from dinner while I was out with Adam or with friends to take calls or jump on calls with my team. I lived and breathed MONAT and Adam never really became supportive of it the way I needed him to be. We definitely got in a few heated arguments and a couple fights over it. That part was really hard. My work with MONAT also started interfering with my focus in school because I was so hungry and desperate to hit these ranks, to be an example to my team, to prove something to Adam that I would be working during lectures and late into the night. It really got to me mentally. It was all I could think about. “What could I be doing better? What more could I be doing for my business, for my girls?” Constantly checking my phone. I had no boundaries for myself and worked around the clock. 

I recruited a fair amount of people. I think I had about 35-40 on my team at one point but I learned quickly that recruiting people doesn’t matter if they don’t work. You couldn’t want it for them or work for them. There was only so much you could do. The problem I found with MONAT’s comp plan was that you could be busting your ass but if the people under you weren’t, you could only get so far. You would hit your cap in the compensation plan and could get stuck at a rank for months and that’s what happened to me. The free car isn’t exactly free either (nothing ever is). You have to hit a certain rank and be making a certain amount of money in order for them to cover it and if you underperform, you have a car payment to make on your own. I know some girls that started even before I did (sept 2018) that just barely hit the rank right below the one that qualifies you for the “free” car and it breaks my heart because I know how hard she works and how hard it is to fail month after month even after so much time and dedication. Good for her for not giving up.

Somewhere in the middle, reaching out started to feel yucky and ingenuine. I mean it was okay, not unbearable. But I didn’t love it. I mean, I really wanted it for everyone. I wanted the girls on my team to succeed. It wasn’t always all about me. I knew this business truly could be a huge blessing for someone because it wasn’t a scam and I had made decent money and there were other girls making a ton of money but I just started feeling like I always had a hidden agenda when I was talking to someone and I hated that. I didn’t like that version of myself. I wanted to be sharing and talking to someone because I liked them and wanted to, not just so I could get them on my team and make money off of them. There were girls that I knew could do really well and I genuinely wanted to help them get there for themselves but on the flip side I also just wanted to be friends with people without the pressure of trying to pitch them. I really hated being that person. I also found myself drawing on my experience that one month where I was able to pay my rent and then some with my income from MONAT when recruiting girls but that was only true for one or two months out of my whole time doing this and using that felt super icky. But I did it anyway. That’s probably why I don’t really trust people who work in MLMs now because their friendship, compliments, and concern feels fake and I know they could be fudging numbers. They might be the kindest person but I know they are spending time on me because it’s going to benefit them most. Otherwise they wouldn’t. I definitely think I’ve developed some trust issues haha. 

Another thing, I was a huge fan of the products, know they work, and still to this day won’t use anything else but I didn’t have my own crazy amazing hair transformation to post about which made it a little harder to reel customers in on social media sometimes. I also don’t have crazy amazing hair so it’s not like people were asking me about it all the time. Thankfully, I was still able to build a lot of value around the products and I was really good at selling them but the price definitely made a lot of girls think twice, which I completely understood because even I thought/think they were a little expensive.  

I lost my spark and ended up burning myself out after 10 months. I was tired of the drama it caused with friends I had recruited, of constantly being on social media all the time reaching out to strangers that I didn’t care to to talk about something that I was no longer successful in, of the stigma around MLMs that always drew staring eyes and annoying jokes from “friends.” I grew tired of getting so emotionally caught up and invested in people’s success and failure. My emotions hinged on their decisions. That was my bad but it’s always a bummer when you spend time on something or someone, you get your hopes up and then nothing comes of it. But I do feel like I gave it a real shot. I did make decent money. But not enough for how many hours I was putting in (as Adam always reminded me which felt GREAT) But it was the truth. And I never did get his full support which was hard as well.

MLMs and MONAT can and do work for some people. I found that curly haired girls, girls with fried blonde hair, cosmetologists, hair stylists, makeup artists or people known for their interest in beauty or clean products can really kill it with MONAT. They are already trusted and known for this kind of thing. But your immediate success in this business really matters what kind of person people know you as before you join. Do you already have a loyal following? Do people already trust you? Do you have other things of value to talk about and post about that can help others? With regards to MONAT, do you have a passion for hair (and skincare)? There are lots of ways to market but are you comfortable with utilizing your social media to the fullest extent or at least willing to learn how? Are you going to put yourself out there? It’s going to be uncomfortable at times. Is you posting about whatever product you’re trying to sell just going to seem so out of the blue and unlike you or so far off from what people know you’re interested in that people are going to have a hard time trusting you? This is the kind of business that you have to be willing to GRIND for a year before you see major results sometimes. You have to build a foundation. It takes a lot of work and grit but you CAN do it. Success IS possible. You just have to consider all of that.

I hope this helps anyone who is thinking about joining or has moved on from MONAT. I still LOVE and use the products so I definitely recommend them! They’ve made my hair so healthy, shiny, and it grows like crazy. In this post I just tried to be as real and unbiased as I could about what it’s like working for/with MONAT. This was just my experience and everyone’s is different. It’s not for everyone but I think it’s always worth trying something new. This kind of business really can fit the lifestyle of so many and can provide a nice stream of side income. I wish you all the success if you are a part of any MLM, though! Shiz is hard hahaa.

xxx,

Sam