LulaRoe targeted stay-at-home moms as their primary demographic. The company would market to these moms directly by touting flexibility and the idea of “full time pay for part-time work.”
LulaRoe targeted stay-at-home moms as their primary demographic. The company would market to these moms directly by touting flexibility and the idea of “full time pay for part-time work.” While appearing to support moms, the reality was they targeted women who felt undervalued, preying on women’s desires to feel “productive” and contribute to their family financially. Meg Conley, writer of the “Homeculture” newsletter, discusses why these women are often locked out of the labor market, and how LulaRoe built their business on this so-called “underutilized resource” of stay-at-home-moms.
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Find episode transcript here: https://the-rise-and-fall-of-lularoe.simplecast.com/episodes/ep3-targeting-women-targeting-moms
Episode 3: Targeting Women, Targeting Moms
THEME IN
Intro
Stephanie: Hi everyone! This is The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe. I’m your host, Stephanie McNeal - I’m a senior culture reporter at Buzzfeed News. And in this podcast we are diving deep into the world of LulaRoe - we speak with retailers who were impacted by these schemes. We also talk to experts who can shed light on how these MLMs really work...including the red flags you should keep an eye out for.
This week, I’m talking to writer Meg Conley about moms and LulaRoe. Meg writes about women’s work, economic justice and the home for various outlets including The Guardian, Slate and Harpers Bazaar. She also writes a newsletter called Homeculture, which I definitely recommend you check out.
Let’s get into it.
THEME OUT
Stephanie [00:00:00]// Hi, Meg. Thank you so much for joining us.
Meg [00:00:05]Yeah, thank you for having me.
Stephanie [00:01:22] //I'm really excited to dig into why moms in particular were such a big target for LulaRoe when they were building their business. So what some people may not know about you, Meg, is you actually have a personal connection to the LulaRoe story. you grew up in Chino Hills in Southern California, which is the same community as DeAnne Stidham, famously the founder of LuLaRoe. I would love if you could paint a picture for us and describe that community that you grew up in that DeAnne also lived in.
Meg [00:02:21]Yeah. So Chino Hills is a suburb in Southern California, and it's kind of one of those places where, you know, the oldest standing building is like a drive thru. You know // Something that was interesting, though, is that, you know, Chino Hills was not necessarily an inexpensive place to live, even in the 90s. And so all of the moms at one point or another got involved in an MLM either to supplement income that they were earning in their professional work or to bring in income because their care work. You know, they didn't receive any compensation for that. And I grew up //with my mom getting. Invitations to MLM parties, because it's like the nineties, so people aren't sending evites like she would get, she would get like an actual invitation in the mail to a party, which I was always so jealous of because like as an eight-year-old, like all you want to get is like a little envelope addressed to you, inviting you to go to a party. But my my mom always seem burdened by these, you know, MLM invitations. And, you know, my parents would be like, Well, you know, Pampered Chef or Mary Kay, like, these are these are scams, but they're scams where the, you know, the person trying to sell you the scam doesn't necessarily know that they are being scammed, too. So you go and you're polite and you buy the smallest thing in the catalog and then you go home.
Stephanie [00:05:40] //that's so fascinating because. You as a child observing this world and seeing the need for MLMs with many mothers who needed to supplement their income and observing it and then seeing your mom saying, Well, you know, this isn't a legitimate business and you know her having to navigate that is so fascinating. I know you actually have an antidote or a few anecdotes about the Stidham family because you did meet them at one point, right?
Meg [00:06:19]Yeah. So I was raised LDS and they were LDS also, Mormon is, you know, what LDS people are commonly called. And I grew up in the same religious community as the as the Stidham family. And I, I attended the same congregation as them when I was, you know, young. I remember DeAnne from when I was a child because and this might be a nineties lady thing as much as a church lady thing. But you know, the women at church all had like their own like kind of smell profiles like as a kid because it's like the hairspray and the makeup and then the perfume, you know, would like, come together to create this like aura of odor. //And as a kid, I always felt overwhelmed by how DeAnne, like, moved and presented herself. And and even even the way that she smelled, it all just felt overpowering to me as a child. She was a very forceful, dynamic personality. Even as a kid, it always felt like she was kind of trying to sell you something (laughs). //
Stephanie [00:08:49] And I get what you mean, just one of those people who you remember from childhood because they were such a big presence when they walked into the room. And that's something that even, you know, I've seen deanne in real life a few times. But even just watching her on Instagram or on TV, she really just has this larger than life presence. One thing I wrote about in my Lula reporting was that before DeAnne started LuLaRoe, she had for decades been doing what she called dress parties, where she would buy dresses at wholesale and then sell them to members of her community. And I read an interview with you where you said you actually had been to one of these dress parties. Could you describe that for us?
Meg [00:09:44]Yeah. So those started, or at least I knew about them when I was young. And I. It seemed cool the way that all the MLM parties I got to go to seemed cool. //The dresses were all there on these big racks and they they seemed so fancy to me as a kid, you know, in the 90s, like with the velvet tops and the big poofy bottoms, you know, I mean, that was like that. I thought that was very fashionable as a child. And I wanted one. But my my mom wasn't ever interested in buying what DeAnne was selling, including these dresses. And so and so I didn't get one.
Stephanie [00:11:24]oh man, you didn't get one! (laughs)
Meg [00:11:27]But at the time, at the time, I thought it was. Oh, I thought she had figured it out, you know, as overwhelmed as I felt by DeAnne. I also saw this woman who was in my religious community, who was a mother who had kids who had seemed to figure out how to make all that work while also being professionally fulfilled. I mean, as much as my mom detested MLMs. I also saw the way in which she was disenfranchised from a lot of the world because of her work as a stay at home mom. //And, you know, as a child, it seemed like DeAnne had figured out what my mom had not figured out. Of course, as an adult, I understand that's not what happened, right?
Stephanie [00:13:07] // I can totally understand how you felt that way. And she clearly had tapped into something, and she was being a role model for women like yourself, young girls, but also for women like your mother who were looking for a way to make some money on the side, you know, and kind of take control of their own destiny. And its so interesting how she was able to then package and sell that image with LuLaRoe. //There is a really long tradition of MLMs targeting women, particularly stay at home moms, into these direct sales companies. // what do you think is the genesis of stay at home moms being such a rich target for those type of companies, like the ones where you ended up going to multiple parties as a child?
Meg [01:10:08]Yeah, so // care work is the only production in America that is always happening, and it's the only production in America that is officially locked out of the GDP. And so. With that being the constructed landscape that MLMs thrive in, stay at home moms especially are vulnerable to their promises because stay at home moms are always laboring but never being compensated for their labor. And so when someone says an MLM DeAnne and Mark says, I see that you, what you do is labor like, I see you working. I see that you are producing something of value. Like, that's how they always start their pitch right to stay at home moms. They say they see that, and I'm going to help you enter the labor force. Like the formal labor force, I'm going to help you. Some of your production be counted like literally in America for the first time. And so. It's like they build a bridge for these moms that I, you know, didn't exist, like in an Indiana Jones movie where it's like, well, what’s the one where like, he's trying to get across this like pit and then a bridge shows up like and if it was invisible and then he throws sand on it so that he can see the bridge or whatever. OK, well, like DeAnne and Mark are like throwing sand across an invisible bridge and and a lot of moms step on to it to try to have what they do, to have their work, like, finally compensated, but I think also like counted as something that matters. That is a new experience for a lot of them. //
Stephanie [00:28:42] // [00:28:51]thinking about LulaRoe in particular. They specifically targeted stay at home moms as their primary demographic. DeAnne had her really powerful origin story where she explained how she was able to do this while still taking care of her multiple children, and serve as an example for all of these women. And then all of their marketing materials say things like the opportunity and you will have freedom and you're a boss, babe. What do you think was the image they were selling to these moms? I mean, some of them whom you knew and were your peers, And why do you think that that message was so compelling to this community?
Meg [00:29:36]Yeah. So I mean, initially, this starts within like DeAnne's own circle of influence, right? Which is at the time, women in her religious community so Mormon women who have been raised in a culture you know where they're told it is your divine calling to become a mother and to make a home. And and so DeAnne is selling to women who have heard that from their church culture, but are also, you know, were raised in the 80s, 90s, 2000s and got conflicting messages from the culture outside of, you know, the three hours they spent at church on Sunday. And so DeAnne came to them and said, like I can, I can bridge that tension that you're experiencing and you can make a home, you can raise your children and you can make some money. I mean, like, you know, some of these women were ambitious and wanted to have careers. Her offer was appealing to them for those reasons. And some of these women really wanted to do care, work full time, but live in a society that is not interested in compensating anything that happens in the domestic sphere. And they had to buy groceries, and it's expensive to live in a one wage. And it impossible maybe to live in a one wage home in America. // And so within, you know, her immediate sphere of influence, that's the tension she's bridging. But then eventually it expands, right? Like you don't become a billion dollar company by selling exclusively to Mormon women, like there are just not that many Mormon women. //And so DeAnne's message also appealed to women who were professionally ambitious, are professionally ambitious, wanted to have careers and grew up wanting those things. And then, you know, decided to also have children and realized that. They just had impossible choices in front of them. // they couldn't afford it.
Stephanie [00:33:38]I love I love that you that you noted that. This was not only Mormon women, because I think that's something that's a little bit of a misconception about LuLaRoe // And in actuality, I would say the majority of the people I've interviewed who were in LuLaRoe were not Mormon, and this was a lot bigger than her immediate circle. And like you said, her immediate sphere of influence. What do you think the fact that there are so many women around the same age as you are? I millennial young mothers, young Gen X mothers who are joining these multilevel marketing companies. What do you think that says about our existing labor market?
Meg [00:34:28]It's impossible (laughs). //I mean // if we looked at the structure of MLMs with any serious contemplation and then considered the structure of our current economic system, we would see that they're both the same shape. They're both pyramids, right? Like both rely on unpaid or underpaid labor. Both exploit care work and care workers. Both absolutely exploit people of color, with Black women always suffering the worst. // So the value is being extracted, captured from care workers // and then they're excluded as stakeholders. Right?
Stephanie [00:37:46]I feel like you're I feel like you're kind of getting at an article that you wrote that I found extremely fascinating, so I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about it here the title is. Motherhood in America is a multi-level marketing scheme. I kind of feel like you've been alluding to that analogy a little bit, but can you say exactly what do you mean by that? // What are the parallels you see between being a mom in america right now and being in a multi-level marketing scheme?
Meg [00:38:23] // basically, American capitalism depends on a foundation a base. You know, a lower third of the pyramid that's made up of unpaid care work, mothers and stay at home mothers, especially in America, bear the brunt of you know, volunteering care work in their communities, in their homes without receiving any kind of compensation for it. Not just in wages, right, but like in any kind of government administered benefit. Like until I started writing professionally, I didn't have a way to have my own Social Security benefits. My Social Security benefits were all through my husband. Like, my benefits depend on him. I'm a dependent. But that's bonkers because capitalism actually is dependent on care work. // but it's kind of the same way in an MLM. People have to recruit a down line in order to make to make money because they're going to make most of their money off of bonuses. They get from building this very large down line of recruits who keep buying products at wholesale that they'll never sell. OK, well, the same thing happens with care work in America and it hurts stay at home moms. It hurts parents generally, but it also hurts care workers who are paid below a living wage to take care of children while the children's parents go and work. //
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Stephanie [00:43:09] // Mark Stidham, who is DeAnne's husband and co-founder. He has some interesting thoughts on American motherhood as well. He has said that wealth comes from identifying an underutilized resource and in America that resources is mothers. Essentially, what he's saying is they noticed that there was this untapped potential. Of all of these, stay at home or part time mothers, I'm curious what your take is on that.
Meg [00:44:19]Well, I love when people tell on themselves (laughs) because they did treat mothers like they were a resource and then they exploited the resource, right? Like they extracted as much as they could from from vulnerable mothers in order to make a profit. I mean, I think that that goes back to the problem with our current form of capitalism is that the end of the day, it is based on extraction instead of actual, meaningful production. He thought he was empowering mothers when he said that. Hmm. But. I'm trying to think of how to phrase this.
Stephanie [00:45:17]I totally understand what you mean. It's someone who thinks they're saying something that is a net positive in the world, but in actuality it's kind of a dark statement when you look at what LuLaRoe has become. I actually saw that you tweeted that you believe the opposite // And you said that you feel like mothers in America are overutilized. I'm curious what you mean by that?
Meg [00:45:54]Well, I mean, it's like kind of the way. Like when he said that mothers in America are under underutilized resources, that would be kind of like, you know, hearing the biggest corporations who are responsible for climate change, like saying that, like the environment is an underutilized resource. It's like, no, like it's it's been beyond utilized like we're actually in a climate crisis because you've been so good at utilizing the environment. So we're in a care crisis right now because mothers have been so overutilized, overworked in America //And that when we offer them an opportunity to lose money in a capitalist pyramid scheme, they should be grateful. And when they're not successful at it, you know, it's on them. Mark Stidham has talked a lot about that. He feels strongly that everybody in America is given the same opportunity and that what they do with it is up to them. Like what they make with that opportunity is up to them. And so if a person is successful, they've earned that success. And if a person fails in LuLaRoe or in their economic life generally, then that is their problem and no one else’s, which I think is a really rich framing from someone who built a business model that literally depends on a down line, of hundreds of people for one person to be successful //
Stephanie [00:48:43] you really have hit on something that I've also observed in reading interviews with Mark that ultimately, for many LuLaRoe sellers, they say, turned out to be extremely damaging because the message from LulaRoe was so American capitalist. So pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And they really, really hammered home, we all are starting on the same equal footing. Everyone has the same opportunity. And if you are not successful, it is because of something that you didn't do. And I have interviewed so many women who have told me how damaging that sentiment was because they really felt like they were working so hard and they were putting everything into their business. And when it failed, it felt like a personal failing. //What do you think makes these women stay in a company like LuLaRoe for so long? Given all of the economic and societal pressures on them?
Meg [00:50:21]Well, I think that Mark’s message of like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I think that the only reason it even begins to be compelling is because it's what we've been told our whole lives like. That's the American dream, right? And these are people who have been told // that if they just worked hard enough, if they just had a good enough idea and they just worked hard enough then the American dream // that would be theirs. //And so it's not just Mark telling them that if they fail, it's because they didn't do enough. It's the cultural messaging that they've had since before they could think // I mean, these are messages that have been in their heads before they they even knew they got there. And so they were primed for Mark's exploitation. //
Stephanie [00:53:19]That is so true because you're right. We all, as women went through this whole thing with, yeah, Sheryl Sandberg and Girlboss. And it was just such a movement. You're at TJ Max and all of this stuff, says hashtag Girlboss. And right, if you don't have the tools in your wheelhouse to be a CEO or a CFO one day, you still want to jump on the bandwagon. And this was a great way to do it. And you know, obviously the messaging of LuluRoe or other MLMs is, you are your own boss, you are your own CEO, you are a business owner.
Meg [00:54:02]Right. Well, and you know, the Girlboss White Feminism promises to solve the problems of capitalism with more capitalism. And so it's, you know, It's always a logic loop, but it's hard to tell you're in a logic loop, like if you were born into one, right? Like, how do you get out of it?
Stephanie [00:54:23]I don't know. We're all working on that I think
Meg: (laughs) yes. // So I, I tried to get a job a couple of years ago. My husband and I lived in Oakland. I don't have a college degree. And so I, you know, I wasn't applying for jobs that paid a lot of money, but I did. I did want to get out of the house and do work that I felt fulfilled by it, and so I applied to a few bookshops. // But when I found out what the pay was //, it wouldn't have begun to cover child care. And at the time, you know, we didn't make enough money for my husband's income to cover child care either. And so I couldn't work at the jobs that maybe I was qualified for. But then other jobs that I could do // required experience. But they did not count my caretaking years as experience. And so there were several well, there's the long time of applying for jobs and then no one ever getting back to me. And so even when I tried to enter the market sphere, I couldn't right. And so what women think they can do with MLMs is stay in the domestic sphere, whether because of cultural. Issues or religious issues, but then also enter the market sphere in a way that both spheres find acceptable. //
Stephanie [00:57:42]Absolutely. // a lot of people DM me or email me, and they say, How could these women get into this right? How like, how how could they do this? How could they do this? And what I find so valuable about your perspective and what you just explained is it's almost like, how could they not do this or how could they not try? You know what I mean, right? Because there are so few options.
Meg [00:58:18]Right it’s one of very few options.
Stephanie [00:58:20]Exactly. exactly.//
Stephanie [01:00:25] //That scenario that you're describing is really poignant in this moment. Just kind of taking a look forward in our present day because there are so many women who were realized during the pandemic. This isn't sustainable anymore. I can no longer work a full time job from home and take care of my children. And it's hit women and mothers especially hard. You know, over four million jobs have been lost by women in the US since the start of the pandemic, and there are so many women who have said it time and time again. You know, if you look at surveys, if you look at news reports that they left the workforce because they could no longer sustain their career on top of childcare in the pandemic. How do you think that might influence kind of the situation that you're talking about? I'm a little worried personally, that it could lead to even more women joining things like this that ultimately will not be fulfilling for them.
Meg [01:01:26]Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because we keep talking about the great resignation, you know? // But I think what's happened during the pandemic has actually been happening for the past couple decades, and the pandemic accelerated a pretty depressing trend that I think is going to keep happening. //I think women are going to be more susceptible to MLMs. I think we're going to see MLM rebranding after the big, you know, LuLaRoe thing, I think that the messages will change, but the model will stay the same, and I'm going to be honest, like, what if I couldn't write, right? Like, what if I didn't have that skill set and. As much as I wanted to work in a bookstore that still didn't cover child care well in a post-pandemic world where it's even harder to get a job // in that world. If an MLM re-branded like just the right way and I didn't have another way to make money like I think knowing everything I know, I would still for a moment think, Well, maybe because you're just desperate, you know?
Stephanie [01:04:36]That such a poignant point for you to make. And I think that's what I hope people will get out of this podcast. Out of this episode and out of the LulaRoe story in general is that this is not a scammer problem. This is not a couple of women problem. This is a societal problem, and this is something that you know is a product of all of these cultural forces that you, you know, write so eloquently about. So // obviously, you know, MLMs have been around for a while and we're not going to stop all the MLMs out there. But what are some positive things that could help moms that could help women who care about caretaking but also want to contribute to the family finances that could happen that you think would eventually provide less incentive for these companies to flourish?
Meg [01:05:39]// you know, I'm not an anti-capitalist like, I like markets. //I just think we have to protect care work from markets, right? And so the way that other countries do that effectively is just with a robust social safety net. And so if we had, you know, meaningful paid leave, if we had a way for children to access care // kids deserve care and whether their parents are in the market sphere or not, whether they've invested poorly in leggings or not. And so the social safety net needs to extend to them. And so that would be universal child care, absolutely for the kids whose parents work. But it would also be a meaningful cash benefit for children whose whose parents are care workers at home because that is an economically productive work // A universal basic income would give women especially, you know, a minimum of economic empowerment so that they could have choices. A lot of the women who fall prey to MLMs got there because of a lack of choices. And so then when they're offered one single choice, you know, to take advantage of this great opportunity, they do. None of this is like impossible, right? Like we've seen other countries do it. It's just going to take // meaningful collective action. And then, you know, outside of policy and legislation being present in our communities, you know, mutual aid that. Around, you know, care work in our communities can be impactful and meaningful. // the minute that we broaden our definition of what care work is and who is doing the care work. And who deserves care, which is everyone. Then I think a lot will follow. //
Stephanie [01:13:30] // Meg, it has been so fascinating talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on, I think.
Meg [01:13:39]Thank you for having me.
Stephanie [01:13:40]I think a lot of the people, especially a lot of the women who listen to this podcast, are going to learn a lot from your perspective. So thank you so much.
Meg [01:13:49]Thank you.
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OUTRO
The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe is a Discovery Plus podcast.
From Discovery, our executive producer is Michael DiSalvo [Deh-Sall-vo]. From Buzzfeed, our executive producer is Karolina Waclawiak [Vahts-LAH-vee-ACK].
Special thanks to Shelley Sinha [Sin-Ha] at Discovery, Samantha Henig and Richard Alan Reid at Buzzfeed, and Pete Ross at Left/Right.
Our show is produced by Neon Hum Media. Jonathan Hirsch and Shara Morris are the executive producers. Our lead producer is Muna Danish. Associate Producer is Rufaro Faith. Our production manager is Samantha Allison. Sound design and engineering from Mark Bush. Our theme music is from Epidemic Sound.
See you next week!