Young Living is one of the most well-known and popular essential oil MLMs in the market. The field is an important one, as essential oils continue to be incredibly popular among many different audiences. Some people are fascinated by the potential health benefits of using such oils regularly, while others are simply interested in the scents.
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Essential oils are also appealing from a sales perspective. One advantage is that you’re dealing with a consumable product. This means that people will keep coming back for more. There are also plenty of different oils to choose from.
Another cool aspect is that essential oils aren’t all the same, even for two essential oils from the same plants. The specific plant crops used, the extraction processes, the bottling and any other chemicals used are all factors that can influence the final product.
It’s difficult to know whether such differences have any impact on potential health benefits or the scent of the oils. However, they do provide a good talking point and Young Living seems to think that its oils are of high quality.
So far, Young Living looks pretty encouraging. Let’s take a closer look and see whether the company would be a good way to make money.
Two Ways To Make Money With Young Living
As an MLM, Young Living follows a familiar pattern. The initial way to make money is by selling the products. You then have the option of increasing your income potential by recruiting people and building a team under you.
Both of those approaches can work and some people do make money through Young Living. Even so, we’re more interested in whether making money is realistic for the average new member.
That’s why this article finishes with a consideration of the overall income potential of Young Living and what you can expect from the company.
Make Money From Product Sales
When it comes to product sales, the first consideration is what you are selling. Appealing products that are reasonably priced will sell better than expensive alternatives. It also helps if the company makes the items seem unique.
Young Living is clever in this area. Many of the products have unique names or combinations of ingredients, making it impossible to compare directly with other products on the market.
A good example of this is the Thieves essential oil from Young Living. This is one of their most popular oils and it is a mixture of various individual essential oils. Because the precise mixture isn’t known, anyone who enjoys the oil needs to buy it from Young Living.
Young Living has also branched out past just focusing on essential oils. They now have a wide range of different product types. Some of these use essential oils as an ingredient, while others have a more general focus on health.
There are other types of oil products in the mix too, like CBD oil. The variety of products is ideal from the sales perspective. Not just focusing on essential oils means that you can promote products to a wider audience.
There is some bad news too. Most of the products at Young Living are pretty expensive. A 15ml of lavender essential oil will set you back more than $30 for example, which is certainly on the high end of the market.
In contrast, Amazon offers many different essential oils that are less expensive. The image below shows prices for two different oils. While they’re a little smaller, they tend to get good reviews and are much less expensive.
Whether these oils are as good as what Young Living offers is highly debatable. Even if you’re convinced that the oils from Young Living are superior, you will still need to get other people to believe the same.
There is also very little evidence that the products from Young Living are any better than other things out there on the market. Oh – and don’t be fooled by the Therapeutic Grade claim on the essential oils. Many brands use a similar claim and the phrase doesn’t mean anything.
There is no grading system for essential oils and the company even says that their founder invented the grade that Young Living uses. There isn’t even any indication of what this means in terms of what is and isn’t in the oil. Instead, it just seems to be a marketing label slapped on the products to make them sound better.
Honestly, if the products from Young Living were that much better, why aren’t they organic? In reality, Young Living’s products are priced much higher than most others in the marketplace and there is little indication that they are any better in terms of quality.
I’m sure that many people will disagree, saying that many other brands are lower in quality. Regardless of the truth, there isn’t much evidence. You also need to convince potential customers that the oils are worth the price tag. This suggests that you should be convinced about the quality of the oils (and other products) before getting involved. If you have any doubts, your ability to convince others is likely to suffer.
One side note is the way that people use oils. If someone is specifically looking for health benefits from essential oil, they’ll probably be expecting relatively expensive oils. On the other hand, potential customers who simply want a nice smell won’t want to pay through the roof for oil.
Issues With The Products
The company itself has actually got in some trouble with the FDA over misrepresenting some of its essential oils by claiming that they had the potential to either prevent or cure the Ebola virus (you can read the full information here).
This makes the rest of the claims on the site pretty questionable as well, especially claims about things like cancer protection. Seriously? Prevent cancer and heart disease? You gotta be kidding me!
I hate claims like this and I’m glad that Young Living seems to be toning them down.
Making Sales
Young Living actually sells its own products through its website and some of them are also sold on Amazon (even if they are not supposed to be). This works well for people wanting just the products, but it sucks for anyone trying to make money through the opportunity.
This means that you have to compete with Amazon and the Young Living site itself for sales, as well as with other distributors and other products. All of this makes the process of actually making sales all the more difficult.
In fact, I saw someone doing this today in Starbucks. It took about 45 minutes of explanation, and I’m not sure whether or not the distributor ‘sealed the deal’ at the end. Remember: There will be many of these sessions that result in no sales. How well can you handle rejection? It’s all part of the biz.
Additionally, many of the products from Young Living last a long time. Essential oils are a good example of this because you don’t use much at a time. In fact, people often buy them on a whim and never really use them at all. I bought a multi-pack about 6 months ago. With 3-4 drops for a full tank on my diffuser, I imagine these will last me all year unless I really run the diffuser 24/7.
This means that even if you get one or two sales of someone, getting more will not be easy, especially if you are counting on selling to friends and family.
Make Money Building A Team
An appealing feature of Young Living is that the company is entirely up-front about their compensation plan. This is very impressive and is much better than hiding the information away.
The basic premise is the same as any other MLM. Distributors can make money simply selling the products, but to make a decent amount of income they also have to recruit other people into the business. The more generations of people the member recruits, the more they earn.
At least that’s the theory.
Young Living uses a variety of criteria to determine the ranks of individual members. These include the following:
- Personal Volume (PV): Monthly volume of total personal orders
- Organization Group Volume (OGV): Monthly volume of yourself and everyone in your downline
- Personal Group Volume (PGV): Your OGV with some specific groups excluded
- Leg: Every new member that you personally sponsor becomes the start of a new leg in your downline
- Leg Volume @ OGV: This focuses on how many legs you need and monthly OGV for new ranks
As you can see, the system gets complicated fast. I’m not even showing you all of the definitions, much less the requirements for each rank. The further up the ranks you go, the more you have to do in order to get and stay there. The incentive for going up in ranks is (of course) more money, as the higher ranks earn commissions from more levels.
Young Living wants people to look at its compensation plan and see an opportunity, but really, there is more work there than anything else.
The tiers require you to buy a certain number of products per month (the Personal Volume) and also for your ‘organization’ to buy a certain number of products per month. This means the people you sell to or the people you recruit have to buy a certain number of products.
This can actually be pretty tricky.
In fact, even recruiting people to the organization can be a challenging task. Getting them to stay there, buy things, make sales, and recruit others is even more difficult.
My own experience has shown me that relatively few people have the dedication required to be successful at business. This isn’t a problem if you’re working on your own, but it’s a serious concern if you need to rely on other people for your income.
Can You Generate Reliable Income With Young Living?
The Young Living Review
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Final Review
Like most MLMs, Young Living looks good on paper but is much more challenging in practice. The company isn't a scam, you can still make money. They're even very up-front about the processes that are involved.
Without a plan to get online and reach other people in the world (online marketing), the vast majority of sellers will not make money from selling products to other people and will rely on recruiting distributors that must fulfill their personal volume numbers to remain active.
Distributors end up fighting an uphill battle to make money and you are completely dependent on the company and the people in your downstream – which is never a good situation.
Besides, let's be honest. There are plenty of essential oil companies out there and the oils from Young Living aren't hard to find. Can you really expect to make consistent sales?
MLM Critic & Author: Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. I have to be honest though. I'm not a big fan of MLM. Tried it. Hated it.
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Lina
Interesting review. Except for the research on MLM structure, have you tried educating yourself on how essential oils are produced?
There are vast differences in the quality of oils on the market today. This is only partly reflected in the vast differences in prices for these oils. Some brands of aforementioned lavender oil, for example, are selling for a small fraction of what others cost. (On the other hand, other companies inflate their prices, buying very cheap, poor-quality oils, and selling them as therapeutic-grade at whatever price the market will bear. However, that’s another story ….)
Please note: If you buy a cheaper oil, chances are you’re not even getting even what you pay for. You must remember that aromatherapy is about more than just the smell. Aromatherapy is far more than just the smell. While some of these so-called aromatherapy products present a pleasing fragrance (at least to a chemically-oriented nose), can cover unpleasant odors, and may have some limited value in relaxation, they have no real value for true aromatherapy. In some cases, these so-called aromatherapy products can create serious problems, from allergic reactions to irritations to chemical burns.The quality of the oil makes all the difference
There are at least 200 different companies marketing essential oils in North America. However, there are many grades of essential oils, and most essential oils available in the United States are of the lowest grade and quality. With essential oils, pure is just not enough. It’s not enough that an essential oil marketer claims that its essential oils are pure, organic, and/or Grade A. To many marketers, purity means only that the oil does not contain a base oil or some other essential oil — that is: that it’s not cut. The question of whether or not the essential oil is adulterated with chemicals or solvents is not even considered. Likewise, that an essential oil is marketed as organic is little indication of its quality. Organic oils are certainly better than others, but many oils that are produced from organically-grown plants may be extracted in a way that produces poor quality oils. Even Grade A oils may lack many of the properties of a truly pure, therapeutic grade essential oil, even though they may be sold as such.
Producing a quality oil suitable for aromatherapy requires a lot of skill, patience and expense. Quite frankly, most producers don’t find it worth their trouble to do it right. Why? Because about 98% of all essential oils are not produced for therapeutic purposes; they are produced for the perfume or cosmetic industries. Much of the remaining 2% is used for food flavoring (although any of these might be sold for aromatherapy). These industries are only interested in the oils’ aromatic qualities (that is: that they smell good); and so, techniques are adopted to produce greater quantities of these oils at a faster rate, without any concern for their potential therapeutic benefits. This has a major impact on the quality of the oils.
Few people appreciate how chemically complex essential oils are. The average essential oil may contain anywhere from 80 to 200 chemical constituents. However, these aromatic molecules are very fragile and not easily extracted from the plant material. Taking shortcuts in the production process will render the oil therapeutically void. Therefore, it’s possible that, even though an oil is considered pure or Grade A, it may still contain only a fraction of its possible complex chemistry and therapeutic value.
In aromatherapy cosmetic, perfume and 100% Pure, Therapeutic Grade are not the same. Real essential oils contain hundreds of different chemical compounds, which, in combination, lend important therapeutic properties to the oil, and balance the therapeutic actions of other essential oil constituents. (Look up essential oil chemistry.) Also, many essential oils contain molecules and isomers that are impossible to manufacture in the laboratory, leaving the synthetic oils incomplete. And, just as importantly, no one has been able to solve the problem of manufacturing life. You must never underestimate the importance of kinetic energy in the oils as a therapeutic agent.
Here’s more information for you: the distilling process for lavender should not exceed three pounds of pressure, and the temperature should not exceed 245 degrees Fahrenheit. The distillation time is about an hour and a half, one batch producing about a pound of essential oil. But in France, because of the costs involved with proper distillation of the essential oils, the traditional method of distillation is being abandoned in favor of high-volume pressure cookers, designed to operate at over 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and over 50 pounds of pressure. The lavender that is produced commercially (and sold to the United States as therapeutic-grade) is often distilled for only 15 minutes, with a steam temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and 155 pounds of pressure. Although the oil is easily marketed and sold, it is of very poor quality.
I’m done for today. Please complete a more comprehensive research before bashing an MLM business.
Thank you for your attention.
Nathaniell
Does Young Living make this information available on their website and prove that their oils are made this way?
Jenn
Nathaniell You are more than welcome to visit a Young Living Distillery anytime to see the process first hand. YL is very transparent with their farming and distilling process, no secrets or smoke screens here. Try asking any other essential oil company if they can do the same. Many buy from third parties and have no idea where their oils are being sourced from or how they are distilled.
Nathaniell
I never had any issue with the distilling process or said they were “fake”. I don’t know what going to the factory would do to change my opinion from this review.
Casey
This was a pretty awful review of Young Living as an MLM company. I’m wondering if you know enough about the networking marketing business model to write such a review?
I am a YL distributor and I absolutely LOVE the product and the business model. Why would you want to work for a company where you didn’t believe in or use the product? I would never want to buy a product from someone who didn’t purchase a certain amount of the product each month and use it. Also, the network marketing business model is not meant to be “easy”.. it is hard work and a lot of hard work at that. But what you earn in the long run as residual income is well worth the time and money investment that you make.
I also don’t think you know enough about Young Living or the essential oil industry to write a review on their products. The essential oil industry as a whole is not regulated and therefore no essential oil company can make any sort of claim that essential oils help treat, prevent, or cure any disease. Which means the product descriptions are going to be fairly vague. But google any essential oil research study and you’ll find that essential oils are in fact used in cancer treatments so therefore any claim is not too far off. But the FDA doesn’t allow you to say that because they don’t test it to find out, even those others do. As far as the price – you reference the retail prices, which are pretty high because part of that network marketing business model is becoming a wholesale member and saving money on that cost.
Before you go and review a company on it’s products and business model, you may want to do more research.
Nathaniell
I believe I did plenty of research to form an opinion on both network marketing AND essential oils. For a person that has motivation to buy essential oils other than their practicality, why would I spend MORE money to get the same thing? Are you saying that YL’s oils are better than other oils? I find no evidence to support this claim.
But I also dislike Dr. Oz style “healthy living” products. Claiming that a something can cure cancer or melt away fat is pure nonsense. This is how MLM companies survive – with vague, unsubstantiated claims that are technically legal, but nonetheless pure BS.
Mike Nichols
Dr, OZ is an entertainer and acts accordingly. Also thanks for the review and thanks for all the excellent information on this site. You simply make the information easy to under stand and cut out all the B.S. Thanks