My friend just told me that she signed up to be a beachbody coach..
I care about her very much and don't want her to get ripped off, and I also don't want to buy those products or do a fitness challenge or whatever else is involved with this. I'm happy that she's taking fitness seriously again, that part of it is good, but this company is garbage and I know she already isn't in the best financial shape (which is probably why she wants to start doing this on the side).
Help! Can I/Should I tell her this is a scam? Should I just politely decline to participate and let this run its course?
Probably politely decline.
Full disclosure: I was a (discount only) BB coach for about 4 years. I signed up to buy a program (it came with Shakeology). I actually loved the program (helped me lose all the baby weight), Shakeo was delicious, but I had no desire to turn it into a business, so I didn't. I think that is true for many BB coaches.
I also fortunately (or not) knew a lot of other BB coaches. My immediate "upline" (a coworker) in my same boat. Like the products, but that's about it. Well then, a couple of years ago, I started having digestive issues and could no longer drink the Shakeo. So, I started canceling my deliveries. Then BB came out with Beachbody On Demand, which is essentially access to ALL their videos (and food programs) for $99 / year. I thought, at the time "this has GOT to be the end of BB as a side hustle".)
At that point, I already knew a couple of coaches who were making good money at some point had quit because the market was saturated. A very good friend of mine had signed up to be a coach. HER coach quit, so she eventually quit. What surprised me is that her coach signed up again later, and so did she. This second time she signed up, she kept asking me to sign up under her. At this point, what do you do? I told her that I was *already* a coach (but had been too lazy to cancel). I finally decided to cancel (then realized at that point that my upline and hers had both canceled already, so they weren't making any money off me anyway). There's a 6 month wait if you cancel being a coach before you are allowed to sign up again as a coach. That got me off the hook. I agreed to sign up to be a customer for her (without buying anything).
I really really wanted to tell her that this just isn't a good business model. From what I'd seen just watching others over the 4 years...I love the videos, I like having BB on demand at my fingertips for when I don't feel like leaving the house and want to do yoga in my PJs. It's a good value. But the rest of it? Nope. You aren't going to make real money. I get the desire to be healthy and to "help people" but this isn't the way to do it.
Even though she is a good friend of mine, I just let it go. You know "don't get in the way of people doing things" and all that. She just quit last week.
I don't have proof, but I think the vast majority of BB money comes from "coaches". It's not customers. If there's a new program out, and you want to get a group together to do it, and get them to buy the program and the shakeology - the COACH has to buy it first. Then you have all these "coaches" buying early access to the programs.
Streaming service is awesome, the blog has great recipes, there's a lot of useful information in there. But it's really no way to make money, that's a total scam.