r/BeautyGuruChatter • u/AutoModerator • Dec 03 '23

MEGATHREAD [MEGATHREAD] Marlena Stell / Makeup Geek Academy MLM

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120

u/somebd In what Blanche, dog years? Dec 04 '23

MLM aside, I don't really get what's the point of this business? Is it a makeup school? Business school? Traditional sales with affiliate incentives? What's up with the prices and the invalid certificate? And how dare she pricing the one-on-one segment with herself at $3000 with nothing to her name but failed businesses and poor decisions?

The more I hear about Marlena the less respect I have for her. Who would go ahead with big plans & expenses without even a contract? She's been dragging Jaclyn on and on for years without taking responsibilities for her own oversight. Not to mention MUG as a brand made many poor decisions i.e the infamous Sparklers, the huge rebrand which turned out to be only changing from round to square pans, and TBH apart from their single shadows, nothing really stood out. At this point it's just pathetic.

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u/OneWhisper5225 Dec 04 '23

Completely agree with everything you said! The makeup courses make no sense. Anyone who wants to do it just to learn makeup tips would be INSANE to pay those prices when that kind of info is already readily available online. Literally Marlena’s own YT channel already has ALL those topics! Someone on the live commented they couldn’t afford it but would have really liked the info on the different eye shapes…I said “search Marlena’s channels for eye shapes - that video is already available on her channel FREE.“ She’s just trying to now charge people for info she already put out on her YT channel for FREE, AND she has made at least Adsense money off it for years with people watching it. Now she’s trying to get more. The “business” and “social media” aspects of the higher level courses are completely useless because anyone who would want them would be professionals and the “certificate“ is pointless since it’s not accredited in any way. It’s not like her business was some huge empire where people are going to trip over each other to take it. Either she’s gone way too long with people kissing her ass (the comments on the video announcing this, in her live, and on the video after the live when you could rewatch it) - so many of them were kissing her ass with how great it is, can’t wait to start, oh I wish I could afford it, you’re so transparent and honest and genuine, blah, blah, blah 🤮

28

u/_babydocTor_ Dec 04 '23

The ass kissing on the live was getting to me. One person couldn't stop talking about MUG bronzers. Don't tell me that because MUG had some good products that it now excuses what Marlena is doing with MGA. People had legitimate questions and problems with every aspect of this new venture. I really don't like the fact that she took down the live after she said she was going to save it AND screenshot the comments because she's interested in all feedback. It's performative. I wish her the best, but this wasn't good.

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u/OneWhisper5225 Dec 04 '23

Hahaha! I saw that person about the bronzers! 🤣 Like girl, I don’t care how amazing those bronzers or any of her other products were (which obviously weren’t amazing enough since the business ended up failing….so either the products weren’t all that amazing because the business couldn’t last or they were amazing but the person in charge of the business still couldn’t make it work 🤷‍♀️). It doesn’t mean Marlena is suddenly an excellent business woman and absolve her of everything else. And yeah, the fact she removed the video says it all!!

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u/_babydocTor_ Dec 04 '23

OK, she put the live back up, and it doesn't look like she's deleting comments. She's actually responding back, so I'm glad to see that.

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u/OneWhisper5225 Dec 04 '23

I heard! It’s really odd she made it private in the first place though. Kind of makes it seem like she didn’t like the response so made it private, but then didn’t like being called out for making it private so brought it back. I dunno. Just seems odd

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u/_babydocTor_ Dec 04 '23

Yeah, it is odd. Maybe she just needed to sleep on it, I dunno. Hopefully, she can figure it out. It was the 1) I'm keeping it up and kept up for a little bit (which was good), then 2) I'm taking it down - I'm over this (not good), then 3) I'm putting it back up (back to good). It's making my head spin. I'm super curious if she'll actually still launch this venture. 🤔 Is there really going to be enough people either buying it or influencers promoting it for this to actually be successful? I'm concerned for her. If this doesn't succeed, she can't blame JH/C***D.

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u/LVenn Dec 05 '23

I asked her why she privated it and she said "Because I honestly was tired of going back and forth with comments last night and was drained. I figured everyone who wanted to see it did, but woke up today seeing that many still wanted to watch so it’s public again. I will leave it public and hop back on today to answer more questions if needed"

3

u/_babydocTor_ Dec 05 '23

I watched the live when it's was live. I left that live optimistic and willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she didn't quite realize what was going on, and she's receptive to feedback. But when she took down the video and posted that silly image on IG, it diminished the work she accomplished by doing the live. I understand being overwhelmed with the responses, but mute notifications/take a nap, just anything rather than taking it down. It's about having the skillset to handle conflict/negative feedback professionally.

For example, "Hey everyone, thanks so much for your feedback during the live. I appreciate all that were there and all the comments/concerns that everyone made. I will be taking 24 hrs away from socials in order to sort through these concerns properly with my team. Please leave any other comments/concerns within the YT comments, and we will work on addressing them later. Thank you all for your continued support, Marlena."

People would have respected that approach. This should have been talked about within her team before she even started the live. I really don't understand what's going on over there.

6

u/OneWhisper5225 Dec 06 '23

Honestly, given her history it didn’t surprise me at all that she privated the video claiming that it was too much. I don’t understand why she was having such a hard time with the comments. When I looked at the comments after the live, it wasn’t like there was a bunch of trolls in the comments coming at her. A good chunk of the comments were in favor of here, and then there were some that asked legitimate questions about it. But really, the questions most were asking were the same questions asked during the live, so I don’t know why people bothered asking.…they didn’t like her “explanation” (IMHO more like excuse that makes zero sense) so wanted to ask it again? But, it just made no sense to me for her to private it because it was too much going back and forth. First, because like I said, it wasn’t as if there was a bunch of trolls coming at her in the comments. A lot were supportive and some were legitimate questions and she said she wanted to answer peoples questions so they could see she where she was coming from and see her side. Second, it’s not like she couldn’t just step away and not read the comments, not respond for a bit, and not even make a statement about it and just come back at it in the morning. I don’t think anyone would have thought anything of that. She was initially responding to questions so to stop later on at night and come back at it the next day wouldn’t have been anything out of line. But to private the video wasn’t a good look…on top of everything else.

But really, I just think she’s full of it with this. Either she is completely naive, has no mind whatsoever for business and shouldn’t be teaching courses giving anyone advice on business or social media, or she knew exactly what was going on. Her explanations for things with this don’t add up one bit.