Dot Dot Smile Says Goodbye To MLM
Dot Dot Smile is a children’s clothing MLM created by Nicole and Jeff Thompson in 2013. Nicole is the daughter of Lularoe founder Deanne Stidham with her first husband Kenneth Neff Brady. The idea for the company apparently came to Nicole via “divine intervention.” Dot Dot Smile, in true LLR fashion, adopted the MLM business model in 2017 and has been scamming merchandisers ever since.
On May 20, 2022, Nicole and Jeff held a zoom call that wasn’t recorded on their end, leaving many merchandisers to hear the news through word of mouth. In this zoom call, they first announced that the upcoming incentives trip to Costa Rica was canceled, due to political instability in the country. They claim to be looking into other trip options, but I don’t think merchandisers should hold their breath on that happening.
Keep in mind that MLM distributors must hit certain, and often intensely difficult, quotas in order to qualify for incentives trips. On top of that, incentives trips qualification only covers a very small portion of the trip costs, typically just the hotel room. This leaves distributors responsible for all other travel costs such as airline tickets, transportation costs, child care, activities, food costs, etc. Canceling a trip on such short notice can have a major financial impact on those who worked hard (and paid handsomely to meet volume quotas) just to earn the trip.
Next, they proceeded to announce that Dot Dot Smile will be dropping its MLM business model in the next month. They state that they will instead become wholesalers in which merchandisers can still purchase with a wholesale license, the cost of which remains to be announced. They also announced they will be starting a brand ambassador program that sounds like a standard affiliate program where brand ambassadors receive a discount or cut of sales from their followers’ purchases while also offering followers a discount.
This announcement came as a complete shock, though merchandisers have claimed there have been many issues with the company in recent months. The sudden dropping of the MLM business model, while great because fewer people become victimized, leaves those who have built teams at a major financial loss. As we know, MLM isn’t really about the product, it’s about the “opportunity.” It also shows a great example of how heartless MLMs can be by giving such short notice on action that will inevitably cause major financial loss to its most loyal cult mem… uh err, I mean, merchandisers.
Understandably, merchandisers are pissed. Shortly after this announcement, it came out that Jeff Thompson was spotted behind the counter at a Dot Dot Smile retail establishment selling clothing. Not only was he apparently selling from a physical location but doing so at very discounted rates, much lower than the minimum retail requirements they placed on their own merchandisers being in direct and unfair competition.
To make matters worse, commission checks are allegedly bouncing already, even though the change isn’t supposed to take effect until June with the last commission checks due to be received in July. And if you thought that was the end of the dot dot drama, you’re wrong. Nicole was then featured in an Instagram post, with a friend, announcing the opening of a new Cookie Co. franchise.
So while their merchandisers are left in shock, frenzy, missing checks, and with a ton of frontloaded inventory, Jeff and Nicole are allegedly actively competing against them and using the owed money to start a new venture. How ethical. And just to kick them while they’re down the LLR vultures are already hot on the chase to scoop up any disgruntled DDS merchandisers and suck them right into another dying cult. Classy.
Check out Nicole and Jeff’s zoom call for yourself at the end of this post, and watch it to the very end. Trust me, it’s worth it. On to some receipts:
