An article about Pure Romance from Cincinnati Enquirer (Patreon)

Pure Romance says it wants to give women a little something extra, spicing up their love lives at home – and just maybe helping them earn a little extra money too.

The Cincinnati-based company with legions of self-employed consultants it calls "partners," sells lingerie, beauty products, oils and sex toys.

And business is good: Guess what couples did in 2020 when they were homebound, enduring all those awful lockdowns? The company's sales jumped nearly 40%, hitting an all-time high of $312 million, making it one of Cincinnati's 50 largest private companies with more revenue than some regional auto dealerships, real estate developers or manufacturers.

CEO Chris Cicchinelli sees more growth ahead; the company and its modest corporate staff will soon be moving into new headquarters in downtown Cincinnati. It's looking, as always, to hire and train new partners.

But consumer advocates and industry watchers urge women to use caution: Pure Romance is a multilevel marketing firm (MLM) – a potentially dangerous self-employment arrangement that charges would-be go-getters big bucks for merchandise they might not be able to sell.

The MLM business structure has won renewed national scrutiny amid the mounting legal woes of California-based leggings company LuLaRoe. But other MLMs such as Herbalife Nutrition, AdvoCare and Amway have also been accused of misconduct.

What makes these organizations "multilevel" is this: consultants make money selling merchandise, and can also get paid to recruit other consultants. But if recruiting eclipses the sale of goods, then it morphs into a pyramid scheme taking money from the last consultants brought in the door.

"It's a very problematic business model," said Bill Keep, a marketing professor at the College of New Jersey, who has studied MLMs and served as an expert witness, regarding such businesses.

In an interview, Cicchinelli said Pure Romance is a “sales organization” and disavowed the MLM label – a year after he defended the business model in a book about his company. While the company does pay consultants to build "downstream" networks of fellow consultants generating sales, he said that's not required.

He does admit most women barely make any money working for Pure Romance – but says that's because many consultants aren't looking to make it a career. In 2020, the median consultant took home just $111 (that's less than $10 a month), the company discloses on its website.

“Sales is the toughest business to be in in the world – no product sells itself or makes the phone calls,” Cicchinelli told The Enquirer. “Some people don’t take us seriously as a real business. We’ve always had to go above and beyond fighting a negative narrative.”

MLMs – and complaints – rise during the pandemic

The Federal Trade Commission is concerned about the rapid jump in complaints against multilevel marketing companies and pyramid schemes as job disruptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic have created the perfect breeding ground for dubious business schemes.

Last fall, the federal agency, which is tasked with protecting consumers and preventing unfair business practices, warned more than 1,100 companies – including Pure Romance – not to mislead consumers with easy-money promises. The punishment, the agency warned: hefty fines.

“The pandemic has left many people in dire financial straits, money-making pitches have proliferated,” the FTC said. “If (businesses) deceive or mislead consumers about potential earnings, the FTC won’t hesitate to use its authority to target them with large civil penalties.”

Nationally, complaints of bogus opportunities nearly tripled since before the pandemic to 103,003 in 2021, according to the agency's latest data. Complaints about MLMs and alleged pyramid schemes have more than quadrupled to 8,022 last year from 2019.

Pure Romance was the target of 54 complaints since 2016 – more complaints than against much larger MLM companies, such as Mary Kay cosmetics and Nu Skin nutrition. But it's less than 165 logged by home and health product MLM giant Amway, which is almost 30 times larger, and the 218 filed against supplement-seller Herbalife, which does 10 times as many sales.

The FTC declined to comment on the complaints, noting it doesn’t discuss specific companies unless the agency brings legal action.

Cicchinelli said the company monitors complaints and acts on them quickly.

The most serious accusations are from consumers who say Pure Romance consultants exaggerated their income to recruit new partners and made unfounded health claims to sell products.

One ex-Pure Romance consultant says the company left her financially – and emotionally – exhausted.

Hanna Neumann, 29, who lives in Rochester, New York, describes a high-pressure sales culture that “love-bombs” consultants with praise and promises of success, but later bombards them with quotas and in-house competitions. She felt relentless pressure to “invest in her business” by loading up on inventory that she was initially told wasn’t necessary.

She became a consultant in 2014 and quickly became a top sales performer – a company publication from mid-2015 listed her as an "advanced consultant," indicating her performance was in the top 10% among the sales force. She was heaped with company honors and taught at Pure Romance training events.

While she personally sold as much as $80,000 a year and built a team over more than four years responsible for sales approaching $500,000 annually, most of the time she barely scraped by.

She got 50% of her sales and thousands in bonuses for her teams' sales, but much of that gross profit was burned up by inventory restocking and business expenses, such as gasoline and shipping.

“I feel like I was in a cult. It was a cult – it was a rollercoaster,” Neumann said, adding she quit in 2019 with $12,000 worth of inventory that she later sold at a loss. “I work at a restaurant and I’ve got more money in my bank account now.”

Pure Romance described Neumann as a “disgruntled” former consultant and her low pay complaints as “inaccurate.”

To refute her claims, they provided yearly sales figures for her and her team as well as her gross profit and an “estimated personal profit” during her tenure. For example, Pure Romance estimates after business expenses Neumann should have pocketed nearly $41,000 in 2018, her best year.

Nonetheless, Pure Romance's figures indicate that Neumann must have had hefty business costs on top of the $25,000 to $40,000 for inventory she paid every year. Even by Pure Romance's estimates, business expenses (such as shipping, office supplies, gasoline  and other travel) for Neumann ranged from $10,000 to $23,000 each year.

Three women describe Pure Romance success, the pressure and the grind

There’s a reason Pure Romance works so hard to recruit: many consultants there just don’t last.

More than a third of Pure Romance’s partners in 2020 became “inactive” after making $62 in average income, according to the company’s income disclosure on its website.  Excluding inactive consultants, more than half of partners remained active sellers, but decidedly small-time: garnering an average annual income of $351 (less than $30 a month).

Cicchinelli says many partners who remain active choose to run their business as a “side hustle,” intending only to generate a few hundred or a few thousand dollars of extra income a year. He stresses it’s hard work to make it big, but the business offers flexibility to go at a slower pace.

Kayla Wade, 28, a mother of four from Alexandria, Kentucky in suburban Cincinnati, is the sort of success story Pure Romance would like its consultants to strive for.

Wade told The Enquirer she had tried other home businesses that hadn’t worked out. She had a business that did stick-on nails, another selling jewelry and a clothing business. One of the problems was she felt she was left to fend for herself once she had goods to sell.

She credits regular contact and training with fellow Pure Romance consultants for helping her pull off her latest venture. She was named one of the company’s “rookie of the year” consultants after selling $46,000 worth of merchandise in 2020. Her cut started at 30% but has since climbed to 50%. Last year, she sold $68,000 worth of goods.

“This has turned into a second source of income,” said Wade, whose husband is a Campbell County road maintenance worker. She has further boosted her income by recruiting 33 consultants to her team. While those consultants retain their share of sales, corporate gives her bonuses based on their performance.

That money took off for her last year: she made $16,000 in bonuses in 2021 based on the sales traffic of her network. She had only made a few hundred in such bonuses in 2020.

The time she spends checking in with her growing network of team members has grown to about 15 hours a week or about half her work time.

“I’m sure just like in all businesses, I will have my ups and downs,” Wade said. “But with… my determination to work and be better, I will always be looking in the direction of up.”

Wade says her take-home income is enough to bankroll family vacations, pay for sports equipment for her kids and other extras. Again, she credits Pure Romance's supervision, continuing training and the camaraderie and "sisterhood" it fosters.

But what Wade describes as mentorship, Neumann, the ex-consultant, said became something like indoctrination.

A former "rookie of the year" herself, Neumann said in 2019 she was overwhelmed with disillusionment on a company retreat in Naples, Florida.

“I started crying – I realized I had no passion for my business anymore,” Neumann recalled.

Her misgivings had grown over time.

She joined shortly after college at the behest of a friend and classmate. Skeptical, she asked dozens of questions before joining. Everyone was so encouraging and empowering, she said. And she wanted to believe in it. Once she was in, everything was about building your business and your team.

She made money – in a May 2019 Facebook post Cicchinelli praised her sales prowess for bankrolling her upcoming wedding:

“Two weeks from now, she'll be getting married! But what really takes the (wedding) cake is that Hanna has completely paid for her wedding already, in CASH. She was able to cover the expenses for her entire special day with only the help of the money she made working her Pure Romance business. Congratulations!”

Neumann thought she left on good terms, but the intense corporate culture soured her departure. Many coworkers assumed she was jumping ship to a competitor or starting a rival business. Several of her friends froze her out.

“People identify with the company because they’re so devoted – half the people at my wedding (many then-coworkers) don’t talk to me anymore,” Neumann said.

Pure Romance said Neumann was critical of its gender and inclusion policies of nonbinary people. The company agrees Neumann left on good terms, but “a few years later that she decided it was time to gain attention by jumping on the anti-MLM bandwagon.”

Another former Pure Romance consultant experienced the constant messages and pitches to buy more products but chalked that up to the company's sales culture.

Natasha Judson, 32, of Forest Park in suburban Cincinnati, already had another promising sales job and decided to keep her Pure Romance investment of time and money small.

“It was a side gig for me, but I was really into it for a while,” Judson said, recalling she made about $3,000 to $5,000 a year.

Judson did notice consultants without other jobs bought more merchandise and might be at risk of overbuying more than they could resell.

"The hungry people buy more," she said.

She credits her sales background for helping her carve out a successful path. She was cautious not to load up too much with inventory and to focus on higher-volume items, like beauty and personal products.

Judson grew tired of Pure Romance after a couple of years. Some parts were a grind: a two-hour at-home party typically required about 10 hours of preparation and follow-ups from coordinating guests and invitations to fulfilling orders.

Her biggest single event was a party in Cleveland where she sold more than $3,000 worth of goods, but she also had to drive there and back from Cincinnati (more than three hours each way). Judson also didn’t like having to maintain a constant presence on social media to market her business.

She quit selling in 2020 after she got promoted at her regular job and is now an area manager for a jewelry retailer.

Court cases, regulatory cases reveal possible red flags at Pure Romance

A closer look at the FTC complaints about Pure Romance offers a glimpse of consultants accused of going too far to make sales or get the next recruit. In the complaints, consumers expressed concerns about everything from mundane billing, shipping and refund disputes to more serious accusations of making misleading income claims and bogus health claims.

For example, in the past two years, the agency received nine complaints expressing alarm over individual consultants’ sales results as a method to recruit.

“(The consultant) regularly posts on Facebook all the things she is buying or paying off,” reads one complaint filed in Cleveland last year. “I feel for those she targets.”

The same complaint then quotes the consultant’s not-so-subtle Facebook post:

“The road was long. And it took a lot of discipline. BUT AFTER FOUR AND A HALF YEARS, I’M FINALLY CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE!... I share this because I know there’s a girl (or most likely hundreds of girls) in this group that is drowning. If you REALLY want it and you’re willing to do what it takes to get it, I can help you save yourself. All you have to do is ask.”

Pure Romance consultants have also been accused of making dubious health claims as part of their sales pitch, according to half a dozen FTC complaints since 2019.

“They also lie about feminine intimate health just to sell product,” charged one complaint from St. Louis. “One of their products... it’s a device that you stick inside you to make you tighter… The body doesn’t work that way!”

Cicchinelli said the company has software that monitors both internal and regulatory complaints. He said a partner making outrageous claims would “get shut down.”

None of the complaints accused the company of defrauding customers. A review of other court records does not reveal any accusations of fraud against the company.

Pure Romance has dealt with a handful of old business disputes dating back as far as 2005 with former consultants or competitors, mostly over alleged noncompete violations, trademark or business practice breaches. In 2009, one competitor sued Cicchinelli for slander for allegedly bad-mouthing their business at a Las Vegas trade show. The competitor later dropped the lawsuit.

What are women getting themselves into with MLM Pure Romance?

So how much does it cost to get started and what are new consultants expected to do at Pure Romance? What are the risks and how much do most consultants make if they stick it out?

On its website, Pure Romance features two ways women can get started: for $149, their standard starter kit contains $350 worth of retail products. A deluxe pack costs $439, which has $995 worth of retail items.

Industry watchers caution would-be consultants or sales reps that a frequent problem with MLM companies is they deal in expensive products that are sold to the salesforce, not the customer.

While consultants might get a deep discount (30%-50% off retail at Pure Romance), they need to resell the product at close to the retail price to recoup their investment and have any chance at making money.

For example, Pure Romance sells some sex toys that retail for close to $250. It sells shave creams in 8-ounce tubes for $24. Consultants say they're nice – not cheap.

The company offers free online courses for training and new consultants typically work closely with an experienced consultant to get started.

The company will also give you your own Pure Romance website with an online store featuring a complete product offering. Consultants earn a percentage for sales on their websites.

Cicchinelli says many consultants do a lot of their business digitally and their customers may order products online. Some prefer to do most of their selling online and hardly touch any product, he said. They just collect a check in the mail.

But marketing materials given to Pure Romance consultants seem to recommend doing the opposite, urging them to “set yourself up for success” by ordering inventory.

“Why boost your inventory?” asks Pure Romance in a 2022 Compensation Plan brochure for consultants.

“Having items on hand means instant gratification for your customers and potential sales for you,” it reads. The brochure then pitches a special one-time up to 60% off retail discount “only available during your first 30 days in business.”

It’s a sales pitch to its least-experienced consultants to buy inventory.

Stacie Bosley, an economist with Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, who has studied MLMs and pyramid schemes and served as an expert legal witness, said the businesses make money selling inventory, but their consultants need to be careful not to overbuy.

“Consultants wind up relying on those people above them (in an MLM) whose incentives don’t align with theirs,” Bosley said. “It feels like a bait-and-switch, they’re told ‘anybody can do this’ going in. Once you’re in, it becomes a blame game: (consultants are told) ‘you’re not sticking with the plan’ or ‘it’s all about your effort.’”

Experienced Pure Romance consultants say a lot of customers want to handle, touch and smell products, so it makes sense to keep some inventory.

Pure Romance says consultants set their own hours and goals – but require at least one order every two months to remain an "active" consultant.

So if a consultant puts in the hours, sets up events and discovers they have a knack for sales, how much could they expect to make?

There are some Pure Romance consultants that generate six-figure incomes – but according to the company's own disclosures on its website, they are few: less than 0.5% of all 40,000 consultants in 2020, or less than 200.

In fact, according to the same disclosure, less than 2.6% of the consultants in 2020 – only one in 40 – brought home more than $10,000. So for many, the best it pays is a few hundred dollars income a month. Whether it's worth it, depends on how many hours and other expenses (like gas money) the consultant put into it.

For 2021, Pure Romance updated income data but did not provide annualized figures. Instead, the company disclosed "In a typical month, about 23,000 (consultants) earned money," noting half of them earned at least $313 "before expenses."

However, that same disclosure also notes the company had a total of 84,000 consultants order products for resale that year – indicating nearly three quarters of them failed to earn money throughout the year.

Rags to riches and beyond

While his company attracts consultants with the possibilities of selling Pure Romance products, Cicchinelli in his 2021 book "The Secret is You" recalls his own rags-to-riches journey was bumpy.

Born in 1975 and raised in Milford, Ohio, he was the youngest of four children of a twice-divorced mom; he struggled with dyslexia and school. He left the then-Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio to work for an Atlanta-based flooring company where his father had become a top executive. His promising career on an early internet venture subsidiary there was cut short after the FBI raided the parent company.

Cicchinelli was about to accept another corporate job when his mother, Patty Brisben, called and invited him to help her run the business she had founded.

“What can you afford to pay me, Mom?” Cicchinelli wrote in his book.

“How’s $24,000?” Brisben responded.

“Horrible,” he replied before accepting the offer. “I thought that’s all it would be – helping her with a future business plan and then moving on to continue my own career.”

Cicchinelli goes on to describe years of slowly building the business through a network of consultants. In the early days, his mother and he would advertise a recruiting event in a new market and sign up a few consultants after a local pitch at a hotel or open house.

This year, Pure Romance’s growth plans are more high-profile: the company is moving into larger and more inviting headquarters space in downtown Cincinnati.

Cicchinelli says the company needs better space due to its intensifying training needs.

“I want it to feel like home,” Cicchinelli said, noting Pure Romance needs an inviting gathering place for its regular training events. “We like to entertain and host several retreats.”

The new headquarters will be 40,000 square feet on five floors at 300 Main Street, on the corner of Third Street. The building, originally built in 1911, will offer not only added meeting and conference space, but a design center, a full kitchen, a café and dining area and a rooftop area for gatherings. Renovations are underway and the company hopes to open it for business later this year.

Pure Romance is getting $927,000 in tax incentives from Cincinnati for the project.

Forced to go more digital amid the pandemic, Cicchinelli said the company handles more of the shipment of products directly – many consultants set up websites and hold virtual parties to market them online, never touching items ordered directly from the company.

The initial outbreak in 2020 prompted hundreds of consultants to quit as they balked at venturing out or dealt with other disruptions in their family or professional lives.

Despite all the turnover, Pure Romance grew its network of partners from 24,000 in 2019 before COVID-19 to 37,000 in 2020 and 40,000 by the end of 2021.

CEO: ‘Every business… is, in the context, a pyramid scheme’

As his business continues to grow, CEO Cicchinelli continues to be asked about his company’s MLM business structure.

“No. We’re a sales organization,” Cicchinelli told The Enquirer in an interview rejecting the label. That signing up “downline” consultants is optional, means Pure Romance doesn’t fall into the category.

The FTC disagrees.

The agency defines MLMs on its website as follows: “Businesses that involve selling products to family and friends and recruiting other people to do the same are called multilevel marketing (MLM), network marketing, or direct marketing businesses.” The agency doesn’t make an exception for companies where consultants recruiting consultants is optional.

Further, in his book, Cicchinelli seemed to embrace the MLM moniker. In a chapter called "Only You Can Sell You," Cicchinelli defended Pure Romance's business structure.

“Another thing that grates is the idea that as the CEO of a direct or multilevel marketing operation, I’m overseeing some sort of pyramid scheme,” he wrote. “No! No! These are real women running real businesses.

“Here is how I tell those same consultants to respond to the pyramid scheme charge: every business – not just traditional multilevel marketing operations – is, in that context, a pyramid scheme.”

Cicchinelli’s argument is that any organization with a CEO at the top and employees below is “in some ways a pyramid,” including Facebook, Spanx, Tesla and Amazon.

“The President of the United States must be running the biggest multilevel marketing program there is,” he wrote.

About Pure Romance

Founded: 1993

CEO: Chris Cicchinelli

Employees: 166

Worldwide consultants: 40,000

2021 sales: $282 million

Sales Breakdown: 53% consumables (bath, beauty and lubricants); 29% sex toys; 9% lingerie and sleepwear; 5% sets and kits; and 4% other (candles and games).

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