by secure_admin | Jul 17, 2022 | Vector Marketing
Way back in middle school, there was this kid that EVERYONE wanted to be friends with.
You see, this guy had it ALL.
Big house out in the hills. Check.
Olympic-sized swimming pool. Check.
Tennis courts. Check.
Vacations in Maui and Mauritius every year. Check.
Condo in Miami. Check.
You name it, this kid had it all.
I know it was kinda selfish of us just to wanna be friends with someone because they were rich. But kids are fickle, right?
He was a cool guy anyway, so that didn’t matter.
You should have SEEN his house!
We always wanted to party there.
This was middle school, so we’re not talking beer pong here.
More like—candy and pizza.
But the candy was on tap at this pad.
And that was just breakfast!
AND he had a genuine Street Fighter II Turbo arcade machine.
Hadouken!
Anyway, I’ve made this place sound pretty cool, right?
Only I haven’t talked about the kitchen yet. Yeah, the kitchen!
This wasn’t the sort of thing a kid got excited about, but the kitchen was out of this world.
It had every gadget imaginable.
Made sense, really—when you find out why this kid’s parents were rich.
Knives.
Wait… knives?
They were rich because of kitchen knives? Yeah, you got it.
You see, his dad had invented this special type of blade that really took off.
If you’re asking me for details, you’re asking the wrong person.
Yeah, I was a 12 year old kid. I wasn’t paying that much attention to this sort of thing. All I knew was it was something to do with knives.
Of course, he didn’t INVENT kitchen knives. But he did something to do with them. And it made him some money. A LOT of money.
Where am I even going with this story? Well you see, my other buddy Buck remembers that kid too. We always used to have sleepovers or play Street Fighter there. One summer we spent nearly every day in the pool, or chasing around the grounds. Good times.
Anyway, back to today. Buck had been struggling a bit financially. He’d just got divorced and had basically been taken to the cleaners. Ouch.
Not only that, but Buck was struggling at work. He hadn’t been promoted in years, his hours had actually been cut.
With costs going up and the price of the divorce, he was desperate for some cash.
Had to sell his motorbike, and he loved that thing.
We’d all helped out a bit. I sent him a few hundred. We called it “lent”, but I know I’m never seeing that again.
But that’s cool. That’s what friends are for, right?
This was a bit before I’d really got started with Local Lead Generation. Now I’m gonna tell you a bit more about that later and if only I could have helped Buck with it at that point, but it was a few months before I stumbled upon that great opportunity.
But anyway, Buck is a stand up guy. He didn’t want to live on handouts.
He wanted something sustainable.
So he was always trying to find new ways to make some extra cash.
Someone suggested selling weed, ha!
But Buck wanted LEGAL ways. I get that.
But what went on next, it might have been better if Buck HAD sold weed. You didn’t hear that from me, ok?
Anyway, so Buck was looking for more LEGAL ways to make money. Aren’t we all?
He drives Lyft occasionally, but that isn’t really working for him. He’s tried Deliveroo, but again—it’s not what he was looking for.
That’s when he came across something called Vector Marketing.
He had no idea what it was, and neither did I.
But he’d been hearing some cool thing about it.
He decided to jump right in. How did it go? Keep reading to find out.
Because I’d always been interested in making money online myself, I was kinda interested in things. So not only did I keep a tab on Buck’s progress. I even did a bit more research myself. I met some people involved and studied their model a bit more closely.
I was ALWAYS looking for more ways to make money online. That’s everyone’s dream, right? The thing is, I hadn’t made that much money yet myself. But I HAD seen a lot of scams. Is this a Vector Marketing scam? I’m not sure I’d go that far. But you need to check out my Vector Marketing review to find out how legit this thing actually is.
I soon found out that there are a LOT better ways to make money online. But I’m rushing ahead. Let’s find out a bit more about Vector Marketing.
Vector Marketing Review
So Vector Marketing sells KNIVES!
Now you see where I was going with that story earlier… I got you!
Okay, they don’t JUST sell knives. But it is mostly knives.
Other kitchen cutlery, too. You get the idea.
Sadly, it soon turned out that these knives weren’t as good as they could have been
Because here’s the deal with Vector Marketing: They sell through independent contractors and sales people. KIND OF like a pyramid scheme. This set alarm bells ringing in my head, bigtime.
I’d seen a lot of these pyramid schemes come and go in my time, believe me. I’d even tried a few of them myself. Big Mistake. Almost every time.
But I wasn’t entirely convinced these were the worst kind of pyramid schemes, so I kept digging. Things seemed ok in some aspects, and I wanted to know more.
So I did some more research, and I even spent a bit more time with Buck. It was cool to hang out some more since we’d drifted a bit since high school. I guess that happens with everyone. I’m not gonna say I held his hand through the process, he had to be free to do his own thing (and make his own mistakes)—but I kept an eye on things. I went to a few of the meetings, too.
To be honest with you, I’d tried to warn Buck off of this a few times. I know you know how this is going to end up. I did too. Sadly, Buck wouldn’t listen.
There’s only so many times you can shout at a brick wall. But, Buck had to find out for himself.
Trying to tell Buck was like talking to this.
So anyway, my initial research threw up some good, and some bad.
I always like to check out the Better Business Bureau when I first find out about new ventures. It doesn’t give you the be all and end all, but it is often a good place to start.
So what did the BBB (that’s what they call themselves) have to say about Vector Marketing?
Well things actually looked good here.
I’m not gonna lie.
It has an A+ rating. I was expecting a lot worse. They’ve also been in business for a whopping 71 years. I know that longevity doesn’t always mean quality of that they’re a legit thing, but it often counts somewhat. They’ve also been accredited since 1990.
So at first look, things weren’t as bad as I’d suspected.
However, they did only have a 3 out of 5 start customer review rating.
And A LOT of complaints.
It’s when you start seeing what people were complaining about that things get a bit tougher. I even met some of these people and let me tell you—the list of gripes was endless.
A lot of people were complaining about the hard sell, strong arm tactics etc.
People were getting roped into becoming reps and told they were gonna make tons of cash. But the cash never came.
Sound familiar? Yeah, like a lot of these schemes I’ve seen before.
People were also complaining about the quality of the actual knives.
This thing isn’t gonna go well if the thing you’re actually supposed to hype is worthless, is it?
How’s Buck gonna sell all this crap if it is, actually… crap?
And there are two different groups of complainers here. Not just on the BBB, but when you start looking into Vector Marketing in general. There’s the retail complainers and the sales rep complainers.
NEITHER of them are happy. And that’s not good, is it?
The retail customers—those are the guys who actually BOUGHT knives.
They aren’t happy about being sold a dream of forced into something by a pushy salesperson.
That’s what you often get with these systems when people are desperate to make a sale because they aren’t really making the money they though they would be. It’s how LOADS of these things operate.
Anyway, not only were they annoyed about the hard-sell. They were also annoyed by the quality of the knives.
Many of them had sent them back and not got satisfactory replacements, or even their money back.
And the sales reps aren’t happy either.
I don’t want to jump ahead too much with Buck’s story. But he didn’t end up being happy, as you can probably guess.
The sales reps simply weren’t making the money they thought they’d be making. They were sold a dream, too. And it didn’t turn out like most of them had hoped.
However, this isn’t as bad as SOME of the sales networks I’ve seen. One key difference is that sales reps don’t have to pay to join.
That’s a KEY difference which sets Vector Marketing apart from some of the worse pyramid schemes out there.
With a lot of them, you actually have to pay to join and continue paying. That
actually leaves sales reps out of pocket before they’ve even started. It makes them even more desperate to sell.
So at least Vector Marketing has that going for them, right?
They’ll train you up and send you some free samples to get you started. This is better than a lot of the networks I’ve seen.
The problem is, they’ll also tell you you’re gonna earn A LOT of money. Up to $20 an hour is a figure that I head bandied about. It’s nowhere near that in reality.
They actually prey on college students and other people who’re desperate for cash, like Buck. Okay, he’s not a college student, but he DID need some money.
Listen, Vector Marketing must be doing something right. For the guys at the top, anyway. Isn’t that always the way? They’re making $245million a year in revenue, and there are 5,590 distributors out there trying to move these knives and other kitchen stuff. But how many of THEM are actually making decent money? I don’t think many are. I haven’t met them, anyway.
These sales reps are employed independently, and that means things like gas and other costs aren’t reimbursed. They also guarantee commission, but there are so many catches and caveats that this rarely works out.
Vector Marketing also get sued… A lot.
So how did Buck get on with Vector Marketing?
Do I even have to go there?
To be honest, Buck made a bit of cash. A few bucks you could say! Ha.
If only Buck got a buck every time he heard that joke. Sorry
But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even as much as he was getting from Lyft.
Buck didn’t like pushing people into buying crap knives either.
He was NOT making enough to give up his day job. That was kind of the dream.
So you might be wondering how things are for Buck now? Thankfully, things got a bit better. He finally got that promotion. Maybe he didn’t need to give up the day job after all. And he was happy.
As for me?
Not long after I found this thing called Local Lead Generation. This stuff was LEGIT! And I was really enjoying it. Do you know what I was enjoying the most? Making cold hard cash from an online venture. If I can do it, you can too. Check out Local Lead Generation as soon as you can.
by secure_admin | Jul 15, 2022 | Multi Level Marketing
Let me tell you about this summer job I had once.
Boy was it a tough one.
You might wonder where I’m going with this.
But it’s SUPER-relevant.
Just bear with me.
You see, back during college I was a bit strapped for cash.
Cash… and I needed it.
College was EXPENSIVE.
And I spent too much of my allowance on pizza. And Beer.
Yeah…. I know I wasn’t even of drinking age, but things were much more relaxed back then.
A fake ID could almost fool anyone. If they even asked.
None of this snowflake PC bullcrap.
Bars near college were BUILT to make money off us guys. Even if we weren’t old enough.
I never really got the alcohol rules around here. I mean, I visited Europe once and you could drink at FOURTEEN!
That might be a bit young, but I always thought 21 was too high.
ANYWAY…
Back to the summer job.
Too much of this… Believe me.
You see, I needed cash any way I could find it.
My debt was mounting up bigtime. Beer and pizza. I know!
Don’t even get me started on how expensive the things I actually NEEDED were. Like those coursebooks and other study material. Let’s just say they weren’t necessarily a priority.
And this was way before I’d actually started making proper money with Local Lead Generation. It’s taken me a while to get here, but I finally have. I’ll tell you more about that in a bit.
Anyway, I took this job at a local cleaning company.
This wasn’t just any old cleaning company. It was a NIGHTTIME cleaning company!
If you think about it, it wasn’t a terrible idea for a student who liked to sleep til gone noon. I was used to staying up all night playing Counter-Strike anyway, so the hours were fine with me.
This wasn’t the coolest job on the block, I can say that for sure.
Roger that!
Some of the people I was working with did NOT want to be there.
I didn’t blame them.
But there were actually some cool people who were working really hard to provide for their families.
I can respect that.
I always try not to judge people in positions like that.
At the time, I was just a stupid college kid.
I thought I’d be moving on to better things.
But let me tell you, there’s NOTHING wrong with working a job like this if you need to.
You gotta do what you gotta do.
It’s better than being unemployed. And some of these guys were super-motivated and great at what they did.
But as a stupid student, I wasn’t one of them.
Anyway, I started noticing something after a few days on the job. There were these sales rep guys who were trying to move different cleaning products that I kept seeing.
You see, the employment structure at this place was complicated.
Not everyone came from the same agency or even had the same boss.
I thought it seemed normal for there to be cleaning product sales reps there.
After all, seemed a pretty straightforward place to be selling that sort of thing, right?
Taking the product right to where it’s needed.
But then I started learning that some of the people I was working alongside, these top cleaners that were busting their asses to provide for their family. Well get this…
They were kinda paying to work.
Let me stress this again, not everyone worked for the same bosses.
And some of these agencies required these cleaners to buy their own cleaning products.
Ouch!
These guys were desperate for work so they’d do it.
I was sure glad I didn’t have to buy my own products.
And then I realized that these sales reps were actually other cleaners a bit up the line. They’d been doing the same a few months earlier. Buying their own cleaning products.
And now, the way THEY were making money was by selling them on to other cleaners.
Actually cleaning wasn’t doing it for them. They were basically sales reps preying on other desperate workers.
I didn’t blame them, they needed money to provide for their families too.
But I didn’t like this business model one bit.
Why is it all relevant? That’ll all become clear real soon.
You see, many years later I found this other business called Norwex.
One of my colleagues at my old work had told me about his wife getting into it.
I’m always one of the first to try and learn about potential money-making ideas. I love them. I’ve seen so many fads come and go, but I’ve also managed to make a few bucks by getting into things just at the right time.
Remember BitCoin? I made a bit of money with that. a BIT of money, get it?? Haha. I won’t give up the day job.
I can’t complain, I just jumped on the bandwagon at PRECISELY the right time. I definitely wouldn’t recommend jumping on it now, that’s for sure.
Anyway, I heard about this company called Norwex. Apparently this dude’s wife was gonna make a ton of cash selling these products.
I was sceptical, but still interested. I wanted to see if that was really possible, and I wanted to see if I could make some side cash as well.
I had to have that boat.
I was saving for a new boat and I needed any money I could find.
I had to have that boat. But that’s another story.
What I soon learned about Norwex reminded me of that cleaning job in a number of different ways. Check out my Norwex review to find out how.
Norwex Review
First thing’s first. What actually IS Norwex?
Norwex is what those in the trade like to call a Multi-Level Marketing gig. I’ve seen TONS of these. What they REALLY mean is “PYRAMID SCHEME”!
But that doesn’t mean they’re ALL bad. They aren’t. A lot of them are, but not all of them.
So what about Norwex?
Norwex are all about cleaning products and domestic homecare stuff. Like my summer job! Remember? This stuff is mainly aimed at housewives, but I can get on board with that. Housewives love me, believe me.
Norwex was founded way back in 1994 by Bjorn Nicolaisen. You can probably guess where he’s from. Nigeria? No…. Norway. Hence the name. Right.
The one main selling point of Norwex’s cleaning products that sets them apart from a lot of the competition is that they’re chemical free cleaning products. I like that, but are they any good?
They’re not bad, but they’re not the best.
Listen, if you’re trying to go chemical free and REALLY care about the environment, then I’m happy for you. Personally, sometimes I think I just NEED some chemicals when I’m trying to scrub the floors or the shower. You know those REALLY stubborn stains and stuff? Yeah, those things normally need chemicals to budge.
But this stuff is still good. It’s not terrible, and that’s a start.
Believe me when I tell you that lots of these pyramid schemes (sorry—MLM networks!) are built on top of AWFUL products. You know where the ONLY way to make money is by convincing other people to sign up under you. That’s basically the main pyramid business model. Recruit more sales reps.
So the Norwex stuff isn’t actually terrible. But are they enough to actually make money off? Can you still make money as a Norwex sales rep if you DON’T recruit more salespeople?
We’ll get to that in a minute. But first, you wanna know a bit more about Norwex’s product range. I don’t blame you. After all, you’re gonna be selling this stuff for them. Or maybe, after you’ve read this Norwex review—you’re not.
So they’ve got bathroom cleaning products, kitchen towels, detergent, toothbrushes and all sorts of stuff like this. All without chemicals. Great!
Their key product and the one you’re gonna be talking about a lot if you become a Norwex sales rep is called “EnviroCloth”.
EnviroCloth is a micro-silver cleaning cloth and it’s basically their flagship product.
But it isn’t their ONLY product, it’s just the one most of the reps are encouraged to promote. I guess it has their best margins, or is maybe their best seller.
But let me tell you, it wasn’t a GREAT seller. I struggled to sell many at all. People just don’t really get that excited about a cleaning cloth, do they?
That’s always one of my main gripes with SOME pyramid MLM networks. The products aren’t always great
I say that there’s NOTHING wrong with using a MLM to network a range of great products. But ONLY if those at the bottom of the pyramid can still make a bit of money from things.
In other words, can you make money just selling this stuff? Or do you have to recruit other reps underneath you to make a decent wedge? That’s what makes or breaks many of these systems.
Sadly…. You’ve guessed it with Norwex.
Hardly anyone’s making any money here.
Even the people that HAVE recruited a few more sales reps.
And especially those that haven’t.
The main people making money here? The people at the top.
It was too late for me. It’s probably too late for you, too.
Pyramid schemes like this tend to prey on vulnerable people in two ways.
Firstly, the people selling. These guys are often desperate to make back the money they spent getting in. That means they’ll often use the hard sell.
And the people they’re selling to are often vulnerable too.
I don’t like that one bit.
And I didn’t like it with Norwex, either.
It’s far from the worst MLM scheme I’ve seen, that’s true.
Believe me, I’ve seen some AWFUL ones.
At least there are some decent products here with Norwex.
Nobody is getting literally scammed and buying completely worthless crap. It’s not a Norwex scam at that level.
But it’s not great, either.
The products ARE a bit overpriced.
But if you want to pay a bit more than the market-rate for environmentally friendly cleaning products, I got no beef with that.
So the guys buying stuff aren’t really getting scammed.
The main reason this falls down is because it simply isn’t a very good money-making system.
It’s not great for those who got involved as Norwex reps.
Even though the products aren’t terrible, they’re hard to sell.
Hardly anyone is making any money with this stuff.
That’s the case with a lot of MLM networks like this.
I’ve seen a few good ones, but most of them don’t cut the mustard.
Thankfully, I’ve also seen some LEGIT ways to make money as your own businessman these days.
If you want to know a bit more about one of the best—you need to check out Local Lead Generation.
With it, you get the chance to own your own slice of virtual real estate AND be your own boss.
You’ll be collecting those passive rental checks in no time.
Check it out, it’s far better than pretty much any pyramid/MLM network I’ve seen.
by secure_admin | Jul 13, 2022 | Direct Selling
Has anyone here heard of Jeunesse? I hadn’t, but my cousin Bob sure had.
Yeah, I was surprised when Bob told me about Jeunesse. You see, Bob kinda lived in a cave. He had hardly heard of anything these days. Uber? Nope. Deliveroo? Nope. AirBnB? Nada. But…….. Jeunesse? Why had he heard of them, but not some of the biggest companies on the planet?
You see, Bob wasn’t living in a REAL cave. He was living in a video game cave. Yeah. One of THOSE guys.
Call of Duty, League of Legends, Fortnite. One of THOSE guys. Believe me, he was far too old for this, crap, but he wouldn’t listen.
Thing is, Bob didn’t have a real job. He came into a bit of cash a few years ago and decided to throw in the towel on his mid-level management gig.
I didn’t blame him, I hate those cubicle-prisons as much as the next guy. That’s why I’ve recently been working real hard on a LEGIT way to make money and be my own boss at the same time. Local Lead Generation. More on that soon.
But back to Bob for a minute. So yeah, he’d come into this money. Instead of investing it wisely and setting it himself up for the rest of his life, he jacked in his job and played video games.
Bob.
He was SUPER-addicted to those things. People thought he was a loser, but he didn’t care. He was even one of those guys that’d spend thousands on “In-Game” purchases. I didn’t really know WTF they were either, but they sure seemed like a MASSIVE waste of money to me.
Each to their own, right? You can’t judge how someone wants to live their life. Some of my other relatives sure were, but I’m not that kind of guy.
I mean his ma, my aunt—she was raging at him any time she could. He had his own place, so he managed to avoid that most of the time.
Why hadn’t he heard of AirBnB? He never went away.
Why hadn’t he heard of Uber? He barely left his video game cave.
Why hadn’t he heard of Deliveroo or Uber-Eats? This one might be a bit more of a surprise because he was CERTAINLY the type of guy who enjoyed his pizza and other take-outs. But he was lucky enough to live across the road from a couple of stores and had a few others on speed-dial. He was old-school like that.
The thing is, Bob had a bit of a problem. He was running out of cash.
Too many pizzas and in-game purchases.
He needed a real job.
The other problem was—Bob did NOT want a real job. The real world had kinda left him behind over the last few years.
So how had he heard of Jeunesse? He’d started researching ways to make some money as his own boss, and this was one of the ventures he’d landed.
Bob’s diet.
I was really sceptical about Jeunesse when I started doing a bit of research. If you want to know a bit more about it and whether it might be right for you. AND whether it was right for Bob, then keep reading this Jeunesse review so I can help you out.
Jeunesse Review
Let’s start with the basics. What even IS Jeunesse?
Jeunesse is a range of anti-ageing skincare products. There’s a LOT of hype around them.
Despite not being available in any of the big department stores. SOME people were saying this stuff is the best in the game. Do you believe these people? I didn’t.
But hey, I should stop being so judgmental, right? Let’s do a bit more research first.
I know you’re already starting to question Bob’s role in this. I was too, believe me.
Let’s put it this was, he was definitely NOT the poster boy for anti-ageing skincare.
He’d been playing video games and eating pizza in the dark for the last 5 years.
So WHY did Bob pick Jeunesse over all these other things he could have started promoting?
If he WANTED to get involved in a pyramid scheme (I’m not sure why that’d be anyone’s first choice)—there were loads of other ones.
He could even start promoting tech products. Better fit, right? Or even pizza.
But no, Bob was gonna be a Jeunesse sales rep.
Turns out he’d met someone in his Call of Duty clan that was pushing this stuff. They were a bit higher up in the pyramid and Bob and seen how they were able to quit their day-job too.
Okay, so happenstance happens. Hence the name. Bob was into Jeunesse. I still wasn’t sure this was the right fit. But it is what it is.
But what about Jeunesse itself? That’s what you’re really here for. You banged “Jeunesse scam” or ” Jeunesse review” into Google and ended up at this review. You could have done a lot worse. But you wanna know more. I got you.
You see, I was intrigued as well. The reality was, I still really liked Bob. Despite his many faults, I didn’t wanna see him get burned. So I decided to do a bit more digging into Jeunesse. Maybe you can check out this review so you don’t have to.
Let’s start with the products. That’s always a good place to start.
There’s one main product with Jeunesse, and that’s “Instantly Ageless”.
I tried some, and it did NOT make me instantly ageless.
Okay, you probably expected that.
Cool name, but was it any good in general?
This is not something I knew too much about. Neither did Bob.
But what I DID know about is pyramid schemes. Sorry. I meant to say “MLM Network”. I keep doing that.
Jeunesse was founded in 2009 by two people named Randy Ray and Wendy Lewis.
They’ve got a range of products, with the Instantly Ageless cream being the flagship one. They also sell health supplements and more.
All good so far, right?
But what Bob and I soon found out was that the main way to make money wasn’t by selling these products like a normal affiliate, it was by hiring more sales reps to work under your.
ALERT! ALERT!
The sirens were ringing at this point.
THAT’S how pyramid schemes work.
The people at the top make their money from the sales rep network rather than actually selling many, or any, products.
And what was Bob thinking at this point?
The trouble was, Bob isn’t really the type of guy that knows many potential skincare sales reps. He’s not the sort of guy who knows any.
To start selling stuff for Jeunesse you’ve gotta buy their $29.95 start kit. Boo!
I’ve worked for so many top affiliate networks and basically none of them make you buy stuff before you can promote stuff. But pyramid schemes? They basically all do.
That’s basically how they work.
So you get a starter website with the start kit which isn’t bad in itself. And I’ve seen a lot more expensive pyramids to get into, for sure.
You’ve also gotta pay about $20 a year to stay in the system. This is still A BIT fishy, but I’ve seen ones that are a LOT more expensive, believe me.
However, there’s one part of Jeunesse that makes them a fair bit better than most other pyramid schemes. You CAN be a wholesale customer and buy these products to sell on your own. This is decent, but the products are expensive.
As Bob soon found out, they were hard to sell, too.
I soon did a little research and found that the authorities were starting to come down hard on the claims that were being used to sell a number of these
Jeunesse products. Like, some of it was really NOT verifiable and nowhere near as good as you thought. You mean they AREN’T instantly ageless? What a surprise.
A lot of the sales rep teams are apparently promoting these products as miracle cures.
I knew that some of this came from top-down. But some might not have.
The problem was, pyramid networks like this always tend to create a load of people who’re desperate to sell the products. They bought into the hard-sell themselves, thought they were gonna be making loads of money, but soon realized they weren’t. A lot of them were even losing money.
This always creates desperate people. They aren’t all bad people, some are just in a bad place. But they will hype these products to try and sell them. They’re in a hole themselves, normally.
But that’s because in many MLM networks like this, the only real way to make money is by hiring more sales reps. You get a cut from their fees and move higher up the pyramid. That’s why the people at the top are making plenty of wedge. They get paid no matter what, even if no products are sold. They don’t even NEED any products. They just get money from the sales network. Those signup fees, remember?
So how was Bob doing with all this? Surprise surprise, Bob wasn’t making any money. In fact, Bob had lost enthusiasm for Jeunesse. He did start talking about a couple of other MLM schemes and I was worried he was gonna blow even more on them, but a serious chat made him get a bit of perspective.
You see, while Bob didn’t like Jeunesse or MLM marketing, he had started to enjoy getting out of the house a bit more. He had to, as he’d realized early on that selling Jeunesse over Call of Duty server chats was never gonna work. So he had at least STARTED to get out into the real world. And guess what? He liked it.
He still played the odd video game and ate a bit too much pizza. But things were getting better.
He’d finally realized he might have to go and get a real job. So he was getting out there and doing just that. Part-time, to start with. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.
And another positive was that he still had some money saved up from before. He hadn’t spent it ALL on beer, pizza and video games. Phew. Things were looking up for Bob, but his future wasn’t gonna be with Jeunesse.
He was interested in other ways to make money online alongside his real job. I told him about Local Lead Generation, which I’d been happy with for some time now. It’s a lot better than any of these pyramid schemes. I think Bob can make it a success, too.
by secure_admin | Jul 10, 2022 | Multi Level Marketing
Back in high school, there was this dude in my class called Ron.
Now Ron was BIG into ancient Egypt. He loved that stuff.
That’s cool, everyone’s gotta have a passion.
Bruce was into Space, bigtime.
Me? I was into baseball.
The teachers were probably a bit happier with kids wanting to be archaeologists or physicists than some pie-in-the-sky baseball dream. But I didn’t care.
Ron’s camel.
Maybe there were right, though. Bruce went on to work for NASA. Nice.
And Ron? Well things were a bit different with Ron.
I hadn’t heard from him for a good few years.
This one night me and the boys were cutting the crap in the local bar.
Just a few drinks after a hard week, you know how it goes.
Then imagine my surprise when someone piped up with some new info on our old boy Ron.
No, he wasn’t leading expeditions into ancient Egypt.
But he WAS doing something to do with pyramids.
He was working for a PYRAMID SCHEME!
HAHA!
One of my other bros was laughing about how ironic that was, since he was so into ancient Egypt. I’m not sure it was irony, but then English wasn’t my passion either. It sure was funny though.
Bruce chilling.
Since I’d been working in internet marketing for a while now, I’d seen a lot of these come and go.
You see, I’d been making some good bank for a few years with Local Lead Generation. It’s as legit as they come. More on that later.
But the thing is, before I found Local Lead Generation, I’d tried a lot of duds.
Things you THINK are gonna take off, but never do.
So I’d seen a lot of these pyramid schemes. I’d seen a lot of people fail on them, too.
I was always kinda apprehensive about getting into them.
I’d seen how they sometimes preyed on desperate people. But I’d also seen people make good money from them.
So I wanted to know more about this scheme. It was called World Ventures. Nope, never heard of it either. It sure sounded pretty generic.
But I’d always been the kinda guy who didn’t like to rush to judgements.
Ron was one of the smartest guys in our class. He was also a decent bloke.
And apparently, he’d been making real bank with this.
We’re talking yacht money. Nice.
Living the dream!
So I decided to have a closer look into World Ventures. I was gonna start at the bottom without any prejudices. See if it works for normal people who DIDN’T get into it early like Ron did.
You see, I didn’t mind some of the marketing networks. They tend to call them MLM or MultiLevel Marketing. It’s all good if the products are quality and the people at the bottom (the late adopters) can still make money.
Was that the case with World Ventures? Read my World Ventures review to find out.
World Ventures Review
At the start, I thought it’d be a good idea to give Ron a heads up. I thought I could ask him a few questions and make sure he knew I was gonna be writing this review.
Trouble is, I was having a hard time getting hold of him.
I mean, we weren’t that close back in the day, but I still thought he’d talk to me.
I reached out to some of his closer friends. No luck.
I was starting to think he didn’t really want to talk about World Ventures.
I wondered why, but tried not to make any judgements.
It was no biggie, I mean maybe it’d be better if I just got into World Ventures without any prior knowledge. Like the real people who were just starting on this.
But wait a minute. I’m getting WAY ahead of myself here. We haven’t even covered the basics. What even IS World Ventures?
Let’s have a look…
World Ventures touts itself as a dream vacation provider. That’s all good, I can dig it.
Only instead of actually selling these vacations yourself, it turns out the main way to make money is by recruiting other salespeople. That’s kinda how most pyramid schemes work these days. Sorry. Most MLM networks, I meant. Ha!
Anyway, they’re not all bad. I wanted to know if World Ventures was one of the good ones. After all, Ron had been making big bucks, right?
World Ventures was founded in 2005, and it brought in nearly a billion in revenue in 2016. Nice.
They SAY they’ve got 500,000 employees—but this figure’s unconfirmed. I reckon they’re simply adding up the number of network salespeople that occasionally work for them. Maybe that have EVER worked for them. But again, this is unconfirmed as well. It’s just a hunch. I’m 100% on hunches half of the time.
So World Ventures was started by this dude Wayne Nugent, along with his buddy Mike Azcue. They SAY that they wanted to build the “Mary Kay of travel”—I found that blurb when I was Googling them. Trouble is, I don’t know who Mary Kay is. I guess that’s for another article. What I THINK they’re saying is that they wanna be successful. I get that. Don’t we all?
Anyway, things certainly got off to a good start for Wayne and Mike. Ernst and Young even nominated our boy Wayne to be entrepreneur of the year in 2010. So these aren’t the sort of scam artists you see running other networks. They’ve got traction and a reasonably amount of respect in industry circles.
But does that mean it’s a good idea signing up to be a World Ventures rep? I’m not sure.
Yes, the guys at the top are raking it in. Big respect to them for that. But what about guys like me who were just gonna start at the bottom and hopefully make some money? What about guys like you?
I’m sure that’s why you’re at this World Ventures review. After all, it’s too late to be one of the lucky ones who got in at the start. Guys like Ron. What happened to Ron, anyway? More on Ron later.
It hasn’t been completely plain-sailing for Mike and Wayne, either. They’ve made a ton of cash—but they’ve also been sued continuously. Even by the Norwegian Government.
These guys weren’t fans.
What were they sued for? Being a pyramid scheme, basically. Told you.
Should have known, since Ron was always into those Egyptians.
What does World Ventures Even sell?
We’ve got this far into the review and you still don’t really know what World Ventures are trying to pimp. It’s about travel, we get that, but what’s so special about it?
In a word… Nothing.
I mean, they’re offering discounts and other travel-based offers for a monthly fee. A lot of this stuff can be found on other big-name affiliate sites WITHOUT the monthly fee. You’re basically paying for discounts. Some of them are ok, but I wouldn’t say they’re REALLY worth singing up to a monthly plan for.
Look, it’s not scammy at this level. You won’t see me calling this a World Ventures scam. You pay your monthly fee, and you get some good discounts.
Some people might prefer to do this than spend hours finding these discounts individually. Time is money, right?
But when I looked a bit deeper into these offers they seemed even less attractive. They weren’t flexible at all with dates or anything like that. Basically, if you like an offer, you have to book it on their terms and the ability to customize things isn’t easy.
You can’t combine offers either, or save reward points to spend all at once. Things are pretty limited here. There are much better travel offer sites out there. Many of these you don’t have to pay for.
This is always one of my biggest problems with pyramid schemes like this. Sorry, MLM Networks. Keep making that mistake.
Basically, if the products are good, then what’s the problem? I don’t see one with using a network to promote stuff.
But when they products AREN’T good, that’s when I start to have second thoughts.
But the REAL problem with MLM networks like this is even bigger…
It’s that they’re really hard to make money with for people at the bottom of the pyramid.
So if the people buying these plans aren’t getting anything good, and the people selling them aren’t making any money. What’s the point? Answers on a postcard, please.
Oh yeah. I know what the point was—the people at the stop still continue to make money. Just nobody else gets any value at all from this stuff.
THAT’S why MLM networks are getting a bad rap these days.
So in order to become an affiliate with World Ventures, you gotta pay a signup fee and then a monthly fee. Most affiliate networks I’ve worked with are happy to let you in for free in return for promoting their products.
Problem is, because the products aren’t that great or easy to promote—the main way it seems like World Ventures makes any money is with these
membership plans. Yep, you got it—they make the bulk of their cash from their affiliates, rather than their actual products.
And when you realise that you’ve gotta pay for an even more costly affiliate membership in order to qualify for the best commissions, things get even harder.
I remember when i first got into affiliate marketing, I was stoked with how much content and help PROPER affiliates gave me. And when I started making sales, I started making money. I DID NOT have to pay them before I started making sales. And I qualified for higher commissions based on my performance, NOT how much I paid them. Spotting the difference here? That’s not how World Ventures works…
And while people are still making money from World Ventures (people like Ron)—there’s an income disclosure statement which makes for interesting reading.
Basically, it says that 80% of affiliates aren’t making any money from World Ventures. And that 99% of affiliates make less than $2,000 a year. For those of you thinking about quitting their day jobs for this—think again. For those who’ve ALREADY quit their day jobs for this—Ouch.
So nobody’s really making money from this anymore? Not the people at the bottom, anyway. And there are loads of legal issues associated with World Ventures? And the products people end up with aren’t that great? I think you know which way to go on this already.
And back to the product range. The problem with using this model to promote World Ventures is that you often get desperate salespeople who’re already out of pocket pushing low-quality products to people who don’t really want them. The hard sell. You got it. This leaves both parties unhappy. And that’s not a party I wanna be involved in. No cake, either.
So what happened to Ron? Ah yeah, our boy Ron.
He still wasn’t answering my calls. Ron, bro! We go way back.
I’d heard on the grapevine that he’d been taking a lot of heat from friends and family that he’d got involved in World Ventures. He’d made some nice cash, and bought some cool stuff. But things were drying up. Word was that he’d moved on to some more legit money-making ventures. Good for him.
But where does that leave the people further down the pyramid? I want my $200 signup fee back!
A bit later, I started finding some better ways to make money online.
What I realised was that these get rich quick schemes were often just that. Schemes.
To make actual money, you’ve normally gotta put a bit of work in. I know that doesn’t sound like fun to most of you. But that’s just the way it is.
I found this other cool gig called Local Lead Generation. It lets you set up your own lead generation business for real clients who pay well. It could be your first step towards that passive income deal you’ve always wanted. It was for me, anyway. You should check it out.
by secure_admin | Jul 10, 2022 | Direct Selling
Before I get started on this Kyani Review, I need to start with a little story.
You see, I’ve wanted to be an entrepreneur for years. Decades even.
Recently, I started making real money online with Local Lead Generation. I’m gonna tell you more about that towards the end of this Kyani Review. But before that, I tried and failed a lot of different times.
Believe me I’ve tried, and believe me I’ve FAILED. Bigtime. Over and over again.
Way back in junior high I decided I was gonna sell smoothies outside school.
I picked some fresh fruit from the local trees, made up a few recipes, and juiced them all up.
This was way before the health juice craze got really big, so I still attest that’s the reason I failed. I was before my time, honest.
If only mine were this fresh.
I always had some good sales patter so drumming up business at the start was easy. I gave them cool names and shouted from the rooftops. Or from the sidewalk, in reality.
A couple of teachers got suspicious. I was worried the authorities were gonna SHUT ME DOWN.
But that’s not why I failed. In the end those same teachers smirked and turned a blind eye. I think they were kinda impressed by the creativity that was on show. This was way back in the 90s so there weren’t as many snowflakes around and people just kinda let you do things like this as long as nobody was getting harmed.
Some would say these were simpler times. But anyway. I’m not getting into THAT.
Trouble was, my smoothies were actually pretty disgusting.
The names were cool, the sales pitch was good. Great location too. But terrible products. Ouch.
That meant no repeat custom. A severe blow to any business.
THAT’S why my juice venture failed. The “authorities” needn’t have worried.
I didn’t last much longer than a week before I got bored and started thinking about the next get-rich-quick scheme.
Maybe I should have worked a bit harder on my original recipes. Or maybe I WAS just before my time. Who knows.
Anyway, why am I telling you this?
Kyani.
I know you’re reading this because you banged in something like “kyani reviews” or “kyani scam” into Google.
When I saw this opportunity to sell health juices like this, it brought back fond memories. Maybe it was meant to be?
Only I’d also heard a few negative stories about this brand and business opportunity. Some people were even saying it was a pyramid scheme. And I’m not normally a fan of those.
So I decided to roll back the years and try to become a juice magnate once more. I jumped into Kyani as a business opportunity so I could write this review.
I’m gonna tell you whether it’s something you should get involved in, or if it really IS something you should be avoiding.
Check out my Kyani review for all the info you need and more.
Kyani Review
Let’s start with the basics. What even IS Kyani?
Don’t worry, I got you.
Kyani is basically a big juice drink company. You got that already, right?
Well this one was formed by the merger of two experienced juice making families. The Taylors and the Hansens.
They’re all about nature. Good hippie vibes.
Their main idea was to use fruits, sometimes unusual fruits, to make unique and healthy drinks and a range of other products. So we’re not just talking about freshly squeezed orange juice, but drinks and stuff with Alaskan Blueberries or Swiss apple in.
It’s a good niche, I’ll give them that. The products certainly sound good. They look good too. But what do they TASTE like? That’s gotta be the most important factor before we even get into Kyani as a business opportunity. I knew that myself. Remember how badly my garbage-tasting juices had done? It’s all in the taste.
Well get this…
Kyani’s drinks taste incredible.
They’re so fresh and tasty. They might even be some of the best juice drinks I’ve ever tried. WAY better than those ones I tried to make. I mean you’re probably not surprised that a multinational company made better juice than a 12-year old kid, but maybe my ego was a bit bruised.
Their story actually goes a bit deeper. There’s a load of stuff about a surprise visit to Alaska and a realization that their diet helps them be healthier than the
rest of the continental United States. This sounds good, but I don’t know how true it is.
Apparently blueberries and salmon are much better for you than burgers for breakfast. Who knew?
So these Alaskan blueberries are like the newest superfood on the block. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of these fads before. Spirulina, Kale, you name it. But apparently Alaskan Blueberries are the next big thing. They’re even 48-times more powerful as an antioxidant than regular blueberries. Which are already pretty good.
The home of the best blueberries.
So these Alaskan blueberries are like one of the cornerstones of Kyani’s product range. But they’ve sourced a load of other cool stuff too.
Their claims? I’m not sure. But I can definitely believe that a more fruit-based diet was gonna be better for most people. One of their flagship products was a drink called Kyani Sunset. This thing tastes good and has a whole load of apparent nutrients and health benefits. It was expensive, though. We’ll get to that in a minute.
So now we know a bit more about Kyani and their product range, what about them as a business opportunity?
That’s where things get SLIGHTLY less tasty. Where should i start?
I thought I was gonna be getting involved in simply promoting Kyani drinks like a regular affiliate. You know the deal. I even had a few ideas for affiliate websites I could set up. I’d done a few of them before. Some successful, some not.
But I LOVED the product so I was pretty happy to promote it. Or I thought I was.
That’s one of the big things with marketing products. You’ve gotta like the product itself so you can really sell it. I know I’d sold insurance before, but who’s really passionate about instance. Nobody.
I WAS passionate about these tasty, healthy drinks so selling them was gonna be easy as pie, right?
The main problem straight off the bat is Kyani’s price. It’s expensive. I’ve seen plenty of cool health drinks in the local health store for like a quarter of the price. Seriously.
Ok, but drinks like Kyani Sunset are REALLY good. Maybe the price-point is worth it? Maybe, but I’m sceptical, I’m not gonna lie.
You see, while the products might be great—Kyani’s moved quite a long way from that and has basically turned into a massive distribution company. They’re making A LOT of money. Like a billion lot.
And the main way to promote Kyani and make money as a sales rep? Yep, it’s a Multi-Level Marketing network (another one). So the main way is via a pyramid.
I’ve seen a lot of these gigs before. Not ALL of them are bad, believe me. But it’s hard to find a great one.
The good thing about Kyani is that their products are legit. I mean, I’m no doctor so I can’t tell you how legit they are when it comes to their health benefits. But I’ve done some reading and things add up.
They ARE legit tasting, and I like the brand.
But as a way to make money? I’m not so sure. Seems like the only people making money from this is the people at the top. That’s always the way with pyramid schemes like this. Is it a Kyani scam? I’m not sure I’d go that far. But there are much better ways to make money. Like Local Lead Generation. More on that later.
So for those guys like me who got on at the bottom of the pyramid, it soon transpires that these products are a much harder sell than I thought.
I was disappointed. I guess it was like my own juice stand gig all over again. Only this time it wasn’t the taste that was putting people off, it was the price.
I mean I was selling those things for a dime a pop so the price was all good back in the day. But these Kyani price drinks have a preferred customer price of around $40. Okay, you get a decent volume for that. But it’s not an impulse buy for someone who’s first seen Kyani Sunset at a drinks machine.
I had a chat with a couple of other Kyani reps who were a bit further into things than me. They weren’t happy, either.
You see, they’d made hardly any money with this thing. As with so many other MLM schemes like this, actually making money was REALLY hard. The only way to really get ahead of the game is to recruit more sales reps underneath you and get a bit higher up the pyramid.
That’s always my main issue with these schemes. The product is great, fine. That sure puts Kyani ahead of a number of other MLM networks. Only the main way to make money is simply recruiting more sales reps. NOT selling the actual products. Drinks, in this case.
Not exactly like this.
This creates a sales network that’s desperate and pushy. I’ve seen it first-hand so many times myself.
Networks like this do tend to prey on people who’ve bought into the hard sell. People who want to make better lives for themselves but haven’t thought things through properly or simply haven’t had the right breaks in life.
Problem is, these pyramid schemes are rarely the right breaks. Unless you got in early, that is.
Also, when being recruited by higher-up Kyani reps, you do get a lot of misinformation. There were some really unverifiable claims about the benefits of the products. This not only convinces newer reps to continue to spout the same sort of claims, it also misleads customers. These guys weren’t doctors, but they were acting and talking like them. Not a fan, personally.
The other big problem with the sales pitch was how much money they said we’d be making. The reality is, hardly any of the newer reps are making any bank whatsoever.
Where do they want you to start recruiting first of all? Your friends and family. I wasn’t happy with this. I liked the drinks, but the prices were a bit ridiculous. And I knew my friends did NOT want me to come around with ANOTHER one of those great pyramid idea schemes. Like me, they’d seen them all before.
The other problem? You gotta buy your own products before you can sell them. I don’t need to tell you how any legit company runs, but they’d never do this sort of thing. Kyani is making money off their own sales team. That’s how they make money.
The products are basically a front. It could be any product.
The way Kyani makes money is through you, the sales rep. You don’t make any money. Most of the time.
So. Kyani isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a real shame, because the product line is awesome. Super-legit. If only they were a bit cheaper. If only they were marketed properly rather than in a pyra-sorry, “MLM Network”.
As for other ways to make money online? I know you’ve been waiting for the REAL juice. And these days, that’s Local Lead Generation. No pyramids in sight. Check it out, you’ll be as glad you did as I was.
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