Lousy Products - Brilliant Compensation Plans

"Buy 1 for yourself and get the chance to sell your friends and family 5 and get your downline started!" We examine the multi-level marketing industry, where only the people who come up with the ideas make any money, and everybody else is left unhappy, broke, and tired of reading scripts and selling overpriced vitamins and similarly worthless products. Includes Global Prosperity, Pinnacle Quest International, IRS Codebusters, Stratia, and other new Global Prosperity scams.

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Doc Bunkum
Scamologist General (MLM Division)
Posts: 321
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:45 am

Lousy Products - Brilliant Compensation Plans

Post by Doc Bunkum »

Mike Adams, who claims a monthly readership of 1.2 million readers for his Natural Health Newsletter, has written a somewhat lengthy and confusing article that's almost as long as it's title - "The Network Marketing Revolution: Why Emerging Direct Sales Companies are Redefining the Industry".

He looks at 3 companies - Monavie, Xango and Zrii - and examines why they are commercially VERY successful.

He asks:
How can that be? If their products are made largely with non-impressive filler juices, how can these companies be so commercially successful? What do they have that makes people want to keep buying (and drinking) their products?

The answer, of course, is found in their compensation plans.
He examines the compensation plan of Monavie in detail:
The real root of Monavie's commercial success is the compensation plan and how it leverages basic human psychology to amplify its viral success. The product is practically irrelevant.

Monavie is a commercial success because it's aligned with human nature: It leverages each individual's self-interest and fear of "missing out" on money they could be getting right now. Monavie works because it's in each distributor's interest to enroll a couple of people, even when they are only thinking of themselves!

This is what has allowed Monavie to become a $1 billion company.
Mike makes it clear though:
I don't endorse the Monavie product line, what the company has unquestionably demonstrated is the power of person-to-person distribution of health products. This topic, it turns out, has ming-boggling social and commercial implications.
Lousy product, brilliant compensation plan.

If I read that right, it appears Mike is saying is that it's perfectly OK to scam people - the money is the important thing. Seems Mike, once an anti MLM zealot, has seen the light. He then goes off on a lengthy rant about the wonders of MLM using the Wal-Mart model vs. the network marketing model comparison to show why MLM is so much more efficient.

One thing, Mike. I don't see you discuss market saturation. Ever wonder why there aren't a dozen Wal-Mart stores in town instead of just one?

Of course, in MLM, that's no problem. It's all about recruiting as many people as possible, even though nobody is making money - except the company.
soapboxmom
Matriarch of the Networked Soap Sales
Posts: 531
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 1:00 am

Re: Lousy Products - Brilliant Compensation Plans

Post by soapboxmom »

Did I hear someone say autoship?????

Soapboxmom