Send Out Cards: You’ve Been Had!

[Doc Bunkum]

Okay, the title of this thread isn't original. I borrowed it from Dennis Yu who started a thread by the same name over on Almighty Dad .

I'll let Dennis introduce Send Out Cards for those that aren't familiar with the program - though I'm sure the majority of the people have heard of them by now:

A quick primer on SendOutCards.com: It is a MLM scheme, like many other MLM schemes. It just happens to be one of the newest, and it’s popular with stay at home parents who can’t work outside their homes. The idea is that you can send greeting cards to friends, family, coworkers and whoever without ever going to the store to buy a card; you just type the message into a form on a website and the card gets printed and sent without you having to do anything else. It actually sounds like a pretty decent product – except that’s not actually the point of the program. The object of Send Out Cards is to find more distributors and get more people selling, because the more people sell the more you make. Classic.

Since Dennis wrote that article 7 months ago, there have been 279 comments on his piece, totaling over a hundred thousand words.

What's interesting are the latest numbers on SOC that Dennis provides in this recent update:

I could have chosen to analyze any MLM scheme, but Send Out Cards readily published their numbers, so it was an interesting exercise in math. Since then, SOC has published the 2010 figures. Not much has changed.

There are now a few “Eagles”– 0.0001 to be exact. That’s 0.01%, which is 1% of 1%, no matter how you justify it (“the cards are great”, “people aren’t doing it to get rich”, “all success requires hard work”, “all advertising is misleading, so ours is therefore okay”, and every other flavor).

But run and hide from math as you may, it’s hard to argue the cold, hard math. SOC notes that the average (arithmetic mean) income last year was $457.51, while the median was only $20. That’s $1.67 a month or about a nickel a day. For those who have remember high school stats, the arithmetic mean is much higher than the median because there are a few folks at the top of the pyramid that skew the average.

Were I more enterprising, I’d add in a cartoon here with two Egyptians standing in front of the Great Pyramids– one remarking, “This is NOT a pyramid scheme! It’s Send Out Bricks!”

I haven't checked SOC's numbers - I'm taking them on face value from what Dennis published. I'm sure they're accurate.

Thanks for the great article, Dennis!

[Emet]

Thanks for posting this, Doc. I've been following the article for some time. One particular SOC person had recently entered into the conversation, and was attempting to derail the thread. He posted 20-21 comments in 4 days! (It's a blog, not a forum) At least one of his nonsense posts was deleted, as bloggers have the right to control their blogs in any way they see fit.

[JamesVincent]

I actually have a good friend who is with SOC and has asked me multiple times to join him there and swears that it is the most stable and productive MLM out there right now. He makes anywhere from $50k-$60k/ month and is one the top 10 producers in the country. Out of that income he makes maybe $2k-$3k/ month in actual sales of products, I believe. He spends a good amount of money to keep himself going the way he is and it appears to work for him. He has been involved in other MLMs over the years with the same results. Again, it is not the sales that pays him, it is the recruiting and retention that makes him money and results in extraordinary income. I also dont rely on just his word on his income. I repaired all of his dining room chairs(solid teak chairs) and I have been out on his 48' chesapeake. However, I have not been out on his brand new custom built 52' chesapeake yet.

So he is one of the ones that skews their numbers and makes it higher. And like I said he isnt even the highest, he just is up there. Apparently the higher ones make 7 figures a year with SOC and I doubt their income is from sales either.