Part of the guide: Network Marketing Lead Generation
***Special Note: the company iLearningGlobal.tv stopped being an MLM company on March 17th, 2010, and turned their backs on their distributors, stealing incomes of all of their top reps, including myself. Because of that, they are worthy of the ‘hall of shame’ in the Network Marketing profession, and my opinion is that no one should ever do business with either them or their other company, DailySuccessStream.com again.
So you’ve been doing some iLearningGlobal Research on the internet…
…and you’re wondering if iLearningGlobal is a scam or not.
This isn’t a very common question – because of the credibility that people associate with Brian Tracy, Steven Covey, Jay Abraham, and others, but sometimes people still wonder if iLearningGlobal is a scam or a legitimate opportunity.
What’s my take on this? Well, I cover this in detail in the video, but I wanted to show you the actual content from http://www.MLMLegal.com – visit their website for the full article. These are the points to watch out for when reviewing whether or not a company is a legit business model in the world of MLM:
- Product and Price
Does the company offer a high-quality product for which there is a strong demand in the real-world marketplace? Is the product fairly priced and competitively priced with similar products? Can the product be demonstrated, and does it stand out when you show it to friends? Is the product proprietary to the company and available only through its distributors? (Have you ever noticed that you can’t buy Avon products in stores or Shaklee vitamins at pharmacies?) Is it backed up with a customer satisfaction guarantee?
Is post-sales service or customer assistance available? Do the people who participate in the program buy the product enthusiastically based on its own merits, even if they don’t participate in the compensation program? - No Investment Requirement
Can you participate in the company’s program without having to make any investment other than purchasing a sales kit or demonstration materials sold at company cost? - Purchase and Inventory Requirements
Can you become a distributor or sales representative without having to fulfill a minimum up-front purchase or inventory requirement? (When you are pitched to put thousands of dollars of inventory at the very beginning, run fast in the opposite direction.) Does the company’s compensation plan discourage inventory loading? Garages and backrooms filled with products serve no useful purpose to anyone. - Sales Commissions Sources
Are sales commissions paid only on actual products or services sold through distributors in the network to the end-user or ultimate consumer? (This means that products don’t end up in basements and closets. They are used because they have genuine value.) Does the compensation plan avoid paying commissions or bonuses for the mere act of sponsoring or recruiting? (If it pays headhunting fees, it is illegal.) - Check the Buy-Back Policy
Will the company buy back inventory and sales kit materials from distributors who cancel their participation in the program, as long as these items are in resalable condition? (This policy is required in states that have adopted multilevel distribution statutes.) - Emphasis on Retail Sales
Is there an emphasis on actual retail sales to end-consumers? Can the company demonstrate efforts to market products to the ultimate consumer? Do the company’s distributors have ongoing retailing requirements to qualify for commissions? What is a “retail sale?” The industry and many MLM statutes include both sales to nonparticipants and purchases in reasonable amounts for personal use by distributors. Some regulatory groups, including the FTC, have historically rejected personal use as a legitimate retail sale. Stay tuned as this debate continues. The legislative trend is definitely supportive of the industry position. - Active Role for Distributors
Are distributors in the company required to actively participate in the development and management of their networks? (Many of the MLM statutes require that distributors perform bona fide, supervisory, distributing, selling, or soliciting functions in moving product to the ultimate consumer.) - Earnings Misrepresentations
Do the company’s literature and training materials scrupulously avoid claims of income potential that are promises of specific income levels other than demonstrations of verifiable income levels within its program? (The Federal Trade Commission, attorneys general, and postal inspectors all have their eyes on the matter of earnings representations. The acceptable approach emerging is that there should be no earnings representations unless they are based on a verifiable track record of the average earnings of distributors. For instance, a company should have statistics to show the percentage of active distributors and the average earnings of active distributors.) - Good Training
Does the company offer its independent distributors solid training opportunities in sales and recruitment? Are different levels of training offered to match the increasing levels of experience and responsibilities of distributors?
Warmest Regards,
David Wood
801-542-9350
dave@workwithdavidwood.com
Comments
Brian Rakowski, July 11 2009, 12:00
Hey Dave,
You have been paid late before
You have watched the number on the dashboard not match the number in your account. What is different now is simple: it settles on a public contract you can check yourself, not a dashboard I control.
Read the contract →Most participants earn little to nothing. No income is guaranteed. You can verify every payout on the public smart contract.
Thanks for the great review! It’s too bad that they cut off their network marketing arm – something that happened to me in my first company – but I’d imagine that they’re having some challenges without their distributor/business builder base going out and sharing their story.
Everything obviously worked out in the end for you, so keep it up Dave! 😀
Have fun in Vegas,
Brian
Inga Meisels, July 11 2009, 13:00
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lawrenceburg tn, July 11 2009, 14:00
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Three posts a day. One email a day.
Everything I publish, in one short daily email. Real numbers, no hype, unsubscribe in one click.
Get paid 100%, on-chain, the second the sale clears
Most affiliates earn little, and that is disclosed up front. The difference here is not a promise about what you will make. It is that you can verify every payout yourself, on a public contract, in about twelve seconds.
See how the payout works →Most participants earn little to nothing. No income is guaranteed. You can verify every payout on the public smart contract.
One correction: the article frames the FTC’s stance on personal-use sales as if it’s settled in the industry’s favor, ‘the legislative trend is definitely supportive,’ but that was contested for years afterward and still varies by state. Read that section as the writer’s optimism rather than settled regulatory fact. The checklist itself, though, is a genuinely useful set of questions to run any opportunity through.
Priya’s right about the framing, and here’s a practical version of that checklist for anyone spooked by the ‘hall of shame’ language up top: pick one criterion, the buy-back policy, and go find the actual written policy before deciding anything.
Priya’s caveat about the FTC framing matches what I saw from the inside for years, that language kept shifting depending on which regulator was paying attention that quarter, and companies would quote whichever version was currently convenient. What I’d add from having sat in field development meetings is that the ‘active role for distributors’ criterion on this list sounds clean on paper and is almost impossible to audit in practice. Nobody at the corporate level is checking whether a given distributor is doing genuine selling versus mostly recruiting, because the systems that would need to track that don’t get built unless a regulator forces the issue. The checklist is a good filter for a prospectus. It was never designed to catch what actually happens eighteen months in, which is usually the more useful question.
A checklist for spotting a bad opportunity, published by someone who joined one anyway. Noted.