|
Rating: 
Level of Review:
Observed in friends, researched.
Overview:
MLM company dealing in computer education, with
a non-standard downline tracking method.
Product:
Online Computer Education, which is not
separate from the ability to resell the program. A
single fee and registration enables you to access
the site and to sign up other
distributors.
Costs: $125
per year.
Compensation:
You know, I read through their compensation plan,
and could not understand it one bit! It talked
about getting this much for each person you sponsor
for something like 9 levels deep, and said that
your line runs vertically, not out, but that you
can start another one out any time you like. I
actually looked into the compensation of one
member, and found that the amounts that it sounded
like they were promising were nowhere near what
they actually were paying. I am not sure where the
misunderstanding was, but I am not a stupid person,
and I read very carefully what they were saying,
and in the end had no idea in the morass of
confusion exactly how much they were paying per
sale and per sale in your downline.
Conclusion:
This company has the problem of not separating
their product sales from their business sales, and
I cannot feel certain the product is sound. I
reviewed their website about a year ago, when it
was supposedly fairly new (they claimed they
launched ahead of time due to incredible demand -
where did the demand come from I wonder if they
were not advertising availability too early?), and
I was not impressed with the content of their
computer education classes. For one, the lessons
they had up were less informative than the welcome
screen in Windows. It was instructing on how to
double click and how to do things that you would
HAVE to already know how to do if you were able to
even make it to their website. They had about 4
little mini lessons on Macs, full of glitz but no
substantive information, and about twice that many
for Windows. Each lesson had about 5 to 10
sentences and illustrations (spread over about 6
pages of Flash windows - unnecessarily long
download time just to see a picture of the button I
was supposed to push). It seemed pretty lame to me.
Also, I checked twice, about a week apart. During
that time I started writing instructional lessons
that were similar in size, but heavier in content
(I had been working on chapters for a book during
that time anyway, I just wrote the next ones in an
HTML format). Much simpler in design (fully as
functional and much faster), but hey, they
supposedly were making enough money to hire top
men, whereas I was just one person doing it. The
second time I checked they had no more stuff on
than I did - in fact, I had more, as they had added
nothing in that time. They claimed to be growing
the site, but did not appear to be.
Now, it seemed to
me that if they really were committed to the
content, and were actually hiring top men to
develop the site, that they would have been able to
produce a few more lessons in that time (heck, my
then 12 year old son could have produced 4 or 5
computer lessons with as much information and
complexity as they did in that amount of time and
he is not even technically gifted!), but they did
not. In the same amount of time I produced 15
lessons, completed a basic website layout, and put
in support information, along with caring for my
family, taking in bulk food and computer orders,
maintaining several websites and getting ready to
publish the monthly paper. At $125 a pop, they
should be able to afford to add content regularly!
I concluded that they were more committed to
selling the sales package than they were to selling
a product with value. Since then I have been told
that the website has had new things added, but
cannot check, because you have to be a member to
access even the table of contents. They have not
mentioned phenomenal growth of the website, only
that it has more. That suggests to me that the
website development is not keeping up with what
they said it should. Because if sales were
phenomenal, and they were committed to the product,
the product would also be growing phenomenally. The
other thing I dislike about it is that there are no
sample lessons, nothing but ads for purchase until
you buy. You do not know what it is you are able to
sell until you have bought it - sort of a pig in a
poke. I know more about it because a friend let me
see so I could assess it. In fact, someone offered
to pay my way into this, and I turned them down,
because I did not feel it was worth the risk, even
if I could pay it back later.
Can you make money
at it? Maybe. Another friend did this for a while,
and actually did make a little at it (not enough to
make up much more than her membership fee though).
She is the type of person that has done Amway and
made it work quite well (sole means of support for
her and her husband), she has owned several other
businesses as well, and always makes them work.
This has been marginally successful for her, which
does not really speak in their favor. I would urge
caution, as I do not see how this program can
sustain itself long if it goes on like it has
been.
|
