Essens was founded in 2011 by Viliam Lalinsky, Libor Prus and Michal Kovar (CEO).

The company is based out of Brno in the Czech Republic and operates in the personal care and nutrition MLM niches.

Prior to co-founding Essens, Viliam Lalinsky and Michal Kovar were involved in FM Group. Possibly due to language-barriers, I was unable to confirm whether Libor Prus was also an FM Group affiliate.

FM Group (now FM World) are a Polish based MLM company that market a range of personal care, household and nutrition products.

Read on for a full review of the Essens MLM opportunity.

Essens Products

Essens market a range of personal care and nutrition products.

These include:

  • perfumes (women’s/men’s)
  • body mists
  • body balms
  • shower gels
  • lactoferrin tablets and ointment
  • aloe vera supplements and cosmetics
  • “home perfume” air fresheners
  • sun care
  • colostrum supplements and cosmetics
  • a “home pharmacy” range of supplements

There are too many Essens products to go through here individually, but a full product catalog (with retail pricing) is provided on the Essens website.

The Essens Compensation Plan

The Essens compensation plan pays affiliates to purchase and sell Essens products.

Residual commissions are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure, with additional bonuses also available.

Retail Commissions

Essens pay retail commissions when affiliates sell products to retail customers (non-affiliates).

As per the Essens compensation plan, retail commissions can be up to 40% of price paid for a product.

Residual Commissions

Essens pay residual commissions via a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Residual commissions are paid out as a percentage of sales made across the unilevel team.

How much of a commission is paid out is determined month to month via unilevel team sales volume:

  • €100 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 3% residual commission rate
  • €400 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 6% residual commission rate
  • €1200 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 9% residual commission rate
  • €2400 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 12% residual commission rate
  • €4000 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 17% residual commission rate
  • €6000 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 20% residual commission rate
  • €10,000 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 25% residual commission rate
  • €15,000 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume = 28% residual commission rate

To maintain residual commission qualification, an Essens affiliate must generate a minimum of €20 EUR in sales volume each month (can be self-purchase).

Depth Bonus

Essens’ Depth Bonus is a bonus percentage paid on sales volume generated within the unilevel team (see residual commissions above).

  • Double Silver Managers receive a bonus 2% on unilvel volume generated by personally recruited Silver Manager ranked affiliates
  • Gold Manager+ affiliates receive a bonus 2% on Silver Manager volume and then a bonus 1% again on Double Gold Manager+ or Double Silver manager volume within the same unilevel team leg

To qualify as a Double Silver Manager or Gold Manager+, an affiliate must have two unilevel legs generating at least €15,000 EUR a month.

In addition to the rank based qualification criteria above, an Essens affiliate must also maintain €100 EUR in sales volume a month to qualify for the Depth Bonus.

Bonus Pools

Each month Essens place 5% of company-wide sales volume into four bonus pools.

Affiliates can qualify for shares in the pools by satisfying the following qualification criteria:

  • Gold Manager (recruit three affiliates who each generate at least €4000 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume) – receive a share in a 2% pool (additional 0.5 share per group of three recruited affiliates who satisfy the Gold Manager qualification criteria)
  • Platinum National Manger (recruit three affiliates who each generate at least €10,000 EUR in monthly national unilevel team volume) – receive a share in a 1% pool (additional 0.5 share per group of three recruited affiliates who satisfy the Platinum National Manager qualification criteria)
  • Platinum International Manager (recruit three affiliates who each generate at least €10,000 EUR in monthly international unilevel team volume) – receive a share in a 1% pool (additional 0.5 share per group of three recruited affiliates who satisfy the Platinum International Manager qualification criteria)
  • Platinum Executive Manager (recruit three affiliates who each generate at least €50,000 EUR in monthly unilevel team volume) – receive a share in a 1% pool (additional 0.5 share per group of three recruited affiliates who satisfy the Platinum Executive Manager qualification criteria)

Note that national volume is unilevel team volume counted from within an affiliate’s country of residence.

International volume is unilevel team volume from outside of this country.

In addition to the rank based qualification criteria above, an Essens affiliate must also maintain €100 EUR in sales volume a month to qualify for the Bonus Pool.

Loyalty Bonus

The Loyalty Bonus is made up of three annual bonus pools, each allocated 1% of Essens company-wide sales volume.

Affiliates can qualify for a share in one of the bonus pools by meeting the following qualification criteria:

  • Double Gold Manager (qualify as a Gold Manager for nine months in a calendar year) – one share in the Double Gold Manager pool
  • Double Platinum National Manager and Double Platinum International Manager (qualify as a Platinum Manager or Platinum International Manager for nine months in a calendar year) – one share in the Double Platinum Manager and Double Platinum International Manager pool
  • Double Platinum Executive Manager (qualify as a Platinum Executive Manager for nine months in a calendar year) – one share in the Double Platinum Executive Manager pool

In addition to the above rank qualification criteria, Essens affiliates must also maintain at least €100 EUR in sales volume each month for the year the Loyalty Bonus is being qualified for.

Car Bonus

Gold Manager and higher ranked Essens affiliates qualify for a monthly Car Bonus as follows:

  • Gold Manager – €500 EUR
  • Platinum National Manager and Platinum International Manager – €750 EUR
  • Platinum Executive Manager – €1000 EUR

Joining Essens

There doesn’t appear to be any cost associated with signing up as an Essens affiliate.

If an affiliate chooses to self qualify for commissions, ongoing monthly expenses range from €20 EUR to €100 EUR a month.

Conclusion

I’m not sure why Viliam Lalinsky and Michal Kovar left FM World to launch a pretty similar looking MLM company, but since 2011 Essens appears to have developed into a successful enough opportunity in its own right.

Today there is enough of a difference between Essens’ and FM World’s product lines to justify two separate companies.

Essens’ product line is pretty robust although, like FM World, does feel a bit eclectic.

There’s the general themes of personal care and nutrition throughout the range, but nothing really tying each product range together. Anything could really be switched out for something else and not really have an impact on Essens’ as a brand.

I think to remedy this the company should entertain attaching itself to a flagship product. Although which of their extensive range that winds up being I couldn’t say.

Moving onto the business model, Essens is pretty straight forward. Commissions are paid on the sale of products and there doesn’t appear to be any cost barrier to entry as an affiliate.

Monthly sales quotas of €20 or €100 EUR can be self-purchases, which without retail quotas does introduce the possibility of chain-recruitment.

The good news is establishing whether this is taking place is pretty easy. At a minimum an Essens affiliate is qualifying for MLM commissions with €20 EUR a month in sales volume.

If this base minimum amount is being qualified for via an affiliate’s own product purchase (ie. the affiliate isn’t even making €20 EUR a month in retail sales), that’s a strong indication of chain-recruitment taking place.

Requiring these monthly volume quotas to be retail volume only would go a long way to alleviating the potential for compliance abuse.

As a sidenote, if Essense wish to truly break into the English-speaking market I think they need to hire someone to rewrite their compensation plan.

I got the gist of it but at times the presentation was pretty difficult to make sense of (awkward language and no logical flow of information).

Otherwise the percentages paid across the unilevel are pretty generous. And I like the idea of a monthly percentage qualification over a one-time rank achievement.

Although Essens does have ranks for other commissions, the core residuals are tied to monthly production – meaning top affiliates need to work with their downlines to maintain their commission rate.

Again, as a prospective Essens affiliate, try to verify that the bulk of unilevel volume you’re able to verify is being made via retail sales over monthly Essens affiliate purchases.

Oh and it wouldn’t hurt to sample some of the products and compare to what’s available online and locally, as this will be your primary competition as an Essens affiliate.

Good luck!