myEcon Review: Third-party products and services & recruitment
myEcon dub themselves the “personal financial success company” and are based out of Atlanta in the US.
Founded in 2005, myEcon is headed up by CEO Larry Gates.
As per Gates’ myEcon corporate bio, he has
20 years of experience in communications, marketing and business operations.
Mr. Gates also has great people skills having spent several years in the financial services industry.
Further research reveals a 2009 blog post by Michael J Smith names Ivey Stokes and Alvin Curry as the original founders of myEcon.
Alvin Curry cites himself as Owner and President of myEcon on his LinkedIn profile. Ivey Stokes cites himself as Executive Vice-President.
Curiously, neither Curry or Stokes are credited by name on the myEcon website.
myEcon, Inc. is a privately held, debt free company based in Gwinnett County, GA, a suburb of Atlanta. The company was founded by a small group of entrepreneurs in 2005.
One possible reason is prior to launching myEcon, Ivey Stokes and Alvin Curry were respectively Chairman and CEO of Maxxis Group.
Maxxis Group, an MLM company launched in 1998, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2003.
In 2006, Curry and Stokes were listed as defendants in litigation brought by the appointed Chapter 7 trustee in Maxxis bankruptcy hearings.
Apparently, based on the court document, the trustee sued Stokes, Curry and others for breaching their fiduciary duty, for corporate waste and deepening the insolvency of Maxxis.
In other words, they didn’t act in the best interests of the company.
Larry Gates was a member of Maxxis Group’s Board of Directors and owned shares in the company.
On October 1st 2016 myEcon and Novae merged together.
As per a press-release issued on September 30th;
myEcon and Novae’s executive teams will begin efforts to blend corporate leadership.
Over the next several months, the companies will continue to take steps to integrate systems, marketing, organizations, and culture to create a huge conglomerate that will change the lives of millions across the country.
Read on for a full review of the myEcon MLM opportunity.
The myEcon Product Line
myEcon’s Financial Success Membership includes a Cashflow Manager Software, Identity Theft Protection, Free & Discounted Legal Services, Tax Advice Service & Preparation, and Identity Theft Prevention.
Novae will add Novae Perks, Novae Library, and Novae Travel to this membership and at no additional cost to current myEcon and Novae IBOs
Whereas most of Novae’s products were bundled with “Lifestyle Package” subscriptions, individual retail pricing is provided on the myEcon website:
- ID Defender – $7.99 a month
- Road Assure roadside assistance – $7.99 a month
- Cash Flow Manager – $10.95 a month
- Credit Restoration – $99.95 to set up and then $99.95 every three months
- Family Shield 360 – starts at $13.95 a month
- Cashback Mall (third-party cashback affiliate network) – no cost
- Travel Portal – no cost, redirects to Priceline travel portal
- Daily Ultimate (“liquid multi-vitamin mineral supplement”) – $36.95 a bottle
- Aloe Gano Black Coffee – $16.49 a box
- Aloe Gano Green Tea – $16.99 a box
- Aloe Gano Rooibos Tea – $16.99 a box
- Body One MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane (sulfur) supplement) – $19.95 a bottle
- MSM Lotion (organic sulfur skin lotion) – $24.95 for two 10 fl oz bottles (295 ml)
Novae’s Sprayology products have also been added to the myEcon product range.
The myEcon Compensation Plan
myEcon do not provide a copy of their compensation plan on the company website.
The following analysis is based off a myEcon compensation plan document dated March, 2016.
myEcon Affiliate Ranks
There are six ranks within the myEcon compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
Sales Associate (no MLM Commissions)
- pay $80 and then $10 a month
Marketing Director
- pay $179.95 and then $34.95 a month or
- upgrade from Sales Associate for $99.95 and then $34.95 a month or
- sign up as a Sales Associate and generate 100 PV a month in sales
Executive Vice President
- sign up as a Marketing Director and recruit two Managing Director affiliates or
- sign up as a Marketing Director and generate at least 200 PV
Executive Vice President Gold
- have thirty fee-paying affiliates in your baseshop downline (no more than 12 counted in any one generation leg)
Executive Vice President Platinum
- have 200 fee-paying affiliates in your baseshop downline (no more than 50 counted in any one generation leg)
Executive Vice President Infinity
- have 800 fee-paying affiliates in your baseshop downline (no more than 160 counted in any one generation leg)
A baseshop is a myEcon affiliate’s frontline affiliates. Each recruited non-Executive Vice President is placed in a baseshop.
Once that affiliate recruits two new affiliates (which are placed in their upline’s baseshop), they qualify as an Executive Vice President and are removed from their upline’s baseshop.
Commission Qualification
Executive Vice President affiliates must have to personally recruited affiliates who pay monthly fees in order to qualify for commissions.
Recruitment Commissions
Marketing Director affiliates are paid $25 per affiliate they recruit into myEcon.
Any commissions generated by an affiliate’s first two recruited affiliates are passed up to their upline.
Executive Vice President affiliates earn $50 per affiliate they recruit.
The affiliate who recruited them earns a $25 override commission. They also earn 50% of recruitment commissions earned by personally recruited affiliates.
Note that after an affiliate has recruited two affiliates, they are removed from what is referred to the “baseshop” of the affiliate who recruited them.
Once a recruited affiliate has qualified as an Executive Vice President and been removed from their upline’s baseshop, any affiliates they recruit generate a $5 to $30 commission for their upline:
- Executive Vice President affiliates earn $5
- Executive Vice President Gold affiliates earn $15
- Executive Vice President Platinum affiliates earn $25
- Executive Vice President Infinity affiliates earn $30
Finally, each time a myEcon affiliate’s downline grows by seven people, they are paid a $1000 bonus (subject to affiliate retention rates).
Residual Recruitment Commissions
- Executive Vice Presidents earn $1 per month per affiliate down four Executive Vice President generations
- Executive Vice President Golds earn $3 per month per affiliate down five Executive Vice President generations
- Executive Vice President Platinums earn $5 per month per affiliate down five Executive Vice President generations
- Executive Vice President Infinitys earn $8 per month per affiliate down an infinite number of Executive Vice President generations
Direct Commissions
Sales Associate and Marketing Director = 15%
Executive Vice President = 25% direct, 10% of sales generated by their SA and MD affiliates
Joining myEcon
myEcon affiliate membership is tied to the purchase of an affiliate package:
- Sales Associate – $80 and then $10 a month (no cashflow manager)
- Marketing Director – $179.95 and then $34.95 a month
The primary difference between these two memberships is income potential through the myEcon compensation plan.
Conclusion
As is typical of MLM companies that sell third-party products and services, myEcon’s compensation plan is confusing. And when you do get your head around it, you’re still left with a headache.
Having gone over myEcon compensation plan documents and multiple affiliate presentations, the gist of the plan is recruit three affiliates (to qualify as an Executive Vice President) and then focus on those in your downline recruiting three affiliates.
Each time a downline affiliate qualifies as an Executive Vice President, you’re left with two affiliates in your baseshop.
Your baseshop is pretty much what myEcon affiliates focus on growing, which happens as downline affiliates qualify as Executive Vice Presidents.
The problem with all of this is that it occurs at the expense of retail sales activity.
While retail sales are possible, the myEcon compensation plan is heavily focused on affiliate recruitment. This is reflected in affiliate presentations of the compensation plan, which place exclusive focus on growing an affiliate’s baseshop.
myEcon products appear to exist solely as commission qualifiers, to satisfy minimum monthly PV requirements.
These requirements could be met via retail sales but that seems unlikely, given how myEcon is marketed and that no retail sales volume is required.
As to the third-party products and services attached to myEcon’s opportunity, they might be mentioned to pique initial interest but after an affiliate is committed to monthly fees are not important.
Use them, don’t use them – just don’t forget to pay your myEcon monthly affiliate fee (which provides access to most of the services).
With respect to the merger with Novae, the similarities between Novae and myEcon are pretty obvious.
Novae affiliates pretty much paid $99.95 a month and focused on recruiting other affiliates who did the same.
myEcon has a lower monthly subscription but otherwise the same recruitment focus.
Alexa traffic estimates for the Novae website suggest a decline over the past year. This is not healthy for an MLM opportunity reliant on affiliate recruitment.
myEcon traffic rose earlier in the year but has been in decline since July, albeit not as drastic as Novae’s decline.
That explains why Novae is being rolled into myEcon and not vice-versa.
The bottom-line for you as a myEcon affiliate is to ascertain whether your potential upline has any retail activity in their personal business.
If they’re income is primarily derived from recruitment (either directly or indirectly), myEcon is operating as a product-based pyramid scheme.
As with all such schemes, once recruitment dwindles beyond the point of no return the scheme collapses.
WakeUpNow is a good example of an MLM affiliate subscription-based compensation plan going bust.
And I thought i was the only one that loved to pick up my vitamins in my financial advisors office!
So convenient.
My Econ is another MLM pyramid scheme. They prey upon low information people who have dreams of becoming wealthy over night. I won’t be surprised to see these guys on an episode of American Greed.
I know someone who is an avid My Econ “sales person”. I told this person that I was not interested in MLM. She insisted that it wasn’t MLM and that I really needed to attend one of their weekly meetings.
When I asked questions about the compensation plan (how many people do you need to recruit)… no real answer… just alot of hemming and hawing about the great products they offer.
I also asked her if she knew anything about the Maxxis Group – – the pyramid scheme that collapsed. I asked her if she knew that the leaders of My Econ were the same guys who ran Maxxis group. She had no idea.
I feel sorry for the people who pour their hearts, time, and money into MLM… only to have their dreams of becoming wealthy dashed.
This was a pretty good review. Thank you for posting. My only criticism is that you more or less treat the products and services being sold as an after-thought, which I believe to be more true for MLM’s like Amway but less true for myEcon.
I have a coworker that I approached for his financial know-how which he acquired from myEcon and which are barely mentioned in your post.
I’m considering becoming a Marketing Director, paying my $34.95/mo dues, completely ignoring both recruiting and selling myEcon’s products and services, availing myself to the financial training they teach for my own personal use and enjoying access to products like ID Defender and Cash Flow Manager that MD’s get for free.
I pay almost that amount for IdentityGuard every month anyway, which I would no longer need. Once I’ve acquired the financial training, if I decide I don’t like the products I get access to, I can terminate my membership and go back to buying IdentityGuard.
I don’t see a lot of downside, especially since they’re running a holiday special where the initial $179.95 buy-in is reduced to five bucks….
How I approach an MLM company’s product or service is ultimately how important they are to the overall business.
Case in point, you said it yourself:
Sounds like I was right on the money.
What you described is a retail customer who has no interest in building the business. Why you’d sign up a myEcon affiliate then escapes me.
What about the home-based business side of this program? The $34.95 monthly website maintenance fee gives access to training, training documents, and the perks.
I was under the impression that enrolling in this company will allow you to basically run a home-based business that focuses on teaching financial success to yourself.
Attending local trainings, participating in conference calls, have business lunches, etc. would all qualify as methods being used to build a business, right? I’m really trying to get an understanding.
When you’re paying recruitment commissions what you bundle to said commissions is irrelevant. The $34.95 fee is an affiliate fee that has nothing to do with retail customers.
Using it to pay commissions is chain-recruitment, which in MLM is a pyramid scheme.
All the MCA recruiters are falling into this one here as their new way to recruit for easy money.
Where can one buy the products without becoming a member of the program?
Since the products have their own prices as listed
How would anyone just buy the one they are interested in?
Even on the website there is no retail setup to purchase anything.
My Econ is not a scam. As a business opportunity researcher and marketer, I have looked closely into MyEcon and found nothing wrong which stands out.
It is a company which utilizes Network Marketing, so if you are okay with NM then MyEcon could be right up your alley. If from the start, you do not like NM/MLM, then there is nothing there for you.
I like the products and services they offer, as they have a nice broad appeal. I wish however, they would do away with their health supplements. I don’t think it is a good idea to mix products like that, as they seem to take away from the real ideology of the company.
The cost to start this business is negligible. For anyone who thinks $50 or so is too much to start a business, then I have news for you: You will never succeed at a business.
If you like and believe in the products and services they offer (and ideally you always should have some kind of passion for the products of the company you want to partner with), then go for it. Just treat it like a business, be serious about it and you will do well.
Will you get rich from it? No, I do not think so, but you can make a nice income from it.
One caveat before i take off: Historically, companies with these types of products and services do not stay around long. They never have. Honestly, I don’t know why.
Remember Financial Independence Limited (FINL) back in the 90’s headed by John Cummuta? Excellent company and financial education but it just never hit its stride.
Are you familiar with Financial Education Services (FES). They are currently operational. I actually partnered with that company, but cut ties due to a couple of issues I could not stomach (poor customer service to their own distributors, too heavy an emphasis on recruiting and not enough on retailing and upsells to ridiculously high cost seminars). My opinion is they won’t be around too long.
I hope MyEcon learns from all that and makes its own way and learns from others mistakes. I actually like the look of them and their distributors/marketers seem to be taking this business seriously.
Ok, so I am sorry I rambled. I just love this stuff! 🙂
If you “looked closely” into MyEcon and glossed over the pyramid side of the business, you might want to rethink running around the internet proclaiming yourself a “business opportunity researcher”.
Inbe4 “everything is a pyramid yada yada yada…”
Yeah this looks like the same scam “it works” that had self conscious women wrapping thier stomach with plastic wrap.
Ive seen people posting about it around my area. And after some deeper digging all these people advertising myecon are low to middle low income, unemployed, not business savy.
Thanks However, I just decided be away from Myecon.
I find it commendable to bring real world financial planning techniques & financial literacy to LOW NETWORTH INDIVIDUALS.
A company is somehow INVALID if its marketers are blue collar and selling to other blue collar earners? It may not be Price Waterhouse, but the comp plan works, & it PAYS!
They have longevity, and they are empowering the lower tax bracket individuals unlike any other platform I’ve seen.
The MCA reps I know of are now 6 Figure earners & leaders teaching social media marketing with MyEcon corporate! Not too shabby if you ask me!
If you have to make stuff up to argue against, you’ve already lost.
It’s 2023. Put the marketing shill handbook down and have a real conversation.
SimilarWeb is tracking just a few thousand visits to myEcon’s website per month (down 70%+ May to June 2023). That isn’t healthy for a recruitment-focused MLM company.