Zlicense Review: Plastic sleeves that link to med info
Zlicense launched in late 2014 and are based out of the US state of Texas
Listed as company owner on the Zlicense website is Troy Mason.
I went to renew my driver’s license one day, when I noticed three questions on the back of my Texas Driver’s License.
The questions are: Directive to a physician, Emergency Contacts and Allergic Reactions To Drugs.
I asked the DPS officers, where do people store this information? They said to check with the police department.
So, the next day, I went to the police department and they told me to check with the Department of Public Safety or DPS!
Then it hit me! The state of Texas put three questions on the backs of 15 million peoples (sic) ID and Driver’s License… and never set up a system for people to store this important information. ZLicense.com was born this day!
Mason has previously popped up on BehindMLM’s radar as the CEO and President of Gas Club of America.
Launched in late 2012, Gas Club of America is believed to have been Mason’s first MLM venture. The company appears to have been shut down around mid 2013.
Read on for a full review of the Zlicense MLM business opportunity.
The Zlicense Product Line
Zlicense market plastic sleeves that can be fitted over the top of ID cards.
Printed on the sleeves is an access code and link to the Zlicense website.
The idea is that first responders to an emergency search a body for ID, see the sleeve and then access the individual’s medical information on the Zlicense website.
Zlicense sell their sleeves for $19.95 each, which includes one year of medical information storage on their website.
Note that whether or not the sleeves are available at a retail level is unclear, with the Zlicense website only mentioning affiliates purchasing sleeves and then reselling them (external to the MLM opportunity).
The Zlicense Compensation Plan
The Zlicense compensation plan sees affiliates purchase Zlicense sleeves from the company and get paid to recruit other affiliates who then do the same.
Commission Qualification
In order to qualify for commissions, every Zlicense affiliate is required to
- have made a wholesale purchase within the past year
- have a minimum of 4 customers that have Activated their ZLicense File and
- have $22 or more dollars in your account
Zlicense Renewal Commission
A Zlicense renewal is $19.95 a year, which generates a $10 commission for the affiliate who purchased the sleeve and then resold it.
Recruitment Commissions
Zlicense affiliates are paid to recruit new affiliates.
How much of a commission is paid out is determined by how much a newly recruited affiliate spends on their membership:
- $49.95 membership = $10 commission
- $99.95 membership = $20 commission
- $199.95 membership = $50 commission
Recruited Affiliate Purchase Commission
Affiliate purchases of Zlicense products generate commissions paid out down two levels of recruitment (unilevel):
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) pays a 20% commission and
- level 2 pays 10%
Autoship Commissions
Zlicense have a $50 a month autoship for affiliates, which buys them 6 Zlicense sleeves.
The idea is that these sleeves are then resold, but there is no requirement to do so.
Commissions aren’t paid out directly on autoship orders made each month, but rather through growth of a “VIP Team”.
A Zlicense affiliate’s VIP Team is filled via any of the following three ways:
- personally recruited affiliates are added
- the first two affiliates recruited by the third and onwards personally recruited affiliates are added and
- the first two affiliates recruited by existing VIP Team members are added
As a Zlicense affiliate’s VIP Team grows, commissions are paid at the following milestones:
- 5 VIP Team members = $50 a month
- 7 VIP Team members = $100 a month
- 10 VIP Team members = $200 a month
- 15 VIP Team members = $300 a month
- 25 VIP Team members = $500 a month
- 50 VIP Team members = $1000 a month
- 100 VIP Team members = $2000 a month
- 200 VIP Team members = $4000 a month
- 300 VIP Team members = $6000 a month
- 400 VIP Team members = $8000 a month
- 500 VIP Team members = $10,000 a month
- 600 VIP Team members = $12,000 a month
- 700 VIP Team members = $14,000 a month
- 800 VIP Team members = $16,000 a month
- 1000 VIP Team members = $20,000 a month
There is also a separate “Lifestyle Bonus” payment of $25 to $2500 a month, with the Zlicense compensation plan stating:
Our system counts how many people on your VIP team makes an autoship purchase on the first of each month and makes you that rank for the entire month.
I believe this means Lifestyle Bonus ranking is separate to the autoship commission, instead paying based on how many affiliates purchase autoship rather than the total size of the VIP Team (or in other words, inactive affiliates are purged).
Residual Commissions
Residual commissions in Zlicense are paid out using a 3×10 matrix.
A 3×10 matrix places an affiliate at the top of the matrix, with three positions directly under them:
These three positions form the first level of the matrix, with the second level generated by splitting each of these three positions into another three positions.
The third level of the matrix is created by splitting level 2 positions into three new positions each, and so on and so forth down a total of ten levels (88,572 positions).
Positions in the matrix are filled via the recruitment of affiliates (either direct or indirect), with $1 paid out each time an affiliate in the matrix purchases a Zlicense product.
Note that the more money a Zlicense affiliate spends on their membership, the more matrix positions they are given:
- $49.95 membership = 1 matrix position
- $99.95 membership = 2 matrix positions
- $199.95 membership = 4 matrix positions
Additional matrix positions are placed directly under an affiliate’s first position, generates commission payouts is not in and of itself a new matrix (it does not create new positions in the original 3×10 matrix).
Matching Bonus
If a Zlicense affiliate recruits three affiliates, they qualify for a 100% match on matrix earnings generated by personally recruited affiliates.
200 Club
Zlicense’s 200 Club bonus is made up of 2% of the gross sales company-wide each week.
Affiliates can earn an equal share in the 200 Club bonus pool by contacting at least 200 people about Zlicense that week. This contact must be made through marketing tools hosted in the Zlicense affiliate backoffice
Note that 200 Club qualification is an ongoing weekly requirement.
Founders Club Bonus
The Founders Club Bonus is limited to the first 100 affiliates who qualify, earning them an ongoing share in 2% of Zlicense’s company-wide revenue each week.
To qualify for the Founders Club Bonus, a Zlicense affiliate must recruit ten affiliates.
Joining Zlicense
Affiliate membership with Zlicense at three price-points: $49.95, $99.95 and $199.95.
The primary difference between these membership options is income potential through the Zlicense compensation plan (matrix positions).
Conclusion
One of the cardinal sins of MLM is forcing your affiliates to purchase products to participate in the income opportunity.
Zlicense breaks this rule on multiple levels.
For starters there doesn’t appear to be a true retail offering of the Zlicense plastic sleeve product, with affiliates themselves having to purchase the product and then resell it.
This is problematic as it limits the flow of funds into Zlicense as being sourced only from affiliates. With that in mind, commissions paid out within the Zlicense opportunity are then 100% funded by affiliate funds.
There is no talk of retail sales in the Zlicense compensation plan, however what they are actually talking about is affiliates reselling products they themselves have purchased.
That’s most certainly possible, but it has nothing to do with the Zlicense MLM opportunity per say.
Then there’s the autoship commissions, which unfortunately appears to be little more than a front for chain recruitment.
You pay your $50 a month and then get paid to recruit others who do the same.
There’s no requirement to actually resell the sleeves purchased each month, with revenue generated for commission payouts sourced from an affiliate’s autoship order. This is ass-backwards, with retail customer sales instead what should be providing commission revenue.
Pay to play is also a strong element to the Zlicense compensation plan, evident in both affiliate sign up options and matix commissions.
The matrix commissions are pretty straight forward to explain, with more spent on affiliate membership directly impacting matrix income potential:
Worringly, Zlicense are pretty open about the pay to play nature of their business model, openly advertising that $199.95 affiliate membership “quadruples your income potential.”
Disingenuously, Zlicense also claim there is no cost to sign up as an affiliate:
There is NO COST to become a ZLicense Affiliate. Any money you spend is simply to purchase ZLICENSE sleeves with 1 year of file storage at the wholesale cost of $7 – $10.
Quite obviously retail customers are not going to be signing up for a back office meaning affiliates are the only ones who are going to be purchasing the $49.95 to $199.95 packs.
By default, these are clearly Zlicenses affiliate membership fees.
The one saving grace in the Zlicense compensation plan is the requirement that an affiliate maintain four accounts that have been opened at any given time, but that’s then undermined by this:
Can someone else create a ZLicense file on my behalf?
Yes, BUT it is imperative that the information submitted is 100% verified and checked by you and or your Physician.
Zlicense themselves obviously don’t have the means to verify medical information uploaded to their database. I’d also be willing to bet they’re not too stringent on checking account holder details either.
So what’s stopping a Zlicense affiliate from using the stack of sleeves they’re purchasing, to qualify for commissions, to maintain four active database entries annually.
Heck even the $49.95 affiliate membership option comes with five sleeves, which is more than four required.
Note that I’m not saying all Zlicense affiliates are doing this, just that the potential to do so is there.
And when you consider the very real incentive to treat Zlicense as a chain-recruitment $50 a month autoship scheme – this is a problem.
As to the sleeve product itself, it seems like a decent enough idea. The only thing that stuck out to me though was a lack of internet access rendering the card useless.
I know smart phones are pretty prevalent these days, but are medical staff going to even know what Zlicense is, let alone take on the liability of using medical information sourced from a third-party.
This is further muddied by the fact that Zlicense affiliates are able to sign up and enter information pertaining to third-parties. If information is entered incorrectly by an unrelated third-party, acted on by a medical profession and something goes wrong, who is ultimately responsible?
The affiliate who entered the information (or created the account), the user for letting that happen, the medical staff for not obtaining information from their patient directly or a medical alternative or Zlicense as a company?
Beats me.
All in all I think despite Zlicense being a useful enough concept, from both an MLM opportunity and product standpoint, its execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Product reminds me of something I’d see in an infomercial at 2am.
I’m not sure I’d want my medic to waste time looking for a phone, calling some unverified data base, and punching in numbers, while I’m having a heart attack. However, I’ll agree it’s not a terrible idea.
I think I’ll go find me a group of gum ball machines and pop in a quarter for one of those plastic sleeves I recall seeing when I was a kid.
Then go get my sharpie and write on it ” Allergic to aspirin”. I suppose tape or small sticky label could work too.
First responders are trained to look for medicalert style bracelets and necklaces.
In a critical care situation, no first responder is going to be looking in your wallet, then making a phone call or punching random digits into a browser.
If you feel you need it, get a bracelet or necklace. Your important info will be engraved on the back side. (Cost at a jeweler, about $30.00 US)
He’s not wrong, in that there is indeed some fields in the back of TX DL for
* Directive to physician has been filed at tel # ______
* Emergency Contact number
* Allergic reaction to drugs
However, he seem to have ignored that the back of ID card is WRITABLE. One is supposed to write it with a pen.
NOLINK://www.tabc.state.tx.us/public_information/notices/2009/IDChecking.pdf
What’s more, “directive to physicians” one of those “do not use extraordinary measures to revive” or such directives. It’s not for regular medical info.
And if your allergy is serious enough you should be wearing a medic-alert type necklace or bracelet.
Hi Guys, I am an affiliate of zlicense, I purchased 5 sleeves at wholesale price and was given my own matrix position.
The website and back office are free and retail customers are also provided a website for as long as they continue their service as that is how the medical file is maintained.
The service is renewed annually with the customer paying $19.95 retail. The folder the zlicense sleeve comes in is clearly marked with the retail price.
The sleeve has a QR code on it and when utilised goes directly to the emergency page of the website. I don’t know if the USA is backward but here in OZ almost every one carries a smart phone and internet coverage is more than adequate for 98% of the population.
Having said that no product is perfect but the zlicense sleeve is a far superior option to not only provide fast access to critical info but can be used as a portable medical file that travels with you globally.
Should I order more product (min5) I do not get another matrix position. However I have the option to upgrade to a Business Pack which includes 26 sleeves. If my order exceeds $200 the wholesale price reduces further to $7 a unit
Income is only generated when product is purchased, there are no joining or membership fees.
Finally I want to just say that I have nothing but praise for behindmlm…..most of the time you are 100% spot on and I recommend anyone contemplating entering an mlm opportunity to go have a look…
it still boggles the mind how fast people have to run to this site to defend their scam. If it’s really not a scam…..it won’t need to be defended.
K Chang, I have been following you guys since I discovered behindmlm earlier this year. You guys and the people who send info alerts about scams do a great job but your haste to write off zlicense product is a great shame.
Take the time to learn how the product works and you will see the Pros far outweigh the Cons….
there’s no need for it when the info gets put right on the back of a license which makes the whole sales pitch a lie.
Whip…. thats fine if your medical file is one or two words and you don’t care about privacy or your loved ones being able to be notified expediently…. there is no lie in this as my many happy customers debunk your statement.
So Whip, it’s OK for you to make your judgements and I have no right of reply….
@pedro
Why are three affiliate packages at $49.95, $99.95 and $199.95 advertised then?
These packages are stated to directly impact earnings as an affiliate, so they are quite obviously affiliate membership fees.
The information a person stores in their file cannot fit on the back of a persons driver’s license.
Lol We collected admission forms from 10 different hospitals then simply created a single comprehensive secure online master file. Hospitals require a lot more information than what most people can recall from memory.
A person’s file can even be helpful when they are just visiting a new doctor it doesn’t have to be an emergency. It’s a simple little product that people on multiple medication like. Not quite sure why the word scam would be used by anyone.
I always thought the idea was for Affiliates to purchase purchase product from the company at a wholesale price and resell it at a retail price. We do have retail sells on our website but we train our Affiliates to go after larger accounts not sell one at a time.
Any way our system is still a work in progress so I will take everything I read here into consideration. Thanks for the input.
Oz I did not think about the pay to play stuff I guess I am old school when it comes to business. I have never sold a product to anyone that I did not buy at the wholesale price first.
The thought that someone would want to sell the product without purchasing some it first is amazing to me however with this Internet sales stuff you have a point.
If someone wants to sell our product to a doctor, a nursing home or anyone else without making a wholesale purchase first that is fine with me. I will be adding that ability to our company this week. Thanks
Thanks for stopping by Troy.
Retail sales have to be trackable on the company-end, which means affiliates have to be directly selling products to retail customers.
Your product is a little bit different in that you can directly track affiliate orders of sleeves versus activated accounts in your database. However you would need to verify the contact details of each and every entry to ensure affiliates aren’t just creating bogus accounts to qualify for commissions.
If affiliate purchases of sleeves revealed a huge disparity with the number of database entries created, then Zlicense could very well fall within the category of a product-driven pyramid scheme.
We obviously don’t have those numbers so can only point out the potential issues.
I didn’t say it’s a scam. I simply see no use for it. Not to mention the issues of HIPAA compliance and such…
Troy, are you guys HIPAA compliant? Or are you guys claiming exemption of some sort?
Thanks Oz I will keep my eyes open for the slick people.
Lol Right now the bulk of our Affiliates are just regular everyday people. No MLM Gurus. They are mainly selling to family and friends and we have some that have set up accounts with businesses and Doctors.
We even have some doctors on board as Affiliates. I really like this business and what it stands for.
K Chang I own a company named PaperlessFiles.com and we store documents for school districts.
The cool thing about that is we had to use HIPPA compliant servers to get those contracts so that made this business a no brainier for me. I already had the infrastructure in place.
Apple iPhones offers a Medical ID screen (accessible even if the phone is locked), that lists key medical conditions, treating physician, allergies, medications and emergency contact info.
apple.com/ca/ios/whats-new/health/
I suppose paramedics are more likely to be familiar with iPhones than with ZSleeves.
Yeah but why would a paramedic start rummaging through somebody’s phone?
Ah, good for you! (And I really do mean it.) That certainly adds to your legitimacy.
Obviously you don’t understand the product…. paramedics do not rummage though your phone…. they use their phone to access your file via the emergency page of the website.
To get to that page you either use the QR code provided or enter the zlicense website and go to emergency page where video instructions are presented…..is it better to take a minute to do this to access critical medical info or just wait for hours while your files are located.
Medical bracelets are better than nothing…. zlicense is far superior to medical bracelets and a lot cheaper…..
I want to also clear up the statement concerning earning commissions by recruiting.
Commissions are generated by sale of product…. the $10 and $50 commissions are paid out every time there is a sale of product…. so if I order X amount of product a 20% and 10% commission are paid to my sponsor and their sponsor respectively.
You are entitled to your opinion about the product but don’t confuse opinion with fact.
Please keep up the good work you Guys/Girls do exposing scams. Stick to the facts and keep opinion to yourself….
Arthur thats great if you have an Apple phone…. I don’t like Apple and neither do millions of others.
It was expected that Android phones would offer the same feature, so every cell phone would potentially double up as a MedicAlert bracelet.
i agree that the product zlicense is a ‘good idea’.
not everyone would like to wear medical chains or bracelets and not everyone would have an apple iphone.
however, when you sell products through MLM you have to be very careful about HOW you are selling them, and oz has pointed out several pitfalls in the compensation plan, in his article above. there are ‘rules’ for MLM selling.
you cannot bundle membership and product purchase together, that is front loading. you cannot pay commissions on membership packages.
the autoship is another concern. generally autoship covers ‘personal use’ of distributors, for consumable products.the autoship should be low enough to explain reasonable self consumption. this is not ‘legal/illegal’ practice, but an ‘accepted norm’.
in the context of zlicense, the plastic sleeves are certainly not consumable, so you actually have to explain WHY your distributors are stacking up sleeves month after month?
either prove the distributors are selling them forward at retail, or take back unsold sleeves. otherwise it will be obvious the sleeves are ending up in the dustbin, and everybody is getting paid for recruitment.
at the 199$ package distributors are receiving 26 sleeves, which implies they are making 26 retail sales, month after month after month. this seems implausible.
troy mason, if you have hit on a good idea,then its best to do it the right way, for long time sustenance.
..and letting distributors fill in medical information for their customer?
absolutely No No.
I don’t understand why people need 5, 12 or 26 of them (Individusl, Dual and Business Affiliate Plans). It reminds me of some “Gerry Nehra idea”. 🙂
5 products can make sense, e.g. “one product per family member”. But it seems like people must pay $19.95 yearly fee anyway. And those extra products can’t be sold to newly recruited affiliates either, if I have interpreted it correctly?
So my question is “Why do people need 26 of those products?”. And “Why do people need 6 products each month on autoship?”.
Not with a monthly fee it ain’t.
@Pedro
Yet nobody but affiliates are going to be purchasing the $49.95, $99.95 and $199.95 packages, which are bundled with affiliate membership.
Nobody is denying products aren’t a part of these packages. They are affiliate membership packages however and thus recruitment commissions are paid when you recruit a new Zlicense affiliate.
Indeed, yet here we are.
The $199 is one-time. There’s nothing stopping an affiliate spending $199.95 a month thereafter but otherwise autoship is $50 a month (6 sleeves).
The sleeves themselves are a $19.95 annual renewal.
No first responder is going to look at your license in an emergency.. just sayin..
Most pyramid scheme rules have some rules about “bona fide sale to end users”. Gerry Nehra seems to have replaced that idea with his own pseudo-compliance ideas, something about “movement of products”.
Unactivated products probably only cost a few cents to produce, so it doesn’t make much sense that people should pay $199.95 for 26 products when they only can use one. The monthly autoship doesn’t seem to make much sense either.
Any value here isn’t in the product itself, but in the service attached to the product. The product only makes sense after it has been sold to a bona fide end user and has been activated.
No it isn’t. Those plastic sleeves won’t make any sense unless they’re activated by someone. They are not “complete products” before they have been activated. So they shouldn’t be commissionable either.
the terms and conditions on zlicense.com says:
so, why is troy mason suggesting zlicense is HIPPA compliant when his website clearly says they do not fall under HIPPA? i’m confused.
Anjali I think Troy means that the HIPPA compliance was for the Paperless File business and they use the same servers for Zlicense.
As for someone stating that zlicense sleeve is not a product till its activated….that’s just desperation….
I buy the sleeves at wholesale price…then I sell them to retail customers… I help them activate their file, that’s customer service….
Strange I remember when I owned a small business, a shop I had to buy and pay for the goods before delivery and even phone cards which had to be activated were paid for in advance…. as I said before keep up the good work, its a thankless task.
Lb….so what if first responders don’t look for license etc…. its a matter of Education…
Doesn’t mean it won’t happen in future if promoted widely, that’s my job as an affiliate…. to offer a superior product that could save someones life I love this product.
Just because his servers are compliant doesn’t mean his actual business operation is.
And let’s face it, as described, Zlicense *is* storing personal medical information, and that CLEARLY falls under the HIPAA compliance, despite any claims to the contrary. You can’t “disclaim” yourself from a legal liability.
yeah, that was not MLM. you must understand the difference between MLM and traditional selling, and understand HOW to sell in MLM before prattling away.
I compared them to electronic gift cards, mobile phone loading cards, other types of unactivated products.
The plastic sleeves only cost a few cents to produce, so there’s no logical reason for why affiliates should pay $199.95 for 26 sleeves before they are activated. They don’t have any real value before they are activated.
The pre-payment is simply an unnecessary cost to the affiliates. It’s necessary only for the commission to the recruiting sponsor, but it’s not necessary for the sale of products.
I clearly mentioned “bona fide sale to end user”. The affiliates are not end users here.
medical staff cannot use information on a patients zlicense data, because this is what the T&C of zlicense says:
so, if a patients zlicense medical data says ‘allergic to aspirin’, doctors have to disregard it and call up the patients personal physician?
so is zlicense medical data merely something for people to read on a rainy day, or decorate their drivers license with?
I asked a few store owners about it when we checked Lyoness. For most unactivated products, they pay when the products are activated. For some cards they may pay some small fees in advance, e.g. shipment fees.
If you remember the opposite, then we’re probably not talking about the samme thing. You will also need to accept some questions about it, just to check your memory. You seem to remember paying huge amounts for unactivated phone cards?
Not going to happen. Emergency care has to be fast, thus the advent of the bracelets and necklaces. If someone is unresponsive you don’t have time to find a card and enter stuff into a phone.
If a woman rolls her car you don’t look for the purse. Sometimes you have to cut people out of their clothing to get them out of their cars.
Ask an ER doctor or Paramedic. If it’s critical information put it on a bracelet or necklace. Ask any emergency responder which would be better, a plastic sleeve or a necklace or bracelet.
Admirable thought but not at all practical in the real world.
The Texas license that Troy Mason references as his inspiration for Zlicense is specifically manufactured with a writable surface and blank space for telephone numbers.
There are also three check boxes to indicate applicability. All any licensee has to do is find a pen and fill in the blanks to make the information available.
When Troy says that he went to the police or DPS to find where this information was stored he must have been in a dream state, because the information is in plain view, where the driver wrote it, where any trained first responder can easily find it, and where the State of Texas intended for it to be.
Zlicense sleeves appear to be little more than an exorbitantly overpriced and confusing overlay of medically unuseable data that obscures what is actually important.
The fact that Mr Mason had a preexisting data storage company may explain why this seemed worth producing in the first place.
If you are interested in seeing what the back of the new Texas license actually looks like follow this link. It will download a .pdf file.
tabc.state.tx.us/public_information/notices/2009/IDChecking.pdf
Seems like a good idea considering that individuals who do experience emergency situations are likely to be attended by two paramedics, one of whom administers critical care while the other tries to determine the individual’s medical history from the
Zlicense card.
But as was previously mentioned, timing is of critical importance in an emergency particularly if the indivual cannot communicate verbally or otherwise.
A bracelet or chain, therefore, becomes more practical in those situations.
On the other hand, the risk for Zlicense would be copy cats popping up at a cheaper price.
There’s already a lot of better (and often cheaper) solutions out there in the market, so Zlicense will be the copy cat.
Here’s one solution, “World Medical Card”:
wmc-card.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Medical_Card
The current price there is $49 per year for individual / $73.99 for couple. The initial price when it was introduced in 2001 was suggested to be appr. $12-$15 for 2 years (NOK 80). But they have added additional functions to the initial concept (onWeb, onMobile, onCard).
Different local associations (in Norway), e.g. “Heart and Lung Disease Association”, have offered their own solutions for tens of years as part of memberships or as subscriptions.
@Pedro Hin & @Troy Mason
Have you ever worked along side of a paramedic or first responder?
Yes, usually there are 2, sometimes 3 attending and all parties are focused on or working on critical care. There is no time for games or shenanigans such as looking for a Zlicense card.
It irritates me to no end that someone would try to sell this to someone saying “It could save your life one day.” when the real fact is, regardless of training, data speeds, situations aside it will never ever be used in a true emergency.
Standards are made for a reason, and one of those standards are the bracelets and necklaces. They are found and located in the first stages of triage as you check head, neck arms, torso and legs for additional injuries.
If you have a spinal injury and are placed on or found on your back, you will NOT be moved (last time I checked most people carry their wallets in their rear pockets) and the card will not be able to be accessed until you are stabilized.
What you really should be telling people who really need information about allergic reactions or pre-existing conditions (such as diabetic or epilepsy) to GET A DAMN BRACELET OR NECKLACE.
If you wish to market the product as a dropbox for your medical information, thats fine. But to think, even for a fleeting instant, this is a good product for an emergency when the end user is unable to communicate their specific conditions is COMPLETE AND TOTAL HORSE SHIT, and because of it being marketed as such SOMEONE COULD POTENTIALLY BE HARMED thinking they no longer need or have to carry a bracelet or necklace!
Good idea? In some aspects yes. As for being good for an emergency, NO.
You should market this thing as a dropbox for the data, not a catchall in an emergency. Just don’t misplace your wallet or license unless you want to hand the information to some stranger or theif.
I apologize if any of these comments upset anyone. I am a fully trained first responder (and have been for 18 years).
I think I should back off this one now. Please people, just think about what you are doing and the potential harm it may cause.
Oh – and unless there are changes, Oz is totally correct on this being a chain recruitment auto-ship scheme.
I added additional information in the same post. The plastic product will not be useful to anyone unless it has been activated. It will have the same function as an empty container.
It will not be a “complete product” before it has been activated by an end user, before that empty plastic container actually has been filled with online medical information from a user.
You can of course try to dispute that?
Commissions seem to be generated primarily from the sale of affiliate membership packages / monthly autoship, “the sale of empty containers”. Unless I have misinterpreted something here?
Math question here.
If I wanted to make $4000 per month, how many sleeves do I have to sell to non-affiliate customers to be compliant of the 50% rule?
Is this each and every month that I’m involved, or could I retire and collect residual income from my downline without selling retail?
Oh My God! What on earth is going on here? This is crazy!! Why is everyone so short sighted?
I would be willing to bet that the people doing the complaining is under 50 years of age and in perfect health. It would be like me complaining about a new parachute when I know I would never ever jump out of an airplane.
Lol Look Oz was right about the pay to play stuff and that will be fixed by tomorrow. But you guys are all over the place.
Hear is some food for thought… There are people who take 10, 15, even 20 or more different medications and you know how they try to protect themselves right now? They either write their information on a piece of paper or they do nothing.
A bracelet cannot help them. There is simply not enough space on a bracelet or necklace.
I simply had the idea to give people a secure place to store the information needed on hospital admission forms and attach it to the most important document a person carries their ID or driver’s license. I think it’s quite clever that is why I filed a patent pending on it.
Where as it may not be a perfect solution I as well as a number of doctors think it is better and certainly more secure than a piece of paper. Now for this MLM stuff… You should read the About Us section of our website. I addressed my concerns about MLM there. But i will share a little of it with you now.
The only reason I choose to use MLM to market ZLicense is because I knew that everyone of my customers would have a doctor and the easiest way for the product to reach doctors is through their patients. You know what that strategy is working.
Now as far as the autoship stuff that was just introduced to the website less than a week ago I have an entirely different marketing strategy for the people who choose to go on autoship. And yes I said choose to do it because it is not a requirement.
I would never put a 70 year old person who never leaves the house on autoship? That would be immoral and stupid and I am neither.
There is also one final thing that I just don’t get about this MLM stuff… Why do so many of you hate MLM to the point of trying to trash a product that can be of use to others?
You know I’m not rich or anything like that I just think it’s a great idea. I really don’t mind the criticism but you guys are all over the place. Lol One person says no body will see it on your license the next person says you can just write the information on the back of your license! Which one is it?
I have a plan to educate the first responders and I have actually turned down 2 opportunities to have the news do a story on our product because I wanted to make sure that I had everything in place first.
Someone else wrote just get a bracelet! I have some medical issues and I would never, ever, ever wear a medical bracelet and I am not alone. I’m not saying bracelets are bad but I prefer not to broadcast my condition to the world.
Now our product is not perfect either but I believe it’s much better than nothing or a piece of paper. And one thing for sure I NEVER forget to carry my information with me because I NEVER leave home without my driver’s license.
Any way I’m not sure if me commenting on this website is helping you guys to understand what I am doing or making you more angry. However I would really like to know if any of you who do not like what I am doing is over the age of 50? It would be really really helpful to know your ages.
I’m sure you can understand why this would be of great help to me. Thanks in advance! Hey every company had to start from somewhere right?
Char you would need about 20 – 25 accounts with doctors, pharmacies, clinics, dialysis centers or fundraisers. You would continue to be paid for as long as they were placing orders.
Oh yeah Char you could also close a deal like one we are currently working on with the Mormon missionaries. They have over 60,000 missionaries all over the world and they are interested in them having our product in case of an emergency.
If you were the Affiliate on that deal here is what the numbers would look like. 60,000 sleeves at the discounted rate of $10 per year per person equals $600,000. You earn $3 per sleeve or $180,000 a year.
Well a deal like that would pay a lot more than $4,000 a month. That deal could also be structured where you would earn either $84,000 a year or $42,000 a year.
20-25 accounts ordering how many each per month? (Roughly)
And those accounts are paying me $19.95 for each bracelet they buy from me? Are they then selling them at the same $19.95, or a marked up price to their patients? Or they give them away for free after buying from me?
Wow, wow, watch your language here. Just because we don’t share your view doesn’t necessarily mean we’re ‘short-sighted’.
In fact, you’re starting to sound like exasperated scammers retorting “you don’t understand us, how could you when you didn’t _____” Careful there.
K Chang it just the conversations are no where close to what I am doing with the product. It’s like to fit a square peg into a round hole.
When I said short sighted I meant every product is not designed for everyone. just because it doesn’t do this or that does not mean it is not useful to others in a different way.
It just seems as though everything is so absolute in the messages I read. Any way I hope you got more out of my message than short sighted. Lol
Char That is with each account doing about 600 units a year.
That’s a good idea. A pity that health care providers/hospitals all have their own proprietary and unique medical history forms that Grandpa and Grandma must fill out.
Every doctor/hospital/lab wants their own personal hard copy of the patient’s medical history for their records. Its customary to require a patient to arrive 30 minutes early to fill out the history.
If I could hand my providers a card or code that would allow my history to be viewed or printed out in a format acceptable to the health care industry I would buy it.
The answer can be found in post #21.
We simply did our best to try to understand it. 🙂
I believe I had a valid point when I said that the plastic product itself is an “incomplete product”, but Pedro Hin remembered something different from his own experience as a shop owner.
He remembered that he “had to buy and pay for the goods before delivery and even phone cards which had to be activated were paid for in advance…”.
I don’t understand why people need 5, 12 or 26 of the products (Individusl, Dual and Business Affiliate Plans), but I do understand it if the focus is on recruitment of affiliates rather than on sale of products.
The problem is that the commissions then will be almost 100% “affiliate funded”. Only a tiny fraction will be related to “self consumption”.
We can be expected to point out factors like that.
There isn’t any clear answer to it. Rescue workers will normally try to stabilize the patient first (pulse, respiration, etc.). They may or may not look for ID-papers, depending on the situation as a whole.
They will usually not look for ID-papers if there’s someone there that can identify the patient, e.g. “Does he have a driver’s license?” will not be among the best questions to ask if they get a call about “My husband has got a heart attack and is unconscious”. 🙂
The reason a person would buy 26 is because they are getting them at the wholesale price of $7.69 they sell them to people at $19.95 each for a year of service.
So they earn more money and save their customers time by having the product on hand. We just completed an edition for Breast Cancer Awareness and Diabetes Awareness for their fundraising efforts.
As has been mentioned previously, the sleeves themselves surely aren’t worth $7.69.
The value is in the database, which doesn’t happen until after a retail customer pays. Therefore shouldn’t the wholesale cost of the sleeves better reflect their actual tangible value?
What does a sleeve of plastic with a sticker on it cost to manufacture?
free advice:
1] keep a single amount membership fee which is non-commissionable. no products should be attached.
2] since members are getting zlicense at a discount, encourage them to use the product for themselves and family.
3] let members sell however much they can at retail, with no forced product purchase via autoship. your retail margins are good, if your product genuinely has a market, your members will sell it.
4] people always come here claiming that autoship is not compulsory and it is a choice, but turns out all affiliates are on membership [at least over 90%]. check your data to see how many of your affiliates are on autoship?
5] autoship for a non consumable product like yours, should truly be a ‘choice’ adopted by affiliates who have the capacity to create a market and sell your products on a regular monthly basis.
4] please check how many sleeves you have sold to affiliates against the total number of ‘activated’ accounts. how many sleeves are going ‘waste’?
5] ensure you have a buyback policy. you have a physical product and not a virtual product. buyback of non activated sleeves is absolutely necessary to keep your MLM ‘honest’.
6] your T&C releases you from any liability of the information stored in zlicense and further states:
since you take no responsibility for the information on your database, why will any medical professional use it, in an emergency or otherwise?
your T&C should have said something like: the information stored by us is ratified by the account holder, and we are not personally liable for it [i’m not a lawyer, but something to this effect]. at least it would have some medical use then?
7] any medical information should be entered by the account holder himself, with a declaration of its authenticity, and should be accessible for updating, Only by the account holder.
I actually thought of that Oz but after thinking it through I felt like it could cause a huge problem if thousands of people started putting the sleeves on their driver;s license and NOT spending the money to activate them. I could never recover from a mistake like that.
At least this way the service is paid for when it leaves my hand. The timer on the service doesn’t start until a person activates there sleeve.
I know this is not a perfect solution but I think it is a lot better than the alternative.
You guys would think I am crazy if you knew how much research time i put into this product. I’ll give you one example. The biggest problem to overcome (and as far as I know it I’m the only person to figure this out) is what is a person loses their driver’s license?
If you make the information available when need but not available if it is lost? I’m telling you no other systems figured it out.
So here is what I did… First I realized that there would be two types of customers. Customer 1 stores information like emergency contacts and other stuff that he could care less if someone else views if he lost his license.
So in the system you can go in and put his 10 digit code in and it will pull up his emergency contacts first then instruct the user to input the last 4 digits of our client’s driver’s license into the space below to access his emergency file. I even have a guy that verbally gives the instructions. Lol
Now Customer 2 has information that is very sensitive so they set the access to their emergency file up in a totally different manner. So when some one enters there 10digit code they are directed to the person’s emergency contacts just like with customer 1 but this time the guy instructs them to call his emergency contacts to retrieve his 4 digit PIN number to gain access to his emergency file.
Problem solved and people like it. No actually people LOVE it! So do I.
So to some people it’s just a plastic sleeve with a sticker on it and I know those people would never ever buy my product but to others it is much more.
I even have a plan for the people that would never buy it from us. We are selling it to their doctors and they will buy it from him and he will be glad to sell it because he doubles his money on each sell and his name and phone number will be on ever sleeve carried by his patients.
Could their be a better place for his contact information? Like I said I have spent a lot of time putting this together. But I do appreciate the input Oz because know one person can think of everything.
Thanks Anjali Now that’s the kind of conversations that make things happen. Thanks for the input. I will look into every point you have made!
This I’m not understanding.
If I buy a sleeve wholesale and don’t activate it for 5 years, what you’re paying for database storage for five years?
Given the service timer itself doesn’t start until a customer pays for a sleeve (and thus creates a databse entry corresponding to a sleeve code), how exactly is it a mistake to sell the sleeves to affiliates at cost (or close to)?
The sleeve itself shouldn’t cost you much more than what it costs to manufacture, with the service itself generating profit. You don’t make a profit until the cards are sold to end-users (who only then activate the service), so how are you making a mistake selling the cards at cost to affiliates?
If an affiliate orders thousands of sleeves at cost, so what? That doesn’t equate to thousands of services unless fees are paid for the service correct? Or are you prepaying for a year of database storage for each code printed on the backend (subject to it being activated)?
What am I missing here?
Troy, one last thing to check off your list…
Did you consult a MLM lawyer yet? Just to make sure 1) your contract passes muster, 2) your comp plan is compliant with MLM related laws, and 3) your ads don’t run foul of related FTC guidelines?
As Oz said before (and others have explained in less than friendly tones), you may be counting “sales” before the item was actually activated / used by a consumer of said product, and that is a serious gray area that even the giant Herbalife is getting hit hard on, as one can’t be sure whether the product is for “self consumption” or for “resale”.
The nice part about your product is you can’t really use more than one per person, which cuts down on any incentive to ‘stack’, but you may as well remove all temptation by paying commission only when clients activate the product, i.e. actually uploaded info, rather than pay it upon payment.
But don’t take my word for it. Ask a real MLM lawyer. Babener, Thompson, Reese are the famous ones.
That to me you question is like asking the medical Id bracelet people to sell their bracelets at cost and if the person decides to wear it the then pay for it Lol. I sell my product for wholesale to Affiliates, Doctors and others.
Heck even if Walmart placed an order they would have to pay me at least net 60. I have put a patent pending on the sleeve because I believe it has value. Why would I wait for my profit when I can get it when my product is shipped like every other product being sold.
If this is about the MLM stuff then I’m sorry Oz but that is just plain bad business to let your product go out into the world at cost. I believe the correct business move is to get paid for my product before it leaves my hand.
If I am wrong about this practice then I have been wrong my entire life. I have no problem with people joining for free but if anyone wants my product in their hands they are going to have to pay for it.
A final thought… the cost of the database is a lot less than the cost of packaging and delivering of the sleeves so my prices are based on normal business practices.
It would be different if I was charging people a ridiculous amount of money, but I am not, The wholesale price of my product is priced so low that it would even pass Walmart’s standards and they are the largest retailer in the world.
I know you may feel as though I am only selling a plastic sleeve with a sticker on it but it reall is much more than that to me.
That’s an disingenious analogy, medical bracelets themselves are the product. Your product is an online database.
The plastic sleeve is little more than a housing for a sticker with access information on it. The sleeve itself contains no medical information, unlike a bracelet.
Technically I could put my own sticker on my license with the Zlicense website and access code – it’s clearly the online service being paid for by end-users.
The sleeves themselves are practically worthless are they not? It isn’t until someone activates a sleeve (after paying $19.95) that they cost you anything (beyond manufacturing costs).
What other than a plastic sleeve with a sticker on it “leaves your hand” when an affiliate buys a sleeve at wholesale? Or do you ship a computer with internet access and the Zlicense database on it with every wholesale sleeve purchase?
You retain control of the databse, so what other than a sleeve of plastic with a sticker on it leaves your hand?
Surely it’s not until a retail customer activates a code that you only then begin to provide a service?
Why is this then not reflected in the annual fee then? If you’re not sending out a new plastic sleeve and sticker to customers each year, why are you charging them $19.95 every year?
You’re selling precisely that to your affiliates, who then sell the online service to customers (end-users).
You’ve said it yourself, the database service isn’t sold till it’s activated (a customer pays for it), so until then all you’ve sold is a plastic sleeve with a sticker on it (to your affiliates).
good point.
it seems troy masons business is currently upside down.
why not sell the data hosting, and when someone buys, ship the plastic sleeve to them?
this will cut down the costs of supplying sleeves in advance [packaging and transport] to affiliates and bring your retail costs down too. all affiliates need, is a sleeve sample to show prospective customers.
i feel 19$ annually for service is reasonable enough. the business needs money to run, and affiliates who remind and ensure that people are keeping their accounts live, should get paid too.
Zlicense is in no way “like” MedicAlert.
MedicAlert is a 59 year old non profit, charitable (with tax deductibility for donations) membership based organization with millions of members worldwide and whose board of directors are all volunteers while their 24/7 manned call centres are internationally recognized for excelling in the areas of operational efficiency and effectiveness.
Call center staff undergo a thorough training program in order to assist with:
-Appropriate documentation of member’s medical information
-Excellent service to healthcare professionals who utilize our service in an emergency
-Documenting member’s Emergency Health Record
-Selecting accurate medical ID engravings adhering to medical terminology standards and abbreviations
No commissions, no shady pseudo MLM, no videos, no chance of recruitment focused “members”.
that’s not fair. the world cannot run, based on the voluntary largesse of people.
products and services have to be Sold and sellers have to be Rewarded for it.
a product like zlicense, is actually a good MLM product because it needs person to person explanation, and personal guidance in filling up medical details etc. it wont sell easily off a shop shelf.
if troy mason has faith in his product he should by all means sell it, after setting his house right a bit.
right now he’s modeled it pretty close to a recruitment based scheme, but he can right it.
also, there’s nothing wrong with videos which explain the product, or train reps how to sell the product. it’s the rah rah videos -‘ooh we’re on a roll and look how rich i’ve gotten’,- which are the problem.
The cost of the sleeve may perhaps be pennies, selling it for a retail price gives it “weight” or value if you like.
If you only have to pay pennies for the sleeve, or a too low retail price, chances are you throw it in a drawer and forget about it. Paying $ 19,95 for it greatly enhances the chance you will activate it (and the service) and fill in the required info.
Nobody’s saying end-users should only be paying for the cost of the sleeve.
The issue lies with affiliates getting paid on wholesale purchases before anything is sold to end-users.
Zlicense affiliates should only be getting paid when an end-user (retail customer) purchases the product, not when affiliates are buying sleeves through affiliate packages.
Charging affiliates more than the cost of the sleeve makes no sense, as this is not an end-user sale in and of itself (the database service has not yet been sold).
To be blunt, no. Your sleeves have NO value UNTIL it’s been activated, i.e. info uploaded and linked to the ID. In that regard, the closest analog are the gift cards you find at supermarket counters: card has no value until load / activated.
And I’m NOT asking you to SELL them at cost.
I’m asking you to NOT PAY COMMISSION until it’s been activated.
As I said, ask a real MLM lawyer. Don’t take our word for it.
(And I’m not Oz)
True, paying them only if/after the actual service is activated would make more sense.
But my previous argument of selling it at cost or too cheap also goes toward selling it to affiliates.
It’s a motivation to sell the actual service and thus earn back (correct term ?) their own purchases of the sleeves + make a profit .
You shouldn’t have to artificially inflate the wholesale cost of a product to encourage someone who purchases it to resell it.
True again, but it does prevent Mr. Mason having to ship out large quantities of sleeves at cost and than seeing only a small amount of sleeves actually being sold and activated.
This way – inflating- the conversion from a “worthless” sleeve to activating the actual service will be much higher.
it’s not motivation it is illegal. basically you’re saying the affiliates have to invest, and then be under pressure to sell the product.
when you have to pay for the right to sell products in MLM it is illegal. you should be able to sell the product without having to buy it first.
do i have to purchase a mercedes to be a mercedes sales person?
WHY do the sleeves have to be Sold First?
Why is that imperative?
sell the data hosting first?
The profit here is generated when affiliates pay for new “Individual Plans”, “Dual Plans” and “Business Plans” ($49.95, $99.95 and $199.95), and also when they buy monthly autoship orders ($49.95 for 6 sleeves).
That will be the only stream of revenue the first year for the company. All the commissions will need to be paid from that revenue, i.e. the commissions will be 100% affiliate funded. That doesn’t need to be a problem in itself.
The company will get some revenue coming in from external customers the second year (the $19.95 renewal fees).
External customers activating the service will only generate costs the first year, but they will generate revenue when they renew the service the following years.
– – – – – –
So the $199.95 for 26 “empty plastic containers” is first of all related to the company’s own need to make a profit and pay commissions the first year.
It will need money coming in from affiliates to be able to make it work the first year.
I’m not in the carbusiness, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer to that question is yes! Or do you think the Mercedes importer is going to wait until you sell a Mercedes ?
..and you’re not paying for the right to sell, you’re selling an actual product, with a service attached to it.
The only pressure that could arise if you are forced into autoship but as mentioned above that’s not the case, you have a choice.
As a retailer i also have to “invest” in stock before I can resell it to an actual consumer/end user.
Does my wholesaler put me under pressure? Selling something that you didn’t purchase yourself first… dropshipping.
why?
every account that is activated even in the first year brings a payment of approx 20$, at the time of sale?
am i understanding something wrong?
of course it’s a problem, you cannot allow companies to function as pyramid schemes for Any Time At All.
every ponzi pyramid scheme can get away, by promising ‘honest’ business from the second year onwards!
The one I linked to in post #42, “World Medical Card”, seems to be highly commercial. Organized by a few medical doctors, making most of its profit from patent royalties (the growth in equity seems to greatly exceed its own revenue each year).
One of the patents it owns:
“Method for secure transfer of medical data to a mobile unit/terminal”
google.com/patents/US8826454
People will first of all be motivated to focus on recruitment here. But they may also be motivated to use price reduction strategies, to generate some long term income from renewal fees.
26 × $19.95 = $518.70 = $318.75 one time gross sales profit if they sell 26 ZLicenses to retail customers at full price. People simply won’t get very motivated by that, e.g. I didn’t calculate any sales costs there.
People will more likely be motivated by the $50 recruitment commission and the “VIP Team / autoship commission”, the Matrix commission, Matching Bonus, 200 Club Bonus and the Founders Club Bonus.
Wow!…I’m really impressed with the dialogue here.. and I have to say, working in a hospital setting I really do see the potential with this product.
Just today an older gentleman of about 70 came into the doctors office and needed a new prescription for a medication he had ran out of. When the nurse asked him the name of it he could not remember. (some of these medications generic names are 25 letters long!!… its hard enough trying to pronounce them… never mind remembering the names!!..Lol)
Having a service like this where you can just bring up your information from a number on your license sounds like it could really save medical professionals alot of time gathering a patient’s information.
I agree that what is actually being sold is the data storage and really like the idea of the cards being mailed to the customers after completing their registration for the service. Just makes so much more sense!
I also think that for the small amount of $19.95 a year people will see this as a real value.
I actually am very interested in this! Would love more information!
and your office would have either done an exam and determined if he need said script or called the original prescribing doctor to get clearance to authorize the script.
The data in a database would do nothing to allow you to just hand out a script. Find it hard to believe you wouldn’t know that working in a hospital or doctors office.
I think you are misunderstanding the situation Whip. This gentleman already has been taking the medication but apparently there were no more refills left on his prescription.
He came into the office and asked the receptionist if the doctor could write him out another prescription for the same medication. The receptionist asked the patient what the name of the medication was and he could not remember.
My point is this… folks who are taking multiple medications may have a hard time remembering the names and amounts they are taking.. especially older folks whose memories may not be as sharp as they once were.
In no way was I suggesting that scripts just be handed out because of information in a database, thats absurd!
He wants a refill, from a doctor he didn’t know instead of his regular doctor, and he didn’t even bring the old pill bottle?
Doesn’t sound like a person who would know how to use Zlicense.
and mine this – You’re full of it, don’t work for or with any medical doctor, and are promoting the false sense of security this product puts forth to the uneducated.
I made the mistake of watching the promo videos on the website this morning and am even more disturbed by the assertion “First responders are trained to look for your license or ID.” and claims the product will save lives.
I say it again, as a dropbox – not a bad idea.
If you people have any soul – pull the BS on how this will help and save lives. It doesn’t and wont.
nope. I understood fine. No one is walking into a doctors office and just asking a strange doctor to just write a script and getting it.
If he’s walking into his primary’s office, they’d have it on file. I don’t work in a doctors office and I know that. Why don’t you?
If that’s happening in your office, I can see why doctor shopping exists.
a mercedes importer can stock as many mercedes as he likes. as his sales person, i don’t have to purchase a mercedes from him to sell it. i get the customer, he delivers the car, i get my sales cut.
similarly mr mason can hoard any number of plastic sleeves as he likes. he does not need his affiliates to prepurchase them at all, to sell them forward.
when affiliates have to pay to engage in MLM business,whether or not they receive products in return, it falls under the heads of ‘front loading’, and ‘paying for the right to sell’.
traditional distributorship is Different from MLM distributorship.
Oh please!! The importer (wholesaler) sells to mercedes dealers who employ salespersons who sell cars to consumers.
So what you’re saying is that Mr. Mason should ship out sleeves for free to anyone who registers as an affiliate and then hope and pray (and check his database) that the affiliates sell the actual service.?
Perhaps I could try that with my suppliers: …please send me your products for free, I’ll pay for them once I’ve sold them to my customers.
– “traditional distributorship is Different from MLM distributorship” ??
Really, I’m curious, how so ?
I thought I was supposed to resell them for $19.95, but you say they are only $10 to my client MM. Did I opt to give them such a huge discount because of quantity, or is there another reason?
If I’m making $3, am I only paying $7 for each license I buy wholesale because I bought the $199.95 package? Please clarify.
Affiliates are commissioned based sales people. They are working for Troy to sell his product. Salesmen aren’t usually required to buy the cars/products before they sell them.
What is that so hard to comprehend?
A car isn’t an “empty container”?
You must compare it to other “empty containers” which are designed to distribute services like gift cards, telephone time, theater tickets, train tickets, scratch lotteries, etc.
They will usually be paid for when an end user is paying for the service, when the product is being “activated” or “loaded”. The end users pay the retailer, and the retailer will then pay the suppliers one or two times per month for the activated products he has sold.
If Troy Mason want to defend the current concept, he can probably use arguments about “necessary costs” and “fair compensation for work”, i.e. the $10, $20 and $50 commissions are simply fair compensation for work, supported by the price of the products.
It will reduce the number of small amount invoices the first year if the products are seen as “fully paid” when sold to affiliates = it will reduce overall costs = it will reduce the price to the consumers.
“It will reduce the price to consumers” is a valid argument (if the argument is true, if the product actually is being sold to consumers).
Char we allow our Affiliates to sell our product for less than $19.95 if as long as the transaction does not happen on the website.
So as an Affiliate your wholesale price is $7 per unit so in a deal like that it’s simply a negotiation. They agree to order 60,000 units at $10 each, you earn $3 in retail commissions your sponsor earns 20% of the purchase amount from the company and your sponsor’s sponsor earns 10% of the transaction.
In a deal like this everyone leaves happy. No need to be greedy.
Deals like this often happens because someone has a a friend in a high position who helps to make the deal happen. This is why I choose network marketing. It’s pretty cool when you enroll someone who has a friend who happens to be one of the top people of some big organization.
This model works well for fundraisers as well but the difference is the fundraising organization gets the product from you at $10 each and resales them for $20 and earn $10 per sale.
One final thought… Affiliates are now not required to pre-purchase inventory if they don’t want to. Each Affiliate has a replicated website as well where then can send customers to buy the product at the retail price of $19.95.
The Affiliate earns a 20% commission on their online sales instead of 50%. However most Affiliates prefer to have their inventory on hand so when someone hand them a twenty they hand them the product.
This works well at health fairs, pharmacies, doctor’s offices and other places a person may choose to sell our product.
If he had sold it through retail stores, they would most likely have seen it as “empty containers”, i.e. they wouldn’t have accepted pre-payment.
Valid arguments:
* “One $200 invoice to one retailer, versus 26 $19.95 invoices to 26 individual customers = reduced costs for the company = reduced price out to the consumers”.
An argument like that can be valid if the alternative sales method would have been “sell a starter kit for $20 (self cost), then send invoices to each individual customer once they activate the service, then pay out commissions (to multiple people) for the activated products when payments have been received”.
“Reduced costs / reduced price out to consumers” should normally be a valid argument for a business. But it will need to reflect the reality, it can’t be used as an empty excuse for inventory loading.
Do you actually have any deals like that?
It doesn’t need to be of a similar size, but it should be of a similar type. “A friend in a high position in a big organization”, etc.
The reason for the question is that hypothetical sales methods make very little sense to use as examples. MLM will use hypothetical examples to trick people to buy into opportunities, but you can’t use the same examples here.
Do you actually have any deals like that? “Fund raising organizations ordering ZLicenses for resale”?
Do you have any pharmacies or doctors selling this?
The Norwegian competitor “World Medical Card” seems to have focused primarily on doctors and “health associations” as distribution channels — based on search results when I tried to look briefly into sales methods.
The sales method probably makes sense for that competitor. The service has been designed by doctors, designed to be accepted by doctors.
Local offices seem to be fronted by doctors. But they don’t sell much to “average consumers”. The typical customer seems to be people with very specific medical conditions.
an MLM opportunity should have both kinds of reps ie 1] those that behave like mercedes dealers and carry stock [and hence earn more profit ie extra commissions/bonuses etc] and 2] those that behave like mercedes salesmen and do not carry stock, but sell the products for the sales margin [and hence earn lower profit].
if 1] is very high [over 90%] then you are in pyramid scheme territory. established MLM like amway, herbalife etc generally maintain the numbers of 1] at 25%-30%.
inventory loading and recruitment commissions are primary reasons why MLM’s are deemed to be pyramid schemes, and zlicense subscribes to both.
mr mason should ship a few sleeve ‘samples’ to people signing up as members of zlicense at a small, one time, refundable membership fee.
reps should choose autoship purely by choice, and majority members should NOT be on autoship.
of course mr mason should hope & pray that his reps sell his product, if his product has a market and he encourages his reps and supports them with seminars/ /training’s/pep talks, his products will get sold.
because MLM is constructed around the idea of a ‘low cost/low risk’ business opportunity for the masses.
if you start demanding investment in MLM, its purpose is lost, and it can easily slip into pyramid territory.
yuck, i completely forgot to mention the most important difference between traditional distributorship and MLM, which is – in MLM you get paid commissions on the sale of other distributors in your downline too.
this makes the structure of traditional distributorship totally different from MLM distributorship, and thus the rules relating to inventory stocking and commissions are totally different.
@anjali
Thank you for clarifying #97 – #99. I indeed forgot the commissions/downline part in the differences..etc.
“Affiliates are now not required to pre-purchase inventory if they don’t want to”.
I don’t know if that was implemented recently, but it looks like a good way to steer away from pyramid territory.
One problem here is that the product isn’t exactly “consumable”
* in terms of internal consumption among the affiliates themselves
* in terms of monthly consumption
Yet the compensation plan seems to believe the product will be consumed on a monthly basis, e.g. in the matrix for residual commission. 88,572 affiliates, each consuming or reselling 6 Zlicenses each month, simply isn’t very believable
correct. which is why the autoship requirement should either be done away with completely, or if retained on a non compulsory basis, should have a buy back offer attached to it.
if troy mason believes his reps should have no problem at all selling 6 zlicenses every month, he should back up his faith in his product with a buy back guarantee.
something like: reps on autoship can return unsold zlicenses within 3 months of purchase and sign out if they wish.
Now I may not be the brightest crayon, but if I were the CFO of the Mormon Mission, I would spend $199.95 to sign up and buy them myself for $7. Using the scenario above, I’d be SAVING my company $180,000.
Like Norway, I also question if accounts like this even exist. Hypotheticals like this are often dangled in MLM.
that’s a great point, and troy mason should answer this query.
the only doubt i have is, ethically speaking, can the CFO of the mormon mission sign up an an affiliate, and purchase for his organization? that would raise questions about ‘conflict of interest’?
But who should pay for the buyback?
I’m not talking about a specific “who” but about the source of money.
One $49.95 autoship order will distribute payments to multiple affiliates in upline via up to four different reward systems.
* autoship commission
* matrix commission
* 200 Club bonus
* Founders Club bonus
So the money coming in from those autoship orders have already been distributed to multiple people. There will only be peanuts left to cover refund of specific orders.
I’m not sure any top person throwing a “friend” that amount of money/business wouldn’t be questioned. Especially when they find out it’s an MLM product. Most people are very wary of MLM given the 97% failure rate and high association with scams.
Nevertheless, if the CFO wanted to proceed, and wasn’t comfortable being the affiliate, he could ask ANYONE with the Mormon Mission to sign up. Or, I think he could easily prove that he signed up only to save the mission 180k.
I think what all of us are trying to convey to potential affiliates is the Mormon Mission income example is highly unlikely.
when a product is returned, commissions are ‘clawed back’ from the accounts they have been paid into.
or troy mason is trying to entrench his zlicense MLM in the mormon community.
there is a joke about the mormons which goes:
it seems mormons have an affinity for [losing in] psuedo MLM schemes, and troy mason wants to take advantage of that.
People will most likely have withdrawn payouts?
The ones requesting refunds will need to wait until money can be clawed back from multiple external accounts. That can take years. 🙂
That’s why I specifically asked about the source of money he could use to support refunds. It will be much easier if he never pays out any commission before he can be absolutely sure that people won’t ask for refund.
uh, the ‘same money’ is not clawedback from commission accounts. the ‘same amount of money’ is clawedback from paid or pending commissions.
amway herbalife nuskin all have buyback, and they clawback commissions paid on returned products. so there is a way of doing it.
if there is some gap in the amount to be returned, and the amount the company can clawback, i think the company will have to bear the burden.
Do you suggest that he should borrow funds from Amway, Nuskin or Herbalife to support the refunds? 🙂
He can “borrow funds” from money coming in from new sales, i.e. he can reduce next month(s) payout to those affiliates and use the money to pay refund.
It may take a few months until all the amounts have been “clawed back” (e.g. if the sponsor doesn’t make any new sales the first month).
So the company will need to borrow funds from somewhere to be able to bear the burden?
I don’t think he will be very interested in that suggestion. 🙂
great discussion above, I love the feedback about how you believe the ZLicense website can be approved and how Troy Mason the CEO is here engaged in the discussion and attempting to act on the feedback given.
i’ve been reading behindMLM for awhile now & know overall OZ doesnt have a high opinion of most companies. I dont think I have ever seen a positive review on this site.
We will usually try to detect potential problems. It will typically be seen from many different perspectives. 🙂
If I remember correctly, some “skinny body” review published in 2012 was relatively positive (according to one of the distributors). 🙂
@corey: but you didn’t come here to read cheerleaders, did you?
I don’t believe in ideas like that, i.e. the idea that we should make suggestions about improvements. I believe Troy should run his own business as he sees it himself. And we should focus on readers in general rather than on Troy.
$19.95 per year should be “acceptable enough” and “affordable enough” for most consumers. The main income will eventually need to come from consumers paying for the service.
The autoship idea will most likely fail here, and so will all the parts that are based on the monthly autoship idea (VIP Team, Matrix, Founders Bonus, etc.).
It’s not really a good idea for anyone to bring in an existing recruitment team or a downline here, e.g. “Sell them the $199.95 Business Plan, and put everyone on the $49.95 monthly autoship. Then teach them how to do the same”. Ideas like that will fail after the first month or so.
haha, look who’s being a silly goose 🙂
why should any company, not be able to bear any costs, of sales&marketing&buyback?
dumping stock on affiliates Cannot be a one way traffic.
you dump, you buyback.
keep it fair.
but but, troy mason was here to explain his business and he was open to suggestions.
hello, what is wrong with suggestions?
if troy mason has made autoship non compulsory , due to this dialogue, that’s a good move.
Companies don’t have unlimited supplies of money.
That’s why I specifically asked for the source of money to support refunds. Some of it can come from clawbacks from future sales, but that idea will fail if the sponsor don’t sell anything in the future.
The best way is probably to delay payouts of commissions until he can be reasonably sure people will not ask for refund, e.g. until 70% of the stock actually have been resold to end users.
Amway, Nuskin and Herbalife have rules like that. Or they should have rules like that. “Sold or consumed”.
Refund can’t work if you don’t have a complete system in place to handle it, a complete set of rules. That completeness was missing in the suggestion. He would eventually have run out of funds to support refund payouts.
There’s nothing wrong with suggestions. My point was that it shouldn’t be the primary focus. Troy will need to run his own business as he sees it himself, and we should probably focus on readers in general rather than on him.
Suggestions can be useful in order to test ideas, e.g. to look into different solutions to a problem. I make several suggestions for that purpose, but usually temporary ones.
You will find “suggestions to the Receiver (based on current knowledge)” and many other suggestions in my most recent posts.
My suggestion is that he should carefully analyse his own business idea as a whole, “will this business concept work in reality?”.
He shouldn’t try to randomly fix details when people detect some problems.
“The problem”
The compensation plan seems to come from a business concept with highly consumable products, where affiliates could consume some of the products themselves on a monthly basis, and the rest of the products could be resold to external consumers (or to people in downline).
That “self consumption” idea won’t work here. Monthly autoship orders will more likely lead to inventory loading than to consumption, i.e. affiliate will rapidly drop out of monthly autoship plans and ruin the income for people in upline.
The compensation plan will fail to deliver the residual income it seems to promise → some people may feel “cheated” by the promises → some people may look for solutions to that “we have been cheated” problem.
Solutions?
There’s no easy solution to the problem.
MLM in its current form is heavily focused on recruitment of additional distributors / indirect compensation. But that idea won’t work here. This business concept will need to be focused on retail sales to external consumers.
The first step is usually to identify the problem correctly.
* The product isn’t consumable on a monthly basis. It’s a “one product per consumer per year” product, where the affiliates only will need inventory for the first sale to each customer.
* Any multi year supply of products to each customer won’t make much sense. People simply can’t afford to pay for ideas like that.
* The affiliates themselves can only consume one product. Family members can potentially consume a few products too. The rest of the products will need to be sold to external consumers (or potentially be returned, or be deducted from future personal consumption purchases).
* “Motivational speeches” won’t work here, e.g. “Recruit, recruit, RECRUIT!” will be a completely wrong idea.
* “Build an organization” ideas won’t work. The product can’t support multiple levels of rewards that derive primarily from consumption in a downline.
* It can probably support small “sales teams” separated from other “sales teams”, but it can’t support multiple sales teams organized in a downline. The 3×10 idea won’t work.
* People will need a huge number of external customers to make a living here. So it simply can’t have many distributors. It will need to have a few skilled ones rather than many random ones.
The second step is usually to identify the main problem, to see if it can be solved.
The main problem here is that the product isn’t really consumable on a monthly basis, i.e. it can’t support MLM ideas where affiliates are the main consumers with monthly consumption.
* Can the product be made more consumable, e.g. can monthly subscriptions work?
A “$20 per month” or “$49.95 per month” monthly subscription (per product) will make it more similar to other MLM ideas = “heavily overpriced in order to support multiple levels of commissions”.
With that idea the need for external consumers will be non-existent. It simply won’t be designed for that purpose.
It may be a solution. It will be like any other “compensation plan with some random product” MLM idea we have analysed. 🙂
That’s why I said that Troy Mason would need to make decisions himself based on how he sees his own business as a whole. He shouldn’t follow too many suggestions where people focus on details.
There are of course many other combinations too, e.g. “3 months subscription”, “family subscription” and other solutions.
The current business idea will most likely fail to work because of “inventory loading problems” among affiliates. People will simply get more products than what they reasonably can be expected to consume or resell within reasonable time.
* “26 products” initial orders will rapidly become a huge problem where most of the products will remain unused and unsold.
* “6 products per month” will most likely become a problem too.
The typical MLM idea, “heavily overpriced in order to support multiple levels of commissions”, will almost certainly kill any retail sale to external consumers.
So an idea like that will be rather short lived, just like most programs we review here. But it might be a solution to the “inventory loading problem” if people only receive one product for the price of six. 🙂
…and that’s why he asks for suggestions from critical, knowledgeable people at BehindMLM who will look at his businessidea with a magnifying glass, and pick out the good the bad and the ugly.
If he than uses those suggestions to adjust his own ideas, perhaps making it a more viable stable business, he and those who are interested can benefit from them.
“Those” are than not only readers here, but probably many more who *do not* visit BehindMLM.
Looks like win-win to me ? 🙂
As a health care counselor, daughter of an aging, independent senior who still drives, and parent of twenty-somethings with extensive travel and party lifestyles, I see this as a great product idea with the need for the constructive criticism to be filtered to create an even better product.
My level of involvement as an affiliate is based on my understanding of the product and its merits for senior groups, high schools and colleges to name a few entities who will be providing their communities with one more tool to notify next of kin in an emergency.
There’s nothing wrong with the basic product idea.
A similar product already exist in the market, a sealed health card + mobile phone app + online access to personal health information (based on international IDC-10 codes and ATC-codes). Price $49 annually (single), $82 for couple, $25-$30 through memberships in health associations.
Zlicense can be seen as a low price version of the same idea. But low price + multiple levels of compensation usually won’t work very well. 🙂
That particular competitor doesn’t seem to have any sales force at all. It uses medical doctors to present it to the market (associations, corporations), and a poorly organized website to present it to individuals (I didn’t easily find all the information an “interested customer” would look for).
Another competitor is MedicAlert. That’s a different type of concept, based on bracelets + telephone contact with medical personnell. It’s well established and well respected as an organization. That factor seems to be important in order to be accepted by health care workers.
In the spirit of hypotheticals, let’s add a layer and start with Troy being the top affiliate/founder plus three levels. The level three lands the 60k sleeve account, but that account signs up so no ‘retail’ commission for that affiliate.
All I know is $420,000 is circulating, anyone care to break it down for me?
I don’t think we should focus on that part, unless you really need it.
The 60K customers idea was about “Selling the Dream”, about visualising the idea that it will be easy to earn a profit. It isn’t about realities, it’s about dreams. But people like to believe in dreams.
I asked specifically about those sales examples in post #95.
If it really is that easy to get sales through “friends in high positions”, “fund raiser organizations”, and “doctors or pharmacies”, then Troy Mason should have plenty of examples from reality to show us — from his own business.
People can easily believe in ideas like that if they are eager enough to make an income. That’s why those arguments failed to work here, I simply wasn’t eager enough. 🙂
If the intentions here eventually will be focused on retail sale to external consumers, a quick look at a couple of the competitors may be a wise idea. Not to copy anything, but rather to get a wider perspective.
MedicAlert was mentioned in post #66. I only had a quick look at it, so I didn’t extract any details from the concept. It’s a different type of concept, but it might be worth looking at.
I have mentioned “World Medical Card” in a few post. It’s much more similar to Zlicense, so I focused on that one.
I can detect that THEY see credibility as a highly important factor. It usually means that there’s some type of resistance in the market among professionals (e.g. “HIPAA compliance” in the U.S., and some similar rules in the EU).
The service will not only need to be accepted by end users, it will also need to be accepted by the ones looking into it = health care workers, regulators, lawyers, insurance people, etc.
TEMPORARY CONCLUSION
The market for “electronic storage of and access to personal medical information” seems to be a rather difficult market (meaning: it won’t be easy for affiliates to get doctors to accept new, unknown services).
The service will need to be accepted by many more people than the end users, they must simply see it as an “acceptable and safe solution” (the professional ones must see it that way too, from their own perspective based on their own sets of values).
I have to add this comment that’s relative to the value of these VLicense sleeves.
On his way home from work, my father accidently hit the back end of the car in front of him on his way home. I was with him.
My father was having a diabetic reaction. In many ways, diabetics having a reaction act similar to a drunk. Their reactions are sluggish, their verbal responses are not completely articulate.
The officer asked for my father’s license, of course, while the driver of the car he hit was screaming, “He’s drunk! Look at him!”
Of course, I went immediately to my father’s defense and showed the officer the necklace he was wearing that no one thought to look for, and all of the drama could have been avoided if he’d had that vsleeve. Very few people wear the bracelets, by the way.
So exactly how much info is on this VSLEEVE anyway that would have solved this problem on the spot?
I see a bigger problem in that who would really trust the info on the VSLEEVE when no one knows about it period to begin with.
If its anything like the picture it won’t be of much help in a true emergency.
Sleeves and stickers can be damaged over time
The medical bracelet seems to hold up better under use and more people recognize it as such.
Just how hard is it to replicate a sticker?
I think this plan needs a lot more thought and acceptance.
let me start off by saying I am an affiliate with ZLicense and been one since the initial launch.
yes the Zlicense website is still active and running strong. the company has evolved and changed since its initial launch, some of the changes because of the feedback on this site.
Since the launch of Zlicense there has been additional product launches to include a pettag called Zpettag & Troy Mason’s original business called DreamStartersUSA has been brought under the company name Ztegrity.
ztegrity.com is the website were you can see the complete business model at. (website can not be viewed on mobile devices at this time)
Oz:
This little distraction of yours might mislead some beginner.
Hah! Thanks for spotting that double negative.