four-corners-alliance-group-logoWhen TelexFree abandoned its Ponzi scheme business model, Four Corners Alliance Group emerged as a popular contender for affiliates to join.

BehindMLM’s original Four Corners Alliance review was published in early 2013. After launch the opportunity all but died, only to be resurrected when one or more US-based TelexFree affiliates decided to pitch it as a reload scheme.

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Following a few requests via email to revisit the company, in light of purported compensation plan changes, today I thought we’d take another look at the business.

Read on for an updated review of the Four Corners Alliance Group MLM opportunity.

The Four Corners Alliance Group Product Line

One of the more obvious tell-tale signs that products were secondary to the Four Corners income opportunity itself. Labelled “Products 1 to 16”, no specifics were offered.

Today there’s a bit more information about “Products 1 to 16”, with the company now referring to them as a “Financial Education Set”, spread out over six levels.

In a nutshell you’re looking at an ebook library

encompassing Financial topics ranging from mindset and motivation, with a unique business emphasis to help you reach your full potential and explode your income, online and off – all the way through to financial education which will turn the balance in your favor and have your money working for you

No author information is provided, so whether these are actual self-contained ebooks or rehashed PLR articles bundled together is not clear.

In any event, that Four Corners Alliance Group or someone within the company had anything to do with the creation of the books appears to be slim.

There’s also a $29.95 newsletter for sale, which the company claims is

a vibrant, information packed, monthly financial and lifestyle newsletter.

Finally, Four Corners Alliance Group affiliates are given a replicated storefront, through which they can earn commissions off the company’s newsletter and ebook sales.

The Four Corners Alliance Group Compensation Plan

The original Four Corners Alliance Group compensation plan revolved around a 16 level matrix. Affiliates recruited new affiliates, and then through the matrix earned commissions when said recruited affiliates spent money.

This has now been cut back to a 6 level matrix, however the basic principle of the compensation plan remains the same.

Product Commissions

Utilizing a 4×6 matrix, Four Corners Alliance Group pay out commissions on recruited affiliate purchases of one of their six product levels:

  • Levels 1 and 2 costs $10
  • Level 3 costs $25
  • Level 4 costs $60
  • Level 5 costs $150
  • Level 6 costs $300

How they pay out commissions however is a little strange. Four Corners Alliance Group uses a 4×6 matrix, but from the looks of it affiliates can only earn so many commissions per product level.

A 4×6 matrix places an affiliate at the top of the matrix, with four positions directly under them (level 1)

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In turn, these four positions branch out into another four positions (level 2), and then again for level 3 and so on and so forth down a total of 6 levels.

Each of the six matrix levels corresponds with a product level, with the amount of positions on each level dictating how many commissions on that particular product level a Four Corners Alliance Group affiliate can earn.

  • Level 1 – $4 per affiliate purchase of level 1 product, 4 positions = $16 total commission
  • Level 2 – $4 per affiliate purchase of level 2 product, 16 positions = $64 total commission
  • Level 3 – $10 per affiliate purchase of level 3 product, 64 positions = $640 total commission
  • Level 4 – $24 per affiliate purchase of level 4 product, 256 positions = $6114 total commission
  • Level 5 – $60 per affiliate purchase of level 5 product, 1024 positions = $61,440 total commission
  • Level 6 – $120 per affiliate purchase of level 6 product, 4096 positions = $491,520 total commission

Typically we look at MLM matrices top-down, but here it makes more sense to look from left to right. Each level has a certain number of commissionable spots on the matrix, and once full an affiliate is no longer able to profit from selling products at that particular product level.

Note that a 100% match is also offered on the matrix commissions earnt by personally recruited affiliates.

Newsletter Commissions

The $29.95 affiliates pay for their monthly Four Corner Alliance Group newsletter is commissionable. Similar to the product commissions, newsletter commissions are paid out using a 4×7 matrix (one additional level).

This is more of a traditional amtrix, with spots in the matrix filled via affiliate recruitment (direct or indirect). How much of a commission is then paid out on the affiliate purchase of a newsletter is determined by what level the paying affiliate sits on the matrix:

  • Levels 1 to 4 – $1 per affiliate
  • Levels 5 and 6 – $2 per affiliate
  • Level 7 – $4 per affiliate

As with the product commissions, a 100% match on personally recruited affiliate’s newsletter commissions is also offered.

Conclusion

I think the notion that anyone who is not a Four Corners Alliance Affiliate is going to purchase their ebooks or newsletter is a bit of a stretch. Or at the very least not in any significant number.

What you’re then left with is a simple affiliate recruitment scheme, where, under the guise of purchasing a newsletter, Four Corners Alliance Group affiliates simply recruit new affiliates and as long as everyone pays their $29.95 monthly fee, everyone (except those at the bottom) gets paid.

The product layer is offered in addition to this, and being a one-time cost at any given level (and capped further by the structure of the matrix), is unlikely to be as attractive as the newsletter fee commissions (hence the bigger matrix offered).

The match could prove lucrative though if enough recruited affiliates are convinced to part with hundreds of dollars for ebooks.

Evidence of the newsletter being little more than a front for the monthly payment of fees to be distributed as commissions via the 4×7 matrix are evident in Four Corners Alliance Group’s own marketing material:

The newsletter is a convenient way to cover your monthly affiliate qualifying volume of 10PV.

In order to qualify for commissions, affiliates are required to generate 10 PV a month in sales. This could be a sale of either level 1 or 2 of the products, but given that this is a monthly recurring requirement, as above, it’s far more convenient to just pay the fee yourself and receive a newsletter.

Not only does that keep an affiliate commission qualified, but it also keeps the commissions rolling each month.

With there likely being little to no retail taking place within the opportunity though, this drags Four Corners Alliance Group into pyramid scheme territory.

That TelexFree investors are seemingly flocking to the business is certainly strange, I’d have thought Ponzi schemes would be more their thing.