Over the past fortnight we’ve seen two attempts by Polaris Global to combat some of the criticism the company has received under its various names over the past twelve months.

The first was the setting up of ‘Polaris Global Facts‘ and the second a blog post by Lisa Molina attempting to defend Polaris Global with Scientology’s ‘attack the attacker’ methodology.

What both these attempts have failed to do are address primary concerns and questions that have raised at Polaris Global with any real accuracy.

The concerns that have been addressed have relied purely on the Scientology principle of ‘attacking the attacker’ without actually providing any hard information.

When I first started writing about Liberty League International it didn’t take long for an avalanche of accusations to be hurled my way originating from within Liberty League itself.

Primarily the information and opinions I was providing were dismissed under the banner of alleging that I was working for a rival company.

Given that this was mid 2009, it appears the Scientology ‘attack the attacker’ policy was being utilised long before any concrete link was made between Polaris Media Group and Scientology.

Whether active Polaris distributors at the time knew they were using the policy or not remains unknown.

Regardless, when confronted with these accusations I was quick to pen a direct response ‘Why I write about Liberty League International’.

The response didn’t simply question the credibility of the accusers (who were mostly anonymous Polaris distributors anyway), but instead provided credible information and put to rest any rumours that had been circulating as to what OzSoapbox was and who was behind it.

As a result of this information being published by myself the accusations mostly stopped. The few people that did raise the point after the article was published were simply pointed to it and most were never heard from again.

Polaris Global seem to be either incompetent or either unwilling to directly address any of the valid concerns and questions that have been raised at them.

Today I thought I’d do the company a favour and outline just what those concerns and questions are. Whether they’ll answer them however is another matter but at least this way they can’t claim ignorance.

1. Provide a Polaris Global income disclosure

Back in 2006 when Polaris Global were trading as Liberty League International, they ran into trouble with the Attorney General in Arizona.

Apart from being ordered to pay $115,000 in costs the terms of the settlement also required Liberty League to

advise potential customers of the correct percentage of participants who have made a profit through their participation in the Liberty League program.

This was because

the majority of participants did not earn enough to cover the amount they paid to buy the products sold to them.

Polaris Global’s last and only statistical income disclaimer was thus released in 2006 and stated that 85% of their active distributors made between $0-$35,000 annually with an average yearly income of just $13,123. This 85% distributor bracket made up just 19% of Liberty League’s annual revenue.

3% of the distributors had earned over $150,000 and represented 41% of the company’s revenue.

Total distributor numbers were never released and neither was the number of distributors who had left the company in 2006 due to financial reasons.

Fast forward to 2010 and the only statistical data on incomes generated by Polaris Group was Shane Krider recently stating on a team call that co-owner of Polaris Global, Rachel Oliver was “responsible for 80% of the business” in Polaris Media Group.

In four years the company went from 97% of distributors earning 59% of Liberty League’s revenue to 1 distributor (less then 1% of distributors assuming there are more then 100 of them) making 80% of Polaris Media Group’s revenue.

If Polaris Global are honestly trying to market a business opportunity how about providing prospective distributors with some hard facts on success rates and generated incomes?

I know I wouldn’t join a business opportunity without some idea of what statistically my chances were. ‘If you want to succeed you will’ type nonsense is just that, let’s see some hard numbers.

2. Shane Krider, Scientology and Polaris Global’s product line

This is understandably a touchy subject and isn’t helped by Scientologists screaming religious vilification at the very scent of any criticisms. However let’s put any opinions you might have about Scientology aside for a moment.

The author and producer of the Polaris Global product line, Gregory Strom recently stated that

Polaris video and written course products have consistently avoided any particular political or religious belief system as a matter of company policy, and will continue to do so in the future.

If we take Strom at his word this raises the conundrum of whether or not Polaris Global’s product line conflicts with CEO Shane Krider’s own personal beliefs and that of Scientology, or whether they are in alignment.

If they differ then does that mean that Krider himself does not personally follow or believe the personal development path set out by Polaris Global?

If Polaris Global and Scientology’s personal development beliefs are aligned and not in conflict, then it’s hardly accurate to state that Polaris Global’s products avoid “any particular religious belief system“.

To date this simple query has not been directly answered and it remains unknown whether Krider himself believes in the personal development teachings of his own company.

3. Why did Tony Rush, Gene Braxton and Shannon and John Lavenia all leave Polaris Media Group both simultaneously and abruptly?

The above were all members of Polaris Media Group’s Executive Marketing Council (EMC) and all resigned together and without official explanation from Polaris Media Group itself.

Another then recently resigned EMC member, Elena Fraga, stated that upon resigning she was made to sign a confidentiality agreement.

No doubt Braxton, Rush and the Lavenia’s also had to sign a similar agreement and this explains their weak explanation as to why they left Polaris;

Our resignation from Polaris Media Group to pursue our passions of training, speaking and educating, does not affect nor diminish our commitment to you.

It does extend our reach in the industry so that we can help more people advance towards their goals within the industry.

To suggest that four of your top level management just get up and leave the company on a whim is obviously going to raise doubts.

Instead of burying your head in the sand pretending nobody is wondering why, how about coming clean and releasing a statement.

To date there has been no official statement by Polaris Media Group or Polaris Global clarifying this matter.

4. What’s with all the company name changes?

Cmon guys people aren’t idiots. To suggest that you’re continually changing your company name to better align with your product offerings just isn’t going to cut it.

Especially when one week you’re Polaris Media Group, the next Polaris Global Marketing and then the following week Polaris Global.

Something is definitely up here and forget about the general public, at the very least your own distributors deserve an honest and open explanation.

 

Answering the above four questions would go a long way in restoring some credibility to the Polaris Global company name and that of its founders.

In an industry dogged by secrecy it would be refreshing to see a company just be open an honest about some of the questions that have been directed to it.

If anyone does get an official response regarding the above queries that goes beyond attacking those raising the questions I’d love for you to share them with us.

I’d have sent a copy of the questions directly to Polaris Global myself but I was unable to find a ‘contact us’ section on the Polaris Global website.

It’s April 22nd, 2010 today, let this be a public record of just how long the above questions about Polaris Global remain unanswered.