Savi Health Review: Max Int’l similarities?

Savi Health appears to have begun operations in 2012 but didn’t actually “open their doors” till December of 2013. The following message, confirming their official launch date was published on Savi Health’s Google Plus page on December 12th:

While we have been operational for some time, today is the first day when we officially say, yes, we’re open!

Located in the US state of Utah, Savi Health operate in the health and nutrition and personal development MLM niches. Heading up the company is Michael Larkins (right), who serves as Founder, CEO and President.

On the MLM side of things, Larkins joined Max International as President back in 2008.

Mike Larkins joined Max International in March 2008 bringing with him over 25 years of sales and executive management experience. His unique abilities have been demonstrated in the areas of corporate leadership, international expansion and start-up enterprises.

As President of Max International, Mike will continue to guide the company into global markets with what he refers to as “rational exuberance.”

Mike has lived in Japan for six years and his understanding of the culture and fluency in the Japanese language will be invaluable in introducing Max International into the world’s largest market.

I wasn’t able to find any information explaining why Larkins left Max, so I’m not sure what happened there.

Joining Larkins as co-founders of Savi Health are Mark Brown, Craig Case, Greg Fullerton (co-founder of Max International), Tony Wetzel and Richard Crosetto. Out of Savi Health’s co-founders, only Michael Larkin is credited with an executive position on the company website.

Read on for a full review of the Savi Health MLM business opportunity.

The Savi Health Product Line

Savi Health’s product offering is a hybrid between personal development and health and wellness.

Intentional Creation Assessment and Coaching

SAVI has partnered with The Og Mandino Group and its CEO, Dave Blanchard, to create the SAVI Intentional Creation Assessment and coaching program.

This is a bit hard to guage as a product line, as Savi lead with a “free assessment”, which they then use to upsell to more focused personal development course(s).

Through this personal assessment, and with Dave’s expertise, we can measure your habits of thinking and identify which thoughts are supporting your hopes and dreams and which are trying to sabotage your efforts.

For those curious, Og Mandino was an actual person who authored a series of personal development books. In their compensation plan material, Savi Health list “Monthly Intentional Creation Coaching” for $99 a month.

Health and Nutrition

Savi Health’s health and nutrition offering is more straight forward, with the company marketing “good health” via “inflammation control”:

Building your best life includes obtaining, protecting, and enjoying good health. To help the most people in this foundational area, we target the #1 cause of illness and disease: cellular inflammation.

Research shows that preventing and reducing inflammation is critical to good health and vitality. For young people, this means maintaining good health and high-level performance. For people not quite as young, it means enjoying a longer “health span.”

Savi Health’s flagship product is Savi Vital, which focuses on “the Mediterranean Diet”. Savi Vital’s ingredients include Hydroxytyrosol (from olive juice), Resveratrol (from red wine and grape skins) and Lycopene (an antioxidant found in tomatoes).

In their compensation plan material, Savi Health list the retail price for a bottle of Savi Vital at $92.

The Savi Health Compensation Plan

Savi Health’s compensation plan combines residual binary and unilevel commissions with additional performance based bonuses.

Savi Health Affiliate Membership Ranks

There are twelve affiliate ranks within the Savi Health compensation plan. Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

• Associate – starting rank
• Savi Associate 1 – 99 PV and personally recruit at least one new affiliate
• Savi Associate 2- 99 PV and personally recruit at least two affiliates (one on either binary team)
• Savi Associate 3 – 99 PV, personally recruit at least three affiliates and generate at least 1250 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels
• Savi Associate 4 – 99 PV, personally recruit at least four affiliates and generate at least 2500 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels
• Savi Manager – 99 PV, personally recruit at least four affiliates (two in each binary team) and generate at least 5000 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels
• Savi Leader 1 -99 PV, personally recruit at least four affiliates (two in each binary team and one of which must be a Manager or higher), and generate at least 8000 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels
• Savi Leader 2- 99 PV, personally recruit at least four affiliates (two in each binary team and two of which must be Managers or higher), generate at least 10,000 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels and 25,000 GV in total (entire unilevel team)
• Savi Leader 3 – 99 PV, personally recruit at least five affiliates (two in each binary team and three of which must be Managers or higher), generate at least 12,500 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels and 50,000 GV in total (entire unilevel team)
• Savi Leader 4 – 99 PV, personally recruit at least five affiliates (two in each binary team and four of which must be Managers or higher), generate at least 15,000 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels and 100,000 GV in total (entire unilevel team)
• Savi Leader 5 – 99 PV, personally recruit at least six affiliates (two in each binary team and five of which must be Managers or higher), generate at least 17,500 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels and 200,000 GV in total (entire unilevel team)
• Savi Leader 6 – 99 PV, personally recruit at least six affiliates (two in each binary team and six of which must be Managers or higher), generate at least 20,000 GV a month within your first six unilevel team levels and 400,000 GV in total (entire unilevel team)

Note that PV stands for “Personal Volume” and is the sales volume generated by an affiliate via sales to retail and preferred customers, as well as personally recruited affiliates.

GV stands for “Group Volume” and is sales volume generated by an affiliate’s downline, including both personally and indirectly recruited affiliates.

Retail Commissions

Savi Health offer affiliates a 25% retail commission on the sale of their products. This equates to a $23 commission for each bottle of Savi Vital sold to a retail customer.

Preferred customer orders (retail customers who sign up for a monthly autoship), are paid out at 20%. Note that Preferred customer orders also generate binary and unilevel sales volume, at a rate of 40% of the Commissionable Volume of each order (one bottle of Savi Vital generates 69 points of Commissionable Volume).

Manager Bonus

Savi Health affiliates who qualify as Managers for any two pay-periods (which I believe are monthly), can choose one of the following three bonuses:

• a $400 Apple Store gift certificate
• $350 in cash or
• 8 bottles of Savi Vital

If the affiliate who recruited the qualifying affiliate is on autoship and is at the Manager rank or higher, they also receive a $200 cash bonus.

Manager Boom! Bonus

If a Savi Health affiliate qualifies as a Savi Manager for at least two of their first four months with the company, has an autoship order and joined by purchasing either an Entrepreneur ($500) or Business Builder Pack ($1000), they qualify for a $350 cash bonus.

Note that the Manager Boom! Bonus is in addition to the standard Manager Bonus.

Recruited Affiliate Commissions

No commissions are paid out on the “Associate Enrolment Pack” all newly recruited Savi Health affiliates are required to purchase, however any products purchased by newly recruited affiliates generate a 20% commission.

This commission is paid out for 60 days from the date of recruitment of a new affiliate, and is paid out on all “product and product pack” purchases made.

Autoship Incentive

If an affiliate has at least three preferred customers on monthly autoship, they qualify for one bottle of Savi Vital a month for free (excluding shipping and any applicable taxes). Preferred customers can also qualify free bottles of Savi Vital each month by introducing three new preferred customers to the business (their order volume will be tracked to the affiliate who recruited the initial preferred customer).

How much free product an affiliate or preferred customer qualifies for is determined by the size of their monthly autoship order and that of their preferred customers:

• $99 to $167 (preferred customers must cumulatively order $207 to $501) – one bottle of Savi Vital
• $168 to $236 (preferred customers must cumulatively order $504 – $708) – two bottles of Savi Vital
• $237 or higher (preferred customers must cumulatively order $711 or higher) – three bottles of Savi Vital

Note that free orders do not generate any sales volume within the Savi Health compensation plan. I also believe the free products are in addition to an affiliate’s standing autoship order, which must be maintained if an affiliate wishes to continue to qualify for free product each month.

Unilevel Commissions

Savi Health offer residual commissions via a three-level unilevel compensation structure. A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any of these level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team. If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3.

Typically a unilevel team extends down infinite depth, however Savi Health cap their unilevel teams at three levels (additional residual commissions are offered via binary compensation).

Unilevel commissions are paid out as a percentage of sales volume generated within an affiliate’s unilevel team, paid out at 5% on levels 1 and 2 and 3% on level 3.

How many unilevel levels a Savi Health affiliate is paid out on is determined by their affiliate membership rank:

• Savi Associate – no unilevel commissions
• Savi Associate 1 – level 1 commissions only
• Savi Associate 2 – level 1 and 2 commissions only
• Savi Associate 3 or higher – all three unilevel level commissions payable

Binary Commissions

At the affiliate rank of Savi Associate 4 and higher, Savi Health affiliates qualify for residual commissions via a binary compensation structure.

A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of two binary teams, left and right:

Sales volume is tracked between the two teams, with an affiliate getting paid a percentage commission of the volume generated by the weaker team each month.

How much of a percentage is paid out on this volume is determined by an affiliate’s membership rank:

• Savi Associate 4 – 5% (capped at $3000 a month)
• Savi Manager – 10% (capped at $5000 a month)
• Savi Leader 1 – 12% (capped at $10,000 a month)
• Savi Leader 2 – 12% (capped at $15,000 a month)
• Savi Leader 3 – 12% (capped at $25,000 a month)
• Savi Leader 4 – 12% (capped at $40,000 a month)
• Savi Leader 5 – 12% (capped at $50,000 a month)
• Savi Leader 6 – 12% (capped at $75,000 a month)

Any volume paid out on the weaker team is matched and removed from the stronger team, with any leftover volume carried over the following month.

Binary Check Match

Savi Leader 1 ranked or higher affiliates qualify for a check match on the binary commissions, paid out down a possible three levels of recruitment (using the unilevel compensation structure).

How many levels and how much of a percentage match is paid out is determined by a Savi Health affiliate’s membership rank:

• Savi Leader 1 – paid out 15% on one level, capped at $500 per counted affiliate
• Savi Leader 2 – paid out 20% on two levels, capped at $1000 per counted affiliate
• Savi Leader 3 – paid out 22% on two levels, capped at $2000 per counted affiliate
• Savi Leader 4 – paid out 25% on two levels, capped at $4000 per counted affiliate
• Savi Leader 5 – paid out 27% on two levels, capped at $8000 per counted affiliate
• Savi Leader 6 – paid out 30% on two levels, capped at $12,000 per counted affiliate

Joining Savi Health

Basic affiliate membership to Savi Health is $99. A Starter Kit, which includes one bottle of Savi Vital costs $119.

Product packs are also available, with the Entrepreneur Pack costing $500 and coming with 7 bottles of Savi Vital and one month of Intentional Creation Coaching.

The Business Builder Pack costs $1000 and comes with 16 bottles of Savi Vital and one month of Intentional Creation Coaching.

Conclusion

With Savi Health it’s hard not to observe that,with respect to Michael Larkins’ involvement in Max International, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. I suspect this comes down to the reason Larkins and Greg Fullerton left Max, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to find addressed anywhere.

One would think that if Max International wasn’t doing so well, it doesn’t make much sense to launch a rival company with a similar compensation plan and $100 or so product structure. And if Max was doing well, then why did Larkins and Fullerton abandon ship?

Both Savi Health and Max International sell a bottle of something, utilising compensation plans that mix binary and unilevel residual commissions targeted specifically at monthly autoship.

The compensation plans are slightly different details wise, but you’d be forgiven for thinking the only difference was Savi Health changed what’s in the bottle.

Whereas Max International market $85 bottles of  Glutathione based Max GXL, Savi Health market bottles of olive juice, red wine and grape skin and tomato antioxidant extract based Savi Vital for $92.

Both company’s minimum autoships are pegged around the $100 mark ($99) and are tied directly into various commissions and bonuses. In the case of Savi Health, it’s the Manager Boom! Bonus that’s most revealing. Qualify as a Savi Manager (99 PV a month (autoship), recruit four affiliates), recruit new affiliates and get them to spend $500 or $100 and earn $350 each time you do it.

Not the smartest of long-term strategies (although the assumption is that everybody recruited will be on autoship generating monthly volume via the binary and unilevel), but entirely possible.

That said to be fair it’s also entirely possible to focus on retail sales for the 25% retail commission, but that begs the question of who is going to pay $92 a month for Savi Vital. Outside of the business opportunity, convincing people to pay $92 (or $69 on autoship) is easily going to be your biggest challenge as a Savi Health affiliate.

Ideally as a prospective affiliate you’d want an upline who has a good mixture of retail (including preferred customers) and affiliate volume within their immediate downline. This ratio should be as close to 50% as possible (split retail/preferred customers and recruited affiliate sales volume), but personally I’m just not seeing it.

Why?

Take a look at how Savi Health marketed their prelaunch:

Dubbed the “Double Enroller Bonus”, Savi Health pay $13.80 “for every new associate (they) enroll”. Their words.

The company would naturally argue that this is based on the sale of a product, but with regular Savi Health membership at $99 and the Launch Pack at $119, that’s a hard case to make. Remember, regular affiliate membership doesn’t come with any product… so that’s a $13.80 comission on a $20 difference.

Given that Savi Vital wholesales at $69, things just don’t add up.

What does add up though is that clearly Savi Health are building their business on a culture of recruitment. Retail sales aren’t mentioned anywhere in the company’s prelaunch marketing literature, with everything instead focused on “associate recruitment”.

Once you build a foundation around affiliate recruitment, rarely will the business environment and affiliate focus change. Again, a reminder to check a potential upline’s sales volume. Too much recruited affiliate volume and it’s a pump and dump affiliate autoship recruitment game.

A healthy mix and, if you can convince yourself you can find retail customers willing to shell over $69-$92 each month… then you just might have a shot.

Oh yeah, and the whole Og Mandino training stuff… no idea how effective it is but given it’s a third-party offering, it would appear to have been included for no other reason than one bottle of Savi Vital not generating 99 PV a month via autoship.

Affiliates can buy more than one bottle of Savi Vital but for self consumption that makes little sense. So instead one opts for “Intentional Creation Assessment and Coaching”.

I’ll conclude by offering readers the same conclusion I drew on Max International,

I’d be extremely careful about who you sign up for in Max International, as how they run their business is going to directly dictate how you yourself are going to run yours. And the last thing you want is to be left holding the tail end of a recruitment spiral that will inevitably fall into decline.

Approach with caution.

 

Update 24th February 2016 – Well, looks like autoship recruitment must have dried up. On February 22nd Modere announced they have acquired Savi Health.

Modere today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of SAVI Health International, LLC (“SAVI”).

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

In our Modere review we noted it too has an affiliate recruitment autoship focus. Within that context I guess the purchase of Savi Health was a good fit.