Wealth Masters International: Does it work on its own?
Wealth. It’s something that most of us strive for in our lives and can be earnt in a variety of ways. Some people derive wealth from a steady income, some work on a commission whereas others run their own businesses.
Regardless of how you accumulate it, ask most people and they’ll tell you that wealth is an integral component of their life plans. Therefore the value of wealth goes without saying.
Given this desire to accumulate wealth in most of us, it sort of makes sense that there’s a market out there to teach people how to not only accumulate wealth but also how to preserve and make the most of what they make.
Wealth Masters International are one such company that combine MLM along with a vision to ‘empower individuals to create success on their own terms and achieve true freedom in all areas of their lives.’
Now as far as visions go, that’s a pretty broad and high reaching aim to strive for. Wealth Masters International (WMI) have set themselves some pretty high goals and the burning question of course is: do they deliver?
Let’s find out.
WMI break down ‘all areas of your life’ into three components; health, wealth and wisdom. Whilst all three areas are pretty self explanatory, I thought it’d be worthwhile defining them just so that we’re on the same page here.
Health is the status of your personal health, both in mind and physical body. With both in check you can say that you’re a healthy person.
Wealth covers the financial side of things. If you’ve got a lot of material wealth, be it assets, cash, stocks or whatever – then the wealth side of things is ok.
Note that wealth can also be used as a descriptor (ie. my true wealth lies in my family) but for the sake of MLM and WMI I believe we’re strictly talking about the financial side here.
Finally wisdom covers knowledge and this is what you learn over the course of your life. The idea is that the older you get the more wisdom you obtain… and hopefully that wisdom was worthwhile obtaining.
When classifying Wealth Masters as a MLM, by looking at their vision it’s accurate to state that they are in the personal development category. However, whilst most personal development MLMs focus on the self, WMI have quite openly mainly targeted wealth creation and preservation.
At the heart of the Wealth Masters product line is their ‘M1 Masters Program‘. This is a $1995 US 100 day course is designed to guide you through making a 1% positive increase in your life each day with the end result of making your life 200% better.
Of course after you’ve made your life 101% better, you need improve more then 1% of your original 100% life to get to 102% (you need 1% of 101%), but we won’t hold basic maths against WMI… or should we?
If I’m going to trust WMI with my financial future I’d wanna hope they can at least get the maths in their marketing spiel right…
For those of you that don’t have $1995 US up front there’s also the 30 day introductory course ‘mPower‘ which is basically a mini-me version of M1. Obviously the idea here is you purchase mPower to get a taste and then go for m1 to finish off the course.
The next product is the ‘M2 Wealth Conference‘ and from here the real focus on creating wealth begins. This $8995 US 4 day course primarily covers financial planning and management with a secondary focus on personal development and health.
Finally you’ve got the ‘M3 Private Wealth Group’ to which membership costs $12995 US. The Private Wealth Group offers you a 5 day conference with more of a focus on ‘personal growth‘.
This essentially means you’ve got your staple of financial advice, planning and management from various speakers and associates (as with the M2 conference), but you’ve also got the feel good activities thrown in too.
If people paying thirteen grand for a conference can’t have them walking away feeling like they haven’t grown as individuals.
WMI’s products naturally lead into each other and from a marketing standpoint it’s pretty solid. You buy the 100 day course and learn what you need to do to improve your life financially.
Realising you don’t have access to the advice, tools or opportunities required just by doing a course, you then buy into a four day conference after which, if everything goes to plan, you then have enough money to reward yourself with the resort style conference M3. By attending M3 you further educate yourself on financial planning with a bit of fun thrown in.
You feel good about yourself, have bucketloads of money and everybody wins.
As you can see, unlike the last few MLM companies I’ve written about, there is definitely a tangible product here in the 100 day course. Product wise, WMI are in the clear but that’s not to say there isn’t some shortcomings in the WMI course though.
The first major problem that jumped out with me is that WMI provide you with all this financial planning and wealth generation information, but fail to truly capitalise on it with an ‘in-house’ solution. Assuming the info is solid (which I’m assuming at least some of it is), the next step you’ve got to work out is what to do with it.
This is where the risk sets in. As an MLM company, WMI itself does offer an income generation opportunity but this is only really effective if we work on the assumption that all of the financial planning advice offered by WMI is geared towards successfully marketing a MLM opportunity to others.
And if so, is there a problem with being given all this advice on how to market a MLM opportunity and finding out that by doing so is the only real way to make money in WMI? For the individual there isn’t a problem but if one person gets trained up on how to market an MLM and then goes out to market WMI’s products which train others how to market an MLM company successfully, then it’s clear there’s a self perpetuated train being created here.
Of course WMI have addressed this by bringing in third party associates and opportunities to present at their conferences, but be aware that any involvement in these is done at your own risk.
Of course any business venture has a risk but the lines are exceptionally blurred when you’ve put trust in a company to give you financial advice, present you with an investment opportunity and then turn around and absolve all responsibility if you don’t succeed.
I’m not saying WMI should take responsibility for each and every member’s business ventures, just that to me it seems like a borderline ethical dilemma in offering financial advice and business opportunities as a bundle, let alone any conflict of interest issues that might be arise.
Purely from an MLM standpoint and ignoring any third party offers (I believe MLM companies should be inclusive for wealth generation), essentially you’re left with training materials and tools that will over time provide you the necessary training to run and manage your finances, but fail to provide you a ‘in-house’ vehicle to channel this knowledge into.
Having to rely on third parties at your own risk for wealth generation isn’t something I’d be comfortable with in a MLM company. Especially if the MLM company (whose, let’s not forget, motivation is to make money) was picking and choosing what business opportunities were being presented to me.
Wealth Masters Information appears to work for two types of people;
Those who are comfortable parting with large amounts of money to gain knowledge and insight on how to market the MLM opportunity WMI provide to others, who then pay to learn the same and have to try and sell the products to others, or;
Those who already have some capital raised and are comfortable risking their capital by investing into third parties or opportunities presented at WMI’s conferences.
Of course you’ll be imparted with the knowledge you’ve learnt from WMI before doing so but at the end of the day, this requirement to work outside of the MLM opportunity itself is definitely a weak spot as far as Wealth Masters International as a ‘MLM company‘ goes.
Naturally this analysis runs on the assumption that the material presented in M1, M2 and M3 is actually of value and works when applied. If not, then you’ve got much bigger problems then simply choosing a third party business opportunity to invest in.
WMI is most active in the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway (in 2010). In Norway, it will most likely collapse or be banned shortly, with fewer than 1,200 members in Norway. Many of the members are inactive and have actually resigned, but they are still registered as members. The number of members provided by the company are artificially high, since it includes former members.
I can provide relatively much information about WMI, but most of this information applies to the Norwegian market. There have been some differences in marketing methods in different countries (strict rules on the marketing methods applied only to English-language web pages). In Norway, WMI and CCPro has consistently been marketed as “business opportunity” and “work at home business” – and it will probably be declared as a pyramid scheme pretty soon.
WMI may have disguised their pyramid business better in Australia and Canada than in Norway, but I can guarantee that it exists under the surface.
In November 2009 I used the articles about Liberty League International as a foundation in my own research on the WMI, which means that I read through all the 40+ articles on Oz and all the comments on these. The methods for marketing of WMI in Norway has been very similar to the methods used by LLI in Australia, except for TV commercials and “SixFigureChicks” and some other details.
In one of these comment threads were an avid distributor for CarbonCopyPro and WMI “hushed down” by a manager. They disliked that he tried to attract attention to these companies in any way. This reaction was most likely due to the similarities between LLI an WMI.
WMI Scandinavia has received claims from the Gaming Board in Norway to document the company’s operations, that revenue comes from sales and not from recruiting other participants. The deadline for documentation expires at the end of October. They will publish an official warning against the company if the documentation is not received, a warning about pyramid business.
http://e24.no/naeringsliv/article3848505.ece
Use Google translator or some other translation tools, translating from Norwegian (bokmal) to English.
Here are the conditions for participants in WMI:
https://www.wminow.com/bo/Purchase_Agreements/wealthmasters_policies_8.16.pdf
Quote from the section on marketing:
4.2 — Advertising
WMI has a strict adherence policy, and violators risk having their Consultant status suspended, and/or, forfeited. If you have any questions or concerns in regards to compliance please contact us via email at: compliance@wmitoday.com
1. No use of WMI, Wealth Masters, Wealth Masters International or any variation of the Company name in your marketing efforts. This includes key words on search engines or capture pages. This prevents sponsor shopping which WMI has no tolerance for. The bottom line is that if the Company name (or any variation whatsoever) can be seen by a prospect, the ad is NOT compliant.
2. No web sites and or landing pages that promote you or your team as the top producer or seasoned veteran with WMI. Verbiage indicating that if they do not sign up with you, they will have little or no success will NOT be tolerated.
3. Advertising must tell the truth and not mislead consumers. Some examples are “No Selling”, “completely automated system that does the work for you”, and “only work a few hours a day or week.”
4. No Income/Earnings claims. No mention of actual income, or potential income. No Lifestyle claims. This means the cars, the boats or the million plus dollar homes.
5. Disclaimers and disclosures must be clear and easy to read.
6. Testimonials and endorsements must reflect the typical experiences of consumers, unless the ad clearly states otherwise. A statement that “not all consultants will have the same results” is not enough to qualify as a claim. Testimonials and endorsements can’t be used to make a claim that the advertiser cannot substantiate.
7. No mention of investments, investment returns, or of our Alliance partners. WMI does not provide legal, investment, or tax advice, and ads cannot give the impression that we do. WMI Alliances may not be mentioned by name.
8. No posting of the “Conspiracy Against Your Money” DVD footage to any online websites. The only way you can use this video online is through WMI and CCPRO sanctioned web pages.
9. Remember that to protect the longevity of our company we all need to follow these guidelines and make a level playing field for all. We also encourage any violations to be reported to compliance@wmitoday.com . Your information will be kept in the strictest of confidence. Thanks everyone for your help on this very important matter.
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Promotion of the concept in Norway has broken with most of these rules, without any reaction from management. The reason is that Norway has had nearly 15 percent of the total membership growth in 2010.
Typical statement from a beginner is “our average income is 1.3 million NOK per year” (between 260,000 and 325,000 AU $) – 1 week after he joined the WMI.
Wow that’s a crapload of secrecy right there in those terms and conditions.
Whilst they do try to cover themselves with the concept of fairness, it’s pretty obvious they’re just covering their arses by disassociation. If I’m a new member and don’t make any money it’s much easier to take it out on the face of whoever brought my into the program if WMI isn’t mentioned anywhere.
The end of October is just 2 days away, it’ll be interesting to see what the Gaming Board do!
$12995 for a conference,man thats a lot of cash, does that include hotel and air fares? Who the hell gets sucked in by this crap!
You pay first and foremost for business opportunity, not the product itself. The product would be almost impossible to sell at that price. You receive a higher commission on the sale if you buy in at a higher level.
Here is an old and OUTDATED compensation plan. They have probably revised it several times since the website was created. The compensation plan was significantly changed in early 2010.
http://www.areteglobal.net/wmioverview.htm
Notice what it says in small print under the “Platinum” and “Platinum Plus”. You immediately become a Master Consultant from the first sale if you are willing to pay for it, qualified for a higher bonus in the first few sales. If you are an experienced salesman (and have the money), it pays to go “all in” as M3 Master Consultant, instead of working your way gradually upwards as Consultant.
The products are not really necessary at all. You don’t have to have participated in any seminar to be entitled to receive commissions, but you must have PAID for the seminar. You lose no right to commission if you fail to attend a seminar you have PAID for. The payment is more important than their “education”.
“M2 Consultant” gives the right to receive commissions for the sale of M1 and M2, but not for the M3-level. I think this has been changed to that you get 10 percent commission if you sell higher level than you have yourself. The rest of the commission goes to the mentor who recruited you.