Wealth Masters International (WMI) have thus far existed with the sole purpose of providing ‘access to world-class education, tools, experts, experiences and opportunities that empower individuals to create success on their own terms and achieve true freedom in all areas of their lives‘.

Up until now however, this has been achieved through education via self help courses and conferences. If one wished to put into practice the lessons they’d learnt through the various WMI programs, they had to either branch out into one of the affiliate programs WMI approved to advertise at one of their events, or apply what they’d learnt to market the WMI business opportunity itself to other people.

All this is about to change with the announcement that WMI are now planning to branch out into the nutrition, insurance and finance industries.

WMI Health and Nutrition is set to launch in the first quarter of 2011 and will focus on bringing a retail opportunity for WMI members to market ‘the world’s most advanced anti-aging technologies‘.

I assume we’re going to see the traditional product lines you get from health and nutrition MLMs; creams, powders, drinks etc. etc.

 

Opes Partners will be the financial and insurance arm of WMI which will launch in January 2011 and is being touted as ‘the future of wall street‘.

With the ongoing, self-induced implosion of Wall Street, clients are hungry for a financial services company committed to integrity and cutting edge innovation…with the clients best interests at heart at all times.

-Kip Herriage, CEO and Co-Founder of WMI

Opes Partners appears to be more of a standalone subsidiary then WMI Health and Nutrition, in that there appears to already be an existing customer base that are going to be integrated within WMI itself.

Specifics of what each program will offer WMI members is sketchy at this point but no doubt more information will be released for analysis closer to both launch dates.

 

Traditionally WMI have provided education to their members and stood back and allowed members to invest their knowledge how they see fit in various business opportunities out there. The introduction of two new enterprises by WMI no doubt wishes to further capitalise by introducing a MLM marketing strategy to the nutrition, finance and insurance sectors.

In this sense it explains why, rather then simply introduce WMI Health and Nutrition and Opes Partners to their existing product lines, WMI have chosen to launch them as separate subsidiaries.

This allows WMI to maintain its current model of providing education whilst offering affiliate programs for it’s members to capitalise on. WMI Health and Nutrition and Opes Partners will both be directly competing against other third party affiliate programs WMI has traditionally provided to its members.

The only difference of course being that WMI will be able to take a greater cut of the profits made due to them owning the affilliate programs. How this impacts the third party affiliates remains to be seen, but there’s definitely the possibility of an unfair marketing advantage if WMI heavily promote the Opes and Health and Nutrition opportunities internally.

Presumably the choice by WMI to target the nutrition, finance and insurance sectors came about after research into what their members have been most successful in, via the various affiliate programs currently recommended by WMI. I have a feeling that, should they be successful, WMI Health and Nutrition and Opes Partners are simply the beginning of what will be a series of in-house affiliate programs offered, with the eventual aim to completely cut or severely limit the third party opportunities available.

Smart move by WMI to maximise the profits the company earns from its members, after they’ve already capitalised on their ‘education’. In this sense it’s a bit of a hybrid offering and it will be interesting to see how it works.

On a broader note the introduction of the two subsidiaries could also be seen as a move away from the stigma of WMI members simply ignoring affiliate programs offered and instead focusing on re-selling the education package via MLM.

If WMI are directly seen as providing affiliate opportunities for its members to retail, then this no doubt will go some way to appeasing authorities and regulators who might be looking into the company. Currently the only internal products retailable are solely educational and for the most part wouldn’t be sold without the WMI MLM business opportunity attached to them.

2011 should be an interesting year for WMI and I’m curious to see if their affiliate subsidary model will work. I’ll obviously be having a closer look at WMI Health and Nutrition and Opes Partners too as we approach their respective launch dates, so look out for that.