Brilliant Movement fails to provide complete ownership and executive information on its website.

Graham Cooke is presented as Brilliant Movement’s owner but this isn’t the whole picture. Brilliant Movement popped up on my radar courtesy of Ray Higdon, who claims to be co-owner of the company.

In Brilliant Movement marketing videos Higdon suggests Brilliant Movement might also be co-owned by Dionne Van Zyl, however this also isn’t disclosed.

In any event, Cooke and Van Zyl have been running Brilliant Perspectives for some time. Along came Higdon and now we have a Brilliant Movement MLM company, tied to Brilliant Perspectives LLC.

As I understand it neither Cooke or Van Zyl have any network marketing experience.

Ray Higdon made a name for himself in MLM as a promoter of the WorldVentures pyramid scheme.

From Higdon’s own website he started out in MLM circa 2009 with Numis Network.

In August of 2013 Numis Network merged into Worldventures where Jessica and Ray Higdon achieved the rank of Regional Marketing Director and became six figure earners within that company.

Jessica and Ray Higdon decided to sell their position to their upline in February of 2016 to focus on coaching and training the industry as a whole.

WorldVentures was a travel-based MLM pyramid scheme that received multiple fraud warnings over the years. The scam collapsed through bankruptcy in late 2020.

As above, after WorldVentures Higdon has been selling MLM coaching and training under “Higdon Group” branding.

In a Brilliant Perspective marketing video, Higdon states he “gave his life to Christ” in 2022. This prompted a Higdon Group marketing pivot, leaning hard into religion.

The Higdon Group marketing pivot led to things like the “Faith-Based Network Marketing Blueprint”.

That brings us to Brilliant Perspectives launching its Brilliant Movement MLM opportunity last month.

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.

Brilliant Movement’s Products

Brilliant Movement markets an BrilliantPlus app.

As above, the BrilliantPlus app provides access to:

  • 500 works of Graham Cooke
  • online gatherings
  • events organized by Higdon Group and
  • “small group” 12-week “studies” held twice a year

A BrilliantPlus app subscription is $47 a month or $397 annually.

Brilliant Movement’s Compensation Plan

Brilliant Movement’s compensation plan pays on BrilliantPlus app subscriptions sold to retail customers and recruited affiliates.

Brilliant Movement pays commissions via a 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 level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, 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 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Brilliant Movement caps payable unilevel team levels at seven.

Commissions on BrilliantPlus app subscriptions are paid out across these seven levels as follows:

  • level 1 (personally referred retail customers and recruited affiliates) – 25%
  • level 2 – 10%
  • level 3 – 5%
  • levels 4 and 5 – 3%
  • levels 6 and 7 – 2%

Joining Brilliant Movement

Brilliant Movement affiliate membership is $10 annually.

Brilliant Movement Conclusion

Brilliant Movement can basically be summed up as Ray Higdon appearing to have a mid-life crisis in 2022, finding God and then the marketer in him inevitably working towards monetizing religion.

Before we continue, I want to state this isn’t some attack on religion and I’m not here to tell you what to believe. If Higdon has found God, good on him.

I don’t care what your religious beliefs are and they have nothing to do with reviewing Brilliant Movement as an MLM company.

I’ve been pretty consistent with religion and MLM being a major red flag. With Brilliant Movement religion is the product. Specifically Graham Cooke’s brand of it, which at least Higdon refers to as a business.

From Brilliant Movement’s website;

Graham Cooke is an internationally recognized author, teacher, and speaker whose powerful, life-changing messages have helped transform the lives of people around the world.

With over 40 years of ministry experience, Graham’s unique revelatory insights about God’s nature and our identity in Christ have helped countless believers move from religious performance into authentic relationship with God.

I don’t have a problem with any of that. There’s plenty of people out there selling religion, Cooke is just another one.

To their credit Brilliant Movement claims to offer five-day trial access to its app, so you don’t really have anything to lose to suss out if it’s a fit.

My issue, and this ties into why I always flag religion being used to market MLM companies, is how Higdon markets Brilliant Movement.

Instead of just being honest about coming up with an idea to monetize religion, Higdon waxes poetic about everything being dictated to him “in prayer”.

The implication of course being Brilliant Movement wasn’t Higdon’s doing, God did it all. Again Higdon is free to believe this but when he’s marketing an MLM income opportunity – for anyone religiously inclined, claiming God created an MLM company can be extremely disarming.

Just thinking out loud here, it’s likely like the rest of the MLM industry that the Higdon Group is in downturn. Why not just say that and explain that you’re trying something new.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. From Higdon’s BusinessForHome “Professional Profile”;

Ray grew tired of corporate life, working lots of hours and helping someone else accomplish their dream, at the age of 26, he quit his $80,000 a year salary job with an insurance company and started his own real estate investment company.

In 2008, Ray’s real estate investment company started to decline. He had grown used to a very high income flipping houses and having rental properties and that all came crashing down.

After going through almost 12 months of depression, Ray got angry and decided it was time to do something about it.

From the ashes of depression and personal foreclosure, he had enough. Within 14 days of making this declaration he found Numis Network, joined, and started working his butt off.

If you still want to tie religion into it fine. “I’m doing this to honor God” sounds a hell of a lot less manipulative than “God commanded me to do this”.

To further drive home a point, this is again taken from one of Higdon’s Brilliant Movement marketing videos;

I now understand that because Jesus Christ is with me, that all of heaven’s favor is attracted to me.

I know because of Christ, not because of me, not because of Ray did some good work or something, but because of Christ, I have all of heaven’s favor with me always.

I have every spiritual blessing because Jesus deserved it and because Jesus is in me. I’m so grateful that of all his children, he called up on me.

Well here’s the thing. In researching this review I had to take a quick toilet break. As I sat there doing my business, it came to me in prayer that “Ray Higdon is full of crap”. And I also have “all of heaven’s favor” because y’know, Gold told me so.

So um, now what?

Higdon seems deep in the sauce and probably does believe presenting his own ideas as God’s commandments curries him favor within his religious community.

I’m not saying Higdon is being intentionally deceptive (I don’t know the guy but he doesn’t come across as full-blown Kenneth Copeland’esque), but again this where mixing religion and a business opportunity is extremely problematic.

Occasionally Higdon’s obvious motives beyond spreading religion bubble to the surface;

God wants me in the marketplace, he wants me to bring ministry into the marketplace.

Y’know Psalm 35:27 says, “He delights in the prosperity of his servant”. He delights in your prosperity. He does.

It’s not a bad word. Right? The enemy wants you to think that.

The enemy wants you to think that there’s virtue in poverty. There’s not.

The enemy wants you to think you with money is a bad thing. It’s not.

Who is this “enemy”? Also how can one argue with God? And that’s of course the point of Higdon’s marketing approach.

Ultimately, I feel whatever merit there might be in Graham Cooke’s works is diminished by combining it with an MLM income opportunity. Explicitly for no other reason that it being a combination of religion and business.

As to Brilliant Movement’s compensation plan, it’s pretty straight-forward but unfortunately lends itself to pyramid recruitment.

Higdon admits;

If you’re not going through the content, you’re not going to be able to promote this.

From a regulatory perspective, an MLM company who’s primary customer base have also signed on as promoters is problematic.

It should be noted that BrilliantPlus supersedes Brilliant Movement, so for the purpose of regulatory compliance, any prior subscribers don’t count towards Brilliant Movement’s retail customer-base.

It should able be noted that Brilliant Movement affiliates aren’t required to focus on retail customers. They can solely focus on recruiting affiliate subscribers and get paid.

From Higdon’s own words we can assume at least upwards of 90% of Brilliant Movement affiliate promoters are also app subscribers. If they all don’t have at least one retail subscriber, Brilliant Movement is operating as a pyramid scheme.

Higdon pivoting the Higdon Group to religion in 2022 provides him plenty of religiously inclined followers to funnel into Brilliant Movement. I suppose the true test for the company will be what happens after that source is exhausted.

Are people willing to pay $47 a month for a religion app without the only $10 annually income opportunity?

Certainly without any retail subscriber requirements, I’m doubtful Brilliant Movement’s retail efforts will play out long-term.

Unlike Higdon though I don’t have God on prayer speed-dial. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.