Lead Lightning Review: Power Lead System rebooted
Power Lead System launched in late 2013 and then… well I’m not really sure what happened.
The domain the company was using (“plsfunnel.com”) is no longer in use today.
In my BehindMLM Power Lead System review, I called out the company’s compensation plan for being too heavily titled towards affiliate recruitment.
Based on a 1-up model, there was little incentive for affiliates to focus on retail sales of Power Lead System’s lead platform.
Neil Guess, the owner of Power Lead System, was initially receptive to this criticism but soon became defensive over how said criticism was worded.
When it was then pointed out that charging affiliates fees for purpose of qualifying them to earn commissions by recruiting affiliates who then pay the same fees, Guess spat the dummy:
Hopefully THIS might make things clearer for YOU…
It’s obvious from your many responses concerning MLM law, rules about affiliates, and even your opinion about floating capture forms, that you are pretty ignorant in Internet marketing and MLM law.
I gotta hand it to you though, when I asked you to show me the law that backed up what you were saying, you never did… you simply came back with a cleverly worded response to appear as if you were quoting from some MLM manuscript.
I’ve been in the trenches of this industry my friend, and until you’ve been there yourself, you and I might as well be speaking different languages.
I won’t be responding or coming back to this site after this, and choose not to read any more of the ‘Word according to Oz’…. I’ve got a business to run!
The law Guess asked to see refers to the payment of recruitment commissions in MLM. Guess appeared to be under the impression that this was legal.
You need cited law to explain to you why an affiliate-heavy company or recruitment commissions or charging affiliates to simply participate in an MLM income opportunity is going to land you in trouble?
Good grief, start by researching every MLM company shut down over the past decade. I would have thought common-sense was enough but you seem to be one of those “I’ll see how far I can push the grey” types. Next you’ll be telling me you’re legal because you haven’t been shut down…
As above, I tried to point out the obviousness of what he was asking to see (citing common-sense that recruitment-driven pyramid schemes are illegal) but to no avail.
Now, roughly a year later Guess is back with Lead Lightning. The precense of the Power Lead System logo on the Lead Lightning website would indicate that this is a reboot:
Has Neil Guess learnt anything pertaining to the legality of recruitment-driven chain schemes this past year?
Let’s find out.
Read on for a full review of the Lead Lightning MLM business opportunity.
The Lead Lightning Product Line
Lead Lightning doesn’t appear to have any retailable products or services.
Instead, affiliates join for $7 and are then bombarded with upsells ranging in price from $29.97 a month to $497 one-time.
Bundled with each of these upsells is unlocked income potential through Lead Lightning’s compensation plans and a series of marketing tools (including the original Power Lead System platform).
The Lead Lightning Compensation Plan
The Lead Lightning compensation plan is a tiered unilevel with qualification-based pass-ups.
Affiliate Fee Commissions (recruitment)
Lead Lightning sell three tiers of affiliate membership. The easiest way to explain the payouts at each level is to separate them and the commissions available:
Regular Membership ($7 )
Regular Membership is $7 and qualifies an affiliate to earn $6 on every Regular Membership affiliate they recruit.
Silver Membership ($29.97 a month)
Silver Membership is $29.97 a month and qualifies an affiliate earn $6 on every Regular Membership affiliate they recruit and $15 a month on every Silver Membership they recruit.
Any Silver Memberships sold by Regular Membership affiliates in the downline of a Silver Membership affiliate are passed up to them (along with the $15 a month commission).
Gold Membership ($53.97 a month)
Gold Membership is $53.97 a month and qualifies an affiliate to earn $6 on every Regular Membership affiliate they recruit and $20 a month for every Silver and Gold.
Any Gold Memberships sold by Regular or Silver Membership affiliates in the downline of a Gold Membership affiliate are passed up to them (along with the $20 a month commission).
A Gold Membership affiliate is also able to receive passed up Silver affiliates if no Silver Membership affiliates exist between the Regular Membership affiliate who made the sale and the Gold Membership affiliate in question.
Upsell Commissions
In addition to the monthly commissions paid out, Lead Lightning also pay upsell commissions on the sale of Diamond and Platinum Memberships.
Diamond Membership ($147)
Diamond Membership (sold in addition to Regular, Silver or Gold Monthly membership) costs $147.
The purchase of Diamond Membership qualifies a Lead Lightning affiliate to earn commissions on the purchase of Diamond Membership by affiliates in their recruited downline.
Each sale of Diamond Membership generates a $100 commission.
A 25% matching bonus is also available on the Diamond Membership commissions earnt by personally recruited affiliates.
As with the monthly memberships, if an affiliate sells a Diamond Membership and have not purchased the Diamond Membership themselves, the sale is passed up to the first affiliate in their upline who has purchased Diamond Membership (along with the $100 commission).
Platinum Membership ($497)
Platinum Membership costs $497 and qualifies an affiliate to earn $400 on the sale of Platinum Memberships to their personally recruited affiliates.
In addition to $400 direct commissions, Platinum Membership also pay $50 when a personally recruited affiliate makes a Platinum Membership sale.
Joining Lead Lightning
Affiliate membership with Lead Lightning starts at $7. Silver and Gold Membership increases this cost to $29.97 and $53.97 a month respectively.
If an affiliate opts to purchase an upsell when they join, they are looking at an additional $147 (Diamond) and/or $497 (Platinum) cost.
Other than the marketing tools bundled with each Membership and upsell, the major difference between them all is income potential via Lead Lightning’s compensation plan.
Conclusion
Power Lead System’s questionable 1-up compensation plan is gone but in its place is a model that’s not much better. At least on the regulatory front.
For starters there appears to be a complete lack of retail within Lead Lightning. I can’t find any mention of it on the Lead Lightning website, nor is there any mention of it in any of the promotional sales video the company has on YouTube.
If this is the case, then Lead Lightning is squarely sitting in pyramid scheme territory.
Hardly surprising given Neil Guess’ request to see a law that stated recruitment-driven schemes were illegal last time we talked, but disappointing none the less.
If there’s no significant retail activity taking place in Lead Lightning, then all that’s happening is affiliates are buying in and getting paid to recruit new affiliates who do the same.
The upsells are effectively additional commission tiers, which require a purchase to participate.
The monthly memberships themselves are raw recruitment incentives, with a purchase required in order to participate.
The basic premise appears to be to tempt a prospect with a $7 offering, blast them with YouTube videos telling them how much money they’re missing out in earnings and then trying to convince them to spend more – not because the bundled products might be great, but because they can earn more.
This screenshot from Lead Lightning’s Gold Membership video sums it up. The text before the message below urged viewers to buy Gold Membership…
Similar messages are interwoven into the other upper-tier membership options, with the lower-tier options instead focusing on earnings you’re passing up on.
As for the bundled products themselves, their value can be measured by the horrendously high markups Lead Lightning have assigned to their “cost”.
- Lead Lightning – $7 charged, $6 of that is a commission payout (85.7%)
- Silver Membership (Master Traffic Academy & Endless Free Leads 8.0) – $29.97 a month charged, $15 of that is a commission payout (50%)
- Gold Membership (Power Lead System Marketing System) – $53.97 a month charged, $20 of that is a commission payout (37%)
- Diamond Membership (The Million Dollar Secret To Getting Unlimited Free Advertising) – $147 charged, $125 (direct + matching) of that is a commission payout (85%)
- Platinum Membership (Social Profit Academy) – $497 charged, $450 of that is a commission payout (90.5%)
As a retail customer, who on Earth is going to spend money purchasing internet marketing tools with 37%+ commission markups?
Nevermind the fact that retail appears to be entirely unavailable to begin with (gee, I wonder why…).
As with all recruitment-driven schemes, once new affiliates stop signing up commissions are going to grind to a halt.
Maybe we’ll see another Power Lead System incarnation next year…
Hi Oz, thanks for the review I found some errors, and just wanted to make sure people have the correct info posted here since there were many mistakes in your review. If you don’t mind, can you update these in the review?
1. The Power Lead System Product is a marketing/website building platform, sold for $30 per month to help make internet marketing easy. It’s a retail sale. We have people buy the PLS marketing platform and pay the monthly hosting fee (the $30 mentioned) to use it who do not want to join our affiliate program.
They just want great marketing tools and systems which we provide at a very reasonable, non inflated Price.
One could easily pay $200-$300 a month with a Frankenstein system using autoresponder services from this company, contact management services from that company, lead page generators over here, and Google hangout page generators over there and other marketing tools too from other programs, it can quickly ad up.
With PLS, it’s all in 1 place for $30 a month and you don’t need to or have to sell it to enjoy the benefit of these tools. Many users just use the tools and love it.
2. People who want to get paid a commission for selling the Power Lead System Marketing Product, can do so, if they join our affiliate program which is like a monthly license fee and gives them the rights to sell the products inside the Power lead System Product and inside the Lead Lightning Product.
No one is paid commissions for recruiting affiliates from the $23.97 monthly license fee people pay. 100% of that fee goes to the company to pay for it’s costs and expenses to maintain the products it provides and for its owners own profit (nothing wrong with owners making money here, right?).
This $23.97 per month license also includes a significant amount of additional marketing training and products not available to those that are only PLS customers.
3. A $20 monthly sales commission is paid to an affiliate when the sale of a $30 Power Lead System Product is sold. All sales commissions are paid from retail sales of products. The Power Lead System is the product sales commissions are paid on, not the $23.97 per month affiliate license fee.
4.The Lead Lightning Products:
1. Lead Lightning Product is a one time $7, (not monthly). It pays out a $6 sales commission to affiliates who sell this marketing product which creates leads that can be shown your main offer for your own product, affiliate products, coaching offers, Amazon offers, eBay offers, ClickBank offers, JVZoo Offers, or basically anything you want to share with the lead who buys the $7 Lead Lightning product.
If people sell the Lead Lightning product, they will make a $6 sales commission when the Lead Lightening sale is generated. (Not affiliate recruitment)
This is a 1 time purchase fee ($7) and a 1 time sales commission (of $6).
Many people are in need of marketing systems and lead capture pages, which is what Lead Lightning provides. $7 1 time is not an inflated price to have to pay to get a lead capture page, autoresponder follow up tools, lead contact manager/tracker, and hours and hours of internet marketing training.
I cannot find a product out there that does all this for $7 one time.
2.After the sale of the Lead Lightning product, we show people the benefits of having a marketing system, where they can be in full control of everything, like their web pages (the Lead Lightning Product is a static system that cannot be edited or changed), the graphics layouts, the squeeze pages, the hangout pages, the email follow up messages, marketing tools and add their own creativity with the Power Lead System as the Gold Package.
The gold package is $53.97 a month, which includes the monthly $23.97 affiliate license to resell the products inside the Power Lead System Product and the training and marketing products offered inside the Lead Lightning Product to its users.
A $20 monthly fee is paid out to affiliates who sell a Gold Product, which is from the $30 monthly retail fee members pay to use the Power lead System Product. No commissions are paid out from the $23.97 monthly affiliate license in the Gold product.
You’ll notice in the pitch videos of the Lead Lightning funnel I am ALWAYS telling people these are our products and you get paid a commission on the sale of these products, if you have an affiliate license. I wanted to be sure people knew they got sales commissions, not commissions from the recruitment of affiliates.
3.The Silver Product is offered to people who choose not to buy the Gold Product. The products they are buying are Master Traffic Academy & Endless Free Leads 8.0. The price for Endless Free Leads $297 on their website.
The cost to buy these two products is $29.97 per month. From the sale of these products, one can earn $15 monthly commissions.
If they buy this product there are no additional product offers. They do not own the Gold Package, so they will not make commissions on the Gold, Diamond, or Platinum products. If they sell the Lead Lightning product, and the purchaser goes on to purchase other products, the commissions made will roll up to the next qualified affiliate license holder.
Members can buy ALL these products inside the members area if they like, stand alone, if not taken during their checkout.
4. Once a Gold Product is sold, there is an offer shown for the product called, “The Million Dollar Secret To Getting Unlimited Free Advertising” which is the Diamond product. This product teaches how to do Co-Op Ad buys for teams to save money and get more leads.
We sell this product for $147 one time. Sales commissions are paid out at $100 to the referring affiliate and $25 to the reseller above the affiliate earning the $100 sales commission (their sponsor).
5. Once a Diamond Product is sold, we make a final offer to purchase the Social Profit Academy, which is a Facebook PPC training product. (I created it). It sells for $497 to PLS members, and I sell it myself for $497 at my seminars,and also in private consultations.
People love the low price, compared to similar FB training products sold this year that went for $997. We also offer pay plans for this product. A commission of $400 is paid when this product is sold and a $50 commission is paid the sponsor of the affiliate who got the $400 commission.
You asked…. “As a retail customer, who on Earth is going to spend money purchasing internet marketing tools with 37%+ commission markups?”
The answer is a lot of people but I cannot offer a specific number. Each product offer has a very reasonable, non inflated price. The sales commissions on the sales of these products are very generous compared to most traditional sales commissions from brick and mortar companies which usually pay 10-25% commission to their sales reps.
You mention “horrendously high markups”. I don’t know of any one who would think a $7 product offer that pays $6 per sale one time is “horrendously high”. But I respect people do have opinions on prices and what might be horrendously high or low, might not be horrendously low or high to others.
This can be subjective and even objective based on all kinds of circumstances.
No one has to sell our products, they can use them and enjoy the benefits of the trainings to help build what ever kind of businesses they want.
No one is paid affiliate commissions on the monthly affiliate license which provide rights to market PLS products. That is against the law. That gets companies in trouble.
Neil would never create a system that violated the law, nor would his partners who have been selling system online like these for over 20 years. I would not put my name and voice on a system that violated the law either.
I hope that this clears up any confusion about our products, and I am happy to answer any questions, just reach out to me, I am easy to find and easy to get a hold of online.
Jeff Mills
Hi Jeff, thanks for stopping by.
I’m going to preface by saying this review is based on the Lead Lightning opportunity as it is presented @ theleadlightning.com. Anything else is irrelevant.
Not at theleadlightning.com.
As far as I can tell there’s no retail offering at theleadlightning.com.
Thanks for clarifying that. I’ve updated the review accordingly.
This math doesn’t add up.
Affiliates pay less for PLS?
Sorry but affiliate purchases != retail. This is irrespective of what you do with the money.
As per theleadlightning.com, I join the company and pay $7. I can then get paid to recruit other people who pay $7.
This is an affiliate joining option with an attached recruitment commission.
It is when $6 of that price is a commission.
What, you’d be selling Lead Lightning for $1 without the attached opportunity? Come on now.
Affilite fees != recruitment. You charge a lump sum to join as a Gold affiliate. What you do on the company side with the money is irrelevant.
One fee is paid to join and given the attached income opportunity, this is most certainly not a retail sale.
Again, I see no retail offering at theleadlightning.com.
How on Earth can you say that when you’re using 37% to 90.5% of fees paid to pay commissions?
That’s because you don’t have any retail customers, nor are you targeted a retail market.
Nobody in their right mind is paying a 90.5% markup without an attached income opportunity. Sorry, it’s just not happening.
Sure, but they’re still affiliates.
So what are you paying commissions on? The additional fees charged affiliates for the sole purpose of making payment to the affiliate who recruited them (and in some instances their upline?)
The recruitment commission is the problem, not what the company does with a fraction of the sum paid.
Yet PLS launched without retail and Guess refused to acknowledge this wasn’t kosher until he was shown “a law” that explained no retail was a problem.
I think what OZ is looking for is being able to sell something without owning it. I would never by a product without knowing someone who owns it.
If you want to by and not selk it you can. If you want to run a business and earn money then there is a business cost like all businesses.
Try to open up a McDonalds without paying a monthly cost to the corporation. You can’t do it legally. Same goes here because its a real business.
Anyway OZ I think you are off in this.
What on Earth are you talking about?
Instead of “thinking” about what I’m saying, just read what I wrote and accept it for what it is.
There are problems with Lead Lightning’s compensation plan, as explained in the conclusion of this review.
So I have a question OZ. In your opinion.. What would make this program a legit company?
Introduce true retail that actually sells, and stop paying commissions on the recruitment of new affiliates.
For a start…
I use the Power Lead System to market several business opportunities.
Because I receive a decent amount of traffic from my lead capture pages I also became an affiliate of the system which has generated an additional $1,500.00 worth of income for my family.
I am grateful for this system before I was paying for 2 different capture page companies, autoresponders etc. and now I get everything I need to market my business in one place.
I would be a satisfied customer even if I didn’t have the affiliate opportunity associated with the use of this system…but I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to earn a commission should someone else decided to get a system like mine to market their businesses too.
We make referrals all the time FOR FREE may as well deal with a company that is willing to give you a piece of the pie for sharing their marketing platform with others…
Andrea Linton-Robbins, TLC Regional Director
Sure you would Andrea, sure you would.
$1500 in recruitment commissions vs. telling yourself the advertising works so you don’t feel bad about ripping people off.
You do the math.
Paying a participation fee to qualify to get paid for recruiting new affiliates != free.
MY LEAD CAPTURE PAGES AND AUTO-RESPONDERS WORK JUST FINE OZ!!!
I guess I should have included that I joined my current MLM in February a year ago…making $200 or $300 a week…
Now that I have lost 46 pounds and have risen to the rank of Regional Director my income exceeds $2,000 a week from there as well…so I credit that to the PLS too.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed.)
Why should they give you piece of the pie when it’s THEIR marketing platform? What do *they* get out of it?
What they got is your money… and your recruiting… by giving you something you already paid for. And in turn, you are rewarded for your efforts… not for using their product (you’re PAYING for that) but for recruiting.
I’m sure they do. But that’s got nothing to do with the recruitment-driven scheme LLN runs. It’s just filler to go with it.
Kind of like your irrelevant stories about your “current MLM”.
You can credit anything you want to PLS, as per it’s business model and compensation plan it’s still just a recruitment-driven pyramid scheme.
Hi OZ!
I am thinking about to join the Power Lead System. You are declaring it as a “recruitment-driven pyramid scheme”! Humm in fact you should know that every MLM Company is in the grey zone to be a pyramid scheme.
In MLM/Networking is always the same, the higher you are in the Network the bigger your commissions. Whats wrong about this fact?
False.
Nothing, so long as you’re making retail sales.
Oz, you sound as if you were once a PLS affiliate, but somehow just sucked really bad at marketing it online, that now you’ve become a disgruntled ex-PLS affiliate looking for a shoulder to cry on.
You seem to hang on to this notion that if you cry long and hard enough to change the rules of the game that somehow it will just happen for ya. Better yet, PLS is just fine the way it is.
So if you want to, “Introduce true retail that actually sells, and stop paying commissions on the recruitment of new affiliates.”
as you mentioned on a response to Carlos Herrera’s comment, create your own business and give the internet world what you want for yourself.
Seriously bro, if this site had a “bitch slap” button, I’d be spamming the hell out of it.
And you sound like someone trying to make any excuse under the sun for recruitment-driven pyramid schemes.
What I want is neither here nor there.
That you have no problems with pyramid schemes is obvious, that being a poor reflection on both yourself and Lead Lightning.
What remarkable psychic powers you must have to come to a conclusion like that.
It would be the very last thing that came to mind if I were forced to hazard a guess as to why BehindMLM exists.
To confusing? did anybody understand that?
What part?
I’m sorry, but this review is actually way off. Jeff’s comments are an accurate description of the system and comp plan.
I’m a very ethical marketer and fellow blogger and only look to help people. I use the Power Lead System to promote my primary opportunity.
In fact, I used it retail for a little bit. The reason I say used instead of bought it retail is because I join the Free Leads System initially.
When I saw that the system worked I went all in and signed up to be an affiliate to market the product. Even now that I market the product I am promoting the Free Lead System way more than I promote the business opportunity.
There’s no argument that people need tools like Power Lead System to effectively promote their business online, and there are many lead page services popping up now as evidence of this. Not to even mention, the autoresponder and CRM portion of the system.
I just would like to see that people are properly informed by someone who actually uses the system (that started out as just a customer). And I’m not saying that just because I’m an affiliate as I have nothing to gain by posting a comment on your site.
@Brad
I’m still not seeing any retail. “Theleadlightning.com” are only marketing a $7 affiliate membership.
Free != retail.
Just found your blog and am pleased that it endeavours to reveal some truths about the PLS System.
As a newbie IM (5+ yrs) I joined PLS, watched the training videos, took up the Free Leads System, joined the Fb group, upgraded (paid the monthly fee) became an ‘affiliate’ because … that’s where the ‘income potential was’.
It became apparent that the ‘product’ I needed to promote was essentially to get more affiliate sign-ups. Sell the System.
Most online PLS-reviewers did concede that if a member did NOT promote PLS itself, there’d be no success. (standard comment)
Every other review I found online, seemed to be a bogus blurb by someone just promoting their own PLS links, under the guise of a ‘review’.
After hundreds of hours & virtually living with my PC day and night, surviving the latest upsell or ‘inspirational’ email, marketing til I was over marketing, I had built a List, and even had a few affiliate sign ups.
After 10 months…I decided enough was enough and quit.
I’d learnt alot, essentially that:
People don’t want to sign up to a “nothing”. They want a “something”.
And yes, people ARE willing to work for it. Everyone thought I was crazy. My PC WAS my life, every waking moment I was working on PLS.
I don’t pretend to know everything about IM, but the effort I gave PLS was nothing short of insane.
Oz, I found a past comment on WHY you blog,..
Thanks OZ for attempting to correct the balance.
@Darren & Oz
I guess I just don’t see exactly where you guys are coming from.
You’ve no doubt probably heard of Leadpages and Clickfunnels right (amongst the many more capture page builders that are out now)? I think the PLS product is most comparable to products like these.
I think you’re so hung up on the comp plan that you’re missing the basics.
As an affiliate marketer to a product like this, you make money by promoting the product. You earn a commission, when people pay to use the product.
Free Lead System and Lead Lightning are nothing more than entry level versions of the Power Lead System.
Just like Leadpages and Clickfunnels have different versions for sale, including a free version for people to try. As you grow out of the level that you are at, and if you like the product then you upgrade.
As an affiliate to PLS that is all I’m doing is looking for customers to buy the system so I make a commission.
Just like I do with any other product I’m an affiliate for. If Leadpages or Clickfunnel had an affiliate program, then I would probably be an affiliate with one of those programs, if I wasn’t already with PLS.
Now, with the PLS comp model, you have the ability to make money off of another affiliate.
Sign up for Commission Junction (now Conversant), ShareAsales or another affiliate network, and you will see two tier affiliate programs all over the place, where you can make a commission from another affiliate.
At it’s core, that’s all PLS is. A lead capture page, with other tools built in, and it has an affiliate program.
Honestly I would make more money if my customers would also promote the program, but it’s not a huge deal because PLS isn’t my only imcome stream.
And yes, the way the system is set up, it encourages people to upgrade if they use the free version, but doesn’t every company/product that has an entry level version?
There has been a few tools that I have used where I thought the product was good and I loved it enough for me to also promote and make money off of it. PLS is just another one.
I think people get so caught up in trying to promote this as a business opportunity and looking at the comp plan, that they fail to see it for what it is.
Other than that, nice blog…
An MLM business opportunity with no retail and all commissions paid out on the recruitment of new affiliates.
Non-MLM comparisons are pointless.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with a pyramid scheme (Ozedit: Aaaaand we’ll snip that comment right there. Let that statement sink in.)
I believe your intentions are fairly pure Oz. All i saw being argued was semantics.
What you were calling an affilate comission the other guy was calling a retail sales commission and as the buyer is perchasing both a service and a digital product, its a valid argument.
I dont believe we should write laws to stop folk from making money from willing buyers. Who probably get a 30day money back guarantee. Which is seldom in b&m.
That’s not semantics, that’s incorrect versus correct.
Affiliate purchases in MLM are not retail sales, period.
What you do or don’t believe is irrelevant. Affiliate purchases are not retail sales, and if you’re not making retail sales in MLM you’re probably doing something you shouldn’t be.
Oz’s whole argument is the only way to make money in “MLM” schemes is by recruiting people and making money from their sign up fee. That is incorrect no matter what you call it.
When I joined PLS I was not recruited. I needed a lead system for my main business. Therefore I was using and in need of the product, not the opportunity.
Likewise, I have more customers right now that have bought and are just using the system, than I do people whom I recruited into the business.
The product itself is $29 dollars. If and only if you want, you have the option to sign up as an affiliate for an extra fee, so that you can promote the system.
Having said all that I’ve said I think your main argument isn’t valid.
There are real people making legitimate, legally earned money from using just the product to promote their own business as well as people making money with the business opportunity.
Of course it’s incorrect because it’s a load of shit. Both literally and in claiming it’s “my argument”.
You signed up as an affiliate because there is no retail. You were recruited.
Has it changed then? When I reviewed it everyone was an affiliate and there were no additional affiliate fees (only different tiers of affiliate membership).
Ok, last comment.
I respect your opinion and see why you do what you do and all, but you’re just not correct on this one.
It’s called a funded proposal. The person who got me to sign up for the lead system offered it as a way to promote his business. Which has nothing to do with PLS btw.
He was offering something of value that I needed. I signed up and used the system with no intention on promoting PLS, but just to promote my business, in the same way that this guy did.
It cost extra to be able to even promote PLS and I wasn’t having any part of it at first.
So no, I wasn’t recruited…
I was a user of the product, who liked the product so much after I used it, that I decided to promote it as well. Just like I do with Hostgator and many of my other offers.
It has always been extra to be an affiliate. Just like being an affiliate has always been optional. Jeff tried to explain this in his reply above.
Uh what? You got recruited son, there’s no two ways about it.
Attached comp plan makes you an affiliate, whether you earn commissions or not.
The website I referenced “theleadlightning.com” to this day makes no mention of retail sales, all you can do is sign up as an affiliate.
A whole page of JUST WORDS! This review was extremely detailed and obviously researched.
Can anyone of you posting here show proof of your claims? Pay checks etc? I haven’t seen 1… just the same old whinging from parrots quoting squeeze pages. lol
P.S. Good job Oz! Doing our country proud! 😉
Oz, I read your review and initially thought it was excellent, but then I started reading the comments and your replies, so I did my own research.
Conclusion: You Are WRONG!
Note: I am NOT a PLS/Lead Lightning buyer or affiliate, but I am looking into it.
Question 1. If I’m an owner and wanted to sell a product online for $7 and keep the $7 all to myself that’s ok, but if I wanted to share my profits and actually help other people by giving them $6 split by helping me expand my business and only keep $1 dollar it’s considered a scam? I call it a WIN WIN.
Question 2. If PLS offer an all-in-one marketing system that’s “proven” to help people build their primary business, sell more third-party products online and offline, build their personal contact list, and also train and provide the marketing tools if they have a team for duplication, which save people TIME & ENERGY all while making money with PLS, why can’t PLS place an affiliate licensee/admin/franchise (or whatever you call it) fee similar to what BIG corporations does?
I call it the cost of having a semi-automated business-in-a-box process that you can leverage for only a $53.95 a month, which is partially TAX deductible!
Question 3. We know that Realtors pay their brokers every time they make a sell and they also pay monthly desk/office fees from $50 to $400 a month even if they don’t make ONE sell… similar to PLS $23.95 fee, so why don’t we call Realestate companies pyramid scams?
I say people are grown and grown people can decide the risk WE want to take.
Question 4. PLS says you can’t sell nothing if you don’t own it… so what!!! It’s their rules! McDonalds says you can’t sell a McDonald burger if you don’t pay them a half million dollars… but that’s McDonald rules!
But here’s the difference, with PLS there is no “unreasonable” risk and no 12 or 24 month contract, so why can’t an owner decide how they want to pay and who’s allowed to earn when everybody plays by the same rules?
I say you’re being petty focusing on $23.95 when people are willing to pay… it’s a voluntary choice.
Listen, I’m getting hundreds of unwanted satellite channels when I only probably watch 10 channels, but DIRECT TV still charges me $109 bucks and I deal with it. It’s called free enterprise; not a scam (or maybe this example is a scam)
Final Thought: Continue writing these reviews because they’re interesting and fun to read Oz!
@Benne
Glad you enjoyed reading the review.
The issue a lack of retail, not $7 or how it’s paid out.
They can, but there’s no retail taking place here. In MLM you need retail or you’re just another chain-recruitment scheme.
What realtors do or don’t pay is irrelevant. They are not MLM. Ditto McDonalds and Direct TV.
Their rules don’t trump laws pertaining to illegal chain-recruitment schemes.
Hi,
I joined the LL system last month as a Silver affiliate and you have to recruit affiliates to make commission.
I think the market is saturated with this system. I have tried a dozen of Solo ads with trusted sellers and 95% Tier 1 without anyone even signing up for the $7 ( I got only some free optins).
If you want to email your free affiliate you can’t use the mailing option. You have to upgrade to the $50 Gold membership…
You have to promote a heck alot if you want to earn something. There is little value in the training and you can of course promote your own business, but there are better system out there without paying $30 monthly.
I don’t see the added value of this and in my opinion it’s more of an MLM system. I will download my optins and cancel the subscription. This is my 2cents opinion.
Hi Rene,
I agree with you about market saturation. I had similar experiences. not a single sign-up after buying gold. (Ozedit: request that will lead to recruitment spam removed)
I’m thinking of downgrading.
Pierre
This review is one person’s view of a matter. 🙂 As an author or a blog writer, one should be open to multiple views. Fact is, many things in life do not warrant a 100% right or wrong.
By the same measure, you would call Clickfunnels or any other “service” oriented referral programs a scam or pyramid.
For many businesses, the online service (eg. sales funnel system) is in itself the product.
PLS provides far more tangible marketing tools at an affordable price than many other systems out there.
As per their business model LLR pay recruitment commissions. You can’t dismiss that by mislabeling facts as a viewpoint.
Then what is that “alternative view” (or those “alternative views”)?
A marketing system CAN be some type of product or service. I can accept that idea to make it easier. I can also accept that memberships CAN have some value.
(Based on the review)
MEMBERSHIPS
* Regular Membership ($7 ) → $6 commission one time
* Silver Membership ($29.97 a month) → $15 monthly commission
* Gold Membership ($53.97 a month) → $20 + passups etc.
* Diamond Membership ($147) → $100 + $25 one time commission
* Platinum Membership ($497) → $400 + $50 one time commission
PRODUCTS
I’m not familiar with the products attached to those membership packages. I looked at some of them long time ago, but I don’t remember any details.
Then you can try to explain that “alternative view”?
To make it even easier, I believe we should exclude “the right to receive commission or passups” from the product group.
A product is usually something people buy because they want to use it, consume it, give it away as a gift and similar types of uses. In business, people can also buy products for resale purposes.
I can accept that idea too.
An online service can clearly be some type of “product or service”, something people buy because they want to use or consume etc.
It will also include marketing funnels. I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of people interested in products like that.
I can accept that idea too.
But I still haven’t got your “alternative view”?
I can accept that idea too.
The review has clearly been written by one person only, so there’s no disputes about that.
I can accept that idea too.
“Multiple views” can clearly be useful in many situations.
Statements like those are too vague to make any sense. Your logical reasoning goes like this:
* the review is written from one person’s perspective.
* multiple views can be useful.
* many things in life can have multiple nuances
* If you don’t have multiple views, then you will see similar programs in a similar way.
Your “alternative view” seems to be about “if people don’t see it differently then they will always be wrong”, i.e. that people first will need to disengage their brain functions before they can be right.
I think what Oz, Darren and others who support Oz’s view fail to realize is that, ALL of the paid memberships of the system are “voluntary”.
They actually “give” you a lead system for “FREE”. So, if you voluntarily pay your money to use a system, then what is the scam in that?
The “free” system gives you ample opportunity to try it out before deciding if you want to pay.
I’ve used the Power Lead System before, but I must admit, the new Lead Lightning is looking very interesting right now.
My suggestion, if PLS didn’t work, you may want to look into Lead Lightning. I’m not in either at the moment..but that’s just a suggestion.
Also, one last point, the retail is the sale of an autoresponder/lead capture page system. I believe Aweber charges about $30 per month for their basic membership.
They too have an affiliate program. So, I say $7 one time is not bad at all… but hey… what do I know… You’re the expert who knows all the rules right??
Which is neither here nor there.
Oh dear. Better tell the FTC and SEC that “voluntary” payments trump a fraudulent business model then…
When it comes to MLM compliance, evidently not much.
One does not have to know all of the laws about compliance to know what the law says a pyramid is.
This, I copied and pasted straight from The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website just for you… sec.gov/answers/pyramid.htm
Meaning, if you have “goods” or “services”… in exchange for money, it’s not a pyramid. Get it?? It does not have to be a tangible product. It can be “goods” or “services”.
I’ve been in this game for quite a while. I know what a pyramid scheme is, Lead Lightning is not a Pyramid. Pyramids are illegal, because they do not offer valid goods or services in exchange for money.
It’s just someone giving you money in hopes of a big payday for doing nothing. I think you might be getting this mixed up with a Ponze scheme, which is similar to an illegal pyramid scheme.
Definition of a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator.
Now see…that sounds more like the pyramid scheme that you’ve been preaching about.
I’m very educated when to comes to business…ALL types of business… so, just thought I’d make a few distinctions to clarify the points brought up in this topic.
Permission obtained through misrepresentation is fraud.
your understanding of pyramid and ponzi schemes is unfortunately only skin deep.
bundling a product or service with recruitment, does not absolve a scheme from being a pyramid.
go read FTC vs Koscot, and lately FTC vs Vemma to be better informed.
otherwise, you neither come across as funny or comical but just a sad ass idiot. lol.
K Chang, no dollar amount is promised in exchange for signing up for the system. So, where is the misrepresentation?
@Prowisdom
That’s one type of pyramid scheme. I suggest you educate yourself on product-based pyramid scheme.
“But we have a product!” is out of the 90s/00s scam playbook. It doesn’t hold up to modern regulatory action.
A product-based pyramid scheme has a product but pays affiliates to recruit new affiliates. That’s pretty much what Lead Lightning is.
The fact Lead Lightning isn’t a “classic” pyramid scheme doesn’t mean it isn’t a pyramid scheme.
Well, Mr or Ms Anjali, whomever you are… in case you haven’t noticed, Fortune 500 (Ozedit: are not MLM companies. Offtopic derail attempts removed.)
So where’s the monthly fee going?
When you argue, at least make some sense, will you?
Funny, that’s pretty much what this review says about “Lead Lightening”:
aworkathomejobs.com/lead-lightning-review-for-7-how-can-you-call-it-a-scam
As mentioned in the review:
You wrote:
Aweber is not, to the best of my knowledge, a MLM or pyramid scheme and their free to join affiliate program appears to be entirely separate from their retail offering, so I’m not sure what relevance you think this has to Oz’s review of the Lead Lightening
pyramid scheme“business opportunity”.I’ll point out that the straight commission Aweber pays to its free affiliates is standard for legitimate affiliate programs and significantly different from the Lead Lightening model, in which an affiliate’s compensation is … internet marketing (IM) weasel words aside … based on what they paid for their affiliate membership level.
I tend to believe that “a man is known by the company he keeps”, so for kicks and giggles and any “newbie” that reads this review, I’ll note that we can go from Neil to (PLS co-founder) Michael Price to this:
systemscanbeduplicated.com/
Now while names like Frank Kern, Ed Dale, Ryan Deiss, etc. may not be familiar to the “newbies” that Lead Lightening targets, these are quite well known to anyone who is reasonably familiar with the careers of various IM scammers.
theverge.com/2012/5/10/2984893/scamworld-get-rich-quick-schemes-mutate-into-an-online-monster
Would coaching to recruit and drive be considered the service/product that the program offers for $7?
I have seen many offers like this, and I’m also asking about the value received in exchange for the 7,I think is coaching and encouragement, which I think are valid goods.
What do you think?
If there’s no differentiation between affiliates and retail customers, you’re paying $7 to qualify for commissions when you recruit others who do the same.
In MLM that’s a chain-recruitment pyramid scheme.
If retail is separated from the affiliate compensation plan but the only people paying $7 a month are affiliates, then it’s still a pyramid scheme.
You are asking the wrong questions.
The question you should be asking is… are people really buying the whatever (service or product) for what it’s actually worth, or are they just buying it so they can do whatever it takes to get paid, i.e. recruit more buyers?
Because that’s what FTC does when they try to determine whether a scheme is a pyramid scheme or not.
Burnlounge got burned because FTC determined that despite the music it allegedly sells, Burnlounge members paid for “mogul” status and higher membership levels because they want to get paid, NOT because they love music and want the membership benefits.
Vemma got stopped because FTC determined that vast majority of its members are buying the 2pak every month (on autoship) in order to self-quality in order to gain commission by recruiting other people who also buy 2pak every month on autoship.
This is also known as “intrinsic value”. Would you pay $7 for whatever it is they offer… WITHOUT any sort of income opportunity attached to it? Would a LARGE majority of your fellow members feel the same way? In fact, can the company maintain itself if it stopped recruiting COMPLETELY and subsist ONLY on sales? Can the members make money by selling the offering to customers instead of recruiting new members?
If you answer “uh, maybe not” to any of these 3 final questions, or you have to “fudge” the definition of “customer” (who’s NOT a fellow member) vs. a member (signed application, filled out affiliate agreement, etc.) your scheme has serious dark cloud hanging over it.
Oz,
I’m sorry but this is a terrible review. You are basing your review on a site set up by an affiliate rather than the actual company.
I think you need to work on your researching skills or at least state that this review is not for the actual Power Lead System. This is why so many people are telling you that you’re wrong.
That affiliate’s site isn’t even up anymore.
Cool story brah. So either the compensation plan is inaccurate or it isn’t.
You haven’t corrected anything, so after two years sounds like it’s still accurate.
No retail in MLM = recruitment commissions = pyramid scheme. That’s all there is to it.
Well first off, there us no mention at all of the Free Leads Forever System which is part of Lead Lighting. It is the basic membership. The affiliate that you bought from decided not to include this. Right off the back that makes your review wrong.
There is also no mention of the fact that you can buy the Power Lead System without being an affiliate or the products that you get like an autoresponder, customize-able lead capture pages, share codes, or any of the video training.
On top of all this, (Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed)
Because “free” has nothing to do with the MLM opportunity.
So how much are the products retail, versus being an affiliate?
From the review:
If retail available, nobody is buying it. You pay your token affiliate fee, spend enough to qualify for commissions and then recruit others who do the same.
If that’s still possible then whatever has been added to that since this review was published is irrelevant.
Once again rather than admit that you were wrong you just make up an excuse.
You say you left out the free membership because it has nothing to do with the opportunity. Then this isn’t a review. If you’re going to review company, you need to include all the membership levels and what they offer. You failed at this.
Why are you asking me this? Didn’t you review the product? The retail membership is $30 a month. That gives you access to the autoresponder, and the sales funnel builder along with hosting.
You can easily spend much more than that if you bought them separately else where. You can use these tools to market anything you want.You don’t have to sell PLS at all.
There were already comments on this post from people who started off buying it retail before becoming an affiliate so your comments about no one buying it shows just how much you actually pay attention. I also started out as an affiliate because I needed an easy way to build sales funnels and saw the added autoresponder as a way to save money.
If you decide to become an affiliate, then you have to pay for each level that you wish to sell. So you actually decide how much you want to pay.
Most people just stick to the Free Leads Forever System because it gives them a free funnel to use to build their list and done for you marketing emails to promote their primary business. Plus the squeeze page for it converts very well.
Plus you never mentioned the wealth of marketing funnels made by other PLS members that you can clone and use for yourself. Someone showed me their funnel that they set up for Traffic Monsoon.
It had a squeeze page plus 3 presentation pages and a week long follow up series. He gave me the share code for it so that I could just clone the whole funnel if I decided to join Traffic Monsoon.
How can you sit here and tell me that no one would want to buy these tools? These are actual retail products that every marketer can use.
I also didn’t comment on the colors in the logo, how old the Founder is or the size of images on their website.
You’re a marketer, I get it. You sell.
I’m not interested in anything that is outside of the MLM opportunity. We do MLM opportunity reviews here, not spammy press-releases.
So $30 a month retail or $7 plus $30 a month for recruitment commissions?
Sound about right?
You and I both know retail is not happening, because
Pay your affiliate fee, pay for commission qualification across various tiers (pay to play) and then recruit others who do the same (chain-recruitment). That’s all Lead Lightning System has ever been.
There is absolutely no reason to bother with retail sales, nor are there any retail sales qualifiers in the comp plan.
Spare me the pseudo-compliance bullshit. And Traffic Monsoon, really?
Facts please. If you want to rant do it on Facebook, nobody cares.
Lead Ligthning System is a chain-recruitment scheme with a token retail offering that exists solely for pseudo-compliance.
Affiliates engage are required to purchase commission qualification, with there being no emphasis or reason to waste time with retail sales.
That’s where we’re at. If you don’t want to address that, your choice. Best of luck with the scamming.
The problem with your review is:
1. In the beginning – it was a “affiliate recruiting” deal.. no one knew how to use the product. Once those commissions fade – people quit – the company should die. Right?
2. Wrong. The people were forced to learn the product & use the product & now the majority of the people USE the product instead of recruiting affiliates.
Now – it’s moving in the right direction & I’m NOT even an affiliate for this.
Whether affiliates know how to use the product is irrelevant to recruitment commissions being paid out.
No retail = pyramid scheme.
So you’re either full of shit then or running the show. Which is it?
Readers, just got to love those posts because really I could have save myself over a 100 grand by attending those sidewalk lawyers reviews instead of studying the real American law, but you have to give them all credit, it’s funny not to really understands the difference in an MLM v. Pyramid, but they call them both scams.
Really, then ones must agree Jesus (Ozedit: …and you’re done. Offtopic waffle nonsense removed.)
@Dave
Real American law states that no retail product or service sales in MLM = pyramid scheme.
Lead Lightning has no retailable products or services and pays affiliates to recruit new affiliates.
Save your Jesus speech for church on Sunday.
I just paid 7.00 and I want to cancel asap, they said now they want 57.00 to day and more every month. I want to cancel immediately.