Real Time Pain Relief Review: Autoship recruiting ruins retail

The Real Time Pain Relief website domain (“rtpr.com”) was registered on the 21st of September 2006, with “RTPR LLC” listed as the domain owner. An address in the US state of Arkansas is also provided.

Although not directly credited in any official capacity on the Real Time Pain Relief website, press-releases uploaded to the site credit a Ron Snodgrass as co-founder and CEO of the company.

According to one such press-release:

Real Time Pain Relief has been primarily marketed online and in January 2011 RTPR, LLC launched their direct sales division.

Somewhat curiously, Snodgrass (right) only appears to talk about (and thus reference his involvement in) Real Time Pain Relief through company press-releases.

Tim Flatt appears to be Snodgrass’ other half in Real Time Pain Relief, with Flatt listing himself as “Founder” of the company in his LinkedIn profile.

Flatt again only appears on the Real Time Pain Relief website cited in press-releases and reports.

Why a corporate bio for either co-founder does not appear on the Real Time Pain Relief website is a mystery.

Flatt (right) appears to have been involved in the MLM industry for some time, with forum posts placing him as CEO of various lead generation companies in the early 2000s.

Both Snodgrass and Flatt’s names come up in conjunction with Global Traffic Matrix, with a press-release dated 2009 reading:

Tim Flatt, President of GTM, and Ron Snodgrass, the President of GibLink have come up with what is going to be the biggest business opportunity the net has seen in years.

GTM Is The FASTEST MONEY Making Vehicle EVER Created For Advertising and Income!

Global Traffic Matrix itself appears to have involved recruitment of affiliates, tracked through a 3×9 matrix.

Giblink meanwhile launched around 2007 and was a social network with an attached “revenue sharing” MLM opportunity.

The gibline Straight Line Revenue Sharing Program is a revolutionary new system designed to “leave no one behind”. If you join the program “you will be paid”.

Through what the company referred to as a “gibline”, GibLink Affiliates signed up, paid membership fees and were paid commissions out of fees paid by subsequently recruited affiliates.

Both schemes had well and truly collapsed by 2011, which saw the launch of Real Time Pain Relief’s MLM opportunity.

Read on for a full review of the Real Time Pain Relief MLM business opportunity.

The Real Time Pain Relief Product Line

Real Time Pain Relief’s flagship product, as the name suggests, claims to offer pain relief.

The product is available in various forms, with the company listing MSM, Glucosamine, Chondroitin, Capsicum, Arnica, Emu Oil  and Aloe Vera as active ingredients.

Retail pricing for Real Time Pain Relief products listed on the company’s website are as follows:

• Pain Relief 4oz Pump – $20
• Therapeutic Hand Crea (4oz) – $20
• Pain Relief (7oz tube) – $30
• Pan Relief (4oz tube) – $20
• Pain Relief (1.5oz tube) – $10
• Real Time Foot Cream (1.4oz jar) – $10
• Real Time Foot Cream (4oz jar) – $20
• Pain Relief Travel Packs (10) – $9.95
• Pain Relief Select Roll-on (3oz) – $20
• Sports Cream (4oz pump) – $20
• Real Time Skin Rescue (“gentle enough to soothe and protect tender, painful damage…yet powerful enough to nourish and revitalize old scars”) – $29.95 for a 15ml “airless pump”

Two combo packs are also available for $39.95.

The Real Time Pain Relief Compensation Plan

The Real Time Pain Relief compensation plan pays out generous retail commissions, coupled with monthly autoship requirements and a particular focus on affiliate recruitment.

Retail Commissions

Retail commissions in Real Time Pain Relief are generated when retail customers purchase products through an affiliate’s replicated website.

A flatrate 20% commission is paid out on he sale of any Real Time Pain Relief products to retail customers.

Residual retail commissions are also available, paid out 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 go on to 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.

Real Time Pain Relief cap payable unilevel levels at seven, with commissions paid on retail sales made by affiliates in a unilevel team as follows:

• level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – 5%
• levels 2 to 6 – 2%

Real Time Pain Relief Affiliate Ranks

Affiliate rank qualification in Real Time Pain Relief revolves around mandatory purchase of products and generated “state aggregate volume”, “regional aggregate volume” and “national aggregate volume”.

Despite the complex-sounding names, state, regional and national aggregate volume is simply a combination of an affiliate’s own product purchases and that of their retail customers and recruited affiliates in their unilevel team (see retail commissions for unilevel team explanation).

• state aggregate volume is a combination of an affiliate’s own product purchase, that of their retail customers and wholesale product purchases made by personally recruited affiliates
• regional aggregate volume is state aggregate volume combined with wholesale product purchases by affiliates on level 2 and 3 of an affiliate’s unilevel team
• national aggregate volume is regional aggregate volume combined with wholesale product purchases by affiliates on levels 4 to 7 of an affiliate’s unilevel team

With that in mind, there are nine affiliate ranks within the Real Time Pain Relief compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

• Basic Affiliate (MLM) – sign up as either a reseller ($100) or vendor ($300) affiliate
• State Director Level 1 – purchase at least $200 worth of product each month and achieve $500 in state aggregate volume
• State Director Level 2 – purchase at least $200 worth of product each month and achieve $1000 in state aggregate volume
• State Director Level 3 – purchase at least $200 worth of product each month and achieve $1500 in state aggregate volume
• State Director Level 4 – purchase at least $200 worth of product each month and achieve $2000 in state aggregate volume

Note that from State Director 2 and up, 40% of required state aggregate volume must be sourced from recruited affiliate wholesale product purchases.

Once a Real Time Pain Relief affiliate has maintained State Director Level 4 for three consecutive months, can then qualify for Regional Director and above ranks:

• Regional Director Level 1 – achieve $10,000 in regional aggregate volume
• Regional Director Level 2 – achieve $15,000 in regional aggregate volume
• Regional Director Level 3 – achieve $20,000 in regional aggregate volume
• Regional Director Level 4 – achieve $25,000 in regional aggregate volume
• National Director Level 1 – achieve $100,000 in national aggregate volume
• National Director Level 2 – achieve $200,000 in national aggregate volume
• National Director Level 3 – achieve $300,000 in national aggregate volume
• National Director Level 4 – achieve $400,000 in national aggregate volume

Note that $200 in product purchases each month applies to all Real Time Pain Relief affiliate ranks.

Recruitment Commissions

Real Time Pain Relief affiliates are paid to recruit new affiliates.

How much of a commission is paid out is determined by an affiliate’s rank:

• Vendor affiliates earn $10 a month for each recruited affiliate
• State Directors earn $20 a month for each recruited affiliate
• Regional Directors earn $30 a month for each recruited affiliate
• National Directors earn $40 a month for each recruited affiliate

Downline Purchase Commissions

When recruited Real Time Pain Relief affiliates purchase products at wholesale and affiliate “kits and packages”, commissions are generated through the same unilevel team used to track residual retail commissions (see above).

Wholesale Purchases

• level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – 12%
• level 2 – 5%
• levels 3 to 7 – 2%

Purchase of affiliate kits and packages

• level 1 – 10%
• levels 2 to 7 – 2%

Profit-Sharing

Profit sharing is paid to State, Regional and National Directors.

This profit-sharing pool is made up of leftover funds allocated to the recruitment commission pool (I believe $40 per affiliate recruited), with affiliates able to earn the following maximum payment amounts:

• State Directors can earn up to $500 a month
• Regional Directors can earn up to $1500 a month
• National Directors can earn up to $8000 a month

Exactly how much an affiliate earns each month differs, with the Real Time Profit Sharing compensation plan mentioning that profit sharing earnings are ‘based on rank and base commission volume’.

Phase 2 Profit Sharing

No specifics are provided on how Phase 2 Profit Sharing is funded, however the Real Time Pain Relief compensation plan does state the following monthly payouts are possible:

• State Directors can receive “up to $25,000 yearly plus incentives”
• Regional Directors can receive State Director bonuses and “up to $25,000 yearly plus incentives”
• National Directors can receive State and Regional Director bonuses and “up to $50,000 yearly plus incentives”

Rank Achievement Bonuses

When a RealTime Affiliate qualifies at the State Director Level 4 rank, they receive an iPad.

Additionally any Director with $5000 or more in state aggregate volume in a month qualifies for a car bonus as follows:

• State Director = $400 a month
• Regional Director = $550 a month
• National Director = $700 a month

Joining Real Time Pain Relief

Basic affiliate membership with Real Time Pain Relief requires affiliates to “purchase a minimum of” $100 in products. This qualifies them as a “reseller”.

Reseller affiliates earn retail commissions, both direct and residual (see compensation plan analysis above).

Affiliates can then go on to purchase another $300 in products to qualify as a “vendor”.

Vendor affiliates earn the same retail commissions resellers do, in addition to commissions on purchases recruited affiliates make.

I did see a docment reference lower-priced vendor affiliate membership options ($75 and $150), however these were both penalized commission-wise.

A free option also exists, but despite it being named “affiliate” is not part of the Real Time Pain Relief MLM opportunity.

Free Real Time Pain Relief affiliates can only earn “reward points” by referring retail customers. These reward points can be put towards discounts on Real Time Pain Relief products or towards reseller or vendor affiliate membership.

Conclusion

I’ll open the conclusion of this review by quoting from a document hosted on the Real Time Pain Relief website:

Is this a Multi Level Marketing Program?

No.  RTPR is a two-tier affiliate program.

Who Real Time Pain Relief think they are kidding I have no idea, but with even two tiers of commissions the opportunity is very much so an MLM opportunity.

Leave alone the fact that in actuality the company pays down seven levels of recruitment using a unilevel compensation structure.

With that out of the way, the easiest way to analyze Real Time Pain Relief is by splitting it into two tiers.

The first is the retail side of the business which, even when coupled with commissions on wholesale purchases by recruited affiliates is fine.

With seven levels of commission payouts there’s plenty of incentive to generate retail sales, with Real Time Pain Relief obviously having a readily retailable product line.

Things get murky when you look at the rest of the opportunity however, starting with the two paid affiliate options.

With reseller and vendor membership, affiliates must pay for product when the sign up and then in order to stay active, buy at least $200 worth of product each month.

This product can be resold, stowed away in a garage or thrown out – it doesn’t matter as its affiliate payment for the product that generates commissions within the compensation plan.

And that not only places a big question mark over affiliate incentive to purchase Real Time Pain Relief products, but it is also clearly pay to play territory. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

That Real Time Pain Relief affiliates are paid to recruit affiliates is bad enough, but then so long as they buy product each month, the commissions are ongoing?

Bear in mind this is in addition to regular unilevel payouts, making it a specific recruitment commission.

And not only that, but breakage from these payouts is then used to reward higher ranked affiliates via profit-sharing?

Oh dear.

Unfortunately the compliance issues in the second tier vastly outweigh the well-thought retail incentives in tier 1 and cannot be ignored. Nor does the retail side of the business justify the rest of it.

Chain recruitment is a serious threat to the legitimacy of the opportunity, with it being entirely possible to build a business ignoring retail in favor of affiliate recruitment.

Whack those recruits on monthly autoships of hundreds of dollars and get them to do the same, and that’s pretty much all that’s required to advance to the upper tiers of the Real Time Pain Relief compensation plan.

Perhaps instead of vehemently denying the presence of MLM in their MLM opportunity, Real Time Pain Relief might be better served doing away with unnecessarily complicated terminology and addressing the glaring compliance issues present in their business model.

Failing that, I’d be willing to bet there isn’t a single top income earning affiliate within the company who isn’t just running an autoship chain recruitment business.

Heck, with the way Real Time Pain Relief have set up the upper affiliate ranks, they pretty much have to.