spx-nutrition-logoSPX Nutrition launched a few months back and are based out of the US state of Utah.

Operating in the MLM weight-loss niche, SPX Nutrition is headed up by President Rick Wall.

As per Wall’s SPX Nutrition bio,

Rick is no stranger to the direct-selling enterprise. Spending the last 25 years as a mentor and coach, he has helped thousands of leaders create successful online businesses and form winning teams.

Rick has more than 30 years of public speaking experience and has been instrumental in the organization and implementation of numerous community action groups.

Despite those impressive numbers, I was unable to find any trace of Rick Wall in the MLM industry pre-dating 2011.

In 2011 Rick Wall co-founded and launched Nutri-Thin with partner Lyle Waters.

Nutri-thin centered around a product bearing its namesake and paid commissions via a 2×15 matrix.

What happened to Nutri-Thin I’m not sure, but today the company’s website domain redirects to SPX Nutrition.

Lyle Waters isn’t mentioned anywhere on the SPX Nutrition website, so this appears to be a solo effort by Wall to keep the company going.

Further research reveals that at some point Wall signed up as an affiliate with EPX Body (weight-loss):

rick-wall-epx-body-affiliate

EPX Body used to sell Nutri-Thin, but a visit to their website today reveals it is no longer being marketed by the company. What happened there I’m not sure.

The EPX Body affiliate links on Wall’s personal website (“makemoneywithrickwall.com”) no longer work, so one would assume he is no longer with the company. Whether or not this was the motivating factor behind the recently launch of SPX Nutrition is unclear.

Read on for a full review of the SPX Nutrition MLM business opportunity.

The SPX Nutrition Product Line

nutri-thin-spx-nutritionSPX Nutrition’s flagship product is a “Nutri-Thin”, the same product marketed by Wall under the Nutri-Thin company brand.

Rick Wall attributes himself as a significant contributor to the development of the product:

Rick worked with top doctors and scientists to develop SPX Nutrition’s premier line of nutritional supplements.

SPX Nutrition describe Nutri-Thin as “science-backed, time-tested and (a) proven success”, yet no scientific studies particularly pertaining to Nutri-Thin are provided.

Nutri-Thin’s proprietary ingredients are scientifically formulated to target three key areas: increase your energy levels dramatically, suppress your appetite, and burn excess body fat.

The energy comes from many ingredients including vitamin B-12 and every other B complex. Nutri-Thin suppresses the appetite by feeding the brain receptors and making you feel satisfied by using the same ingredient found in raw chocolate.

Highly concentrated combinations of other natural ingredients cause your body’s metabolism to speed up and burn excessive fat cells through a process called thermogenesis.

Nutri-Thin retails for $40 a bottle, which is listed as enough for a “30 day supply”.

Other products listed on the SPX Nutrition website include:

  • Nutri-Cleanse – a “detox formula” ($40 for a 30-day supply bottle)
  • Sea Veg – a “whole food multi-nutritional supplement” ($40 for a 30-day supply bottle)
  • Xtreme Cardio – “designed to help improve your cardiovascular health by giving you the best combination of L-Arginine, L-Citrulline and other trace minerals” ($50 for a 30-day supply bottle)

The SPX Nutrition Compensation Plan

The SPX Nutrition compensation plan revolves around the purchase of products by affiliates.

SPX Nutrition pay an upfront order bonus, with residuals paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.

Various bonuses to increase unilevel percentage payouts are available, along with affiliate rank achievement bonuses.

SPX Nutrition Affiliate Membership Ranks

There are twenty affiliate membership ranks within the SPX Nutrition compensation plan.

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

  • Customer – place an order for SPX Nutrition products
  • IP – sign up as an affiliate and maintain 40 PV a month
  • Sr. IP I – maintain 40 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 240 GV a month
  • Sr. IP II – maintain 40 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 480 GV a month
  • Manager – maintain 80 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 1200 GV a month
  • Sr. Manager I – maintain 80 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 2400 GV a month
  • Sr. Manager II – maintain 80 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 4800 GV a month
  • Director – maintain 120 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 12,000 GV a month
  • Sr. Director I – maintain 120 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 24,000 GV a month
  • Sr. Director II – maintain 120 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 48,000 GV a month
  • Executive – maintain 120 monthly PV and have a downline generating at least 120,000 GV a month
  • Sr. Executive I – maintain 120 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 240,000 GV a month and recruit at least one Executive or higher ranked affiliate
  • Sr. Executive II – maintain 120 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 480,000 GV a month and recruit at least two Executive or higher ranked affiliates
  • Corp Director – maintain 160 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 720,000 GV a month and recruit at least three Executive or higher ranked affiliates
  • Sr. Corp Director I – maintain 160 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 1,200,000 GV a month and recruit at least four Executive or higher ranked affiliates
  • Sr. Corp Director II – maintain 160 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 1,600,000 GV a month and recruit at least five Executive or higher ranked affiliates
  • Corp Executive – maintain 200 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 2,000,000 GV a month and recruit at least one Director or higher ranked affiliate
  • Sr. Corp Executive I – maintain 200 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 2,500,000 GV a month and recruit at least two Director or higher ranked affiliates
  • Sr. Corp Executive II – maintain 200 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 3,000,000 GV a month and recruit at least three Director or higher ranked affiliates
  • ISGC – maintain 200 monthly PV, have a downline generating at least 4,000,000 GV a month and recruit at least four Director or higher ranked affiliates

PV stands for “Personal Volume” and includes an affiliate own purchases and that of any “customers” they enrol.

GV stands for “Group Volume” and is the sales volume of an affiliate’s downline.

Note that only 60% of the required GV at any given rank can be sourced from any one individual unilevel leg.

Rank Advancement Bonus

Upon qualifying at certain affiliate membership ranks for the first time and holds it for three consecutive months, SPX Nutrition pay affiliates a Rank Advancement Bonus:

  • Director – $1200 (paid out over 12 months)
  • Executive – $24,000 (paid out over 12 months)
  • Corp Director – $120,000 (paid out over 24 months)
  • Corp Executive – $320,000 (paid out over 24 months)
  • IGSC – $1,000,000 (paid out over 36 months)

First Order Bonus

The First Order Bonus is a 35% commission payable on the first order made by a newly recruited affiliate.

The First Order Bonus also pays out on an additional two levels of recruitment, with how many levels an affiliate is paid on determined by how much money they spent when they joined:

  • Starter affiliate ($120) – 5% on level 1
  • Builder affiliate ($240) – 5% on levels 1 and 2

Residual Unilevel Commissions

Residual commissions in SPX Nutrition are paid out using 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):

unilevel-commission-structure

If any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team. If any level 2 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

SPX Nutrition cap payable unilevels at seven, with how many levels deep an affiliate earns tied to their SPX Nutrition affiliate membership rank:

  • Customer (basic affiliate) – 25% on level 1
  • IP – 25% on level 1 and 2% on level 2
  • SR IP I – 25% on level 1, 3% on level 2 and 1% on level 3
  • SR IP II – 25% on level 1, 4% on level 2 and 3% on level 3
  • Manager – 25% on level 1, 5% on level 2, 4% on level 3 and 2% on level 4
  • Sr. Manager I – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3 and 3% on level 4
  • Sr. Manager II – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3 and 4% on level 4
  • Director – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3, 4% on level 4 and 2% on level 5
  • Sr. Director I – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3, 4% on level 4 and 3% on level 5
  • Sr. Director II – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3 and 4% on levels 4 and 5
  • Executive – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3, 4% on levels 4 and 5 and 2% on level 6
  • Sr. Executive I – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3, 4% on levels 4 and 5, 3% on level 6 and 2% on level 7
  • Sr. Executive II – 25% on level 1, 5% on levels 2 and 3, 4% on levels 4 and 5 and 3% on levels 6 and 7

Generational Bonus

SPX Nutrition offer a Generational Bonus to Sr. Manager I, Sr. Director I and Sr. Executive I ranked affiliates. 1% is offered at each rank, culminating at 3% total for Sr. Executive I affiliates.

The Generational Bonus pays out a bonus percentage on unilevel sales volume generated by an affiliate’s downline.

The bonus pays out according to generations, with a generation defined as all the affiliates in any given leg until an affiliate at the same or higher rank than the qualifying affiliate is found.

Eg. If the qualifying affiliate is a Sr. Director I, a generation in any given unilevel leg would extend down until another Sr. Director I or higher was found.

If no Sr. Director I or higher ranked affiliate was found, the whole unilevel leg would count as a first generation.

As per the above generational mechanic, affiliates are paid down a maximum of two generations at the Sr. Executive I rank.

New Growth Bonus

The New Growth Bonus is another unilevel percentage bonus, paying an affiliate for generating new sales volume after achieving certain rank milestones:

  • Sr. Manager II – 1%
  • Sr. Director II – 1%
  • Sr. Executive II – 1%
  • Sr. Corp Dir II – 1%
  • Sr. Corp Exec II – 1%

Note that these percentages stack, with new volume tracked from volume generated after an affiliate has qualified at one of the specified ranks.

Although not explicitly clarified in the SPX Nutrition compensation plan, I believe new volume generated at the Sr. Manager II level stacks (increases to 2%) when an affiliate qualifies at the Sr. Director II rank.

In this manner new sales volume generated between Sr. Manager II and Sr. Director II can ultimately be paid out at 5% once an affiliate qualifies at Sr. Corp Exec II.

A matching bonus on the New Growth Bonus paid out to personally recruited affiliates is also available.

How much of a percentage match is paid out is determined by an affiliates membership rank:

  • Director – 25%
  • Sr. Director I – 30%
  • Sr. Director II – 35%
  • Executive – 40%
  • Sr. Executive I – 45%
  • Sr. Executive II – 50%
  • Corp Director – 55%
  • Corp Director I – 60%
  • Corp Director II – 65%
  • Corp Executive – 70%
  • Sr. Corp Executive I – 75%
  • Sr. Corp Executive II – 80%
  • ISGC – 85%

Lifestyle Bonus

The Lifestyle Bonus is a cash monthly bonus payable from the Sr. Director II rank.

Affiliates are paid the bonus for as long as they hold the applicable affiliate membership rank:

  • Sr. Director II – $200
  • Executive – $300
  • Sr. Executive I – $400
  • Sr. Executive II – $700
  • Corp Director – $1000
  • Sr. Corp Director I – $1200
  • Sr. Corp Director II – $1500
  • Corp Executive – $2000
  • Sr. Corp Executive I – $3000
  • Sr. Corp Executive II – $4000
  • IGSC – $5000

SPX Nutrition affiliates are free to spend the Lifestyle Bonus as they see fit.

Joining SPX Nutrition

Basic affiliate membership to SPX Nutrition appears to be free.

An affiliate can however choose to spend $120 or $240 on SPX Nutrition products when they join. This additional cost qualifies them to earn on up to two additional levels via the First Order Bonus (see compensation plan explanation above).

Conclusion

I’m having a hard time defining true retail within SPX Nutrition’s business model.

The signup options for “customers” and affiliates are identical, with the only difference being “customers” are only able to earn down a single-level.

Regardless, this is still not true retail so it would appear SPX Nutrition’s products are not available at a retail level.

This is problematic as if all revenue generated is sourced from affiliates, effectively commissions are tied to recruitment.

The general thrust behind the SPX Nutrition compensation plan would appear to be a buy-in of either Starter ($120) or Builder ($240), the signing up of autoship and then recruitment of affiliates who do the same.

The differentiation between regular, Starter and Builder affiliates with respect to income potential adds an additional “pay to play” element to the opportunity.

The more an affiliate spends when they join, the greater their potential income.

A quick check as to how much volume a potential upline generates from “customer” volume versus affiliate volume should give you an idea of what is going on behind the scenes. Asking whether or not monthly PV requirements are being met by external sales or autoship wouldn’t hurt either.

nutri-thin-epx-bodyCall me cynical but I imagine in most cases you’re going to find personal PV quotas met with an autoship order and the vast majority of purchasers of SPX Nutrition’s product line being affiliates.

“Customers”, as SPX Nutrition defines them aren’t retail, but are more of a traditional single-level affiliate program (non-MLM). They only participate in the MLM side of the business when they hit 40 PV a month (likely to be autoship).

All in all I’m not seeing anything too compelling here. Nutri-Thin appears to have already failed under both Nutri-Thin and EPX Body, so I’m not really sure a third opportunity marriage is going to be any more viable.

Some clarification as to what happened after Nutri-Thin and then what went down between Rick Wall and EPX Body wouldn’t go astray either.