Yoli Review: Health, nutrition & sneaky autoship

Yoli was founded in late 2009 and are based out of Utah in the US. Today the company is active in the US, Canada, Malaysia and Australia.

Heading up Yoli are founders Robby Fender, Corey Citron, Daren Falter, Bobby Jones, and Michael Prichard.

So the story goes;

Robby Fender contacted four of his most trusted colleagues — Corey Citron, Daren Falter, Bobby Jones, and Michael Prichard—and proposed a new business venture. Each of them said yes, and thus, Yoli was born.

Fender (right) is central to Yoli management, serving as both President and CEO.

As per Fender’s Yoli corporate bio;

Robby Fender’s unmatched enthusiasm, winning personality, and million-dollar smile make him one of the most recognizable and well-liked CEOs in the industry.

Robby’s success as both an entrepreneur and CEO gives him a rare insight into multiple areas of business, and his dedication to transforming lives is the driving force of our company.

Fender’s LinkedIn profile reveals he got started in MLM as a Usana affiliate between 1995 and 2000.

In 2004 Fender signed up as a Xango affiliate, with that lasting till 2008. A year later saw the launch of Yoli, which I believe is Fender’s first MLM venture as an executive.

Fender’s fellow Yoli co-founders all appear to be linked to Xango in one way or another.

Between Usana and Xango Fender also founded Preferred Financial Services and Guardian National Management LLC.

Robby has been involved with the private money mortgage banking industry for over 20 years. Preferred Financial Services was one of the key private money lenders in Northern CA during this time.

Guardian National Management LLC continues to purchase REO’s and NPN’s across the country.

Northern Pacific Properties LLC is one of many real estate acquisition and cash flow holding companies.

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

The Yoli Product Line

Yoli operate in the health, nutrition and weight loss MLM product niches, with the company claiming

Yoli products are made with natural ingredients that encourage rapid weight loss without harming your body with toxins or artificial ingredients.

Products listed on the Yoli website include

• Yoli Essential Shake (YES) – “a natural whey protein shake that is sweetened with stevia and contains no artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors”, retails at $43 for a box of 14 servings or $80 for a canister of 30 servings
• Alkalete – “promotes a balanced pH level”, retails at $35 for a bottle of 60 capsules
• Pure – “the perfect way to support a healthy digestive system”, retails at $35 for a bottle of 60 capsules
• Thermo Burn – “enhance your energy and enjoy improved metabolism”, retails at $40 for a bottle of 60 capsules
• Passion – a “natural, low-calorie energy drink”, retails at $40 for a box of 35 servings or $75 for a canister of 90 servings
• Dream – “a proprietary blend formulated to provide you with nutrients that support deep, restful sleep”, retails at $40 for a bottle of 60 capsules
• Truth – “with powerhouse ingredients like pomegranate, açai, resveratrol, and stevia, Truth will keep your immune system strong”, retails at $40 for a box of 35 servings or $75 for a canister of 90 servings
• Fun – “achieve peak performance and reduced recovery times with sugar-free, caffeine-free Fun”, retails at $40 or a box of 35 servings or $75 for a canister of 90 servings
• Flex – a “daily joint health supplement”, retails at $40 for a bottle of 60 capsules
• Omegas – a “daily fish oil supplement (that) contains EPA and DHA”, retails at $43 for a bottle of 60 softgel capsules
• Vitamin – “full daily requirement of vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, and E, as well as riboflavin, thiamin, folate, and niacin”, retails at $40 for a bottle of 60 tablets
• Mineral – “this daily mineral tablet features a unique formula of over 50 plant-sourced ingredients your body needs to function properly”, retails at $35 for a bottle of 60 tablets
• Enzyme – “maximize your nutrient absorption and digestive efficiency”, retails at $35 for a bottle of 60 tablets

Yoli products are also sold together in kits, which vary in price depending on what products are featured in the kit (full catalogue is available on the Yoli website).

The Yoli Compensation Plan

The Yoli compensation plan pays affiliates upfront residual commissions via a binary compensation structure.

A residual matching bonus is paid out through a unilevel team, with additional performance-based commissions and bonuses also available.

Commission Qualification

As per the Yoli compensation plan;

Some commissions require you to be active, while others require you to be active and qualified.

Active qualification sees Yoli affiliates required to generate at least 50 PV every four weeks.

PV stands for “Personal Volume” and is sales volume generated by an affiliate’s own purchases and retail customer orders.

Qualified qualification requires an affiliate to recruit and maintain at least two active affiliates.

One active affiliate must be counted from each side of the binary team (one left and one right).

Yoli Affiliate Ranks

There are a whopping thirty-six affiliate ranks within the Yoli compensation plan.

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

• Future Star – generate 50 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 50 GV
• Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 100 GV
• 2 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 200 GV
• 3 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 300 GV
• 4 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 400 GV
• 5 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 500 GV
• Bronze –  generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 600 GV
• Bronze 2 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 700 GV
• Bronze 3 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 800 GV
• Bronze 4 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 900 GV
• Bronze 5 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1000 GV
• Silver – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1100 GV
• Silver 2 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1200 GV
• Silver 3 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1300 GV
• Silver 4 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1400 GV
• Silver 5 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks and have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1500 GV
• Gold – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1600 GV and recruit and maintain at least one 1 Star ranked affiliate
• Gold 2 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1700 GV and recruit and maintain at least one 2 Star ranked affiliate
• Gold 3 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1800 GV and recruit and maintain at least one 3 Star ranked affiliate
• Gold 4 Star – generate 100 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 1900 GV and recruit and maintain at least one 4 Star ranked affiliate
• Gold 5 Star – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 2000 GV and recruit and maintain at least one 5 Star ranked affiliate
• Ruby – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 3000 GV and recruit and maintain at least two 5 Star ranked affiliates
• Double Ruby – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 4000 GV and recruit and maintain at least two 5 Star ranked affiliates and one 3 Star
• Triple Ruby – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 5000 GV and recruit and maintain at least three 5 Star ranked affiliates
• Emerald – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 6000 GV and recruit and maintain at least three 5 Star ranked affiliates and one 1 Star
• Double Emerald – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 7000 GV and recruit and maintain at least three 5 Star ranked affiliates and one 2 Star
• Triple Emerald – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 8000 GV and recruit and maintain at least three 5 Star ranked affiliates and one 3 Star
• Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 10,000 GV and recruit and maintain at least four 5 Star ranked affiliates
• Double Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 10,000 GV and recruit and maintain at least five 5 Star ranked affiliates
• Triple Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks, have a weekly weaker binary volume of 30,000 GV and recruit and maintain at least six 5 Star ranked affiliates
• Blue Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks and generate at least 50,000 GV in unilevel team volume (max 25,000 GV from any one unilevel leg)
• Double Blue Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks and generate at least 100,000 GV in unilevel team volume (max 50,000 GV from any one unilevel leg)
• Triple Blue Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks and generate at least 150,000 GV in unilevel team volume (max 50,000 GV from any one unilevel leg)
• Black Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks and generate at least 250,000 GV in unilevel team volume (max 50,000 GV from any one unilevel leg)
• Double Black Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks and generate at least 500,000 GV in unilevel team volume (max 75,000 GV from any one unilevel leg)
• Triple Black Diamond – generate 200 PV every 4 weeks and generate at least 750,000 GV in unilevel team volume (max 75,000 GV from any one unilevel leg)

Earning Caps

Based on the above ranks, all Yoli affiliates are subject to the following weekly earning caps:

• Future Star – $500
• Future Star 1 Star to Gold – $1000
• Gold 2 Star – $1100
• Gold 3 Star – $1200
• Gold 4 Star – $1300
• Gold 5 Star – $1400
• Ruby – $1500
• Double Ruby – $2000
• Triple Ruby – $2500
• Emerald – $3000
• Double Emerald – $3500
• Triple Emerald – $4000
• Diamond – $5000
• Double Diamond – $10,000
• Triple Diamond – $20,000
• Blue Diamond – $25,000
• Double Blue Diamond and higher – no earnings cap

Retail Commissions

All of Yoli’s product line is readily retailable, with a retail commission paid out on retail customer orders.

In Yoli’s compensation plan, a retail commission is defined ‘the difference between the retail and wholesale price‘ of products ordered.

Fast Start Bonus

A 20% commission is paid out on all newly recruited Yoli affiliate’s initial product orders.

Residual Commissions

Residual commissions in Yoli are paid out via a binary compensation structure.

A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, which is split into two sides (left and right):

Positions in the binary are generated by splitting a previous position into another two positions each, with positions filled via the direct and indirect recruitment of affiliates.

Sales volume across both binary sides is tallied up weekly, with a 10% commission paid out on volume generated by the weaker binary side (the side with less volume).

All Yoli affiliates are capped at $12,500 in weekly binary earnings per business center they own.

Note that if a Yoli affiliate generates over 200 PV in a week, excess PV generated above 200 is added to commissionable weaker side volume.

After a binary commission has been paid out, volume is flushed from the pay leg with a matching volume flush on the stronger binary side.

Any leftover volume on the stronger binary side is retained (for up to four weeks), with the binary commission process repeating itself from week to week.

Matching Bonus

The Matching Bonus pays out a matching percentage of binary commissions, 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 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.

Yoli cap payable unilevel levels at ten, with how many levels an affiliate can earn on determined by their Yoli affiliate rank:

• 5 Star Gold – 15% on level 1
• Ruby – 20% on level 1 and 10% on level 2
• Double Ruby – 25% on level  and 10% on levels 2 and 3
• Triple Ruby – 30% on level 1 and 10% on levels 2 to 4
• Emerald – 30% on level 1 and 10% on levels 2 to 5
• Double Emerald – 30% on level 1 and 10% on levels 2 to 6
• Triple Emerald – 30% on level 1, 10% on levels 2 to 6 and 5% on level 7
• Diamond – 30% on level 1, 10% on levels 2 to 6 and 5% on levels 7 and 8
• Double Diamond – 30% on level 1, 10% on levels 2 to 6 and 5% on levels 7 to 9
• Triple Diamond – 30% on level 1, 10% on levels 2 to 6 and 5% on levels 7 to 10

Regarding the above percentage amounts, Yoli advises

Percentages listed are the maximum that can be earned at the indicated level (rank).

Actual percentages earned are dependant upon the number of participants in the shared pool, and may fluctuate up to the maximum percentage.

Break Even Bonus

Some Yoli products are assigned a Break Even Bonus value ($5 to $20), which sees their purchase by recruited affiliates or retail customers generate a Break Even Bonus.

The Break Even Bonus is paid up to the PV value of products purchased by an affiliate (max $500 every four weeks).

Global Bonus Pools

Yoli affiliates are able to receive shares in three bonus pools, each made up of 0.5% of Yoli’s company-wide sales volume.

Shares in the bonus pools are paid out on the thirteenth week of each quarter.

Affiliates are only able to receive a share in one of the bonus pools, determined by their Yoli affiliate rank for that quarter.

Diamond Pool

Diamond ranked affiliates receive one share a week plus an additional share per 10,000 GV generated by their downline (max 10 shares).

Double Diamond affiliates receive x1.25 bonus share allocation and Triple Diamonds x1.5.

Blue Diamond Pool

Blue Diamond ranked affiliates receive one share a week plus an additional share per 25,000 GV generated by their downline (max 10 shares).

Double Blue Diamond affiliates receive a x1.25 bonus share allocation and Triple Blue Diamonds x1.5.

Black Diamond Pool

Black Diamond ranked affiliates receive one share a week plus an additional share per 100,000 GV generated by their downline (max 10 shares).

Double Black Diamond affiliates receive a x1.25 bonus share allocation and Triple Black Diamonds x1.5.

Multiple Business Centers

An additional Business Center is an additional earning position, placed above a Yoli affiliate’s binary team.

The existing binary team becomes the stronger leg of the new business center position, with the affiliate required to build a new weaker leg in the new team to be paid out on.

To qualify for an additional business center a Yoli affiliate must max out their binary earnings for four consecutive weeks ($12,500 a week).

Luxury Car Program

To qualify for the Luxury Car Program, a Yoli affiliate must

• qualify at the 5 Star Gold or higher ranks for 3 out of 4 consecutive weeks
• have a total downline volume of at least 4000 GV for 3 out of 4 consecutive weeks and
• generate at least 200 PV a month

Once qualified for the Luxury Car Program, a Yoli affiliate can then

set up their own purchase contract of a lease of a luxury white vehicle (i.e. BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac, Audi, etc.), and Yoli awards a $600 bonus every four weeks to the qualified Member to apply toward the lease or loan payments.

If the Member is qualified and decides not to purchase or lease a car, they will be paid $300 every four weeks.

Note that Yoli affiliates can only qualify for the car bonus within their first five years with the company.

Yoli Travel Programs

Regarding the Yoli Travel Programs, the company’s compensation plan refers readers to the Yoli website for details.

The Travel Program page of the Yoli website reveals a series of incentive trips, most of which appear to be tied to a Yoli affiliate’s rank.

Joining Yoli

Affiliate membership with Yoli costs either $997 for a Party Pack or $3697.97 for a Diamond Elite Pack.

The primary difference between these two packs is included product.

An ongoing monthly fee of $9.95 a month is also charged, with the Yoli Member Application form suggesting all affiliates must also sign up for autoship ($59.99 to $279.97 a month).

Conclusion

My initial reaction upon going over Yoli’s product line and compensation plan was that it was a refreshingly straight-forward MLM offering.

Before penning this conclusion however, I looked up Yoli affiliate costs for the “joining” section above.

That’s where things fell apart.

There’s a bit of ambiguity here on Yoli’s behalf, but the affiliate order form suggests that an affiliate must spend between $997.97 to $3697.97 when the sign up. This is on top of a monthly autoship commitment.

As per the form, the required steps for Yoli affiliate membership are as follows:

• Step 1: become a member – please choose an enrollment option. ($997.97 to $3697.97)
• Step 2: select your lifetime kit for autoship
• Step 3: purchase additional products (optional)
• Step 4: sign into your team office (lets you know will cost $9.95 a month)
• Step 5: placement information
• Step 6: personal information

The member application form makes no mention of autoship being optional, nor does it cite a non-pack “basic” affiliate option.

First off a thousand to over three and a half thousand dollars for Yoli affiliate membership is pretty steep.

Sure you get product for those dollars but a high initial cost (forced purchase of product) typically encourages inventory loading.

This is further re-enforced with mandatory monthly autoship, again forcing an affiliate to purchase product each month – irrespective of what they’ve done with product they’ve previously ordered.

Conveniently Yoli’s autoship PV values are 50 PV, 125 PV and 200 PV – which corresponds with PV requirements for rank advancement and commission qualification.

Thus there’s not really an incentive to generate retail sales, with Yoli affiliates instead able to fund their own qualification through autoship.

Before I saw the Yoli member (affiliate) application I was convinced it was up to an affiliate how they wished to meet monthly PV requirements, but the form clearly favors autoship.

My guess is this is how most Yoli affiliates are meeting their PV requirements each month, but you’re welcome to verify this yourself.

Ask your potential upline how they’re qualifying for commissions each month (either 50, 100 or 200 PV depending on their rank).

If it’s through autoship and there’s no retail sales being made, then you might be looking at potential autoship chain-recruitment issues.

This will be especially evident if autoship described to you as the easiest way to qualify for commissions.

Otherwise my criticisms of Yoli were minor. I felt that there was an unnecessary amount of affiliate ranks within the compensation plan, with the fourteen between Star and Gold easily abolished.

Nothing much seems to happen between these ranks,with them only existing to create a superficial sense of micro-achievement (a rank increase per 100 GV, really?).

On the product side of things Yoli’s offering seems solid if not bland (a lot of MLM companies offer similar product lineups).

That said they appeared to be competitively priced and if a target market can be carved out, I don’t see why they wouldn’t sell on a retail level.

To help there’s the whole Better Body System marketing tool and Yoli products bundled into convenient kits, which was a nice touch.

All in all it’s a shame Yoli is let down by information not presented in its compensation plan. You go through it and there’s no mention of autoship when signing up or a correlation between rank PV and autoship CV – with it not being evident unless you research joining costs.

And even that’s buried away on the second page of the affiliate signup form, which first requires a social security number and personal details of the signee.

I had to bypass the online form and locate a printout version of the Yoli membership form to get the information I was after.

Pending clarification on Yoli’s autoship requirements, I suggest relying on a sample size of your upline (and maybe a few of their other recruits) to suss out how monthly PV requirements are being met. Ditto the level of retail activity taking place.

Good luck!