TVI South Africa play race card as regulators close in

tvi-express-logoYou’ve been running your TVI Express business for about a year now. During this time you’ve seen neighbouring countries strike out against TVI, labeling it a pyramid scheme or money game scam.

Still, nobody’s said anything in your country yet so, perhaps with a little more caution, you continue to publicise your business and recruit new members.

Finally, when the regulators in your country do announce an investigation into TVI, do you

a. Accept that what happened elsewhere is most likely going to happen in your country?

b. continue to promote TVI and hope for the best? or

c. play the race card?

If you live in South Africa, the answer is of course ‘c’. [Continue reading…]


WMI banned in Norway, business as usual in the US?

wealth-masters-international-logoWhen Wealth Masters International had their appeal denied and a ban on operating the business in Norway was upheld, you’d have thought some uneasiness would have flowed through the company’s ranks.

After all, Wealth Masters strives to be the ‘world’s premiere wealth creation community’, and it’s a bit hard to achieve that status when countries start banning you for being a pyramid scheme.

Instead of publicly addressing the concerns, accusations and final ruling of the Norwegian Gaming Board against them however, WMI have instead appeared to have shifted focus entirely on their North American operations. [Continue reading…]


The Bold Approach – Affiliate marketing & recruitment

The Bold Approach is a company that claims to have been in business for 13 years, although their MLM offering appears to have only been made public in the last few years.

Founded by Fred Fitts, The Bold Approach (TBA) combines affiliate marketing, inhouse ebook sales along with an open matrix compensation plan.

One notable difference with the Bold Approach and a lot of the other MLM opportunities out there is that the Bold Approach themselves don’t manage any product inventory. Rather they combine the affiliate marketing power of a third party engine with ebook (they call them ‘articles’) to motivate their members to generate revenue.

With little to no branding of the company’s own products though, how does this reflect when approaching TBA as a MLM business opportunity? [Continue reading…]


TVI Express owned by Buffet and advised by Clinton?!

tvi-express-logoHype is something that’s seemingly unavoidable these days in the MLM industry. Everyone’s making extraordinary income claims and selling unbelievable products.

Recently however I came across a TVI advertisement however that took the hype concept just a little too far… [Continue reading…]



That Free Thing Review – Free stuff as a product line?

that-free-thing-logoGetting free stuff has always been an attractive prospect in the marketing industry.

Buy One, Get One Free!

Purchase now for your FREE gift!

Have a look at our offer and go into the draw for your FREE prize!

They might sound cheesy but there’s a reason offers like the above are a staple in the consumer marketplace.

They work.

In the context of an MLM business opportunity however, is it possible to combine a compensation plan with free stuff from third party companies?

The folks over at ‘That Free Thing’ seem to think so. Let’s find out. [Continue reading…]


Norway Gaming Board: WMI still a pyramid scheme

When we last left Wealth Masters International, back on December 21st 2010 the Norway Gaming Board came out and declared the MLM company to be a pyramid scheme.

Naturally Wealth Masters weren’t happy with this and using lawyers Hellerøy, made full use of the three week grace period to appeal the Gaming Board’s decision.

During this time details of exchanged between the Gaming Board and Wealth Masters were scarce, but finally the two parties have concluded their appeal discussions and the verdict is in.

The Gaming Board has considered the concept of WMI (and) our assessment (is) that the WMI is a pyramid-like sales system.

All sales of products to Wealth Masters International in Norway must immediately stop.

So says a twenty seven page document released by the Norwegian Gaming Board a few days ago, detailing the exchanges that have taken place between their December 23rd decision and now, as well as the reasoning behind their ultimate conclusion. [Continue reading…]


The Final Matrix: Redefining MLM product irrelevancy

the-final-matrix-logoOver the past few years there’s been an explosion of matrix compensation plan based MLM’s to hit the network marketing industry.

With relatively simple payout structures and a heavy trend towards only rewarding members with commissions for recruiting others to the business, once the initial momentum has died down, most of these companies have hit a brick wall.

But not before their founders have made a considerably sum of money.

In response to this trend, a lot of the more recent matrix based MLM company startups have started to put some emphasis on their product line. Be in membership to a third party system or merely a token product to facilitate the legal status of the company itself.

One new startup company though, The Final Matrix seems to be going in the complete opposite direction. [Continue reading…]



Speak Asia Review: Combining MLM and surveys

speak-asia-online-logoOffering financial incentives for online surveys is nothing new. Marketing statistics are often invaluable to the companys soliciting them but there’s always been the challenge of getting accurate responses, or sometimes any response at all.

Gone are the days you could simply just walk up to randoms and expect them to set aside precious minutes of their day to provide you with valuable marketing information.

These days you need to offer some kind of incentive, usually in the form of some type of compensation.

Speak Asia Online appears to based in Singapore with a heavy establishment in India and has combined the process of survey taking with a binary MLM compensation plan.

Obviously in the business of getting their members to undertake surveys, there’s no products to sell but Speak Asia does encourage it’s members to go out and recruit other members via financial commissions.

I was a bit hesitant to write about Speak Asia initially as in my opinion it’s not really a MLM company, but they do utilise an MLM binary compensation plan and can be marketed just as any other MLM company.

In the end I thought I’d publish my thoughts on Speak Asia from a business perspective. [Continue reading…]


World Ventures Review: Travel niche recruiting scam

World Ventures is a MLM company founded back in 2005 within the travel industry niche. Founded by Wayne Nugent and Mike Azcue, World Ventures is located in Plano, TX (Dallas) and is ‘privately owned and operated and debt-free‘.

As of the last few years the travel niche within the MLM industry seems to have become somewhat saturated with new startups. World Ventures is particularly notable in this respect as the company has now been around for six years, long before the trend towards travel companies occurred.

For this reason a review of Travel Ventures is particularly interesting. A review of World Ventures is going, provides us with a snapshot into the potential future of some of the newer travel niche MLM startups of late.

So, did being one of the first companies to combine travel and MLM pay off for World Ventures?

Let’s find out. [Continue reading…]


TVI wins Indonesian International Good Company Award

tvi-express-logoDespite being banned or under investigation in the US, Australia, China and parts of Africa, some countries seem to be happy to allow TVI to conduct business within their borders.

Some are even actively encouraging TVI Express to flourish. Take Indonesia for example who recently awarded TVI an ‘International Good Company Award. Apparently it was for TVI’s ‘best service excellence for year 2010-2011‘, but I haven’t been able to track down any independent information (in English or Indonesian) about this award or the ceremony, so who knows.

TVI are claiming the award is ‘one of the most prestigious business awards‘ in Indonesia and that it was presented to them by ‘Sjarifuddin Hasan, the Indonesian minister of cooperatives and small & medium enterprises‘, so you’d think there’d be at least some government or media coverage. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough but I’ve personally yet to see any. [Continue reading…]