Greetings, dear friends.
The Baby-Boomer market is a massive target industry for
the wellness industry. Baby-Boomers have generally
lived in much greater luxury than their ancestors, and
have experienced much greater freedom to play. As we
(yes, I'm another one of them) age, we want to continue
to play and enjoy life, yet age DOES take its toll.
For this reason, any product that markets itself as a
way to live more actively, have more fun, or experience
less age-related illnesses or conditions is going to
catch our eye.
With the huge and booming wellness industry catering to
this ever-growing crowd, many of the so-called
nutrition companies are simply getting a third-party
manufacturer to throw together a bunch of vitamins and
minerals so they can flog them as the "best ever"
nutrition supplement in a scheme designed to quickly
build their bank accounts.
I wholeheartedly support the idea of GOOD
nutrition/wellness companies developing and marketing
GOOD products via a FAIR and REASONABLE compensation
plan, but there are very few that really stand out.
Most are simply jumping into the wellness industry
because it is so big and so rich.
One of the best and cheapest ways to market these "new"
products is via MLM, or Network Marketing. Rather than
putting a huge amount of money up front into massive
advertising campaigns and outlets, they develop their
marketing plan, bring in some heavy hitters to get the
ball rolling, and away they go. Often the members at
the top could sell snowballs in Greenland and freezers
to store them in!
They are quite aware that most people will never
sponsor more than three people in their LIFETIME and
many will not even sponsor three. Many compensation
plans are designed to pay only AFTER the first three
are sponsored. Better ones WILL pay immediate
commissions on product sold, but that is generally a
very small figure, anyway.
The largest market, by far, for the vast majority of
MLM companies is to wholesale members, not retail
customers. An autoship order is generally a
requirement in order to earn ANY commissions.
These companies develop extremely rich compensation
plans banking on the fact that most of the members will
never earn a commission larger than a few dollars,
making it possible to pay their superstars vast sums of
money in exchange for their testimonies of instant
wealth.
The good news is, laws have been passed making it a lot
harder for companies to cheat in this way. It's not
legal to develop a compensation plan that can
POTENTIALLY pay out more than a government-set
percentage of total earnings.
The sad thing is that we need these laws in the first
place. If folks would just do their due diligence in
the first place, they would see through the companies
and their inflated compensation plans, and no one would
join.
God bless,
Dave
See also Baby Boomers, Scammers and Snake Oil Salesmen |