Amway, advocare, monavie, herbal life, avon, tupperware... do any of these companies sound familiar? Are they in YOUR box? Are you risking the future of your business for a "down line" and hawking products that your clients may not really need?

Here's the scenario, if you're not sure how MLM works... you sign up "under" a person and pay a registration fee. This fee could be anywhere from $180 (back when I did Amway - yes I did it for a short period) to $2100 (what I believe Advocare is now). With this fee you may or may not get some products however you probably will spend more on that first day. Then you're coded as part of a down line... meaning every order you place, buying products (we'll talk about them in a second) from the Mother Company gets the person who signed you a bonus every month.

The products touted are amazing and spectacular and cure blindness... and honestly are just ok. They are, from when I researched them, about 15- 25% higher in price than other products that you could buy in a store. Also, when it comes to supplements like herbal life or advocare, who needs that anyway? Advocare promotes a 24 day Paleo Zone challenge... really? When did the early man have any supplements such as ANYTHING in advocare? Have you actually read the ingredients? What happened to you REALLY supporting a Paleo/Zone lifestyle? Do you see how hawking "miracle pills" is JUST like every other BS artist in the fitness industry?

You're lying to your clients by promoting this!

No one, that I know, promotes these exact type/amount of products anyway without the MLM aspect... if so, why not just find comparable products from another distributer at wholesale prices and sell them? Because of that darn "down line" is why. Hooking clients on useless products then telling them they will need those products and while you pad your bank account.

Hey, I'm all for doing a more robust business but if you sell MLM in you box you're stepping over wads of cash to pick up pennies. We've documented at CrossFit LA what a client was worth in a 2 year period which is in our free information linked on this blog page.

If you want to make a lot of money and have a secure business have an amazing product, stop charging $150 per month unlimited and charge what you're REALLY worth, work hard, show up when you're supposed to, train your duplicate and repeat.

---

I think this story/statement lacks wisdom. Obviously there are many ways to make money, the real question is how to leverage time. MLM's (as they are negatively tagged) are not all entirely bad for business. I will not defend them all as I would not defend all CrossFit coaches or massage therapists or cops. There are bad ones and there are good ones.
Advocare in specific has been good to me and many other CF boxes.
i think a proper statement would be "Watch how you implement any program into your gym." I have seen it done miserably and I have seen it work like a freedom machine. it is imperative to understand the way in which direct sales (as i like to call it) leverages time and supplies extra value to your athlete/client. In this case I am speaking strictly about Advocare as I do not see the others having the value in terms of world class nutrition which is relevant to any CrossFit Gym.

Check it-
-Instead of your client buying starbucks, monster, full throttle, etc. you can provide them with a healthier option- Spark/Slam.
-instead of dollars going to big corporations, they go to you- 60% of it.
-Instead of stocking your shelves with products to sell all for retail, you can hook your peeps up with a discount and they can direct order.
-Instead of just coaching them in fitness, you have a chance to coach them in nutrition and get paid residual dollars as they enhance their nutritional intake with good products.
-Instead of just having to find ways to charge more, expand space, get more clients, and offer more classes which all take TIME and EFFORT, you can create accounts that over time continue to pay you and give you a chance to EARN MORE and create LEVERAGE.

As Progenex burrows its claws into the gyms with heavy marketing and hot dollars to give away, I would say there are many more products to worry about bringing to your clients. They may not be as high quality as they market themselves. Choose wisely, as many of these respected crossfit coaches have chosen Advocare:

Tommy Hackenbrach
Patrick Burke
Jeremy Theil
Mike Bergener (Endorser)

...and these unpaid athletes
Drew Brees -now the national spokesman and gets paid
Carli Loyd
Michael Redd

...and these institutions
UCONN
Olympic Commission
NCAA


One last note...as for stepping over dollars for pennies, you've got that all wrong- sorry about your failure with Amway. 10k/monthly residual I would not call chump change.
Not everyone one eating Paleo eats paleo all the time, and Zoning takes balance. Constantly varied, yes? True with nutrition as well. I do believe that the ancient were eating herbs, minerals and had healing agents that became their medicine.

You cannot argue such an incredible change in the preventative health mindset as no one else could argue such changes in the future of fitness with CrossFit.
I would say, you have given sound advice before, but this advice is dangerous for success...at best!

OK- I had to cut important info out. It is crucial to know the other affiliates who would take such offense to this notion that MLM's = Cancer in your biz.

Here are a list of other affiliates who use market this line successfully, to name a few:
CF RED
CF CDR
CF RC
CF NLP
CF Cedar City
CF Conquer
CF High Altitude
CF Ute
CF Code
CF Central
Mikes Gym
CF Premier
CF Highlands Ranch
Many more....and many more to come

Do not mistake Advocare with a "short cut to riches" MLM.
The Advocare business is hard and takes hard work, but it builds character and builds wealth. Do we not deserve wealth as we coach the world into health? There is nothing worse than a broke difference maker- A coach that left the industry and lost their love for coaching because to build the lifestyle they want they had to go 60-80 hour weeks.
It's unsustainable. Anyone who says different is a super coach who will always be stuck to their gym or is just young in the business.

It is certainly not for everyone, I agree, but to say it is for no one is a misunderstanding of needs for coaches, needs for our clients and is a statement that resides in the ego.

THanks for sharing your opinion Patrick.

Thanks for the post John. Agree!!

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.