I’m not much of a name dropper, but it’s been my experience that in the network marketing sub-culture there is a never-ending game of one-uppance when it comes to proving which home based business is the best. For good or bad, the quest for proximity to these “heavy hitters” often causes the mediocre network marketer to jump ship and chase after the next big fish who signs on early to a new company. One of the most recent examples – and for good reason – is the annoucement of master trainer Tim Sales becoming distributor in a new company called Ariix (pronounced “arr-ehx”).
A dear friend of mine approached me about the Ariix Home Based Business and asked for my opinion on it and rather than just keeping it to myself, I’ve decided to share it here on my blog.
One of the first things that sticks out to me about this company is the corporate created marketing is slick. Though probably not the most compatible in all browsers, the Ariix MLM website looks incredible. This is nothing to write off. In today’s day and age, a network marketing company’s website gives the first impression of what the company is made of. And my first impression (correct or incorrect) is that Ariix is made of money.
The second aspect of the Ariix MLM that I find incredibly positive is the training and the endorsement of master MLM trainer Tim Sales. There’s no reason to lay out all of Tim’s accomplishments, but the man is a fabulous trainer and his techniques and training have led to not only himself earning millions, but likely created many millionaires using his approach as well. The fact that Tim Sales was “coming out of retirement” for the Ariix launch is no doubt creating some buzz in the industry.
As of the time of this writing, Ariix has 5 products – rejuveniix, vitamins, minerals, omega-Q, and vinali. I have not tried the products, but I have no doubt that they likely do as they claim. I am no herbalist nor a physician, so I will not pretend to be one. The formulas could very well be proprietary and life-changing. Customer testimonials and time will tell. I did a cursory search for Ariix testimonials and was unable to find any at the moment. The company is very new, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Once again, I’m sure Tim Sales would not have jumped blindly into a company unless it had sound products, so I would lean to them being quality nutritional supplements.
The Ariix Compensation Plan is incredibly innovative, but also the most troubling aspect of the company to me. On the outset, Ariix seems like an opportunity that looks like the next best thing and despite the beautiful and well-designed compensation plan video, the true nuts and bolts of the plan do not give me that “warm and fuzzy” that the other aspects of the company do.
First off, price and PV to actual dollars spent seems low to me. Without the IIX membership upgrade (which I will cover shortly), it looks like $142.86 plus shipping nets a distributor $75 in actual commissionable volume. That’s about a 50% price to volume ratio… that means you’re really only compensated on roughly half of the money that you generate through your organization. Secondly, the start packages are huge! We’re talking $1100 to start with a big business in a box package. This will create some pretty large checks no doubt, but in all my years in the business I have found it takes a special breed of folks to be able to sell packages of this size. Given the rampant unemployment and low consumer confidence, finding folks willing to shell out $1100 is going to be a tough nut to crack.
To Ariix’s credit, they do have some other options which cost less however. The only thing that does not sit well with me is this “one-time only” choice of whether or not to upgrade to being a IIX (pronounced “two-X”) member. This $150 upgrade allows you to earn more money in the pay-plan over time. However, it just does not sit well with me. From a regulatory standpoint, I am not so sure that a state attorney general would like it much either. It seems very much like a “pay-to-play” enticement and I without it being attached to any kind of real product, tool, or training, it just looks like a fee to pad the compensation plan. I am not a fan of it because I think it might also create a higher pressure sales situation and that is something that we do not need more of in network marketing. No one likes to feel pressured, but this $150 take-it-or-leave-it bonus could create an unequal playing field for those who are low-income or cash/credit poor and cannot afford to upgrade.
I prefer companies allow people to upgrade these sorts of things throughout their time as a distributor. That way someone can work their way up from an initial small investment and use their MLM cash-flow to upgrade at a later date. Another very innovative a cool aspect of the Ariix payplan is that instead of just being a binary, it’s sort of a tri-nary or even penta-nary plan if you want … that is, at certain levels you can activate (they call it ACTIV8) multiple paylegs. You have one powerleg that gets potentially gets “spill” from corporate and upline growth, but you can have multiple paylegs simultaneously.
This seems very cool, but the hidden catch is that you must keep all these spots active and I predict there will be garages full of vitamins from those with several business centers going simultaneously. Not that that is wrong or illegal, but you have to keep up the autoships on each position which will result in lots of excess product if you’re not adequately retailing person-to-person. Furthermore at $100 a pack wholesale to the distributor, retailing these vitamins and supplements person to person may prove difficult for those who don’t live on the set of Real Housewives: Atlanta… but I digress. Ariix also has a car-plan with a savings account attached for the down-payment (VERY COOL!) and they also have a tremendous training system in place.
In conclusion, I find Ariix to be a company with a lot of potential. No network marketing company is perfect. They could do a bit better by offering the IIX upgrade at anytime in a distributor’s tenure and the product pricing could be a little more competitive with the outside market, but overall I think it is a solid company. I did not focus on the corporate team, but that is because it is solid with former USANA CEO Fred Cooper at the helm. Ariix will make Tim Sales and many others a great deal of money and like nearly all network marketing companies a lot of people will start out on fire, run out of gas and eventually quit before making any real money. To situate yourself on the correct side of that spectrum, I suggest signing up with a Crushyourdayjob endorsed network marketing leader. They can show you what it takes to position yourself to make a real, significant income in a home based business.
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