Am I a sucker? - long ass rant (warned)
 

Forgive the rant, if you read through it, thanks :) I also summarized it at the bottom, for those who didn't want to read the wall of text.

~~~~ WARNING LONG RANT POST ~~~~~~

Am I a sucker?

I signed up as an independant representative for a company called ACN. Its a relationship marketing (MLM) / communications company that has been in business for years.

I did my research and everything seems perfectly legit. A MLM company with great products and a really nice compensation plan.

Basically, the idea is to get other recruits (its $500 to sign up), but also, you can sell, wireless, local longdistance, DSL, and an in house video phone, and you get residual income for life.

The company is being showcased on Celebrity Apprentice on March 22nd and is endorsed by Donald Trump.

One of the reasons I am here asking is because when I saw the company, I immediately thought of the way the adult biz is run online. Isin't the internet, for the most part, relationship marketing?

Do you think I am a sucker for joining a company like this? Everyone I've presented it to so far just laughs at me for being a sucker. But I am using the dsl/video phone/cell phone service and everything is great.

The thing is, if you don't sign anyone up, and they don't do any work, you don't get any money. But the more people you sign up and more services you sell, the more residual income and bonus's you get.


So this got me thinking.... why not with online porn?

Affiliate makes people PAY a one time fee to promote their material.
Person who signs up is responsible for finding 2 other people to sign up to the affiliate program, and generate 10 signups to the adult sites they are promoting using galleries.

Person is promoted to next level and gets an increase on payments and potential affiliate signup bonus.

Promoted Person trains 2 new people to get 2 more people to sign up and generate 10 signups each.

Promote person gets promoted again

Person trains team to get people to sign up and make galleries and generate signups.

As person moves up each level, payment on promotion % increases. Levels 1-2 you only earn a small % + sign up bonus (new reps and gallery makers)
levels 2-3 you only earn a small % + sign up bonus (train new top level 2 to make sites)
levels 4-5 you earn a medium % + sign up bonus

Once a top level (maybe 7) is achieved you get sign up bonus, big % payout

So thats the basic idea, except I will be doing this will cell phone service, direct tv and the in house video phone.

So would this be a good idea?? or have I smoked way to much pot in my day??

~~~~~ End of Rant ~~~~~
Summary

I joined a mainstream MLM company for $500 and think its the shit
I think adopting the system to online porn would be very successful as it would weed out small timers and only generate revenue for people who do work.

The company is called ACN and will be featured on Celeb Apprentice on march 22
I am not going to post any links here, but if you google acn you should have no problem finding it. I would just like some honest opinions on this TYPE of company in these ... economic times, with this type of product.

Thanks

sorry, no offence, but I didn't read the long ass rant, and to be totally honest I lost interest after the first sentence in the "summary" part too :1orglaugh

Yay another Amway. Good for you tiger.

Damn foo.
:2 cents:

build that pyriamid

I think if you concentrated on having 1) Kickass paysites, 2) A reasonable tiering system, and 3) A great webmaster tool package and training program for the new guys, it could work.

Wouldn't envy you the amount of time and/or effort it'd take to set it up properly, but if you launched right I think it could bank.

I just think with the way the internet is going, community has become more global. I am supposed to contact friends and family and get them to sign up. I soon realized most of my 'friends' I've never met.

I agree, it would be a lot of hard work, but building a community is what the internet has been doing for years, so a lot of the tools are already there.

Basically Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) --> http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/042104.asp

ACN Review

The earnings made by selling services are small. Very, very small. As I wrote below, you can have 40 customers and hardly break even! The main money is made by sucking new people into the scheme. They pay the company, and the company give you some percentage of what they paid. And this is very, very similar to pyramid scheme.

Why guy like Donald Trump endorse it? I do not know, but he lately made some strange movements like this - for example co-authoring a book with Robert Kiyosaki, who is admired by some people, and severely ridiculed by another.

Is there money in ACN?

Some people say that most money is made from recruiting new Reps, as in pyramid scheme.

VIII(C), Customer Acquisition Bonuses (CABs) Customer Acquisition Bonuses are paid to Independent Representatives at the level of Executive Team Trainer or higher...

So you don't get bonuses until you've risen within the organization.

There are cost of being ACN Rep. About 499 USD to begin, about 149 yearly - annual fee, monthly fees about six bucks and administrative fee of $1. It is about 230 USD yearly. At 1% commission, total billing would have to be over $23,000 or about $1940/mo. That's about 40 average customers. And this is to break even!

Not worth it - the company makes mad bling off your hard work and to be honest, doesn't give a fuck if your successful or not, because they get paid every time - you on the other hand, MIGHT get your investment back. I don't even think you can incentivise a prospect through their program, and get this... you can't even use their logos in promoting the product (VOIP videophones). Good fucking luck with that. I have a mainstream site that i'm sending traffic to a friends join links (I wasn't convinced to spend $500 bucks to just be a reseller), so I have some idea of what this whole deal is all about.

Converting this to some kind of adult program? FAIL. You would be the ONLY one charging to join an affiliate program. :2 cents:

I stopped reading after that:


To answer your question: Yes.

not the best move.

obviously a waste of effort legit or not..

Noone said it..

CLIFF NOTES?

yes you are