How much money can I really make? I’m convinced that 99% of the people that join a network marketing organization have no idea what they really have to do to make money. You know the story; you’re approached by a friend who’s all excited about the new company and all the money you two can make. When you ask him if he’s making money, he tells you that he just got started, but he saw a guy at the meeting that was definitely making the big bucks, and he was assured that anyone could do it. Does this sound familiar? I’d like to make a simple suggestion. Do the following exercise for any networking company that you belong too, or are thinking about joining. It’s pretty simple, and could save you time and money (maybe a lot). Follow these steps and let me know how your company rates.

1. Pick an arbitrary (but reasonable) figure that you would like to start earning on an ongoing basis. (For this article, I’m going to pick $500 a month. )
2. Get a copy of the company’s compensation plan.
3. Determine which product is the most profitable for you to market. (This is usually their leading product)
4. Determine how much you need to spend monthly to earn a check (also known as qualification)
5. Find out how many people you will need to have on your personal team to create the amount from #1 ($500 in our example).
6. Find out the total sales volume you will need to create with your personal team to create the amount from #1 ($500 in our example).
7. See if the answers to the above are reasonable and that you believe you can build the team and sales volume required in a reasonable timeframe.

Now there are a few reasons that I picked $500 as a reasonable number.

a) You have to make $500 a month before you can make $50,000 a month
b) This is a reasonable and believable amount for most people
c) $500 can make a huge difference in people’s lives if used correctly. See the sidebar on Credit Card debt in the US for more information.

Making $500 with different Network Marketing Companies.

First the Disclaimers, I’d like to make a few disclaimers before I start mentioning particular companies.

• I only looked at the residual part of each compensation plan, and did not take into account bonus resulting from the sale of one-time kits.
• I tried to determine the fastest way to earn $500 residually on each plan, but plans are structured differently, so a different product mix, or building strategy could produce different results.
• I am not an expert on the details of every compensation plan shown below, but I invite feedback from anyone who can provide me with clarification or details on a better way to accomplish this goal with any of the plans shown.

VitaLife – www.vitalifenetworks.com

The VitaLife Plan is a simple Uni-level compensation plan that pays out a majority of compensation in the first few levels. A copy of their compensation plan can be found here.
https://www.vitalif.com/shopping/myCompany/downloads/VitaLife%20Compensa...
You only need to do 75PV to qualify for compensation, and key products have a 1:1 BV ratio. The VitaLife plan pays 5% for your first tier, and 25% for your second. Here is a grid to see how these numbers are calculated.

VitaLife Summary - Build a team of 30 people spending $75 a month or $2,250 in sales to earn $500.

Cyberwize. www.cyberwize.com

Sells the Tunguska Blast which is very similar to VitaLife. Cyberwize has a Binary Compensation Program. A complete copy of their compensation plan can be found here.
http://www.cyberwize.com/_cyberwize2008/pdf/CompPlan.pdf
Here is a summary of their binary compensation cycle payout:

To qualify for income, you need to do 100PV personally. This is about $140 for Tunguska Blast 4 pack. To complete a pay cycle and earn $1000, you need 12,900 BV. They best BV ratio is about $140 for 100 BV. Let’s assume you need about 6,000BV to make $500. This would be 60 sales at $140 or $8400 in product volume. Discounting potential spill, you would need 60 customers spending a total of $8,400 to earn $500. In the very best case, with a 1/3 2/3 binary, you would need about 2000BV if you got placed on a power leg. This is still 20 customers spending $140 or $2,800 in volume, but fewer members than not in a binary get their entire power leg built for them.

Cyberwize Summary – Build a team of 60 people spending $140 a month or $8,400 in sales to earn $500.

Monavie - www.monavie.com

– Primary compensation plan is a binary. A complete copy of their compensation plan can be found here:
http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/compen...
You need to order $130 case to get 100PV to qualify. Monavie pays 10% of the BV in your weaker leg. So to make $500 with Monavie, you would need 5,000 BV in your weaker leg or 10,000 BV if your binary tree was perfectly balanced. If each distributor is doing 100PV, You’ll need 100 distributors (50 each side) spending $130 for a total volume of $13,000 in the best case to earn $500. If you are lucky enough to be placed on a power leg, then you’ll still need to put in 50 members spending $130 each ($6,500), but a majority of the people in a binary will not get spill, and they will have to do double the work. This is one of the key issues with a binary plan.

Monavie Summary – Build a team of 100 people spending $130 a month or $13,000 in sales to earn $500.

Mannatech – www.mannatech.com

Sells Glyconutrients and other wellness products. Their comp plan is 23 pages long and is the most complex I’ve seen. They promote getting started with their All Star Pack. This pack is $1,100 and has 2000 PQC. This lets you earn the largest payout in their plan when you start. Since all of their marketing and compensation plans on the web start with you buying $1,000 kits and duplicating this trend, we are not including them in our $500 residual. I’d like to have someone let me know what needs to happen to earn $500 residually. Here’s a link to their complex plan.
https://www.mannatech.com/Resources/en/us/pdf/USCompPlan.pdf

Mannatech Summary – Extremely Complex Comp Plan, have to join by paying $1,100 to qualify for best compensation payouts.

Amway / Quixtar – www.quixtar.com

Amway runs with a Unilevel plan. Their plan is easy to understand, you get paid an increasing percentage of your business volume (BV) as your production volume (PV) increases. You need to do 100 PV a month (about $230 in core products) to get paid. Here is their tiered payout schedule:

Even though their plan is easy to understand, it’s quite difficult to calculate your earnings because you have to deduct the amount paid to everyone in your down-line from your percentage. For example, if you are at the 15% level, first you multiply 15% times your total BV. But then if you have 4 people on your team that earn smaller checks (at the 3% to 9% level), you deduct their earnings from your percentage to get your actual pay. To earn $500 by selling core products (most profitable product) , you would need a team of 33 people spending $230 a month on DoubleX to make $500.

Amway / Quixtar Summary – You must Spend $230 a month to qualify, build a team of 33 people buying $230 each or $7590 in sales to earn $500.

Univera (also known as Oasis) – www.univera.com

Has a unilevel program that’s easy to understand and implement. Their compensation plan can be found here:
http://www.opportunityofyourlife.com/pdf/CompPlan.pdf
They have lots of products, they average about ½ BV per dollar on Ageless Xtra. Here is their associate pricing http://www.getrenewal.com/index_files/price.pdf . Let’s compare the same 5x5 grid we used on VitaLife to see what you need to do to make $500. You would need 65 people spending $149 each (100BV) to earn $500 as Executive Earner. This is $9,685 in volume to make $500. Even if you sponsored 100% of the team yourself at the highest 15% pay level, you would need to sponsor 61 people and have them each spend $100 to make $500. Also – most leaders try to get new associates to sign up by buying the $1,438 starter package that has 1175 BV.

Univera Summary – Build a team of 65 people spending $149 a month ($9,750 in sales) to earn $500.

Would you rather build a team of 30 people spending $75 monthly or a team of 65 spending $149 to earn your $500?

Comparison of Team Size and Sales Volume to earn $500.