A Prospect’s Story

There’s a good thread going on in my blog post on How To Earn Tool Income and Become a Director on Orrin Woodward’s TEAM from new commenter, Danny. Here’s a couple of his posts in their entirety:

I’m commenting because I almost got sucked in, but I suspect the person who tried to recruit me is a little clueless. Either that, or he really has no problem lying to my face.

A month ago I was told about TEAM by someone I had just met. We got into a discussion about the book “Cashflow Quadrant” and he really seemed like he knew what he was talking about. I already knew about all that he was telling me and have been applying it to my life to generate passive income. I understand these concepts very well.

He told me he was a “financial advisor” and then showed me what he goes over with his “clients.” I had no idea this was something given to him by TEAM. He really presented himself to be something else. So we began our discussion. And he “showed me the plan.”

I didn’t get it at first. But he was talking about “profit sharing” and the “depth model” rather than “width model” and I understood the value in profit sharing. All his info was right on, accurate, and it seemed to me at first that Orrin and Chris had come up with a system (TEAM) to make a broken system (MLM, Quixstar, Amway) work.

But I had no idea it had anything to do with Monavie. After a few meetings of discussing Leadership and this and that I thought he was in some networking group that developed leaders. He started loaning me books and CDs and it was nothing new to me at all. I wasn’t overly impressed but I thought hey, this is all great information, I’m curious now. But he still presented himself as someone who is working with a team of people whose purpose is to develop leaders. I had NO idea it was MLM!

He kept telling me that I need to go hear his mentor speak and I wanted to at the time. But he presented it as if it was some speaking engagement. Little did I know it was a house meeting where they gather people, do a vague and misleading sales pitch and request their money to join.

All the while I couldn’t understand where MY profit would come from if we didn’t sell product to people. All he would tell me was that it came from “profit sharing” and “self-consumption.” OK great, but how does having 10 people on my taproot self consuming juice that returns a 5% profit give me income? He dodged my questions and answered them with questions JUST LIKE THE TEAM BUILDER’S TEXTBOOK TELLS THEM TO. (He lent me that book, too – not a smart move).

I totally get the value of Monavie, acai berry, glucosamine, etc. You don’t have to sell me on that. You don’t even have to sell me on leadership – I get it. But how was this a business?

It seems to me that TEAM preys on people with the idea of “owning your own business” to “stop trading time for money” – which we all want to do – yet when you are working for TEAM, you are trading time for money, you don’t really own your own business, and you have to spend 90% of your time running around to meetings that are all the same and… for what?

What are they building leaders for? The materials teach you how to build TEAM teams… and get them to see the value in leadership and buying tools. I don’t get it!

He never once told me EVER that in order to make money at this I need to be on autoship for Monavie for $200/month, and that he would need to place bulk orders through me in order to generate more pv (what the hell is ‘pv’ anyway?) and money. I still don’t get it.

Doesn’t add up.

Each time I asked where my profit would come from he deflected it with another question or off-topic answer or comment.

He actually gave me the “Team Builder’s Textbook” to read, and I immediately got their scheme. Canned answers and instructions for every consideration you could possibly have thrown at you. They tell you to lie to people, avoid answering questions and just get them to the meetings and show the plan and keep showing it.

He told me that he makes $2,000/month doing this, and he’s been doing it for 2 years. I could increase my income by that much or more just by taking on 1 extra client per month. Why would I want to spend 2-5 years building this business, spending $100’s a month just to get $2k/month?

He INSISTED that ALL of the profits we would earn come directly from Monavie. That being “on system” just costs $100/month, and there is nothing else you need to buy to make money.

But that doesn’t add up with all the ex TEAM members who are posting here who say that to make money you have to do more than that. And I don’t believe him – I believe the people here.

Maybe he’s misled himself… and he hasn’t really been active enough to know that making money requires being a “power player” which requires purchasing 5-8 cds per week and 2 books per month on autoship plus buying all the other junk and all the seminars, etc.

But what really gets me is the outright misrepresentation!!!!!!!!

**He told me that TEAM does not sell products to people.
Then how is this an MLM? Where do I make a profit?

**He told me that TEAM’s model is SELF CONSUMPTION.
But I don’t want to drink over priced juice.

**He told me that TEAM never requires having inventory on hand to push.
But why did he want to order 10 cases of Monavie through me? I sure as hell won’t drink it.

**He told me that the profits come from “profit sharing” in Monavie
But why would I want to spend $200/month just to earn 5% of my own purchase back?

**He told me that being “on system” meant simply that you are “utilizing the leadership training tools”
But he never told me that I had to pay for them and subscribe to them monthly until I squeezed it out of him.

**The house meeting said it cost just $189 to start
But when they handed me the sign up sheet, it was to be a Monavie distributor, and order 1 case a month on autoship. They never said I was going to be a Monavie distributor. What the f–k?

**He told me that all the profits come from Monavie
But how is that even possible if we don’t sell it to people? Do I drink myself to death? Use it to brush my teeth with? Bathe my cat with juice? Find 101 other uses for it?

If we all share in the profits, then why does it matter who gets in first if there are no “levels?”

I just don’t get it at all. I still don’t.

How can someone just lie to my face like that? And expect me to see them in full integrity?

Does that happen to other people, too? Where they outright LIE?

Here’s what I see –

Orrin and Chris worked for Quixtar and decided to start their own company just like it, so that they could be on the top. They found a DIFFERENT acai berry juice company to partner with and push, so that it at least SEEMS legit to people and they push their leadership bullcrap on everyone as their main business. Why even use Monavie?

I am so confused. And no one has answers. Needless to say I am not joining!!!

and

It bothers me greatly that they throw a lot of religious bible stuff in their speeches and books. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against religion. The bible is a great fictional book with lots of cool stories inside. And Joel Osteen is one of my favorite authors – but I am ZERO percent Christian, not interested at all in it… but his message is very powerful. There are many authors like that who take the high road with their faith and can still get a great message out to people and they can receive it well.

But Orrin and Chris seem to toss religion in NOT as their personal experience (“Jesus saved my life and this is what I’ve accomplished and how I’ve grown because of it”) but rather telling people how it is for them (“This is what Jesus wants for YOU, so you need to do it.”)

Huge difference! And a disgusting one at that.

My recruiter is NOT making $2,000/month. When I first met him, before he approached me about the “business” he told me he was still living at home at age 28 because he couldn’t afford his own apartment and he wanted to marry his girlfriend and “bring her home” (as they say in TEAM).

Then as he started sharing the “business” with me just 1 week later, he told me that he has been with TEAM for 2 years but is not making any money with them and he blamed himself. He said he’s been screwing around and not working hard enough. I thought oh that sounds like someone with integrity and accountability.

But then just 2 weeks later when I brought a friend with me to the only house meeting I went to, my recruiter told my friend he was making $2,000/month! BOLD FACED LIE. Where’s the integrity now?

Normally I do look to the individual and say hey, if you’re not making any money in your business venture it is your fault. But that only works when the actual system works. With TEAM I have to say that no one is at fault for not making it work for them because it’s stacked against them from the start!

What else bothers me? They split up the groups by men and women. What? I work better in groups with women. The men drive me insane. I don’t care about “bringing my wife home” I don’t have a wife. I don’t identify with these men. At all. So why should I waste my time and money going to meetings to talk to them.. about what?

My recruiter actually made a comment to me that made me wonder what brainwashed bible camp he went to as a child, and it made me think, wow, if he knew anything about me he’d have so much judgment against me it would be ridiculous. He talked about his mentor and told me, “yeah, man, before Chris came to TEAM, he had a full beard an earrings!!!!! Now look what TEAM has done for him!”

…

O.o

Why is it that all these people are so religious and trying to keep men and women in different spaces?

Another thing I don’t get is that my recruiter told my buddy that once he joins TEAM he can CUT OFF all of his mentors and coaches that he has currently (who are high level highly sought after coaches who provide unbeatable value) and he told my friend he can get ALL of that mentorship from one man – for free – the man who used to have earrings.

Seems a little like they view their upline as godly.

I admit, when I first read the stuff on this site I thought, no way! That can’t be. Naysayers…

But when TEAM told me 2+2=7.4 I stayed even more open to the possibility that this was an even bigger scam than I thought. Sure enough, it is!

and finally:

I never paid a cent to them. I had them “hold my spot” while I did more research but they never got that money out of me.

At sign up, you can get 1 case or 2 cases. Here is the info on getting 1 case of Monavie:

$39 Registration Fee
$130 Case (10% Shipping 13)
$59 Year of Free Shipping

TOTALS:
$228 with the free shipping option
$182 without free shipping

So all you get for $182 is 1 case of Monavie.

But in the 2 case option they call it a “LEADERSHIP PACK” and in this “LEADERSHIP PACK” you get 2 cases of Monavie and then a bunch of other individual Monavie flavors or whatever the other versions are.

What doesn’t make sense is that even if I pay $59 to get a year full of free shipping I still have to pay 10% of my order for the first order.

They offer this free shipping thing so that they can PUSH MASSIVE CASES through the new members. You can only get free shipping when you first sign up, so they push you to get it. And YES they WILL PAY YOU for getting the free shipping option and they WILL PAY YOU for ordering the bulk.

A couple of interesting things are revealed in Danny’s story.

1. The Sling, Squeeze and Side Action is alive and well in TEAM, based on Danny’s comments about holding his spot.
2. TEAM Approach Volume was also well described in Danny’s comments.
3. As stated in the original post on the subject, distributors are not told to tell prospects that there’s an income potential from being a part of TEAM. Earning money is supposed to only come from the MLM-side of the business — in this case, MonaVie.
4. There’s confusion, however, on the part of prospect. Is he or she in MonaVie or TEAM? This confusion also existed back in the Amway/Quixtar days, and it’s obviously still happening today.