Lifebrook Review: Truth Behind Claims

The Basics

The Products

Compensation Plan: Earning Purple Benjamins

Lifebrook brags of not just growing aronia berry for its business but “growing people” as well. According to the company, it has six ways of rewarding its Advocates. To start it, you need to purchase the company’s Electronic Business Kit for $49.95 or by buying its optional Fast Start Packs. The company offers three options for you to choose from: Fast Start Pack 1 that costs $120 (includes six-pack of Puronia, two single shots of Puronia On the Go and one bottle of Puronia that could be sent to a prospect), Fast Start Pack 2 that costs $220 (includes eight-pack of Puronia, 12-pack Puronia On the Go, one HydraZorb Aroina Muscl & Joint Rub, brochures, and one bottle of Puronia to be sent to two different prospects) and Fast Start Pack 3 that costs $320 (includes 12-pack Puronia, 24-pack Puronia On the Go, two 2 HydraZorb™ Aronia Muscle & Joint Rub, brochures, and one bottle of Puronia to be sent to three different prospects)

Upon being accepted, you would begin selling Lifebrook products through your individual Lifebrook website provided to you. This serves as a part of your monthly business support program. You would also be provided with some marketing tools, online back office, training and mentorship.

On the other hand, to be eligible for bonuses, you need to maintain your active status by producing $32 Personal Bonus Value (PBV or the accumulated Bonus Value of all the products you purchased and the products purchased by your Retail and Preferred Customers)

Once attaining the said amount of PBV, an Advocate would be eligible for the following commissions and bonuses.

• Retail Commissions

Lifebrooks assures of 20 percent commission for all active Advocates on all Personal Retail Sales which is paid weekly. Hence, if you would be able to make a $100 retail sale, you would automatically have $20 as your Retail Commission.

• Preferred Customer Program

Since Lifebrook also promotes the use of its website in purchasing its products, the company allows you to find your Preferred Customers (PC) who would agree to a monthly Lifebrook product auto-ship.

 This would let the PC enjoy a 20 percent PC discount on various items. You, on the other hand as an Advocate, would have 20 percent PC Bonus based on the products Bonus Value (BV) of each PC.

• Advocate Team Bonuses

By recruiting other individuals to be Advocates and be part of your team, you would be able to receive the Advocate Team Bonuses (ATB) for five levels deep. To have it, you need to at least provide $32 PBV to be considered active and eligible for this bonus. You are eligible for the 10 percent Advocate Team Bonus on the assigned BV of the Advocate’s Personal Purchase and so as for the 5 percent commission from any of their Retail Customers’ purchases.

You, being the upline, could enjoy this bonus down to five levels deep depending on the “Stars” you have. A One-Star Advocate is eligible for ATB from Level 1 to Level 2 (requires one active PC), Two-Star Advocate is eligible for ATB from Level 1 to Level 4 (requires two active PC), and Three-Star Advocate is eligible for ATB from Level 1 to Level 5 (requires three active PC).

• Fast Start Pack Bonus

To be considered as an official Advocate in the company, you need to purchase the company’s $49.95 Electronic Business Kit. You also would also be offered to purchase the optional Fast Star Pack. By purchasing the latter, your enroller would be eligible for the Fast Start Pack Bonus (FSPB). Hence, you could also be eligible for this bonus if your recruit would choose to purchase the optional Fast Start Pack instead of the $49.95 Electronic Business Kit.

This gives you a one-time bonus of 25 percent on the Fast Start Pack of each of your recruits. However, do remember that upon securing the 25 percent bonus from FSPB, your 10 percent ATB from that particular Advocate’s purchase of Fast Start Pack would be stripped off of you.

• Indirect PC Level Bonuses

Besides benefitting from the purchases of the Retail Customers of the Advocates under you, you are also eligible for 5 percent Preferred Customer Level bonuses on their PC’s assigned BV purchases. You, being the upline, are eligible for this bonus down to five levels deep depending on your Star status.

• Executive Bonus

To be qualified for this bonus, you first need to reach the rank of a Three-Star Director that requires three active PCs and five front-line active Advocates.

The Executive Bonus depends on the accumulated Total Group Bonus Value (TGBV) of your downline. Upon reaching the Three-Star Director status, you could be a Ruby Executive by producing $100,000 in one month. This would give you 1 percent of your TGBV down to the next Executive that would be promoted under you.

On the other hand, the Emerald Executive requires $500,000 TGBV in one month and gives you 2 percent of your TGBV down to the next Executive that would be promoted under you. Lastly, the Diamond Executive requires you to produce $1 million TGBV and gives you 3 percent of your TGBV down to the next Executive that would be promoted under you.

To enjoy all of these bonuses, here are the succession of ranks at Lifebrook that you need to go through.

• Active Advocate
• Business Builder
• Team Builder
• Team Leader
• Director
• Ruby Executive
• Emerald Executive
• Diamond Executive

Can I Earn at Lifebrooks?

This is the question that possibly brought you into this article. So, can you really generate money by selling Lifebrook products? Well, that is possible. All MLM companies that offer you products to sell could obviously help you generate profit. However, would you be able to earn well in this company? That is for an income disclosure statement to say. Unfortunately, Lifebrook doesn’t produce its income disclosure statement for the public to see.

Nonetheless, based on the compensation plan presented by Lifebrook, you would get the hunch for what you should expect about the income you could possibly generate once you jump into this opportunity.

It is great that Lifebrook offers 20 percent commission on Advocate’s retail sales and 20 percent on a PC’s purchases. Nevertheless, if you would think of things, such commissions would just generate you little earnings. The percentage of commission being promised by Lifebrook is far lower than other MLM companies that even offer more than 40 percent sales commissions.

The Executive Bonus, on the other hand, despite the promising three percent extreme TGBV Diamond Executive Bonus seems not compensating enough for anyone.  Requiring a team of people to produce $1 million TGBV only for a single person to get the promising 3 percent TGBV Executive Bonus seems ridiculous. Doing the math, with that $1 million TGBV your team would produce, you would only get 3 percent of the said sales which is equivalent to $30,000. To earn such an amount for a month seems enticing but if you would look at it, the company would be earning a million of dollars just for you to get 3 percent of the sales that you and your team worked hard for. And, then again, that is if you would reach the Diamond Executive rank which, by the way, is a steep mountain to climb.

Also, selling the same limited options of products to the market would not secure you continuous flow of sales. Though it is possible that aronia berry could bring great health benefits, the fact that there are other available dietary supplements in the market that offer a wide array of nutrients in lower prices could make the sale of Lifebrook products in total uncertainty. You could always reason out the health benefits that Lifebrook aronia products could give but there are also other aronia-based products in the market that are far cheaper.

With that, would you really make decent income from this opportunity? You know what the answer is. Nevertheless, is it really just because of the products and the flaws of the company’s compensation plan? No. There is a bigger culprit.

The Culprit

Lifebrook is a legit MLM company. Nevertheless, that’s what makes it a faulty opportunity.

MLMs, though deemed legal, are using the pyramid structure that was first popularized by pyramid schemes. In this system, MLM companies compile the numbers of recruits in a huge pyramid structure wherein those who joined the opportunity in its early inception period would be placed on top. On the other hand, the new recruits would be placed at the bottom of the system. This makes up the organization inside an MLM opportunity. This structure itself is legal. Nevertheless, the way the earnings of the individuals inside the system flow makes the whole opportunity somehow questionable.

In MLMs, those individuals placed at the upper or top part of the pyramid structure generate most of their income through “commissions.” Though the word is being presented as a positive and enticing way to earn your income in the industry, it is actually a curse for everyone at the bottom. Through commissions, those at the top are eligible for obtaining portions of earnings of those individuals underneath them. While it serves as a leeway for those at the top to earn more, it is a burden for those at the bottom as portions of their earnings are being taken away from them.

This leads most of the MLM individuals to focus on recruiting others for their downline since recruitment of members assures earnings. However, this also serves as a loophole for pyramid schemes hiding under an MLM cloak. By requiring new recruits to purchase products for their membership and mandatory monthly purchases, the flow of income for the system would be secured. However, that is the flaw in such a system since the members themselves become the consumers of the company’s products.

According to Jon M. Taylor, MBA, Ph.D. of Consumer Awareness Institute in his 15-year study entitled “The Case (for and) against Multi-level Marketing,” MLM industry has a problematic system.

After studying the data from 350 from leading MLM companies, he stated that “100% of them are recruitment-driven and top-weighted. In other words, the vast majority of commissions paid by MLM companies go to a tiny percentage of TOPPs (top-of-the-pyramid promoters) at the expense of a revolving door of recruits, 99% of whom lose money. This is after subtracting purchases they must make to qualify for commissions and advancement in the scheme, to say nothing of minimal operating expenses for conducting an aggressive recruitment campaign – which (based on the compensation plans) is essential to get into the profit column.”

With that, Taylor stated that “MLM as a business model – with its endless chain of recruitment of participants as primary customers – is flawed, unfair, and deceptive. Worldwide feedback suggests it is also extremely viral, predatory and harmful to many participants. This conclusion does not apply just to a specific MLM company, but to the entire MLM industry. It is a systemic problem.”

With the obviously diminutive profit in the Lifebrook opportunity that would only be worsened through the ugly system of MLM industry, you know where you would end up.

Weighing Things: Pros and Cons

Though you already know the facts about Lifebrook that you should consider before diving into the opportunity it offers, let us still have a review of everything through the list of our pros and cons about the company.

Pros

1. Lifebrook focuses on one particular ingredient on its products. This lets the company focus on the development of their products.
2. Aronia, according to studies, possesses great capabilities in bringing multiple health benefits to an individual.
3. Though the company offers Fast Start Packs ranging from $120 to $320, you have the cheapest option of joining the company with just the amount of $49.95. That is way cheaper than the prices of other MLM companies’ membership.

Cons

1. Lifebrook has a limited number of products. This also limits your sales as your consumers have limited options of products to choose from.
2. Though there are studies about the aronia berry, the claims of the company about the health benefits that its products could give remain unproven without the studies focusing on the product themselves.
3. The compensation plan can’t assure you of decent earnings. The bonuses promise too little profit for anyone.
4. The company doesn’t have its income disclosure statement. This is a red flag. Though almost all MLM companies promise lucrative compensations, the efficacy of their compensation plans wouldn’t be proven unless they are backed with income disclosure statements containing favorable figures. With a company that can’t even present its own members’ earning figures, you don’t know where you would land in such an opportunity.
5. Lifebrook is an MLM. Despite being legal, the system of the entire MLM industry is problematic.

Conclusion