Updated Oct 3, 2019: AdvoCare has been fined $150 million as the FTC calls it a pyramid scheme as it was previously operating. AdvoCare denies it is a pyramid scheme. Under a settlement with the FTC, AdvoCare is permanently banned from multi-level marketing. The agency also said the company would return some money to distributors. The company can continue to sell its products to one level of distributors, who then would sell to consumers.
AdvoCare is an American multi-level marketing company that sells supplements designed to boost the performance of athletes. It was founded in 1993 by Charles Ragus with the vision: advocates who care. Before AdvoCare, Charles was associated with Fidelity Union Insurance and an Herbalife distributor as senior executive. Before AdvoCare, he founded another MLM, Omnitrition International, in 1989. After college, Charles played briefly for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 1960’s. The name AdvoCare is short for “Advocates Who Care”. It is based in Plano, Texas, USA with a total distribution network of more than 623,000 distributors. It was founded as a multi-level marketing (MLM) company that distributes dietary supplement products for sportsmen and athletes.
AdvoCare sells several dietary supplements with regimes such as Trim, Active, Well, Performance Elite, Fit, and 24 Day Challenge. AdvoCare has also worked towards CSR initiatives by forming a foundation. The AdvoCare foundation focuses on the child obesity that greatly hinders the mental capacities of Children. The AdvoCare Foundation is attacking obesity by supporting organizations across the country whose work directly impacts the safety and health of children in need.
AdvoCare Spark is one of the most popular products the company sells. It has also a number of other intriguing products in its portfolio. It sells nutritional products specifically targeted towards athletes and sportsmen. Currently, there are more than twenty products available.
Patrick Wright is the CEO of AdvoCare. Before him, they had 2 interim co-CEOs named Brian Connolly and Reid Ward. Some analysts have criticized the compensation model of the company but the company has removed commissions on recruitments to give an impression in the market that it’s not a pyramid scheme. Combine that with the fact that people can purchase products at retailers without joining the company, and AdvoCare really is not a pyramid scheme. AdvoCare’s products have won a number of awards and the products have been recommended by a number of dieticians and sports nutritionists. Some products of the company have been associated with controversies in the past. Olympic swimmer Jessica Hardy was suspended for a failed dope test on using banned items through consumption of AdvoCare products.
Advocare Products
AdvoCare has 80+ products, ranging from ready-to-drink protein to metabolic system enhancers. All the products of the company are broken down into 5 sub categories called Trim, Active, Well, Performance Elite, and Fit. They also have 3 “Solutions” called Slim & Trim, 24-Day Jumpstart, and Advocare One/80. All these programs are taken as a complete ecosystem and each of these further has a number of purposes to fulfil the designed objectives. AdvoCare products can be divided into four subcategories:
1. Energy Products – The products included in this category are SPARK, AdvoCare rehydrate, AdvoBar, AdvoCare Slam and V16. SPARK is the most popular and flagship product of the company. These products are sold as a “cognitive enhancer”, so they can also be called energy drinks. Either way, Spark seems to have cult status with Advocare users, easily being one of their most popular supplements. SPARK comes in different flavors such as Blue raspberry, cherry, fruit punch, grape, green apple, limeade, mandarin orange, mango strawberry, pink lemonade, and watermelon. They have price ranges from $19 to $55.
2. Sports Performance Products – This category include Biofuel, BodyLean, Biocharge, AdvoCare arginine, O2, Post workout recovery, Nighttime recovery, Muscle strength, Pro 20, Mass impact, rehydrate gel, AdvoCare flex, FIT PACK, PRE, INTRA, POST and Ready-to-drink Protein. These products are specially designed to enhance the physical and mental performance of athletes on and off the field. These products have a price range from $21 to $99.
3. Weight Management Products – This category of products include Meal replacement shakes, pumpkin spice, AdvoCare slim, MNS, AdvoGreens, Meal replacement shakes, Crave checker SR, AdvoCare catalyst, Thermoplus, Carb-Ease and Fibo-Trim. These products have a price range from $25 to $ 49. 4. Wellness Products – This category includes Sleepworks, advo green, AdvoCare core, calcium + D3, Complete AdvoCare, AdvoCare glow, AdvoCare cleanse system, Omegaplex, Probiotic restore, Probiotic fastmelt, Joint ProMotion, BioTune, Clear mood, AdvoCare oasis, C-Grams, Immuno-Guard, Digest-Ease, Formula W and Prostate Support. These products have a price range from $16 to $123.
Advocare Compensation Structure
With AdvoCare, you will be able to make a lot of money and become financially independent. AdvoCare obviously upsells you on becoming a distributor, but they also have a subscription called Preferred Customer. Total discount that a preferred customer gets is 30% but that may go up to 40% if the total bill or amount paid increases during 4 “Purchase Periods” (about 2 months).
For example, during this period, if you buy products from $500 to $99, you may get a discount of up to 25%. Any purchase made over $1000 will make you eligible for the preferred customer discount of 30%. AdvoCare’s Spark costs $54.99 and The Ready-To-Drink Protein costs $44.95. Preferred customers and distributors can get these and other products for less depending on which discount they qualify for. Preferred customers can get all this discount for an annual subscription fee of $19.95. You will be getting a free box of Spark on each annual renewal of the preferred customer program. This makes the prospect of preferred customer even more attractive.
To put that into perspective, sell 1 Spark per month as a distributor and you’ll have made your investment back twice. Becoming a distributor to earn commissions cost $59 for the initial subscription.
Here’s how you earn income as an AdvoCare distributor:
1. Retail Sales – Purchase products at 20%-40% discount as a preferred customer and then sell those at retail price that 20%-40% will function as your commission. This is the easiest way to earn residual income. Your commission depends upon your sales but the minimum commission is 20% in this case. You can earn up to 40% commission if you hit the sale target of $3000 during three consecutive pay periods. With retail sales, you earn your commission by selling products locally.
2. Bonuses – In order to be qualified for different financial bonuses, you must sell five different products to five different customers during a specific pay period. Keep in mind that AdvoCare will actually contact all of the customers to whom you sell your products to verify the authenticity of sale before transferring any bonuses.
3. Wholesale Commissions – You qualify for this commission when a wholesaler visits your website and makes any purchase. In this case, you will be acting as a referral distributor which makes you earn a commission of 20% on any amount of sales made.
4. Override Commissions – This type of commission is only available to wholesalers, advisors, and persons of higher rank. Through this you can make a commission to the tune of 50%.
Please keep in mind that the company doesn’t pay you for making downline sales or recruiting new sale persons. The commission structure is based on unilvevel not multi-level marketing system. Your personal rank is based upon the purchases you made and the products sold by you as a whole seller. So in order to move up the rank you must make maximum commissions for three consecutive pay periods.
What’s Great about AdvoCare?
- Commission rates offered by company.
- The health and wellness products offered by the company are tested and have earned a great reputation among athletes.
- Compensation plan is very comprehensive and easy to understand.
- Complete details are available and provided by the company to its distributors.
- Subscription cost is very low.
- It provides great opportunities to those who aspire to learn and wants to make progress in their business by leaps and bounds.
- The income is commission based, so the harder you try the more you benefit financially.
- One of the best things about working with an MLM is that you choose your own team.
- People associated with the company are very enthusiastic and keen on continuously improving the products and brand image.
- New representatives have opportunities for bonuses as well.
- It offers a debt busting program to relieve its affiliates of loans and debts to work with peace of mind.
- The Vitamins and minerals used are at least of USP grade.
What’s Not to Love about AdvoCare?
- The company has legal disputes with Federal Trade Commission.
- In the past some of the company’s products were associated with positive dope tests of athletes.
- It uses GMO food items.
- Products sometimes can be expensive.
- Products may interfere with medication.
- It sometimes can be easily overdosed.
- Many cleanse items are only laxatives.
- Some products may cause allergies.
Recap
AdvoCare is one of the well-respected MLM in the market due to its proven health and wellness products in specialized categories. There are some legal issues the company faced along the way but it has performed well in its league. Out of total years in business the company faced 2 or 3 legal issues. The company has associated itself with the direct selling association that speaks of the marketing strength and market standing of the company. One of the best reasons to associate yourself with the company is that it sells the physical products that enjoy a good reputation among athletes in North America so associating yourself with such company you don’t need much effort to upsell the products.
Another good thing with AdvoCare is that sales representatives don’t need to make downline recruitments to earn commissions. You simply have to sell the company products as an advisor or wholesaler to customers and you may also purchase for yourself at discounted rates. Compensation model of the company is very straightforward and commission and bonus ratios are very high as compared to other MLMs. So what are you waiting for? You have the opportunity and you have the platform. Go get your subscription pack of AdvoCare and start earning big.
Marketing AdvoCare the Correct Way:
Some marketers have better techniques to sell their products by thinking out of the box, and they go out of the way to impress their customers who purchase their products. Such distributors or sales advisors have some qualities that are not found in the rest.
It’s very obvious that the basic techniques of marketing remain the same and are not depending upon the people, product or the service that you are going to sell.
In the past, marketing of products were done preferably to friends, family members, and the persons in the sphere of influence, but with the dawn of the digital age things have changed and now your audience or target customers are sitting thousands of miles away from you.
In the internet age, the opportunities to market and address audiences or particular interest groups has increased manifold and beyond geographical boundaries. Internet age provide you with the opportunity to attract your audience but unfortunately most people don’t know what to do and where to start.
If you want to earn big through MLM opportunities and to learn modern means of upselling and marketing, check out this book.
This guide book gives you all-encompassing details on how to make downline sales leads and increase traffic on your landing page.
Not only that but through this help you may also be able to duplicate your strategies and impress others on how you make your sales and ask them to follow the same marketing patterns. They will become your automatic, online lead machine. It is not that hard as it seems at the start. You just need knowledge on how to create a lead capture page, how to get traffic, and how to get visitors to purchase your products and join your downline. This can easily be attained by a software called ClickFunnels.
Through this you can make sales leads and commissions even when you are not working actively as your downline will be working for you.
Here is the Brief Strategy:
1. Create a lead landing page on any available platform or software like ClickFunnels. Due to readily available, free templates to work on, ClickFunnels is highly recommended. You can also find some of those templates here.
2. When you are done with developing your landing page, you will be starting to get traffic on your landing pages – a first step towards making sales lead.
3. You then offer an attractive lead magnet on your landing page (This can be done by offering something which has high perceived value that may attract potential customers). This lead magnet will be delivered in exchange for customer’s contact or email address.
4. You share the details of all the opportunities that you have to offer them. Once you have their email contacts through lead magnets, you can use any autoresponder to remind your clients and customers and guide them about your products and benefits for them to join your downline. Any good autoresponder can be used for the purpose, e.g. GetResponse or AWeber.
Frequently Asked Questions
Before we conclude, here are some FAQs about AdvoCare:
1. What is AdvoCare’s BBB rating? A+.
2. How long has AdvoCare been in business? Since 1993.
3. What is AdvoCare’s revenue? $472 Millions. (2018)
4. What does AdvoCare sell? AdvoCare sells healthcare products designed for athletes. They have over 85 products.
5. What are AdvoCare’s most popular products? Advocare Spark (workout drink), Ready-to-drink protein (protein shake), Advocare ONE/80 (formerly called 24 day challenge, which is a nutritional program that includes body cleanses, Advocare Spark and others).
6. How much does it cost to join AdvoCare? It costs $59 plus tax and shipping to get your Advocare Distributor kit, and then a $50 annual renewal fee.
7. Is AdvoCare a scam? The FTC has claimed that it is a pyramid scheme, and charged it with $150 millio as of Oct 2019. However, the FTC order does not put AdvoCare out of business. The company can continue to sell its products to one level of distributors, who then would sell to consumers.
8. How many AdvoCare distributors are there? More than 60,0000.
9. Comparable companies: Beachbody, TruVision, Herbalife, Omnitrition International.
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