Hey there sea changers, and welcome back to my series of MLM reviews. Today we are going to a look into an interesting niche when it comes to multi level marketing with my ACN MLM Review. The reason I say interesting as this company offers a range of products and services for the home such as electricity accounts and home WiFi packages which are not generally considered in this type of marketing strategy. So, what is the ACN MLM all about? Let’s have a look and see…

What is MLM?

Multi-level marketing (MLM) programs are the traditional mainstay of the ‘party plan’ world of products such as Tupperware, Mary Kay and Amway etc. and, of course within the beauty/cosmetics, supplements and essential oils markets. It is not as prevalent within the home services industry but as MLMs have become more popular in recent times – mainly due to the fact that much of the sales and marketing is now being managed online – companies in other niches are starting to get in on the action.

The ‘multi level’ aspects of MLM come from its hierarchical nature in which you make commissions based not only on those that you sell to, but also the sales of those whom you ‘sign’ into membership arrangements as well.

In short, the process works as follows:

1. You join the program, either via referral from another person (known as your up line) or directly through their website.
2. You promote the products of the company via parties, workshops or online.
3. As you make sales, you offer incentives to your customers to sign up as a member of the program (there are different names for this but they all mean the same thing).
4. That new member is then placed ‘underneath’ you in a hierarchical arrangement (known as your down line).
5. You, and a number of levels of your up line, then gain extra commissions for everything they sell as well.
6. If they manage to refer their customers into memberships, they also become a member of your down line allowing you to make up line commissions as well.

The number of levels of your up and down lines will vary depending on the program you have joined. Commission rates will also change as your down line grows or contracts and many will also offer other incentives such as total company sales percentages and/or access to membership prizes as your own business grows.

Who are ACN?

ACN was founded back in 1993 by four entrepreneurs in Greg Provenzano, Robert Stevanovski, Tony Cupisz and Mike Cupisz who decided the only way to have a company that they wanted to work in was to start their own. Since then, they have grown from ” a provider of long distance service in one country to one that offers a full suite of residential and long distance services that customers use every day across 26 countries”.

ACN is based in Concord, North Carolina in the United States

What do they Sell?

As mentioned above, ACN work within the home and business services industry offering a range of products including:

Home

• Identity Theft Protection
• Gas and Electricity
• High Speed Internet
• Television
• Security and Automation
• Wireless

Business

• Identity Theft Protection
• Gas and Electricity
• Payment Processing
• Security and Automation

Services appear to be a mixture of in-house products and third party offerings by companies such as AT&T and Spectrum TV – these vary from country to country.

MLM Program outline

The ACN MLM program calls their members ‘Independent Business Owners (IBOs)’ who are part of what appears to be a simple program with a common retail and downline commission structure with some bonus options included. There is however the added bonus of recurring commissions for some products purchased by referred customers. Their compensation plan is available on their website so here are the basics as I have found them…

Base Commission rate: 3% to 20% – many recurring

Down line commission rates: 0.5 – 4% to 5 levels

Minimum monthly spend to qualify for commissions

To qualify for downline commissions, IBO’s are required to maintain a status of “Customer Qualified IBO” via meeting a monthly target of 7 customer points. Personal Commissions however can be earned on all sales.

Payment terms: Monthly.

Application required?: Yes, Application form on website.

Purchase requirements to join: Yes

The fine print mentions out-of-pocket expenses for IBOs such as a joining and renewal fee however I was unable to find any clarification over the cost of these.

Marketing materials provided: Personalised website and training.

Within most MLM programs, rankings and commissions are determined by the total personal volume (PV) generated by the program member and their down line within a calendar month with points assigned to each product. ACN however uses a mixture of customer points and commissional percentages based on the products purchased by the customer.

An example of this is a per the table below:

How can I get paid?

Ok, so from what I can garner from the compensation plan, there are 4 ways in which IBOs can make money when they promote and sell ACN products. These are fairly straight forward with a structure fairly common to many other MLM arrangements. The 4 payment options for the ACN MLM program are outlined as follows:

1. Personal Commissions

These are the base commissions earned by the general day to day sales that IBOs can generate via their personalized website. There are six tiers of personal commissions based on the total number of Personal Customer Points generated as follows:

IBOs are not required to be Customer Qualified to qualify for Personal Commissions

2. Overriding Residual Commissions

Overriding Residual Commissions are ACN’s version of the traditional unilevel commission structures prevalent within many MLM programs. Within the ACN MLM program, commissions are paid to 5 levels plus 5 generations based on the rank of the IBO as follows:

For this, and all ongoing payment options, IBOs must be at rank of Customer Qualified and above.

3. Personal Monthly Customer Bonuses

The Personal Monthly Customer Bonus is paid to IBOs on the acquisition of new customers. This is paid on two levels as follows:

• New IBOs can earn these bonuses based on the number of customer points and services they acquire in their first 30 days.
• Existing IBOs (those that are more than 30 days past their start date) can earn these bonuses based on the number of customer points and services they acquire in a calendar month.

These payments are made as follows:

4. Weekly Overriding Customer Acquistion Bonus

This is a common MLM bonus option that rewards sponsors for nurturing new recruits to make sales as soon as they join the program. In this case, the Overriding Customer Acquisition Bonuses are paid when an IBO within the sponsor’s downline sponsors a new IBO that becomes Customer Qualified within 30 days of joining. Payments are as below:

Ranking structure

ACN, as with most MLM programs, uses ranking structures on which to base commission payments and other bonuses upon. Rankings for the ACN MLM program are as follows (note personal and team sales qualification targets as well):

Again, as is common with almost all MLM programs, rank progression is determined by both the number of members within the IBO’s down line, and the total sales made by those members per month. Ranks can rise and fall based on the ability (or dis-ability) to reach the required member and sales targets.

What is good about it?

So, after a good look around the site and looking at all the options I could find, I do like the following:

• Commission rates for entry level sales are good.
• Commissions are residual meaning monthly income off a single customer.
• Commissions can be earned without the need to meet sales targets.
• You are selling products that most people need and use.

What is no so good about it?

There are also some things to be aware of including:

• There are some joining costs.
• There are not as many payment and bonus options as other programs.

How much can you make?

ACN does not provide an income disclosure table on its website however does provide the following statement:

My final thoughts

Look, MLM is not an easy platform to make money in and there is not much that I have seen here to put this program above the many others I have seen. However, the program is pretty straight forward with common commission arrangements and the ability to make sales online. There is however the advantage of residual commissions that are based on products that many household are either already using or will need such as electricity, WIFI and Cell phone access.

Once you have joined, there are not the usual financial pressures of needing to make minimum personal purchases in order to qualify for commissions. Although from what I can see, the compensation plan is very heavily geared towards the constant recruitment of new customers (something that has had them investigated as being a pyramid scheme in the past however they have been found not to be on every occasion).

I was unable to locate any negative reviews in terms of non-payment etc. although there were some negative comments about the quality of customer service and the MLM program itself – although it was not really anything that is uncommon in regards to MLM programs in general.

Conclusion

So there you have it, my honest review and appraisal of the ACN MLM program. I hope it has been of assistance but as usual, if you have any questions or experience with this program please do not hesitate to reach out by commenting below – especially if any of my information is inaccurate.

Are there any other programs you have been looking at but want to know more about? If so, please comment below and I will do my best to get some details for you.

Do you want further assistance with any of the above or need help to build your own online business instead ?

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Until next time

Have fun

Paul

Note: If you make a purchase from this page, there is a very good chance that I make a commission from it – these commissions do not increase your sale price.