4Life Review
Company Name: 4Life
Costs: $29.95
Rating: 32/100
What Is It
A health and wellness MLM that largely sells supplements and pills.
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Short Review
Even though 4Life has a big emphasis on the science behind its health products, there really isn’t that much evidence of it. Personally, I’m not even sure the products work, although I’m sure diehard associates would disagree with me.
Regardless of the products, 4Life is a fairly typical MLM, with a complex compensation plan that has you jumping for hoops to earn money. If you’re passionate about their products and have good selling skills, it might be an okay choice, but for most people, there are many better options out there.
Product Breakdown
4Life offers a wide range of products, all with a focus on health and wellness. Most of these are various types of pills and supplements, although there are some other products also, such as protein shakes, tea and (for some reason) pet health products.
As you might expect, most of the products are on the expensive side. For example, around 1lb of protein shake mix costs $38.45 and the price of pills varies widely.
Many of the company’s products are being sold on Amazon. Some of them have a decent number of reviews, which suggests that they are at least partially popular (although some reviews are probably distributors themselves).
For supplements, the reviews tend to be pretty good, like the rating below for the Tri Factor Formula from the company.
Normally a distribution like this suggests that many reviewers are happy with the product. If distributors were manipulating the ratings, you would see many 5-star reviews and many 1-star reviews.
Honestly though, reviews for supplements really aren’t that useful. With very few exceptions, you won’t notice much of a difference when you take a supplement compared to when you don’t.
Exceptions to this rule would be cases where you were actually nutrient deficient. For example, if you were deficient in vitamin D or iron and started to supplement them, the difference can be quite large. This doesn’t normally apply to multivitamins or the complex supplements that 4Life offers. “Just feeling better” has placebo written all over it.
If the supplement is effective, people might see very small impacts, like getting sick slightly less often or having a little bit more energy. However, these changes are almost impossible to detect with large sample sizes and detailed tracking. At the same time, people tend to convince themselves that they see changes, even when they don’t actually.
In general, this means that most reviews of supplements will be positive, regardless of whether the vitamin actually works or not. This makes it hard to know whether the products from the company actually do what they are supposed to or not.
I can see the same effect on myself! I started taking fish oil, multivitamins, and “concentration” supplements this year at various points. All seemed to have an effect, but not enough of an effect that I could tell if they really worked. In the end, I stopped taking all of them because they were just another expense and didn’t produce obvious results.
The Science Behind The Products
Many of the products from 4Life are specifically designed to improve health in some way. This includes areas like heart health, eye health, digestive health and weight management. Because of this, a critical thing about the company is whether the products actually work.
The site does employ a team of researchers and scientists, which is a step that many similar companies don’t both taking. Of course, having a scientific team doesn’t actually mean that the team is any good.
For me, one concerning part is the studies and patents page on the site. This should be a place to highlight the studies the company has conducted. Instead, only two specific studies are discussed. One is highlighted as a preliminary test and the other is just called a test.
Using that terminology suggests that neither of those were actual scientific studies, which undermines their validity. Additionally, the site gives no links to the actual scientific studies it has commissioned, making it hard to know whether they are even relevant. Remember – none of these pills are regulated by the FDA!
Also, the information given on the scientific part of the site largely focuses on the immune system and a couple of very specific approaches, including Targeted Transfer Factor and nanofraction molecules.
Whether these approaches are actually any good remains to be seen. However, there certainly isn’t much in the way of scientific evidence supporting them. That’s concerning when the company hypes up the scientific support for its products so much.
Overall, there is a chance that the products from the company work as claimed, but it’s more likely that they don’t. With the high price tag of most products, the lack of scientific backing makes the products a hard sell to people that care about facts, as opposed to hype.
Opportunity Breakdown
The opportunity is where it’s all at. There are some encouraging things about the opportunity with this company. For one, the site has a separate section that gives more information about the direct selling approach and some (but not all) of the challenges involved. This is more information than many companies provide.
A second encouraging thing is that the company has scored an A+ BBB rating. Additionally, there have only been 3 closed complaints through the BBB in the last month. This doesn’t mean a whole lot, because most people with issues don’t go to the BBB. However, it is some indication of the quality of the opportunity, because scam companies tend to have more complaints and often have a lower rating.
Compensation Plan
As tends to be the case, the compensation plan for the company is based on two factors. One is the product you directly sell to customers, the other is the people that you recruit into the company (and by extension, the success of those people).
While it is possible to make money just by selling products, this tends to be challenging to achieve in practice. Instead, the most effective way for members to make money is through recruitment – which is also much more difficult. Have you ever pitched a “biz op” to someone? It sucks. I’ve tried it once or twice, and never did it again. Most people are skeptical and disinterested, and you come off looking like a shady vacuum cleaner salesman.
The basic structure of recruitment looks like the image below, where you recruit people who then recruit others and so forth. You and the people you recruit will be aiming to recruit others and also to get customers simply buying the product.
The company offers bonuses for progressing through the ranks of the plan. Doing this involves meeting certain requirements. For example, the image below shows the qualifications for the first four ranks of the company (there are another three after that).
As you go up in the ranks, your potential to earn money increases. However, the complexity of the requirements also increases. For example, getting to the second rank involves ordering 100 LP (I’ll explain this in a minute) personally each month through autoship. You also have to recruit at least four people, who also order at least that much each month.
Having a structure like this also means that if people you recruit drop out or decrease what they are spending, it can dramatically decrease your own potential to make money and your rank. Some people also find it difficult to keep track of what they are supposed to be doing.
LP is also an interesting (and frustrating) approach. The acronym stands for Life Points, and it refers to how much product you are ordering, or is being ordered through the people you recruit. Regardless of the size of your business, you still have to order either 50 or 100 LP every month.
A lot of MLMs use this approach.
By using a points system, the company can present nice, easy, round numbers in their plans. More importantly, the approach makes how much money people need to spend less visible.
For example, the supplements I discussed before that were $61.45 have a LP of exactly 50. Other products vary, but in general, you would need to spend around $60 per month in the first rank of the company and $120 in any subsequent rank.
That’s quite a bit of money every month, especially if you have hard time selling products. Additionally, the people you recruit have to meet this volume also, which is another challenge.
Making Money. Is It Realistic?
Companies like this are appealing, because their model looks so good on paper. There are so many different bonuses along the way and it almost seems like it would be difficult to not earn money. Despite all the bonuses, making money with a MLM can be challenging.
For starters, it’s a network marketing approach. This means that you have to talk to and connect with people to make sales and to recruit. The personal nature can seem appealing, but it is also challenging. Realistically, selling in person can be difficult for people who are trained and skilled in the field, and it is much more challenging for someone with no real experience.
You may have your own personal connections to leverage, like friends and family, but sooner or later you will have to seek out more customers.
There are other challenges too. For example, you are competing against everyone selling for the company and against similar products from other companies. This is particular problematic nowadays, because so many people go online to buy products. In fact, 4Life’s products on Amazon are often less expensive than distributors sell them for, like this:
Likewise, your success also depends on how successful your team is. Often this means you have to spend a lot of time handholding and making sure your team members are successful. That’s a lot of extra work.
Other Comments
This model for making money creates far more challenges than it should. You are taking an overpriced product (that might or might not work), finding people and then trying to convince them to buy it. At the same time, you are trying to recruit people into the company. You are also spending your own money each month to buy products that you might not even want.
MLM VS Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an alternative approach for making money and it’s a lot simpler. For one thing, it is an online approach. You also aren’t trying to pitch a product that people aren’t really interested in. Instead, you use the internet to draw interested people to your site and the site becomes a sales tool.
You get to pick what you promote, so you can sell things that you are passionate about and that other people are actually going to want. You don’t have to recruit, you don’t have to buy stock, and you don’t have to train anyone to sell anything (like with team building in MLM)
Instead, you end up with an online business that you can grow over time and profit directly from your own efforts.
Final Review
MLM Critic & Author: Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. I have to be honest though. I'm not a big fan of MLM. Tried it. Hated it.
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Hermine B Cerra
I have taken 4Life Transfer Factor for three and a half months. I took it to try to get over pnuemonia. It took me over two months to get better and then it came back again. After getting better I got the flu. I am a Senior and I had taken the shots for both and still got sick with both so I do not know how this product works. If it was cheaper I would have tried it for a longer time but anything that is sold in a pyramid fashion is very expensive Is there a similar product at a cheaper price that I can try? I would like to give a product like that another chance.
Maria Geronimo
My dad was sold by a workmate 4Life Vista and the BioEFA was told it was going to help with his macular degeneration desease. Immediately I had to ask him to stop taking this stuff. He was a smoker and him taking a supplement that carries beta-carotene form of vitamin A, studies have shown that beta-carotene increases the risk of lung cancer in smokers and ex-smoker. This are just dietary supplements. Stuff that u can find at ur drug store. Before taking anything ask your doc cause something that seems great might lead you to a worse path. And yes 4Life is just a pyramid look at their website.
Anthony
Great article. Love that you put the facts first, instead of crazy get-me-rich ideas.
Anonymous
Just a humble opinion… I’m with Wealthy Affiliate and also on a MLM. But personally I don’t like this approach of reviewing a MLM to then announce my Affiliate Marketing business just because I know the audience reading it are looking for opportunities or where presented with one. It just doesn’t feel fair for me (even if it does work to bring you affiliates). Most MLM are bad, yes, but for example, my MLM focus on having customers, more than recruitments, and the service is useful and needed (Like a Netflix but for tourism). It’s so good that prospects come to me asking instead of me going to them. (Pull marketing) And then I’ve seen people reviewing similar business to my MLM, basically saying “This business is bad because you need to deal with people, here is the best, you do it fully online, no recruitments”. Not everyone is introvert, I love people, and my work is basically to make friends and go to travel and adventure with them. Even when this reviews may be right, is not good to go and down vote another business and then present yours. Is better to say like “It doesn’t matter what other businesses are doing, mine is excellent and we’ll teach you how to make money online for a tiny investment without recruiting, and also give you all the tools, and be with you every single step.” A top leader business don’t need to review others or downvote them. By the way, I came here looking for any scientific explanation for 4life products XD not the business explanation which as a MLM experienced person, I already know. So I guess I came to the wrong place having in mind that I was looking for that instead. But it is a nice review, I was wondering myself about 4life Pro TF Protein. Why it have so little protein or if’s in purpose because they present 2 types of proteins mixed together one 10g and another 13g. But I guess I’ll keep researching. I just observed that and wanted to tell you my opinion.
Nathaniell
WA is not an MLM because there’s no “downline”, and I don’t make money if anyone else sells a subscription. I promote their company, but people who join are not required to promote, and have the option to promote any other product or service they like, related to any industry they like.
Current 4Life Employee
Here is some insider information for those of you questioning this review:
– Transfer factor costs about $3 a bottle to make (4Life doesn’t really care about helping people take advantage of their “scientific discovery”, they just want to rip off all of us).
– Smart people should know that 4Life has no patents over most of their products. You and I can buy transfer factor in some online stores for much less than what 4Life sells it for. Just do a simple search, IT IS THE SAME STUFF!
– The company allows people to say that transfer factor cures cancer but it doesn’t (I say that the company allows it because it is said during regional corporate meeting and all over the web, just go watch some youtube videos of currently active distributors – not penalized by the company – making this claim in every language… specially spanish).
– 98% of distributors don’t make any money and even gold and platinums don’t make as much as they claim (I have seen their bonus report). Most of the money Herminio Nevarez and Juan Rosado make comes from their LP Centers (this is where they manipulate points to maintain their ranks and sale extra product they can buy in bulk and at a discounted price).
– 4life is a pyramid as they make most of the money they pay out of signups (there is no retention or much product loyalty, that’s why they push so much their autoship program).
Let me close by telling you that this is true because I am an actual corporate 4Life employee that feels the ethical need to whistle blow.
Nathaniell
The things you talk about sound pretty common for most MLM. Products are pretty much a front for the real money making side of the business which is recruiting!
Caboose
Hello, I need help, I’m from LatinoAmerica.
My mother is quite blind to these products, what I mean is that she does not realize that these products are leaving us in bankruptcy since she does not even work, it is my Father who pays all those stupidities of 4life and she spends and spends without stop and everyone tells them to stop that is false, minimum has earned 5 dollars a month, 5 dollars fuck and only once won 50 dollars in a month, I am your son or work still study and when I was smaller towards 50 dollars only saving what they gave me.
She does not want to understand and I need a test that is really explicit about 4life so she can stop that once and for all.