Forever Living is a health and wellness MLM with a difference. Forever Living strongly focuses on aloe vera, based on the idea that consuming aloe vera offers substantial health benefits. The idea does have some merits too, as aloe vera has long been linked to health benefits.
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Forever Living has been around since 1978, with surprising consistency. This should mean that the company is more stable than many other MLMs. You may also hear the name Forever Living Products or FLP, as Forever Living Products is the official name. Regardless of the name, there are plenty of people passionate about the products and their potential health benefits.
The idea is interesting from a sales perspective. For one thing, there is always a decent demand for health products. People want to find ways to improve their quality of life and live longer. If a product that contains aloe vera offers that potential, many will try it out.
Focusing on aloe vera works well too. The angle helps Forever Living stand out from all of the other health companies. That’s a good thing, as there are a lot of them out there. Distributors can also focus on the benefits of aloe vera for marketing. Many of them do just that.
Two Ways To Make Money With Forever Living
Forever Living offers the chance to make money from product sales and from team building. The focus on products is stronger than many other MLMs, which is a nice touch.
In this post, I’ll be taking a close look at both of these areas. I’ll also talk about whether Forever Living has much potential as an ongoing source of income.
Make Money From Product Sales
Aloe vera is the main focus of Forever Living, so it’s no surprise that most of the products involve aloe vera in some form or another. The most notable is the drinkable aloe vera products, partly because the style is a little unusual.
Although fake reviews from distributors are common, it’s very hard to hide the real reviews from unsatisfied customers, so I always check Amazon and other retailers to see what people are saying.
There were actually very few negative reviews of the drink and skin products. Most of the complaints were about the price and the taste of the drinks. A few complaints, and perhaps the most relevant ones, is that this the drink and skin products are marketed as “natural” but they contain a lot of unnatural ingredients.
Some people find that they don’t see the expected benefits, but that response was surprisingly uncommon. There were also many particularly positive reviews for
- Aloe vera lotion
- Eye cream
- Shampoo
- Sunscreen
The pattern isn’t too surprising. The external benefits of aloe vera are well-known. Many people already rely on aloe vera gel, so other product types that contain aloe vera are certain to be popular. Other products in their lineup include areas like fitness, nutrition, beauty, and skincare.
On a side note, Forever Living fails to mention any risks of ingesting the pulp of this plant, namely diarrhea. Maybe that’s why people are losing weight!
One thing I will say, however, is that a lot of people go kind of nuts about superfoods and cure-alls, which is not my style. If you read the Forever Living website it sounds pretty much like aloe can cure cancer. But there’s a group of equally fanatic people that make the same claims as coconut oil, essential oils, enzymes, and gandoerma.
As you might have guessed, these are all products sold by MLM companies. There are videos, blogs, and reviews all expounding the amazing results of clarity, weight loss, muscle gain, reducing eczema, clearing acne, etc.
I’m very skeptical of these things. Personally, I think a lot of losing weight mostly has to do with making people are of their daily routines, eating habits, etc and a lot of the effects are placebo. I could probably sell canned air from the Rocky Mountains and after a bit of marketing, people would start to claim it cleared up their sinuses.
Of course, that’s just me. I also dislike Dr. Oz with a passion, but he’s very popular. Objectively, I’ll say that Forever Living product are probably pretty good and might be worth trying if your friend is selling them.
The products from Forever Living aren’t just aloe vera focused anyway. There are some other types of items on the site, like various bee products, including honey, royal jelly, and pollen.
There is one more area to mention – price. The products from Forever Living aren’t cheap. Some potential customers will probably find them too expensive, especially as the product size is often relatively small. There are many other aloe vera products in the marketplace and some of those will be less expensive.
Making Money With Sales
One notable aspect is that Forever Living uses Case Credits as a way to measure individual performance. For American distributors, one Case Credit represents $214 of sales.
The Case Credit model is a little annoying, as it makes it easier to lose track of the amount you are spending versus earning. Even so, the idea has advantages, as it makes international sales less complicated. This is an important point, as Forever Living is one of the few MLMs that allows you to sell to an international audience.
Forever Living does provide a retail website, which in my opinion, should be the main way that you market your products. No one likes to attend MLM parties or get cold-called, so putting your stuff online and having customers come to you is the way to go. The best way to grow any business, whether it’s MLM, eCommerce, or affiliate marketing is with a website and online presence.
Even so, you’re unlikely to get enough training to take full advantage of a website. This also isn’t the focus of Forever Living.
The main way to earn is to buy products yourself and resell them. You start out by getting a 15% discount. You can increase this to a 30% discount by hitting a purchase requirement.
Earning in this way is both frustrating and risky. You have to put your own money into the company and then try to get that back (plus a profit). Getting the right balance between supply and demand is tricky enough for regular businesses. Doing it successfully as a new network marketer would be so much more difficult.
One other aspect is that Forever Living allows people to become Preferred Customers. These individuals can get a 30% discount too, so you’re not going to earn much from any Preferred Customers.
Make Money Building A Team
When it comes to teams, the first thing to mention is the personal discount. You can get up to 30% discount as a regular distributor. This can be increased up to 18% based on your rank, as follows:
- Assistant Supervisor: 5%
- Supervisor: 8%
- Assistant Manager: 13%
- Manager: 18%
This creates a potential commission rate of 48% from sales, which is pretty impressive (although, this does suggest that the products are priced much higher than they’re worth – how would Forever Living turn a profit otherwise?). There are other bonuses too, like these ones for the Assistant Supervisor rank:
- 15% profit on sales to Preferred Customers
- 5% bonus on online sales
- 5% bonus on sales to preferred customers
The next rank up (Supervisor) starts to get bonuses from the team too. The image below shows how Forever Living Depicts these.
You might notice something else from the image too. Each rank has a CC requirement next to it. The Supervisor rank has a requirement of 25 CC. That’s more than $2,000 in sales and you need to hit it within a month.
It seems like members stay at a rank once they get to it, so that’s good at least. Still, most people aren’t going to progress up ranks fast.
The style is a mixed bag. It means that you don’t need a specific team structure and you can focus more on sales than on recruitment. Still, the sales requirements are huge and they’d be tough to meet.
All MLMs involve some team building (by definition!), but Forever Living relies on the process more than most. One reason is that the company uses a differential compensation model, which applies to some of the bonuses that you can earn.
In practice, this seems to mean that if you don’t qualify for the full 48% compensation, then the person in your upline gets the difference between your current level and the maximum. This works the other way too. So, if someone in your downline only makes a 35% commission from a sale, you get the difference.
While this style means more income potential, it may discourage any new recruits that you get to join Forever Living. No one is going to enjoy having to pass on a percentage of their profits.
*On a side note, Forever Living is not very upfront with their compensation approaches. Most of the online documentation is very complicated and/or out of date. I attempt to be as accurate as possible in this post, but some aspects may be incorrect or out-of-date, depending on when you read the piece.
Activity Requirements
If you want to earn from your team, staying active in the company is essential. With Forever Living, you need to have four active Case Credits in your home country. One of those Case Credits needs to be a Personal Case Credits. In other words, you need at least one Case Credit in your own sales or purchases each month.
This doesn’t sound too bad until we remember that each Case Credit totals $214 of sales. So, four Case Credits represent more than $800 of sales and/or purchases. That’s a lot!
You also need to hit the requirements for whatever rank you happen to be on.
If you don’t meet the Active requirements in any month, you lose out on some of your team bonuses. These get passed up to the next Active distributor in your upline.
Hitting these requirements consistently would be pretty tough. And, that’s only part of your goal. You’re also trying to create a successful team. As part of doing so, your team members must beit’s important that your team members are making money and stay with the company. Requirements that are difficult to meet will decrease the odds of this occurring.
Becoming The Annoying Aloe Guy/Girl?
I start to question this company when I see a conference of thousands of people screaming for more aloe like it’s a Kane West concert. Then I read a blog called MLM: The American Dream Made Nightmare. The actual post about Forever Living is quite in-depth, but it’s a little bit over-the-top in my opinion. He has left a number of comments on my website below.
What’s most interesting about that particular blog is the comment section. There are aloe defenders, writing in to tell him how wrong he is and how ashamed he should be of writing such nonsense. There are also folks writing to thank him for exposing this company for what it is. I never knew there was so much controversy surrounding this plant!
Many people on that post talk about their experience with family members basically changing into a new person that just can’t get enough aloe in their lives. If you watch some of the videos on the page, including “testimonials” (which are often paid for) and conferences with thousands of people screaming about how much they love Forever Living…some of the cultish aspects start to come into focus.
Can You Generate Reliable Income With Forever Living?
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Final Review
Making a reliable income from Forever Living would involve making a large amount of sales consistently. You'd want an audience that is passionate about the products and is prepared to order them regularly. You'd also need to expand your reach considerably. You're not likely to have enough people in your social circle to get anywhere close to the sales targets that you need to hit.
Is this possible? Sure. There are success stories in Forever Living, just like there are in any network marketing company.
Even so, possible and desirable are two very different things. Finding success with Forever Living means an uphill battle. You're doing a lot of work to promote products that most people already know about.
With how long the company has been around, most people who would be interested in Forever Living products will have found someone to buy them long ago. You might be able to convince new people, but you'll be competing against other distributors (including any of your new recruits). Forever Living isn't the only aloe vera distributor on the market either.
From a personal perspective, the whole process just doesn't seem worth it. Why bother with so many rules and hoops to jump through? There are other ways to earn that are much less complex.
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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David Brear
Nathaniell – I have hundreds of articles to maintain on my Blog.
All ‘MLM’ rackets are based on the original ‘Nutrilite/ Mytinger and Casselberry’ cultic scam, instigated in the late 1940s. This was the first time an updated snake oil selling scam was combined with a closed-market swindle and totalistic thought reform program. Once you understand this racket, you understand all of them
In essence, the ‘Scientology’ racket is no different.
Dianetics is to ‘Scientology’ : what ‘MLM’ is to a group like ‘FLP’ – mystifying pseudo-science offering its adherents a pay-through-the-nose plan to transform into superior beings. In simple terms, both are variations of advance fee fraud.
Prior to the exposure of Bernie Madoff, one of the biggest closed-market, or Ponzi, swindlers in history was a ‘Scientologist.’ Reed Elliot Slatkin.
Slatkin was convicted, but virtually none of the money he stole was traced. He’d paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to a select group of his so-called ‘investors’ who were all so-called ‘Scientologists.’ These characters then donated their winnings to their so-called ‘Church.’
http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2012/03/reed-elliot-slatkin-while-back-i-was.html
The bosses of numerous ‘MLM’ gangs have been passing huge quantities of stolen cash to the ‘Mormon Church’ in the form of ‘Tythes.’ Mark Shurtleff, a former Attorney General of Utah, was protecting and promoting various ‘Mormon MLM’ rackets; particularly, ‘USANA.’ This guy has recently been charged with various other acts of corruption.
http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2014/07/major-mlm-crook-mark-shurtleff-arrested.html
The level of corruption in Utah concerning ‘MLM’ racketeering, is quite staggering.
Nathaniell
Thank you for that clarification. Reading your article the first time around the connection was clear, but I felt — and this is just my opinion — that the article went a bit off on a tangent. I don’t disagree with you. I am not saying you are wrong. I’m just saying that it wasn’t written in a style that I felt was delivered the information you were trying to convey very well.
David Brear
Nathaniell – I think that you and I have got off on the wrong foot.
Having now read your other artilcles on ‘MLM,’ it seems that someone has been playing psychological games with both of us. In the last couple of days, prior to my posting the challenging comments on your ‘FLP’ article, I received a number of anonymous comments on my ‘FLP’ article (which I didn’t post) These contained links to your Blog along with abusive taunts saying that even persons critical of ‘FLP’ consider me to be a ‘nutjob conspiracy theorist.’
These abusive comments are what initially drew my attention to your Blog and why I took the attitude I did.
What I now don’t understand (after reading your other posts), is why (when you evidently have a clear view of ‘MLM’ as a form of cultism), do you consider my evidence-based analysis of ‘FLP’ to be over the top?
Nathaniell
I thought the idea that MLM companies were ‘grooming and co-opting’ people was a bit of a stretch, and the whole relationship to L. Ron Hubbard seemed tangential and unclear to me. The article kind went off the rails for a while talking about Nutrilite, and I wasn’t sure what this had to do with FLP. Actually, it seemed to be writeup of the entire history of MLM and snakeoil salesman rather than about FLP specifically.
There are also some broken images and links on the page, which made me think that the writer wasn’t maintaining the website and perhaps lost interest in the topic. Boy was I wrong! lol
But I see how that someone misrepresented my article and used it to wind you up.
David Brear
Nathaniell – Please don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger of bad news.
I took the trouble to contact you, because I sensed from your article that you do have the capacity to think, even though your ego has been getting in the way.
indeed, in my previous comments, I deliberately challenged your ego, to test your mettle and find out what you are all about.
I am the first person to admit that the phenomenon of cultism is tragicomic and that if it wasn’t for its tragic results, then cultism would be a sick joke.
Unfortunately, as you apparently admit, you are out of your depth, but your reaction to my deliberately ego-challenging attempt to educate you, shows your lack of empathy for the victims of ‘MLM’ cults. Conrary to what you imply, I’m not some swell-head pretending intellectual authority, because it amuses me. Self-evidently, I know far more about this ongoing criminogenic phenomenon than you – having posted more than 200 articles and spoken to countless interested parties from all around the globe. I’m also the author of ‘The Universal Identifying Characteristics of a Cult (a common-sense approach to cultism).’
Far from being an ‘exclusive club,’ my Blog has received over half a million page visits in the last 18 months. Around one fifth of these visits have been to the ‘FLP’ section. However, I rightly objected to you linking my Blog to your Site on which you have thoughtlessly misrepresented, and trivialized, my extended article on ‘FLP’ as ‘conspiracy theory-ish.’ This might have serious consequences for ‘FLP’ victims, or potential victims, looking for information. In my experience, deluded cult adherents will grasp at almost any straw, rather than face up to reality
For your information – some of the people who contact my Blog (often anonymously) have lost everything to ‘MLM’ cultic rackets (not just to ‘Forever Living Products’). Other people have lost contact with ‘negative’ friends, husbands, wives, children and even parents, because they have been dissociated from external reality by ‘100% positive MLM’ cults. Virtually no one who contacts my Blog is prepared to file a complaint or go to the media, because the overwhelming majority of ‘MLM’ adherents are recruited by their own friends and relatives – whom they don’t wish to get into trouble. Also, many victims are convinced that if they complain they will be ridiculed as ‘conspiracy theorists,’ because organized crime groups like ‘FLP’ are legally-registered and are hiding in plain sight.
To date, the most chronic case of an ‘FLP’ adherent I have personally discovered is a ‘fifty something’ man from the UK. This guy (a university graduate) has spent almost 20 years as a de facto slave recruiter for ‘FLP’. His ex-wife estimates that he has thrown away around £200 000 (much of which was borrowed), yet he still suffers from the guided delusion that one day, if he exactly duplicates the ‘100% FLP plan’ and removes all ‘negativity’ from his life, he will achieve ‘total financial freedom.’.His children and parents have long-since given up trying to reason with him.
In the very worst cases, ‘MLM’ cult adherents have died of curable diseases, because they were conditioned to reject the medical profession. Other ‘MLM’ victims have become suicidal whilst others known as ‘Road Warriors’ have become so exhausted they have been killed as a result of falling asleep and crashing their cars en route to late night recruitment meetings. That said, I have not yet personallyt come accross fatalities in ‘FLP.’
Unfortunately Nathaniell, this is not conspiracy theory or an ego-trip: it is the ugly reality lurking behind the Utopian ‘MLM’ fairy story.
Nathaniell
Oh, I didn’t realize I was participating in your personal psychological experiment. If you are concerned that I’m promoting FLP – I’m not. Read the article. I even call MLM a cult in many of my articles. I don’t know what you hope to gain by proving that you are the “authority” on the subject here on my blog.
You are just one of those people that is convinced I’m disagreeing with you even though I’m not. I freakin’ agreed with you David. I just thought your post was a big over the top. Get over it, and move on.
Nathaniell
I’ve updated the review to now reflect the pure awesomeness of your writing. Please check and see if it meets your approval. If it doesn’t meet your standards on how I should comment on your work, I can get you editor privileges on my site and allow you to re-write that portion yourself so that you can be satisfied.
David Brear
Nathaniell where exactly do now get the idea that I’m offended? I’m merely telling you off for failing to understand what I have actually written, and for grossly misrepresenting my work.
Furthermore, as you have pointed out, you have linked my Blog to your own Site. Thus, the defammatory statement that I am ‘snooping the Internet’ is patently absurd; for. I am now receiving uninvited visits via your Site. This is what drew my attention to your puerile commentary.
Despite what you now claim, clearly part of your post was about my work which you have grossly misrepresented as ‘conspiracy theory-ish.’
You ultimately apologize for, but then defend, this demonstrably gross-misrepresentation as your ‘objective opinion,’ but my work is deliberately written in an intellectually rigorous style so that it cannot be misinterpreted.
From your reply, I realize that there is probably no malicious intent on your part. You would appear to be simply out of your depth.
Nathaniell
“puerile and inaccurate commentary of my work” was the part that sounded butthurt to me. Now you say that you are “receiving uninvited visits via [my] Site”, as if you had an exclusive club and I’m supposed to ask permission to link to your site.
Perhaps I am out of by depth and just a well-intentioned idiot. Thank you for bestowing your wisdom upon us o’ great and powerful blogspot author.
David Brear
As the author of ‘The American Dream Made Nightmare,’ I fascinated to know why you have taken the trouble to post this puerile and inaccurate commentary of my work.
“The actual post about Forever Living is quite in-depth, though it does border on conspiracy theory-ish.”
For your information, for almost 20 years, I’ve been saying that pernicious cultic groups (like ‘Forever Living Products’) control their adherents’ model of reality by convincing them that non-rational conspiracy-like fictions are fact. Thus, to call my evidence-based, rational analysis of a cultic group, ‘conspiracy theory-ish,’ is the complete inversion of what I have actually written.
Nathaniell
Hey man, I wasn’t saying it was bad, I’m not sure why you are offended. I agreed with you on some parts. I’m just trying to stay objective, was that not clear? Would you not agree though, that snooping the internet for anyone that links to your site with an opinion on your post is a bit…abnormal?
Sorry to say, but this post wasn’t about YOU or your work. It was about Forever Living, and you were just one source of information I used. I apologize for not representing your work exactly how you think it should be, but it’s my opinion.