Kannaway is one of the most well-known CBD oil MLMs, partly because they were the first American direct sales company in the CBD oil field. It was also one of the first companies to provide cannabis products to an international audience.
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For those that don’t know, CBD stands for cannabidiol and is one of the main chemicals in marijuana. It is a notable compound, as CBD may offer a variety of health benefits and has no psychoactive properties. In theory, these effects make CBD oil (also called hemp oil) a safe and legal way to get the health advantages that cannabis is meant to offer.
Of course, there is some debate about whether or not CBD oil actually provides the benefits that people suggest. There are other ‘miracle ingredient’ MLMs out there too, like those that focus on the amazing benefits of Aloe Vera, essential oils, Ganoderma, mushrooms, coffee, coconut oil, and the like.
Such companies tend to heavily hype the potential health impacts of their products while offering little scientific evidence to support the claims. There is typically scientific backing to the idea of the product being beneficial, but not nearly enough to prove anything. Consumers will need to decide for themselves whether or not they feel that the products are worth the price.
That being said, the market for CBD oil is heating up. Many people are interested in this type of oil, creating a significant potential to make sales. Kannaway’s long history may be an advantage here, as many other companies haven’t been around long.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty about Kannaway specifically, there is one other thing to be aware of – the competition. The popularity of CBD oil has meant that many companies are entering the marketplace, including other MLMs. To successfully make money with Kannaway, you would need to convince people that Kannaway products are better than the other options on the market.
Two Ways To Make Money With Kannaway
As an MLM, Kannaway offers the chance to earn by selling the products and also by building a team. While these patterns are common enough, each MLM has their own specific requirements and complexities. Kannaway is no exception, which is why this post also considers whether you can reliably earn money through Kannaway.
Make Money From Product Sales
The emphasis of Kannaway is on hemp and its history, and the company promotes the concept of a hemp lifestyle. The product line reflects this, with most of their products containing compounds from cannabis in some way.
This reliance on hemp is most obvious with Kannaway’s CBD oil products. This selection includes the types of products that you’ll find from many CBD oil companies, like CBD oil liquid, CBD oil capsules, and hemp vapes. There are also some less common items, such as Holiday Chocolate Energy Chews and French Roast Coffee (both of which contain CBD oil).
Some of the products seem pricy, like $177.58 (retail) for Pure CBD Liquid. While this oil is more expensive than many other brands, the price point is partly due to the size of the bottle. Even so, there are cheaper CBD oil products out there, some of which may be just as good (or better).
Kannaway does have a broader product selection than many other companies in the CBD oil field. For example, they offer a superfood powder that uses hemp protein, a selection of skincare that relies on hemp and some kemp products for pets. This selection may help distributors to make sales., but the products are still fairly expensive.
Finally, the CBD oil from Kannaway is third-party tested and is extracted using a low-heat process. Both aspects suggest Kannaway’s products are of high quality.
Does CBD Oil Work?
At one point, the marketing for Kannaway heavily focused on hemp and strongly implied that the products functioned in a similar way to marijuana. They’ve stepped down from that marketing angle somewhat and appear much more professional these days.
Even so, Kannaway hardly ever mentions that hemp and CBD oil don’t contain psychoactive compounds. While many people will be aware of this fact, it feels somewhat misleading to not make the information more obvious.
There is some evidence that CBD oil does offer health benefits, but the evidence isn’t nearly as strong as Kannaway would like you to believe. Instead, most studies on the topic have been in animals and it isn’t clear how these apply to humans.
Yes, there are plenty of people that swear on CBD oil, and that’s fine. I understand that it works in some ways, for some people. However, the issue with this company, as with many health and wellness network marketing companies, is that they rely on distributors who are unqualified to make any kind of medical diagnosis or even evaluate their own results properly.
Your buddy might rub CBD oil on his knee and tell you how great it feels. But if the pain relief is not tested properly, i.e. scientifically proven, the “relief” could be due to a number of things. It could be the action of rubbing the knee, or the mental exercise of trying to feel better, or an unintentional change in diet, or even (gasp), a desire for it to work since the person using it is also selling it.
Companies like this make a lot of money because the customers don’t really know whether it works or not. If you have one of the chews or use the vaporizer, you would probably attribute any positive feelings to that. After all, people can convince themselves that sugar pills kill pain, with surprising effectiveness.
Additionally, most of the health benefits that CBD is supposed to offer would be challenging to actually observe (like decreased risk of cancer and reductions in inflammation). Essentially, you could take the products consistently and never know whether they work. This is my main gripe with products like CBD oil – so many of the miracle stories are anecdotal.
Making Money
Distributors for the company are called Kannaway Brand Ambassadors or Independent Distributors. To join you need to pay a fee of $54.98 each year. This provides access to a replicated website, a back office for tracking sales, some training, and support.
Sales can be made through the replicated website or in person, with a commission rate of 30% either way. Selling in person means that you are buying the product at wholesale and then reselling it. The style means that customers get the item immediately and are able to see what they purchase. While those aspects can help to promote sales, the purchase first model also creates more risk for the distributor.
Make Money Building A Team
As always, the other earning approach is to build a team. The compensation plan for Kannaway gets complicated quickly and there are multiple different levels, bonuses, schemes, and factors to consider.
The first aspect is that there is a minimum monthly requirement to earn from your team. You need to make 110 Personal Volume (PV) of sales every month to earn from your team. Using terminology like PV is common for an MLM, but it is also frustrating.
For one thing, the PV approach makes it difficult to calculate the financial total of the sales that you need to make. Without knowing this, it isn’t possible to gauge how difficult the monthly target is to meet. Kannaway also avoids providing much information about how volume relates to dollar amounts until after people sign up for the company.
Kannaway tries to make it sound like the recruiting aspect isn’t a big deal with the following claim.
All this means is that distributors don’t earn money from the membership fee of people they recruit. But… they do earn money from the salespeople they recruit make.
How much money depends on their own rank, the rank of the people they recruit, how much product is being sold, the legs of the distributor’s business, the matching bonuses in place, the team override bonus, the differential infinity bonus, and many other aspects.
Does that sound complicated yet?
I got lost about halfway through the compensation plan, and I have read a lot of compensation plans for MLMs. In reality, the plan is too complicated for most members to be able to understand it, let alone follow it.
The main aspect is that you’re earning percentage commissions based on where people fall in your downline. This means that the team under you needs to be making a significant amount of sales. You also need multiple generations under you. It isn’t enough to recruit someone. Your recruits need to be recruiting too, as do their recruits and so on.
Getting a structure like this to work in practice is no easy feat. You’ll often find that your recruits end up competing against one another and you. The pool for potential customers and recruits often dries up fast too, as many people are targeting the same general audience.
There is one other interesting part that is worth mentioning. Kannaway offers a Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG), which is a very unusual idea.
The figures sound amazing, but there are some serious limitations too:
- MIG commissions only start at the Executive Direct rank. This is the fourth rank in the commission scheme and many distributors won’t ever get that far.
- You still need to hit the 110 PV goal with sales to get the guaranteed income.
- You also need to have at least three active distributors in your downline. These must be in separate legs and they need to hit the 110 PV goal as well.
So, even with the so-called guaranteed income, you need to hit a minimum amount of sales every single month. Targets like this suck because life simply isn’t predictable. There may be some months where people are reluctant to buy and others where you don’t have much time to put into promoting Kannaway.
The end result is that Kannaway’s compensation plan is difficult to understand and even more challenging to optimize. Don’t be fooled by the number of bonuses that they offer. Each of them has complex requirements. You’ll typically find that only the high ranking members get a chance at most bonuses.
Can You Generate Reliable Income With Kannaway?
The Kannaway Review
Products
Business Opportunity
Final Review
With the current popularity of CBD oil, Kannaway does have potential as a way to make a reliable income. To do so, you'd need to have a customer base that is interested in this type of product. It would also be important to expand your audience over time.
Is this possible? Certainly. Just be aware that you're focusing on some pretty expensive products and there are many other CBD oil companies (and distributors!) out there.
Can you convince people that the products from Kannaway are better than other brands? What about people that don't currently use hemp products? Could you talk them into buying items from Kannaway regularly? Selling products directly in this manner isn't as easy as it sounds. Even if you're promoting an amazing product that has no equal, in-person sales are tough.
Recruiting people into a company is harder still. You have to convince people to invest their time and money into the company. To make money from your recruits, they also have to be effective at selling the product. Most of the people that join the company probably won’t be very effective at sales – after all, it isn’t an easy task. Relying on other people to be motivated is one of the most annoying things about network marketing in my opinion.
If you are passionate about CBD oil, as many of the commenters on this post are, that's fine! You are perfectly OK to sell products from this company as long as you believe in them. But just realize that you are not an "independent business owner" (IBO). You are a salesperson for a company. Don't fall into the idea that you are running your own business, because if Kannaway decides they don't like your selling methods, or if Kannaway has any issues down the road, your business could crumble overnight.
Update:
The amount of whiners in the comments about my critiques of this company is incredible. Personally, I believe that CBD oil definitely has some potential use cases for pain relief! I have nothing against CBD oil or people that use it. My main issue is that network marketing people selling the product do so in an unethical, and non-science-based way. This is very much like any other kind of "miracle cure" out there where someone has a good experience with it, then recommends it to everyone for everything.
If you like it, great. Use CBD oil. That doesn't mean you have to sell it and recruit more sellers to your team.
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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RW
Your article is highly misleading and opinion-based. I have worked with many people with cancer, Parkinson’s, PTSD, MS, chronic pain, fibromyalgia and other issues through an integrative care program at at Women & Infants Hospital in RI and cannabis products have been a godsend for many of them- pretty much everyone who has been willing to step out of the mainstream AMA party line on treatments for these illnesses and try something different (typically because they were desperate). There is a great deal of scientific study and research going into these products- more every day. The reason? Because they have been effective for so many people with all kinds of debilitating health issues. Science has had to catch up. Go on PubMed or the NIH website and you will find tons of information. Here is just one exceprt from an article on the NIH website: “Numerous diseases, such as anorexia, emesis, pain, inflammation, multiple sclerosis, neurodegenerative disorders (Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease), epilepsy, glaucoma, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, cardiovascular disorders, cancer, obesity, and metabolic syndrome-related disorders, to name just a few, are being treated or have the potential to be treated by cannabinoid agonists/antagonists/cannabinoid-related compounds. In view of the very low toxicity and the generally benign side effects of this group of compounds, neglecting or denying their clinical potential is unacceptable–instead, we need to work on the development of more selective cannabinoid receptor agonists/antagonists and related compounds, as well as on novel drugs of this family with better selectivity, distribution patterns, and pharmacokinetics, and–in cases where it is impossible to separate the desired clinical action and the psychoactivity–just to monitor these side effects carefully.”~https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18286801~
I agree with you on the downside of MLM’s- I am a Kannaway customer and really like their products but not their program.
Also, just for the record, they certainly do not imply anywhere on their website that they could get you high- I understood the use of the word “kick” as “fad” or “trend”. People who are seeking out these products are specifically looking for cannabinoids that are effective without negative side effects (like getting high, sleepy, hungry, whatever…).
If you are going to write a review that goes beyond your opinion of their payment structure and delving into the product I would do a bit more research.
Ashley Perez
I think you hit the nail on the head. CBD oils could have potential to make a read difference, however, the very fact this product is linked to an MLM makes it suspect. What makes things even more suspect is the history behind the company. Kannaway is subsidary of Medical Marijuana Inc, which was founded by two former drug smugglers. The entire shell operation is filled with major question marks and certainly has the hallmarks of a shady business that is capitalizing on popularity of legalized medical marijuana movement. Please check out Project CBD Special Report: Hemp Oil Hustlers. The title Real Scientific Hemp Oil was given the same initials as a proven CBD oil called Rick Simpson Hemp Oil. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Also look at the lawsuits as a result of the findings of that report. Look past the postive press releases by the company and you will see constant a situation that is plagued with questions marks.
SacredStretch
Lawsuit was won by Kannaway
Ashley
If you read the lawsuit, the part that was one was the integrity of the sample cited in the case that the CBD oil caused someone to get very sick. Initially the test showed the oil to be tainted, however it was later determined that the test was invalid. However, the info regarding Kannaway’s roots, affiliates, founders, shadyness etc… a serious case can be made against industrial hemp. The arguement of seeds against roots in terms of potency as well as paste. Bottom line, if you love it do. Chances are you’ll make excuses because you’re convinced (an likely invested) MLM’s in general are shady. Couple that with what’s revealed in that report, it doesn’t have components that screams “trust me”. Everything from the parent company Marijuana Inc (former drug smugglers found, then bought by controversial figure Michael Llamas, who was weeks away from being charged died in a Lamborghini)
Margus Waffa Meigo
RW Reviever,
I guess you have no idea what cannabis is about and what is negative or positive, if You really work with caner people then You know, the THC is important part that helps to change humans Mindset and this is main cure for it, besides physical that is needed. No use much to cure body if you not cure mind.
and when you told this:
“People who are seeking out these products are specifically looking for cannabinoids that are effective without negative side effects (like getting high, sleepy, hungry, whatever…). ”
FROM WHAT TIME “GETTING HIGHT” IS A NEGATIVE EFFECT??!
Also Sleepy and hungry is needed elementary part that is needed, after brain activity.
You get hungry or sleepy for a reason (and there is the kind of cannabis that works better and longer then Coffee if You would only know….) . .
Please do not insult deeply entire world oldest line of medicine and cannabis community by sick insults like “getting high” would be anything else then extreme positive, just make sure to keep good in mind when You do it.
Next You will come to say that magic mushrooms also has anything but good effects?
Dave
The way I see it, is, a person in relatively good health may not feel much from CBD. However, it may be helping detour unforeseen illness or conditions to come. In my opinion, this plant is God’s cure. It has a design specific to many issues of the human body. As far as Kannaway, it seems to be a low pressure sales company WITHOUT a monthly cost. If you are a PC ( Customer) then you will need an auto shipment, but with BA ( Partner ) you will have not be asked to maintain a PV ( Monthly order ) UNLESS you want to get paid for the second level. CBD is very interesting to most people I’ve had discussions with. ITS GOING TO BE BIG !! As far as Kannaway, I see that they go to great lengths to refine their CBD products, and have been very successful with helping children and adults across the globe. I see you are trying to make money by offering your “PERFECT” money making system while making another company sound bad. IE “SNAKE (HEMP) OIL”
BTW, the DEA doesn’t make laws, they attempt to enforce laws. If they truly want to be hero’s, maybe they could COMBAT big pharmaceutical companies or the Devil drugs like HEROINE, CRACK (COCAINE) METHAMPHETAMINES etc. But that’s a whole different discussion. I guess there’s downfall to owning any type of business. I know this from factual information. I own 2 non-home based small businesses ( with an actual address and building ), I drive for UBER when I have extra time and I’m a new member of Kannaway that has had GREAT results and reception, from all classes of people, the poor, middle and high. The key is to be honest, factual, and relaxed. But most of all, DON’T LEAD WITH THE FINANCIAL DREAM. I lead with the product. There is a MONEY BACK GUARANTEE for PC’s and as far as I know, a person can set up a store front. MLM is exactly what it is. Multi level marketing.
IM NOT RECRUITING for Kannaway. But you can find good information on my website. dave.cbdisfreedom.com. I would like this post published so you can remove my site URL if you don’t want to allow it.
TO SUM IT ALL UP. All small business is hard work. If you’re in it for money, you will need to work your butt off. CBD in the right doses and high quality will work. It takes time for some people, but my uncle Steve Holmes, has many issues that the doctors have failed to address. He is having great success with non TCH CBD oil and salve.
THE REAL RESEARCH is in the consumer. Far too many people are experiencing great results with CBD, to just dismiss as SNAKE OIL. You have every right to say what you feel. Just try to be factual and honest when you do. God Bless everyone. This world honestly needs it 😇
sandi
Thank you Dave.
I am one sho has experienced great results since using the Kannaway medical grade CBD.
Having been sideswiped by a semi over three years ago, I had an ankle that hurt and swelled every day and woke up with a lower back ache every day.
They chronic back ache subsided in less than a week. After 4 1/2 months consuming the oil, my ankle no longer aches or swells.
Hemp CBD is a supplement I will be using for the rest if my life.
Ashley
Nice article. I think you addressed some serious flaws in this MLM “opportunity”.
Ashley
If there are so many benefits then why are salespersons not allowed to use the logo or forbidden to make medical claims. That doesn’t add up. Just because you see positive claims doesn’t mean squat. I see other MLM “consultants” make bogus claims. The nonscientific claims are nauseating!
willy
Your website looks like its from the 90’s
Nathaniell
A little. He should rebuild it on WordPress.
P
For further research on the healing properties of CBD oil, read the book “CBD-Rich Hemp Oil by Tina Rappaport and Stephen Leonard-Johnson. The give many references to current research of CBD.
Sweetpea
I’ve been taking Kannaway “snake oil” and have since gotten off of OxyContin and several other medications. I have life long chronic pain and diagnosis a page long. I was unable to leave my home over 5 years. I have 2 daughters and my life was within my 4 walls. It didn’t happen overnight but over some time the cannabanoid has seriously helped me. I still have pain. I still have my diagnosis. I take meds other than my CBD oil. But I have gotten off of a few of them including my opioids and barbiturates that kept me from enjoying or participating in life. It has even helped me decrease my insulin intake significantly. Everything working together. The actual lab testing is on the site as to how much CBD oil is in each product. I take the one with the highest amount because I need it. It has worked for me. I’m not healed I am better. I never went into this expecting it to work but guess what? It did! I’m so very great full and thankful everyday. I was at the point I didn’t want to live any more. I had no life left except pills sleep pills sleep. I can enjoy life and I deal with a little pain along the way but that’s ok it’s nothing compared to what it used to be. Your young ignorance and arrogance is ok too. You will grow up. Long life, prosperity, and hopefully health.
Fareed
Very easy way to see if CBD works is use it in place of your Tylenol or Advil. Ive tried three brands already. Thus far kannaway stuff is good from what I have tried. Even helping with migraines (did not completely take away but did help in relieving severity and how many times) these are facts proven. The only way I know how to test is to use the product.
janne wallace
‘appreciating your weigh in on kannaway
Sandi
Actually using it on a pet really proves the point. They have no expectation so cannot lie.
My little dog, 16 years old, went from crippled movements due to arthritis to full movement, better vision, better hearing and now plays like he did when he was younger.
He ingests Kannaway’s Pure Hemp Oil with no THC
Nathaniell
Interesting! Found this website called Canna-Pet