LIFE Leadership
The Amway tools scam is a scam that is run by top Amway representatives. The way this scam works is training and motivational materials are sold to new Amway representatives as required for their success in Amway and life. These tools are the primary way that top Amway representatives make their money instead of Amway. My subscribers have requested I take a look into the money-making opportunity LIFE Leadership offers. Here is what I have found.
LIFE Leadership Scam Claims
The life you have always wanted!
Welcome to Life, where we’re in the business of setting people free.
We Have Fun.
Make Money.
Make A Difference.
For those who desire high achievement and lifestyle, we offer a shot at financial freedom through our sales compensation plan.
LIFE Leadership was founded in November 2011. Orrin Woodward is the founder and Chairman of the Board of LIFE Leadership.
– Source lifeleadership.com
Here is a little background on Orrin Woodward:
He joined Amway in 1993. Amway became Quixtar in the USA in 1999 and from 1999 through 2007 Orrin lead a group of representatives that ultimately became known as TEAM ( Together Everyone Achieves More). In 2007 he was warned about his tools business by Quixtar. Then he was terminated from the company. Orrin Woodward sues Amway, calling it a pyramid scheme.
Here is a quote from the official reason provided by Amway for this termination:
And over the last several months, it became clear to us that Orrin Woodward was a poster child for a long list of bad business practices that our critics hate about our company. The other leaders we terminated – including Chris Brady, Billy Florence, Don Wilson, Randy Haugen, Tim Marks and Chuck Goetschel – also showed they were unwilling to reform.
Not telling people they were signing up with Quixtar? Woodward would hide that fact from new Independent Business Owners as long as he could.
Similar review: Swissgolden
Making people think it was easy money? Same deal.
Telling people that Quixtar was merely a “supplier,” and not the company they were signing a contract with? Yup.
We’d told Woodward we had problems with the way he ran his business for years, and we worked methodically to bring those problems to resolution. We got ignored, we got lied to, and, boy, we got the runaround.
So in the end, yesterday, we tried to give him one last chance to reform.
He didn’t even want to hear his options. So we terminated him. And in return, he handed us a trumped-up, trash-talking lawsuit on his way out the door. In response, we have a temporary restraining order issued by a court that prevents him from looting the business as he seeks to take his act to a new company.
– Source alticorblogs.com
Here is how Orrin Woodward describes this period of time:
Amway’s management team had no idea the hornet nests they had knocked over. People in our organization were already upset at the name change and now Amway/Quixtar compounded its errors by “firing” myself and Chris. Indeed, through writing over-the-top blog posts (since removed) on their official sites, manufacturing negative news through their billion dollar contacts (Forbes and various newspapers), and issuing business ultimatum emails to our leaders, Amway/Quixtar evidently sought to besmirching our character. However, as legendary coach John Wooden once said, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
– Source orrinwoodwardblog.com
In 2008 Orrin Woodward and TEAM join Monavie and received a $3 million loan he didn’t have to repay if he met certain recruiting distributor goals. – Source The Salt Lake Tribune
Here is how Forbes described Orrin Woodward and TEAM’s work with Monavie:
Team is one step ahead of all these juice selling schemes. It is a pyramid atop a pyramid. It is selling motivational aids to help MonaVie vendors move the juice. But wait. If you can’t earn back the $258 you’ve spent on the motivational lectures by selling $39 juice bottles, you could earn it back in another way–getting people to buy $258 motivational lectures. If you’re good, you flog the lectures to other people, who sell them to yet others. Everybody gets rich. Everybody, that is, except the last round of buyers. That’s the theory, anyway. The reality is that a mere 1% of Team members make any money from involvement with the firm.
Sounds rather like a chain letter, doesn’t it? Woodward insists it’s not. He says he’s selling hope and sales skills.
– Source Forbes.com
In a spectacular failure, a Florida company is foreclosing on Utah-based MonaVie Inc. after the marketer of nutritional fruit juice and personal care products defaulted on a $182 million note. MonaVie will voluntarily transfer “substantially all” of its assets to Jeunesse. Jeunesse is a multilevel marketing company that sells personal care and nutritional products to independent distributors. – Source The Salt Lake Tribune
After a review of Orrin Woodwards history, it is my opinion that his leadership skills are focused on leading people into MLM after MLM. Now he has his own MLM for you to join: LIFE Leadership. Does he hold the keys to your success?
Here are a few of the complaints about LIFE Leadership:
I just want to say my sister and her husband have recently been scammed into this. She took me to a meeting and because I would not join I was contacted by weeks by the woman who got my sister to join. She is relentless in telling me my life could be so much better if I would join life and that I could use it to spread ‘god’s word’ and that me volunteering for free at a homeless shelter is a small thing in comparison to what I could do with this company. It’s funny all of the defenders of this company use the same lines ‘people are just negative’, ‘you must like life the way it is’, etc. I think it’s scary how fast they brainwash people. Sadly my sister and her husband have cut all contact with the family because the woman who got her involved said we are all too negative not supporting her by buying into this scam. It makes me sick these people get away with this and sad so many people are blinded by the promise of getting ahead. – Source lazymanandmoney.com
I joined Life in 2015 with my husband, who made the decision without my consent. My son introduced me to it. Right from the beginning, I had many doubts. I attended a couple of seminars, and the atmosphere seemed cult-like to me, and the people I met seemed disingenuous. I did a lot of digging, and I found that opinions on the company were very polarizing; people loved it or hated it. I thought they had a decent product, but I felt they were much more focused on recruitment than selling their product, which caused pyramid scheme bells to go off in my head.
I am a Type A personality, so I wanted to see numbers and stats. What I uncovered frightened me. The retention rate of new members was staggeringly low, and the earnings of new members were, as well. When my husband and I met with my son’s “mentor”, he couldn’t answer any of my questions to my satisfaction, and the thing that really bothered me was the lack of a clear outline for training. I wanted to see a step-by-step picture of how one was to market and sell this product. Instead of answering my question, he gave me a form that included the company’s hierarchy (he did not like that word) structure. I simply couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t provide me with a structured training system.
My husband listened to what my concerns were, and I persuaded him to drop our membership. My son stayed in for about six months. After being asked to do things he felt terribly uncomfortable with, such as approaching random people to ask them how much debt they had, he also dropped out. This company may work for some, but it’s really only the top 1% who are profiting. If you can talk a really good game and are good at BSing your way through questions, then this company might be for you. Otherwise, stay far, far away! -Source Bestcompany.com
I am a 34 year old, Christian, white, male, American, U.S. Marine. I was first attracted to LIFE because of the “8 F’s”: Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, Finance, Following, Fun, Freedom. I used to say “LIFE is the best leadership development group this side of the Marine Corps”. I no longer believe that, after years of seeing the real company. You can develop your own leadership for a lot less money and less time by buying some books about leadership, or downloading free leadership materials, like from the USMC, online. I personally know 7 people that were hurt by LIFE. Good, hardworking, kind, ambitious, eager, “teachable” people that “followed the system” and “invested” their money for YEARS. Each of us was in for at least 3 years, some 5 or longer. I was a customer in Monavie/LIFE/TEAM. Like most MLMs a very tiny percentage actually gain “financial freedom”. LIFE did offer great material, books, and okay CDs. I would still support LIFE if it were a political movement, not a “business”. Orrin Woodward uses this MLM structure to disperse his personal political views. LIFE is essentially a Jeffersonian Political movement. So if you agree with those principals you might like “LIFE”. It is not “for everyone and anyone”. LIFE cannot seem to see this or admit this fact. My biggest negative complaints are that like most MLMs there has to be lots of truth stretching and tons of hyper-emotionalism. They will say almost anything to you to keep you in the system. (“walk a mile, see a mile”; “just follow the system” or “go listen to a CD”.) There is so much hype. Also, they are unfortunately not about the “8 F’s” mostly just about “following the system”. Side note: the “Following F” is actually their term for “leadership” because you “follow their system”. A lot of stuff is manufactured, like the book signings, where Woodward tells all 15k people at a conference to stand in line to sign his books so he can win the Guinness Book of World records (I stood in one of those lines). Or the Amazon review of “Leadershift” (notice it is mostly 5 stars or 1 star, 5 stars from people inside the company and 1 or 2 stars from the non-affiliated reviewer who said it was nearly unreadable. I have 7 copies of that book on my book shelf as I didn’t even want to give them away, I was embarrassed by the poor plot and writing) Over all, it is a depressing group that can’t handle any real criticism, though it is self-righteous enough to consistently criticize everything else. The company thrives predominantly on fear of failure, loss, and by stirring up constant discontentment (hmm the opposite of Christ, btw), and then adding a Biblical spin on it. If you leave the group after giving years of your life to it, they won’t care or ask why, because “you are a negative person, who didn’t believe enough”. (typical MLM response). For these reasons I cannot and do not recommend LIFE to anyone. In fact I warn people against it. – Source BBB
They claim to offer a shot at financial freedom through their sales compensation plan. Let’s take a look at the opportunity they offer:
The average yearly income is $975.12 for LIFE Leadership members.
Only .475% of all members had a median income of more than $3,434.16 per year.
44.37% of all Members received no income at all.
55.52% of Members do not continue with LIFE Leadership after their first year.
– Source LIFE Leadership Income Disclosure
It seems clear to me that the majority of people are not making a significant amount of money with this money making opportunity. Their leadership is ineffective at keeping the majority of people in this money making opportunity for more than a year.
“LIFE Leadership has over 40% of its monthly subscriptions going to customers who are not even part of the compensation plan.”
– Source Orrin Woodward
The majority of sales of products are to people that are part of the compensation plan.
…multi-level marketers should stop presenting business opportunities as a way for individuals to quit their jobs, earn thousands of dollars a month, make career-level income, or get rich because in reality, very few participants are likely to do that.
– Source FTC
Here are a few questions you should ask anyone that is trying to recruit you into LIFE Leadership:
- What does financially free specifically mean? Does this just mean job optional or rich?
- How much time will the LIFE Leadership business take to pursue? Can it really be only a ten hour a week business if I add up meetings, showing the plan, seminars, majors, follow ups, mentoring, driving time, listening, reading, etc.? If this business will eventually take up as much time as a job with the slim chance of making enough money to replace my job then is that really any better than having a job?
- Just how many people have become ‘financially free’ through LIFE Leadership?
Typical Member Costs
Business Starter Kit $99
$50-$100 Monthly in product subscriptions.
Enrollment Free $26.95
Life Training Marketing System $121.49 Monthly (Optional)
In order to keep a LIFE Membership active, Members are required to renew each year. The standard renewal fee is $19.00, but by registering for LIFE’s Auto Renewal Program, the renewal fee is reduced by over 20% to $15.00.
Products
- Financial Fitness Program
- Financial Fitness Master Class
- Building Freedom – The Mastermind Pack
- LLR Corporate Program – Sample Pack – Course 1 – Session 1
- On the EDGE Pack by Chris Swanson
- Personality Plus by Florence Littauer
- Setting People Free
- Financial Matrix by Orrin Woodward
- The Lens Effect by Orrin Woodward
- The Camel in the Tent by Chris Brady
- An Introduction to Financial Fitness by Chris Brady
- 10 Financial Principles by Chris Brady
- Financial Fitness for Teens
- Financial Fitness Pack (Spanish version)
- The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz, Ph.D
- Self Talk by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger
- How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People by Les Giblin
Subscriptions:
- Rascal Radio
- Total Personal Development
- LLR – Corporate Course 1 (6 months)
- LLR – Corporate Course 2 (6 months)
- LLR – Corporate Course 1 & 2 (12 months)
- LLR – Corporate Course 3 (6 months)
- LLR – Corporate Course 1, 2 & 3 (18 months)
- Book of The Month
- AGO
- Edge
- Wealth Habits
- Freedom
- Life
Compensation Plan
You make 15% on the PV of all products you merchandise to Registered Customers. Since 44.37% of all Members received no income at all it would seem it is very difficult to sell these products to customers.
In order for Life Members to receive compensation in the Life Compensation Plan (beyond the money made from the Retail Sales Margin, Customer Pool Bonus, and Cumulative Customer Bonus), they must satisfy a minimum monthly customer sales requirement.
Months 3-6: The minimum monthly customer sales requirement is $100 with no sales type requirement, meaning that the $100 can be generated from any combination of Self-Reported or Registered Customer sales.
Months 7 and beyond: The minimum customer sales requirement is still $100, but starting with full month 7 the Member is required to have at least $50 of that as Registered Customer sales.
Other than the $50 requirement for Registered Customer sales, it would seem that through recruiting people into this business opportunity you can rise through the ranks of this compensation plan.
Income Disclosure
The average yearly income is $975.12 for LIFE Leadership members.
Only .475% of all members had a median income of more than $3,434.16 per year.
44.37% of all Members received no income at all.
55.52% of Members do not continue with Life Leadership after their first year.
– Source LIFE Leadership Income Disclosure
It seems clear to me that the majority of people are not making a significant amount of money with this money making opportunity. This is a poorly compensated community.
Return Policy
LIFE and its Members offer a 100% 30 day money-back guarantee to all retail customers and Members.
– Source Lifeleadership.com
LIFE Leadership Review: Final Verdict
In my opinion, LIFE Leadership is another recruiting scam. It is the creation of a team of people that were involved with the Amway scam and the MonaVie scam. Only .475% of all Live Leadership members have a median income of more than $3,434.16 per year. 44.37% of all Members received no income at all. Other than the $50 requirement for Registered Customer sales, it would seem that through recruiting people into this business opportunity you can rise through the ranks of this compensation plan. In order for Life Members to receive compensation in the Life Compensation Plan (beyond the money made from the Retail Sales Margin, Customer Pool Bonus, and Cumulative Customer Bonus), they must satisfy a $100 minimum monthly customer sales requirement. Their have been complaints by people involved in this scam that say they were brainwashed by their experience with this company. The leadership displayed by the owners of this company has been on leading people into MLM after MLM. I would avoid the LIFE Leadership money making opportunity.
MFP Investments
I was “recruited” by a friend of mine I served with in the military, I want to say it was around 2012. I was going through a difficult financial time due to unforeseen circumstances, and even putting food on the table for my family was hard to say the least. I was also depressed and vulnerable. This “friend” called me, (who’s never called me before mind you), and seemed genuinely interested in wanting to help, without giving any detail as to what that help may be, only that her husband wanted to “present” something to me. I was at first very appreciative of her kind words and concern, but that quickly turned to disgust as soon as that easel popped out and I realized that they were just trying to sell me crap, with the false hope of becoming financially independent. Not wanting to make a scene, I sat through the whole presentation with my husband, and when it was finally over, I actually did sign up just so I could legitimately say I tried. I knew there was a 30 day 100% return policy, (the only part I liked), so I planned on taking full advantage of that if it didn’t work out, which I already knew it wouldn’t. I paid them around $180, and I got a small box of their “merchandise”, which I didn’t even touch. My husband was actually slightly interested in giving it a shot, but I did my due diligence and showed him article after article after article of the true dangers of MLM’s. A couple days later I called my friend back to cancel, and she goes, “you really inconvenienced us, we were only trying to help, if you don’t want this opportunity, then you must like your current situation”. Excuse me? I inconvenienced her? She’s the one calling me with her fake concern and then proceeded to treat me like I was a transaction. She’d always talk about wanting to be rich, go on all these fancy trips, etc. It just seems that all MLM’s are only interested in money, and shaming, guilting, and manipulating others is how they do it, and it’s disgusting… Who in their right mind thinks that giving those less fortunate a sense of fake hope and fake promise of getting rich, is ok? Absolute garbage! My motto is that even though you can’t help everyone, you shouldn’t hurt people either. If only the top 1% of people in the MLM business are making money, the ones on the bottom get squashed. Better regulations need to be put in place so that companies like Life Leadership won’t exist.
After the launch of Starfish my upline told me that “we weren’t an mlm anymore because mlms don’t partner with companies like Amazon”. Plus, my upline and several of the leadership would put down people who were in other industries and say that they were “idiots for not wanting to do network marketing”. You can become wealthy by doing something other than network marketing!!! My upline sent me on a guilt trip when I told him that I wanted to leave. My team leader then called me and told me that I was going to fail in life if I didn’t do network marketing. As a Christian I hate writing bad reviews, but I would stay away from these guys. Starfish is a great product that saves you money, but the cult like mentality of the members is disturbing.
I met with several of the members and at first the app they are pushing now sounded great, but everything else and all the little details I was able to pull out were pretty bad. The app has been “about to launch” for at least two years, and the biggest push was to spend money on the conventions they hold. Nothing about it sounds legitimate unfortunately, despite the wonderful sales pitch about creating wealth for all the members instead of only those at the top. The other reviews on here are clearly from deluded members of this scam who are in too deep to realize their folly.
See others talking about it, and archived pages from their old websites below:
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiMLM/comments/autm69/life_info_app/
https://web.archive.org/web/20190711165901/http://cdn.mainhomepage.com:80/forms/us_compensationplan_en.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20160925064213/https://bestcompany.com/mlm/company/life-leadership/
This article is very slanted and does not describe the LIFE business at all. It looks like someone is trying to do a hit job on this fellow.
Why are the User ratings all 10s, and the “Expert” ratings (meaning the self-proclaimed “expert” that wrote this terribly researched article) are all low scores?
This is a legitimate business as much as Mcdonalds is. It also has nothing to do with Mona Vie.
This website is nothing more than a bathroom wall.
They were literally joined with Monavie and used to sell their juice. They used them as their selling point, I should know because I was involved then. Maybe you need to educate yourself because you sound silly, this is not McDonald’s. The majority of people don’t make money but sacrifice ALL their time and spend continuously on training materials. Because that’s what Orrin and Chris profit from. Also they are hype religious and super political.. neither good business practices.
I believe this company is phenomenal! My experience has been exceptional and positive.