Should You Become a Shaklee Distributor: A Honest Opinion

This lens is about giving the cold hard facts about Roger Barnett and his network marketing company, Shaklee Corporation (Shaklee). Shaklee is a network marketing company that was launched in 1956 and has been rapidly growing ever since.

Shaklee was started on the idea that the average person, regardless of education, experience or current financial situation, can achieve their financial goals in life by becoming a Shaklee distributor.

In this lens I will be exploring what exactly Shaklee is and will shed some light on whether or not it is a legitimate home business opportunity, but in the meantime if you would like to get any questions answered about Shaklee you can reach me (Brian) at: (512) 850-4857.

I would be happy to answer any questions, share with you my experience, and help you get a better understanding of what Shaklee is all about - as well as what it takes to be successful in this company.

First of all Roger Barnett is considered one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his generation. His family has been in business for over 75 years and have created 4 companies from scratch that today are each worth over $1 billion, but instead of retiring by the time he was 40, he invested 5 years and over $20 million dollars researching the industry before buying Shaklee in 2004.

According to Roger, "Within the network marketing industry, we looked at 75 different companies, and Shaklee was by far the most significant investment opportunity that we could find. Why? Because Shaklee has the perfect combination of the greatest heritage with a 50-year track record and $3 billion dollars paid in commissions to distributors, along with the greatest potential future of any company in the network marketing industry, bar none. We're determined to make Shaklee both the best investment that we have ever made and the Number One company in our industry."

Some Notable Achievements In Shaklee's History

* 1986 - Shaklee products fuel the Voyager pilots in their record-setting first to fly around the world, non-stop, non-refueled flight.

* 1987 - Shaklee was selected by Jacques Cousteau and the Cousteau Society to provide environmentally friendly cleaning products for use onboard their research vessels, the Calypso and Alcyone.

* 1988 - Daedalus Flight uses the new Shaklee Performance, a maximum endurance sports drink, sets world record for human powered flight.

* 1990 - Shaklee's biodegradable and nontoxic Basic-H® all-purpose cleaner was chosen as one of the first official Earth Day products.

* 2007 - Shaklee was the first company in the world to be certified Climate Neutral, which means they operate with a net zero impact on the earth.

* 2007 - Get Clean®, Shaklee's line of nontoxic and biodegradable cleaning products, was selected as one of Oprah's "Favorite Things".

* 2010 - Shaklee has been the official nutritional sponsor of U.S. Snowboarding and the U.S. Olympic Ski Team since 1980 and powered their athletes to an astounding 21 medals (including 6 gold medals) from the 2010 Winter Olympic Games held in Vancouver.

One barrier that a lot of network marketing companies face is a limited target market. Generally companies are started with a product or service line of just one or two products, pushing legal services, candles, or an energy drink that only meets the needs of a select few.

Another issue is they don't have unique, patented products. Some network marketing companies have arrangements with large corporations to sell their products or services to the general public. While this sounds great at first, when a company doesn't actually have its own products they are at the mercy of the company that is actually producing the product or service.

For example, if you're working with a company that sells cell phone or internet service for Verizon, your business can be affected by any changes Verizon makes to its service even though you're affiliated with a totally different company.

On top of that, your customers could potentially go directly to Verizon/AT&T/Barnes & Noble/etc. to fulfill their needs thereby causing you to lose out on that income source. This is why I feel that working with a company like Shaklee which has its own patented products and doesn't sell them in traditional retail stores is an absolute must.

Shaklee came up with a very lucrative compensation plan to reward its distributors for offering its' multiple products that the mass population uses everyday. This allows a Shaklee distributor a chance to earn a passive residual income on products they are already using. The majority of people are already spending money every month on vitamins/nutritional supplements/weight loss products, cleaning and laundry products, and other personal care products - so Shaklee's view is why not keep using these products and get a percentage of it back every month?

Bottom line, Shaklee has something for everyone.

Everyone has heard of the infamous "pyramid scheme", and everyone has seen the huge income opportunity claims made in this industry, so it's easy to see why some people may view network marketing companies like Shaklee as a scam if they don't do their homework and research the company.

In order to fully understand Shaklee to decide if you should become a Shaklee distributor or not, you must know how the home-based business industry works as a whole. Primarily there are two ways you will be paid in this industry:

1.) The Network Marketing MLM Comp Plan
2.) The Direct Sales Comp Plan

Shaklee is a network marketing company so naturally they use the first model.

For example's sake, not only will you make up to $125 (actual amount will vary based on rank) every time someone joins your business as a "Gold Ambassador", you will also get a percentage of that person's customer orders when their customers buy Shaklee products in the form of a passive monthly residual income. This is Shaklee's way of rewarding you for introducing people to their products.

So imagine if you had a downline of 5,000 people who are ordering Shaklee products every month how much money you would be making. You can do the math. Shaklee willing to pay its distributors BIG MONEY in exchange for new customers.

The difference between an illegal pyramid scheme like Bernie Madoff ran and a legitimate business opportunity like Shaklee is simple: a legitimate business only pays its distributors when someone buys a product or service.

An illegal pyramid scheme doesn't actually offer a real product or service, so it relies on using new people's money who join the pyramid to pay those at the top.

So when looking at becoming a Shaklee distributor or any other home-based business for that matter, if you can't simply tell someone what product or service the company offers, RUN!

Income Claims

As far as I'm aware, Shaklee is one of the only companies who publishes actual incomes earned by its distributors by rank as reported to the IRS on their 1099's, but here's the honest truth: you're not going to make $10K your first month and any business opportunity which claims you will is lying to you.

Yes, you realistically can make a good six or even seven figure income with Shaklee but, like any business, it takes a little time and a lot of hard work to get to that level of income. As the saying goes, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Once you have signed up as a Shaklee distributor, it's time to start getting some customers and building your organization.

This is where I will be brutally honest with you. After all, my intention with this lens is to provide you with INFORMATION and FACTS and not hype or false expectations.

Contrary to popular belief, Shaklee will give you a very industry generic training that is not all that effective in today's modern wired world.

What many of us are led to believe is business training is really just teaching us about Shaklee products and its business opportunity. The training is very generic and really teaches nothing about true marketing, though I will give them credit for trying to update their training methods in the recent past.

They will teach you to make a list of 100 names and then approach your friends and family about building a business themselves. However, keep in mind that what you may find is exciting, your friends and family may initially not.

Shaklee teaches this method because it requires no skill to think about who you know. Here are just a few skills you will realistically have to develop in order to be successful in this approach:

1.) Approaching / Talking to People
2.) Prospecting / Cold Calls
3.) Doing Presentations
4.) Closing Ability
5.) Overcoming Objections
6.) Telephone Technique

Aside from these skills, you also need skills in how to market both offline and online. Now I'm not saying that you should avoid telling people you know about your new business. If you went out and bought a McDonald's franchise, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to try and keep it a secret, would it?

No!

But if you're like me, I didn't want to rely on my best friend seeing what I saw in Shaklee to make a good income working from home.

This is where I can assist you in building a business that meets your goals and expectations. Today, the power and reach of the internet have made chasing your family and friends obsolete. Your customers are just a click away from ordering directly from you online or joining your business as a distributor. In fact many of them are shopping and doing their research there right now as you're reading this.

There are people searching everyday for products like what Shaklee offers as well as millions of business opportunity seekers looking for a home business to join.

In the end your success is going to depend on your ability to understand your prospects' needs wants and desires, and then your ability to fulfill their demand with your Shaklee business opportunity or product.

When you have a powerful team of mentors who can take you by the hand and teach you what it really takes to build a successful Shaklee business, you make can make some serious cash.

To be clear, that's not a made up number or timeframe. Our exclusive business model, The FastTrack to Success, is designed to be a roadmap to help our qualified business partners achieve a strong career-level income by hitting 5 simple, pre-determined milestones in 3 month increments.

Being a Shaklee distributor can be a very lucrative opportunity if you know how to market and build your organization. If you don't know how to get your opportunity in front of people who are actually looking for products or a business, then the opportunity is essentially useless.

That's exactly why my partner and I have created IMMENSE resources that you will have access to IMMEDIATELY, once you join our community.

When you join us, we will work with you one-on-one to market your business both online and offline so you can start making money right away.

Rather than going out and trying to figure out everything on your own, when you join our community we plug you right into our training program that's been PROVEN to produce six figure earners so you know exactly how to market your Shaklee business in a way that gets results.

You will be marketing like a professional and making money right from the start with our coaching and mentorship.

Using our PROVEN marketing system you will be generating high quality leads and new customers from the moment you get started. All you really need to do is to commit a little time each day to your marketing and you will develop skills that no one can ever take away from you.

A real marketer can be successful not just as a Shaklee distributor, but any opportunity they may choose.

Feel free to contact me if you would like more information: (512) 850-4857.

Once you are ready to learn real marketing and success principles, I am here to assist you in any way that I can.

Thank you and best regards,



Brian Rakowski
512-850-4857