A recent conversation sparked the question “Is Wealthy Affiliate a Pyramid Scheme?”.
Well, let’s talk about it…
This post is a nice reprieve from the rigours of regularly writing in-depth reviews of programs I happen to come across somewhere on the internet. I hope you have as much fun reading this post as I am having writing it.
The answer is no. Wealthy Affiliate is not a pyramid scheme. Maybe I should try and sound more authoritative… Wealthy Affiliate is nowhere close to being a pyramid scheme! I am sorry if I killed the fun too early for you if you came here looking for confirmation that Wealthy Affiliate is some kind of pyramid scheme. Well, it is not.
I was contacted recently by the owner of a company I reviewed and somewhere in the middle of a conversation, he mentioned that I was bashing other companies while the one I am promoting is an obvious pyramid scheme.
I was lost. Considering what his company does is marketing, surely he had to know what a pyramid scheme is? I asked him anyway if he knew the meaning of a pyramid scheme and if he even bothered to read my review of Wealthy Affiliate and he answered yes in both cases.
Because he did not contact me to go back and forth with me over the business model of Wealthy Affiliate but to argue about my review of his company, our conversation about WA ended abruptly. The conversation ended but not the ridiculousness of the claim kept ringing in my head.
I headed over to the WA keyword tool and did a search of “Is Wealthy Affiliate a Pyramid Scheme” and discovered that there were 24 exact searches of this phrase recently.
Chances are you were probably searching for the exact same thing before you landed here. As soon as I saw there were people actually searching for it, the problem solver and marketer in me decided to do this post.
What is a Pyramid Scheme?
A pyramid scheme is a multi-level marketing business model that relies on recruiting new members whose invested funds works its way up to the top of the pyramid.
There is usually no sale of real products, nor provision of any form of real services. As soon as recruiting stops or slows down, the company is destined to crumble.
Pyramid schemes are primarily about recruiting.
Read the above statement again and again until it sinks in.
How Does Wealthy Affiliate Work?
Let us put things into perspective: If you sign up to WA through my link, you will automatically count as my referral.
As my referral, I will be notified as soon as you join and I will be reminded regularly to check to see how you are coming along with building your business.
If you sign up and decide to go premium, I will get a commission. That’s about it! No uplines, no downlines, nothing.
I have never asked anybody to hop straight into premium. I always advise people to create a free account and I do not get commissions for free accounts!
I do this because I am extremely confident in the value that Wealthy Affiliate provides and I trust my readers to feel the value themselves when they join.
If Wealthy Affiliate does not operate a multi-level marketing system, how exactly could it be a pyramid scheme? Where is the pyramid??
I joined this program in January of 2014 and decided to start out by building a business around men’s sneakers. This was my primary business for the best part of around 18 months. In June 2016, I decided to branch out and create another online business – this time around soccer jerseys. After that, I decided to build another one around FPV drones.
You might not believe that The Opportunity Scout was actually created towards the end of July 2016, a whopping 19 months after I joined Wealthy Affiliate. What the hell was I doing all that time?
WA is like a university where you get to learn how to build a successful business online. Simple as that. You can build a business in whatever niche you choose and promote whatever products are suitable to your niche.
Simply put, WA is an excellent training platform with a great affiliate program on the side.
You are not joining for the affiliate program.
You are joining because you want to learn how to build a business online through Affiliate Marketing.
There is no pyramid because they do not operate an MLM business model. If you sign up through this website, you can choose to build a business in whichever niche you choose and I will not have anything to do with how much you earn.
I have written posts on this website teaching people how to build an online business in a couple of interesting niches: coffee, clothing and binoculars. I enjoy writing these fun posts and I hope to write more of these in the future.
Closing Thoughts
I find it kind of funny that this is even a topic of discussion. If Wealthy Affiliate is a pyramid scheme, then so is every single kind of marketing. With this logic, you would be operating in a pyramid scheme if you ever received commissions for recommending any product.
And by the way, I strongly recommend Wealthy Affiliate because I think they are the best there is anywhere on the internet. I am a member because I don’t think there is anything better. If you think there is something better, I urge you to bring it forward so I can take a look and review it.
Whenever (or if ever) I am convinced that a program offers better value than WA, I will have no problem recommending that program to my readers. This website is mine, not WA’s.
In case you got lost in the long content, Wealthy Affiliate is NOT a pyramid scheme.
If my explanation has convinced you and you want to create a free account, please go ahead. I will be happy to provide assistance to you as you build your online business.
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