WorldVentures Review: Tread This One With Extreme Caution!

Wondering whether the World Ventures business opportunity is a good one or just another pyramid scheme-ish scam? This WorldVentures review clears the air on this company.

An Overview of World Ventures

Let me start by saying that this is not really a review of the vacation deals offered by World Ventures. The objective of this review is to break down the business opportunity this company presents and talk in-depth about your chances of marketing the product.

To do justice to the business opportunity, we will talk a little bit about the products offered by World Ventures. But bear in mind that this is a review of the business opportunity rather than the products and services.

I understand that some people might not want to sit through this long review due to a lack of time or patience. If you are one of such people, please sit back for a minute and go through the following point-form summary of some important things to know about this company:

World Ventures, as a company, is not a scam. They are a real company that sells memberships that offer discounted vacation packages
Basically, they source for deals all over the internet and bundle them into the membership
To become a rep of this company, you will have to pay a sign-up fee of $99.99
Subsequently, you will have to pay $9.99 monthly as a renewal fee
The company operates a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) business model
Contrary to what the company or a rep might have told you, this is not a part-time or work-from-home opportunity.
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What is World Ventures?

World Ventures is an MLM-based company that offers members access to various travel budget options and the opportunity to participate in their loyalty program. The company was founded by Wayne Nugent and Mike Azcue in 2005.

The Products

With World Ventures, here are the products you will be promoting:

Regular DreamTrips Membership: The cost to join this membership is a one-time fee of $199.95 and then a monthly fee of $26.99. If you are able to able to get 4 people to become members of the company, your monthly fee will be waived for as long as they remain paying members. The stand-out benefit you get at this level is participation in the company’s loyalty program.
DreamTrips Gold Membership: The cost of joining this membership is a one-time fee of $199.95 and then a monthly fee of $49.99 in subsequent months. This membership comes with access to airfare discounts and flight accident insurance.
DreamTrips Platinum Membership: This costs a one-time fee of $299.95 and then a monthly fee of $99.99 in subsequent months. This level gives you access to upgraded airport transfers, when possible, and emergency evacuation services.

Now let’s put things into perspective…

I have reviewed many MLM opportunities and I can tell you confidently that, from a marketer’s perspective, the products offered by World Ventures are up there with the worst of them.

There will always be people who need skin care products. There will always be people who need weight loss products. But do you really think you can make a living by going out to sell travel packages?

You might have a few friends and family members that travel a lot and could easily be swayed by the idea of getting access to some deals, but that’s about it.

The fact is, in the current economic situation, you will not find that many people who are willing to pay a lump sum and a monthly fee for a membership that gives them “nice vacation deals”.

It is even questionable whether the cost of travel is even cheaper with World Ventures. I have read numerous complaints from ex-members stating that they actually ended up paying more with World Ventures than they would have if they compared prices online.

They take away your points value (which you paid for) and what you end up paying for a trip could end up being marginally less, the same or even more than other you would pay in other companies.

The deals are not even offered by World Ventures in the first place. They bundle up deals from all over and put them in one place, and then ask you to pay for it.

How do you market a membership that costs hundreds of dollars, plus a monthly fee, when people are fully aware that companies like Expedia and TripAdvisor do the same thing for free?

If you are lucky, you will make a few membership sales here and there but remember there is a monthly fee that comes with your membership. It is very likely you will not make any substantial profits by promoting only the products.

The Business Opportunity

In the previous section, we established that your best bet of selling the products will be by coercing the people that are close to you. They are not products you can market to a random person on the street and therefore, it will be extremely difficult to make a living off selling the products alone.

The real business opportunity in World Ventures, and any MLM company for that matter, lies in recruiting people into the system. That is where the real potential to make money is.

The typical MLM cycle applies to this company. Since you are not taught how to get leads, you will start by recruiting your friends and family into the company. These people then go on to recruit other people. Those other people go on to recruit other people and so on.

This continuous cycle is how you grow your downline and the more recruits you have in your downline, the more money you make.

To be fair, you stand a better chance of marketing the business opportunity to your friends and family than you would promoting the memberships. Unless they are familiar with what a pyramid scheme looks like, they should easily be blinded by the idea of being able to make a fortune.

The whole process is super easy to describe on paper but is hard as hell to implement!

Family and friends are called your “warm market” and while it might seem conducive to start by recruiting them, it is never the long-term solution to making a killing in any business.

You only have so many friends and family members you can recruit and at some point, you will run out of people to recruit into the opportunity. There are also personal implications that come with recruiting the people that are close to you.

When you/they find out the hard way that the business is nowhere as rosy as it was sold to you/them, the relationship could get awkward. You sold them false dreams, they trusted you and in most cases, people quit.

There are many other ways to get leads without having to exploit the people closest to you but unfortunately, World Ventures does not teach you those techniques. The extent of training you get will be directly from your sponsor.

Stick around to the end of the review and I will show you a method of getting consistent leads without having to bug your friends. Having a constant flow of leads is a must for any sustainable business anywhere.

Compensation Plan

The compensation plan is quite complicated and to be honest, I dread putting the compensation plan of MLMs into words. They always use semantics to paint how much you could earn in a perfect scenario, without telling you how difficult and unlikely it is to even break even.

I do not endorse this video. I do not endorse World Ventures. I am sharing this video solely for educational purposes. The compensation plan might have changed at the time you are reading this review.

Let’s skip past the semantics and learn some hard truths:

Your earnings and rewards are dependent on the sales volume of your downline
The attitude and participation of members in your downline is what determines your success or failure in this business
Recruiting is necessary but not sufficient to make a killing in this business. To remain successful, you have to follow up on your downline and make sure they remain active members
While you might know your own direct recruits, you might not know their own direct recruits personally. Therefore, your fate largely depends on people you might not know personally

These problems are not specific to World Ventures, but MLMs in general. This is why a huge percentage of people fail in this business model.

Income Disclosure

At the end of December 2015 there were 238,684 WorldVentures IRs in the United States. During the period January 2015 to December 2015 (“Fiscal Period”), 22.24% of all IRs earned a commission or override, while 77.76% did not. The average annual commission or override earnings of all IRs, including those who did not earn a commission or override, was $300.35. The average annual commission or override earnings of that group of IRs who earned a commission or override was $1,348.82 and the median was $150.00.

– World Ventures Income Disclosure Statement 2015

Here are a few things to note:

The average of both active and paid independent reps ($300.35 & $1348.82) includes the very top earners
The top earners are huge outliers in the data and they greatly skew the average results. Most independent reps earn far less than the average
77.76% did not make a single cent from the business
Based on the average figures in the chart above, 99.2% of independent representatives earn less than $1,300 per year
The figures do not factor in any expenses incurred like the sign-up fee and monthly fees

Who is this opportunity for?

This business opportunity is for you if you:

Truly believe in the value of the memberships being sold
Can walk up to people, interact with them, persuade them to buy products or join your opportunity and most importantly, follow up with them
Are into MLMs or ready to take a chance on MLMs
Are NOT new to marketing
Are NOT looking for a part-time or work-from-home opportunity.

What I liked

This opportunity is relatively cheap compared to other MLMs
They incentivize their representatives

What I didn’t like

You are paying to promote the company
The products are simply not marketable
They do not even let you get a glimpse of the kind of deals they offer in order to help you make an informed decision on whether to pay for a membership or not
They do not offer in-depth training on how to get consistent leads
Ridiculously low average earnings
What they offer in their memberships could easily be gotten elsewhere for free
Their vacation might not necessarily be cheaper than other places
The “You should be here” blue cards annoy me. Do they travel because they want to promote the company or do they travel for leisure?
The company has had legal controversies in the past
It could be argued that this company is a pyramid scheme

Is World Ventures a Pyramid Scheme?

From a legal standpoint, they are not a pyramid scheme because they sell products. However, it is largely debatable if we choose to analyze the business opportunity side of things.

Because the products are simply not marketable in my opinion, you will probably end up having to focus more on recruiting people into the business opportunity. In the process of recruiting people, sales are made and this is what keeps this company on the good side of the law.

I do not think this company stands if recruiting stops today because, unless stats are provided to show otherwise, I do not believe World Ventures makes most of its sales to customers who are not interested in the business opportunity. If that is the case, it makes the company a product-based pyramid scheme and these are usually hard to close down.

Closing Thoughts

I look around for travel deals whenever I want to travel but I have never had to pay in order to see those deals. Regardless of how you feel about this company, the products are going to be a hard sell for you.

From the opportunity perspective, there is a high chance of failure for reasons that may not be down to you. The commitment of the people in your downline, most of whom you might not know, is what determines your success or failure in this business.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of going out to talk to random people about a product or opportunity, you probably should not be considering network marketing at all.

If you are looking to truly build your own business or get consistent leads to any business without recruiting, cold-calling or hard-selling, check out the program that taught me.