Nuskin needs to look up a guy by the name of Orrin Woodward who reportedly brought in $3 Million from a 10,000 person for his former Quixtar TEAM.
High level Quixtar distributors have made handsome profits over the years by staging conventions and seminars. These conventions along with sales of CDs, Books, Voicemail and Web Sites have long supplemented the below average Quixtar/Amway compensation plan, allowing the high level distributors to new distributors because of the perception of wealth.
Salt Lake Tribune:
Nu Skin Enterprises Inc.’s
third-quarter earnings were hindered by the cost of staging a
convention that drew more than 10,000 of its distributors to Salt Lake
City in September.
The Provo-based manufacturer and distributor of nutritional
and personal-care products said today it earned $13.5 million, or 21
cents per share in the quarter. A year earlier, it earned $13.2
million, or 19 cents per share.
"Earnings per share include approximately 5 cents of net costs
associated with the global distributor convention" staged to energize
its commission-only sales force and to try to build investor confidence
after a disappointing 2006, a company statement said.
That works out at a cost of around $3.2 million for the convention. Amway reportedly spent $4 million on their recent convention for UK IBOs which attracted around 5000kr.
Critics of BSM companies often seem to think these events cost nothing but venue hire, perhaps these figures will have them rethink that. I believe for example the $3 million for Woodward ignored expenses (ignoring of course the fact that according to court affidavits he made nothing from the seminar except speaking fees and the usual ticket profit-sharing)
Of course ibofightback is ignoring the fact that most BSM organizations do not bring in real speakers for their events like many Network Marketing companies do.
Then I love how you gloss over this one:
"that according to court affidavits he made nothing from the seminar except speaking fees and the usual ticket profit-sharing"
Ticket profit sharing is huge and speaker fees for these guys can be big as well. I can't think of a single place that most of these guys would be paid to speak except Amway events.
I can't speak for other organizations but many N21-associated leaders do paid speaking gigs for non-Amway events. What's more N21 *does* regularly bring in outside speakers to it's events.
But claiming the N21 speakers "aren't real speakers" just goes to show how little experience you have with them – or perhaps it's just respect. I've never heard Bo Short, but I have heard Andy Andrews, and I don't think you'd argue with me in saying he is a "real speaker", and I've read good reports on Bo Short. Where they "not real speakers" when speaking to TIF/Passport/whatever?
Of course they were/are.
Outside of Bo Short and Andy Andrews, I can't think of any Amway guys who get paid to speak at a non-Amway event.
That is my point.
Obviously Amway leaders are making money when they rake in $3 Million for a weekend event. Paid speakers do not cost that much money. I would guess that you can get John Maxwell for less than $100,000. The room rental, sound system, stage hands, etc, let's say they cost $1 million (I know for a fact that is high). That leaves $1.9 Million left over…for profit!
Well, no, because that normally is full retail price when tickets are pretty much all sold wholesale price with the resellers profiting, so that profit isn't all profit for the guys running the event. You'd typically have to take off another 30%. Given both NuSkin and Amway have said their events cost $3-4million to put on, it would also appear that your "know for a fact" expense estimate is not correct.
Amway brought in Dr. Phil to speak which is another story altogether. I would bet that Nuskin and Amway gave away a bunch of swag (which BSM companies simply do not do) and the companies probably included meals and other entertainment (unless you count the GOADS or some other hokie band), the BSM companies do not do that either.
Trust me, I could put on a helluva event for 10,000 people for $3 mil.
I was talking about the recent Amway UK convention. There were no speakers other than IBOs and Amway staff. Come to think of it, the costs might have been 3-4million pounds not dollars.
Most major N21 seminars I go to have live local entertainment for an hour or so on the saturday evening, and it's not unusual to have outside paid speakers either. In some parts of the world meals are included too.