Thursday, January 5, 2017

Why SendOutCards distributors aren’t making money

SendOutCards is exactly what it sounds like – a service that exists for those times when you forget your Aunt Kathy’s birthday, which is probably every year, or fail to call and congratulate your friend when she gets engaged, because phone calls are hard.

You pick out and quickly personalize the card, and they print, sign, seal, and deliver it.

Simple, yet brilliant. Does this mean I’m involved?

This video explains everything:


Make sense? Either way, here’s the full review on SendOutCards.

Overview

SendOutCards, headquartered in Salt Lake, was founded in 2003 by Kody Bateman, self-proclaimed “Mentor of Millionaires”. He graduated with a degree in marketing and went to work for an ad agency in New York before discovering network marketing in Utah in 1991. He’s been hooked ever since, and has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and network marketer.

He’s definitely made a name for himself in the industry. He’s been featured in over 200 network marketing events, and he wrote MLM Blueprint. This knowledge clearly helped him out with founding his own direct sales company.

By 2009, they’d hit the Inc. 5,000 at #158, with an annual revenue of over $32 million and an unbelievable 3-year growth rate of 1,173%. [1]

In 2011, their revenue was estimated at over $45 million. [2]

Now? They’re up to around $500 million. Pretty astounding growth. [3]

In just over 10 years, SendOutCards has already delivered over 100 million cards and 3 million gifts, and they’re officially the largest first-class mailing company in the United States. [4]

They haven’t yet joined the BBB, but they are a member of the Direct Selling Association. [5]

Products

Their main product is greeting cards, which you personalize completely by choosing the design, adding photos, and including a personal message.

However, they do all the work from there. You pay, and they print the card, address it, and ship it off for you. They even help you set reminders for special occasions, holidays, and birthdays. Personally, I love the thought of giving cards and gifts, but I hate actually shopping for them. I would totally use this service.

They offer cards for all occasions. They also offer gifts, although those are less popular.

The company literally develops hundreds of new designs ever month so you’re never going to run out of options.

It would be nice if you could just buy a $4 card here and there, but of course, then they wouldn’t make much money. They offer a subscription that costs $39 per month for access to their greeting card system.

That’s pretty spendy. Way more than a Netflix subscription, which gives you access to thousands of movies and unlimited binge-watching opportunities.

It’s especially expensive when you think about how often you send out a greeting card. The company’s goal is to get people to send out personalized cards more often, which is thoughtful, but I can’t imagine finding a way to use $39 worth of greeting cards every single month. Maybe Paris Hilton can, but I definitely don’t have that many friends.

They offer even pricier bundles that are expensive but include bonuses like extra fonts and signatures, additional storage for your greeting card history, and a custom brand manager with your own customized logo. Again, too much for a regular person, but I could see this being useful for people who run their own businesses. [6]

Opportunity

Starting commission rates are nothing impressive here.

However, they’ve still managed to grow a lot – they’ve got over 60,000 distributors now – so there must be a reason for all that growth.

It costs $50 to sign up to be a distributor, which isn’t bad, although you do have to pay an annual fee of $59.

Customer direct retail profits and customer commission exist, but nothing in their compensation plan explains how much distributors can earn off of them.

Like many MLMs, they offer a fast-start bonus of $50 and one-time customer acquisition bonuses.

The plan, overall, is way too vague and the bonuses are nothing special. However, the one redeeming quality is their downline commission or residual income, which pays up to 7 levels deep, and another downline commission bonus, which pays infinity levels deep. [7]

You have to hit 93 PCQV, or 3 enrolled preferred customers, to become a distributor. The requirements are a little higher than your average MLM.

Recap

If you want to make any decent money, you’d have to be able to enroll many companies who want to buy business accounts and are satisfied enough to keep them running.

Unfortunately, B2B marketing and sales is even more difficult than selling to consumers, especially if you have little to no sales experience. You can’t just sell to your grandma and Facebook friends with this one.

If you get in early enough to build a huge downline, there’s a shot at good money…but when the MLM is already 13 years old, it’s often too late.

Now I’m not a SendOutCards hater, as I’ve shown throughout this review. If you really like the concept and convenience of the service they offer, you could give it a try and see how it works for you. Just don’t plan on getting rich with it.

If you like automated ways to build passive income, there are better ways.

(and you can trash those old MLM habits, too)


via http://mlmcompanies.org/sendoutcards/

No comments:

Post a Comment