TVI Express - Fast Lane or a dead end?

TVI Express Review

Once you have been in the MLM industry for a few years you almost get immune to the constant parade of new “Hot” deals that seem to flow through the marketplace. For someone just entering the MLM world it can be very distracting. You know how it is, first you agonize over making the dread decision to actually do “MLM” and hope no one you know actually finds out, but then once you are in and trying to learn this new system the other deals start to flood in. Its almost like someone put a little ad in the newspaper telling everyone that you are now an MLM’er and now all your friends you were too embarrassed to even put on your warm market list are hitting you up with the greatest deal of the week. Your upline tells you to just “focus” and “put the blinders on” and “don’t get distracted” and after a while it passes when we realize its like everything else in life, the grass always seems greener over there. For those who don’t focus they join the other “MLM Junkies” destined to jump from deal to deal knowing full well that success lurks in the next one. Top earning professionals in this industry don’t usually get distracted, once they are committed to a deal you usually can’t get their attention unless a real game changer enters the marketplace. Now that the stage is set lets talk about one of those potential “Game Changers”, TVI Express. Since I am heavily into online marketing and lead generation using keyword advertising, I can always see where the traffic is. The rumblings of the emerging deal. That’s how I came across TVI. There was a huge increase in lead flow for people wanting to learn online marketing coming from this company keyword starting in about October of this year. I reviewed the company website did not see anything exceptional and that was that. Then I got a call from Greg, a new distributor for TVI who had been with them for about 2 1/2 months and he wanted my help in online marketing. We discussed the company at some length and then I asked him how it was going for him so far. That’s when he dropped the bomb! He said he had made a rather staggering amount in just the last 2 months. Now I have been in the industry for over 22 years and have seen it all but I have to admit the amount he mentioned in such a short time period shocked me. Here are the results of my in depth review of this new company. TVI Express is basically a travel club that launched their business model in January of 2009 in Asia. Now lets face it, travel is a sexy product, people love the idea of being on vacation and you combine that with making money and you’ve got something. Now travel deals like TVI have been around the MLM world for a long time, and they always seem to do well for a while but then kind of loose steam after a while. The most recent success story YTB (Your Travel Biz) smoked for a while but recently seems to have hit the wall on growth. Here is the result of my 4 step critical analysis on TVI express.

TVI Express Products

  Most travel deals use the “Be a travel agent” business model but this is more of a club. The TVI Express base product is a Travel Voucher that is good for a free 7 day/6 night stay for 2 people at any of hundreds of 3 to 5 star resorts around the world. The voucher also includes companion airfare. The base price on this from the company is $250 US and this is in fact what you receive when you sign up to be a TVI Express distributor for $250 It may actually cost you $275 or $300 depending on if you buy a voucher from your upline to sign up or use the international money transfer service to pay the company. The voucher route is better. Once you are a distributor you can also purchase more of these “Vouchers” in your TVI Express back office and sell them to customers. Once you are a distributor you also have access to travel discounts through their channel partners on everything from Rental Cars to Ship Cruises though your back office. No Autoship One of the attractive things to many people is that once you have paid your TVI Express distributor fee there are no required monthly purchases to stay active. This is a great selling feature but may be an “Achilles heel” for them in the future.

TVI Express – The Company

The TVI Express original home office was in the UK and according to their website they are backed by a prestigious UK financial group. Their current home office appears to be in Cyprus although they do still have offices and customer support phone numbers in the UK. Apart from that there’s not much more info on the company. They are currently operating in 150 countries world wide. Ground Floor Since TVI Express launched in Asia in January of 2009 and in the US in late summer, you can’t get much more ground floor than that but boy have they grown! It seems they amassed almost 200,000 distributors in Asia before they even hit the US and they are now growing like gangbusters in the US. TVI Express Compensation I usually never look too much to a company’s comp plan since MLM comp plans are all profitable, but the TVI Express comp plan because of the aggressive nature of the payment structure bears a closer look. The basic difference is that TVI uses a Matrix comp plan rather than a standard MLM residual. Now generally there are two basic business models in the world of MLM, Standard MLM and Top Tier MLM, however Matrix compensation plans represent a variation that borrow a little bit from both models. In MLM most companies will pay you a small amount or residual on downline activity multiple levels deep in your organization. This means that you get a small amount off of the people in your group. These small amounts don’t amount to much in the early days but as your organization grows all those small bits end up being a substantial paycheck once your organization gets large. With this Matrix the difference is that you don’t get paid when you sponsor someone or even when volume occurs in your organization. The money that would go to pay all those small commissions is held and then paid out when you hit a threshold point. There are 2 of these points in TVI Express, one is at $500 and one is at $10,000 Here is how it works. There are 2 matrices in TVI, picture them as a lower one called the Traveler Board and an upper one called the Express Board. The structure of the matrix is similar to what you see in a standard MLM unilevel example. One position at the top, two below that, four below that and eight below that. The difference with a matrix is that when you start you enter the lower level which has 8 positions for new reps and once that level is full the level splits and shifts up to the 4 level. When the eight level fills again it shifts up again pushing all positions above it higher. The person in the top position graduates from the lower board triggers the threshold $500 commission and graduates to the upper matrix called the Express board. The process is then repeated each of the levels shifting up until a distributor graduates from the top position receiving a $10,000 commission and $5000 in travel benefits. The distributor position then re enters the lower level of the top matrix and can revolve through it again and again each time earning $15,000 in total compensation. Movement through the TVI matrix can be speeded up by being either Partially Qualified (having sponsored 1 person) or Fully Qualified (having sponsored 2 people). These take precedence over anyone who is unqualified (has sponsored no one) The big bucks are made by having more than one position, which the company allows. That way in the time to transit the matrix rather than making a $10,000 payment the distributor would make multiples of that as one position followed the others out. There are also residual payments made to those who have graduated from the top matrix and they can range anywhere from 5% to 10% depending on how many of your reps you have helped graduate from the Express board. TVI Express Commentary Very interesting MLM to say the least. The main appeal is obviously the income potential and it seems that an average rep can get to the bigger dollars much quicker than in a traditional MLM. The TVI Express entry into the market has caused an un-level playing field and as a result has drawn fire from many in the MLM industry claiming it is not a legit deal. I can only smile as I remember an attorney general from some state on TV claiming that one of my previous MLM companies was a pyramid scam and then ten years later the company was publicly traded on the New York Stock exchange. Its funny how quickly perceptions can change. In all fairness to this review, I have to say it does look to good to be true but that does not mean its not. TVI Express has an actual product that has value and they pay their commissions. It will be most interesting to watch where TVI Express goes in the future. One warning here is that many times Matrix comp plans are sold by telling the prospect that they only have to sponsor 1 or 2 people and and then the spillover from upline will take care of all the rest. Don’t bet the ranch on this approach! Its true that all you need to do to be fully qualified is to sponsor 2 people but I never recommend leaving your success to chance or the good intentions of others. If you want to be successful in any MLM you need to learn how to effectively market the opportunity so you can plan on bringing several new reps in each month. Its the same with TVI.  TVI Success Secrets To learn how to develop and use a marketing approaches that can quickly tap both local and international markets and help you join that top earner status in TVI or your current company, register for free marketing tips & Free 7 Day Video Training Course below!  

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TVI Express