If you came across the business opportunity with Herbalife and still in doubt whether this business is the answer to your dream or just a pyramid scheme that you should stay away from, then you’re at the right place. 

Welcome to Herbalife Reviews (Your Dream Or A Scheme?)

Let’s go straight forward and dive into the details of Herbalife and I assure you even before you finish reading this review, you’ll certainly know whether this business is right for you or not. 

So, let’s get started… 

Table of Content

What Is Herbalife?

Herbalife is an MLM business that sells different herbal products in a form of nutritional supplements, weight loss products, and beauty products.

What makes Herbalife popular (and profitable)  is that it offers a home-based business to everyone who wants to earn extra income on part-time or full-time using a “pyramid-like” system of MLM business.

Herbalife is founded back in 1980 by a-then 24-year old Mark Reynolds Huges in California, USA.

Over the years, Herbalife has managed to become an international business and it’s now available for more than 90 countries around the world.

Herbalife has also been listed on Wall Street and NYSE (HLF) in earlier years.

Herbalife existence has not always been shiny and green lights. In fact, it has faced a lot of litigations over the years, concerning the legalities of its business operation (FTC) and false product claims (FDA).

In 2014, the major case that Herbalife has faced was the allegations of illegal operation in the form of a pyramid scheme of the company. The case was settled for $200 million in 2016. The FTC will use the settlement money to send checks to almost 350,000 former independent distributors who lost money running Herbalife business.

On the other hand, Herbalife considered this settlement a victory because they are now out of the “pyramid scheme” label on their head. At least.

But why is Herbalife still so popular?

Well, Herbalife has a marketing tactic of sponsorship like sports and feeding programs or foundations. This makes people believe that involving Herbalife makes them popular too or makes them feel they are a part of a good cause.

Other Info About Herbalife

Core Products

• Formula 1 Healthy Meal Nutritional Shake Mix $42.00

• Formula 2 Multivitamin Complex $25.65

• Formula 3 Cell Activator® $28.10

Sports Sponsorship

• France national volleyball team and Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy since 2007
• Cristiano Ronaldo since 2013
• FC Barcelona and Lionel Messi between 2010 and 2013
• The basketball club Herbalife Gran Canaria since 2012

How To Join The Herbalife?

To become an Independent Distributor of Herbalife you need to buy the initial Distributor kit.

You can choose either the International Business Package For $99.10 or the International Business Package – Starter Plus for $124.10.

The steps are very easy.

1. You just go to their website
2. You choose whether you know an independent distributor or not.
3. Fill up a simple form of a name, last name, email address, and phone number.
4. You will be soon contacted by an independent distributor from your area (if you don’t know any)
5. If you know a distributor, you can also find him/her in their database.
6. If you personally know a distributor, he/she will take care of your application.
7. Lastly and the most important thing is purchasing the Distributor’s Kit.

Can You Earn A Full-Time Income With Herbalife?

Just like any other MLMs, generating a full-time income with Herbalife is quite complex and far to be easy.

Let’s try to look at the video below about the compensation plan. 

Tricky? I think so.

I must mention the video above is biased. In fact, you can find more propaganda against Herbalife like for example this website: factsaboutherbalife.com.

But let’s see some facts inside the Herbalife’s disclosure, to see what you could be earning in a typical month, to see if the computation is right and whether you can expect to earn a full-time income in a reasonable period of time.

Let’s see the actual success rate from their own disclosure.

From the data above let’s see, how many are those who were earning $2,900 and above from both first-year distributors and all other distributors.

195 – First-year distributors 195

4,620 – All other distributors  (4200 + 420)

4815 – Total   

136,000 Total distributors 

Real success rate:  4815/136,000 = 0.0354%  

That’s not even 1%! 

More facts to chew in: 

• The earnings were before expenses.
• Out of 136,000 distributors, there were only 420 on the presidential team and earn most of the money.
• It takes about 5-11 years to reach the presidential team and earn up to $14,270 a month.
• You need skill, consistent work, and dedication – of course!

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Why is it hard to earn a full-time income with an MLM business?

So, let say your desired full-time income is equivalent to a decent $5,000 a month. If you are a distributor that earns 25% of your personal sales, then you need to sell $20,000 worth of products every single month.

The main challenge in selling the MLM products is that they are relatively expensive on the retail market compared to the products outside MLMs – and people who buy these products are mostly those who patronage the products itself. And you bet they’re not that many. To sell $20,000 a month is nearly impossible.

Another thing is, they’re a lot of distributors of the same MLM company everywhere. Yes, even in your own town. So, the competition is high because the other distributors are not on your team (your crossline) when you just got started.

What’s your last option? You need to RECRUIT new members/distributors who will face the same problems and then quit after a couple of weeks or months max.

What will happen to your business then? D.E.A.D.

Is Herbalife A Pyramid Scheme?

This is one of the biggest questions that people have when they hear about Herbalife and it’s business practice.

No wonder why Herbalife faced years of battle with the FTC because of the complaints and allegations from the people who have worked for and with Herbalife.

After Herbalife settled the case for $200 Million, which the FTC used to send checks to around 350,000 distributors who lost money (at least $1,000) from the period of 2009-2015. The last mailing round was in May 2019.

Read more about the settlement of Herbalife with FTC here. 

So, the good news – Herbalife is now officially a non-pyramid scheme. It’s now a legit MLM business after the settlement.

The bad news is – people still think it is a pyramid scheme and scam. And that makes it more difficult for new distributors to achieve success in the Herbalife business.

Take a look at this illustration: Unfortunately, this is exactly how Herbalife Income Distribution Looks like – and so do other MLM business.

Therefore, the people who join Herbalife or any other MLM business end up focusing on RECRUITING because that’s where the money is in the end (which is the main element of a pyramid scheme).

And those who do the direct selling stop because they realize soon enough that they just a waste of time since their goal was to earn a consistent full-time income.

That’s almost impossible with the direct selling alone because there are a lot of distributors in the same area and the retail price of the products are too expensive for the non-members.

How To Spot A Pyramid Scheme?

People get often confused about whether a company is a pyramid scheme or a legit MLM. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to distinguish one from the other.

Let’s take a look at the short video below explaining about pyramid schemes.

Personal Experience With MLM Businesses

I was hard-headed, even though my father said to stay away from MLM businesses, I thought I could probably that I could do it anyway. If you’ve read my bio, you’d probably remember that I tried at least 3 MLM businesses for many years. 

Probably I thought it was that it was as easy as they presented it to me or maybe because I thought it’s a quick fix business. 

I thought – all I had to do was to recruit 2 people – one on my right and one on my left side – and the business would take care of itself. I thought it was that passive! And that’s far from the reality.

My last journey with an MLM business was actually a “nicest one” – great products and a good company. But no matter how great the products were and how active I was – I didn’t make a fortune.

I was recruited by my brother and a lot of my family members became members too. I recruited my friends too – some of them joined and some of them became aloof.

But you know what’s the BIG problem was?! As the team became bigger, it became the communication became more difficult. The further the downlines were, the more difficult it was to be connected.  Which means, the recruits of my recruits’ recruits were no longer connected to me. So, once they stopped working, the business died.

Why? it’s because it was actually easier (although very difficult) to convince people to join an MLM business than to convince them to stand up and talk about the business. 

Most of the people who join MLM do actually expect their uplines to do all the sales work. Little they realize that this mindset is actually the one killing the team – the idle members.

MLMs are not a quick rich scheme – it’s a real business that requires an enormous effort of selling tasks and team building, just to name the few.

BUT honestly, you’d be better off if you build your OWN business. 

Only 1% Make Money With MLM Business 

So, why are there only a few people who make real money with MLM? Because it’s designed that way – Only people on the top get rewarded and the people at the bottom lose money.

Here’s another static to digest on: Of the people that do make money, the average YEARLY salary is only $2400. That’s only $200 a month or around $17 a day. And Herbalife is not exempted at all – this is proven to be true through their income disclosure.

That success rate is even lower than 1%. Herbalife has a success rate of only 0.0354%. Which means more than 99% will never reach a higher level in the ladder. 

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Pros And Cons Of Herbalife

PROS:

• Long history of existence
• Low Investment
• A wide selection of products
• High-quality products
• Open in many countries worldwide
• One year money back guarantee
• Sponsorships
• Charity

 CONS:

• So many legal allegations and litigation about its business operation.
• Saturated market
• Herbalife has a very low success rate of only 0.0354 %. This is much lower among the other MLMs
• MLMs are commonly and mistakenly thought as pyramid schemes and scams
• Needs a lot of time and effort in selling and team building
• Focus on recruitment – including families and friends

Here’s A Better Way To Make Money

I honestly hope that by now I’ve talked you out of joining Herbalife. Herbalife and its products are good. Unfortunately, MLM is such a broken money-making system and extremely hard to succeed with.

Talking about my experience with at least 3 different MLM businesses over the years, I know it’s not an easy business model, especially if you don’t like product demonstration tasks, direct selling, business presentation and bothering your families and friends over and over again.

If you’re a person like me who prefers a more silent work atmosphere and can work anywhere and anytime, then you should check out Wealthy Affiliate if you still want to have a home-based and online business. 

Wealthy Affiliate is the best place to learn how money-making online works and it has taught me how to earn up to $1174.09 a day. 

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