Agora Benefit operates within the advertising MLM area of interest. A California company deal with is offered on the corporate’s web site.
On mentioned web site, Agora Benefit claims to have been in enterprise for “8+ years”.
Agora Benefit’s web site area (“agoraadvantage.com”), was first registered in 2015. This tracks with Agora Benefit’s social media account historical past:
Heading up Agora Benefit now we have co-founders Vince Baker, Mike Driggers, Brian Jacks and Steve Aust.
Vince Baker doesn’t seem to have an MLM historical past. He runs Vince Baker Ministries and pitches himself as “a extremely motivated Enterprise Advertising and marketing Agent, Web Advertising and marketing Coach, Public Speaker, and Writer.”
Mike Driggers is thought to BehindMLM as Vice President of the GoFun Rewards Ponzi scheme.
Driggers bailed simply as GoFun Rewards collapsed in Might 2013.
After GoFun Rewards, Driggers reinvented himself as a advertising coach.
Brian Jacks has a non-MLM historical past in finance and real-estate.
Steve Aust is Chief Development Officer and Director of Ion Digital Corp, a crypto integration agency.
As per Aust’s Ion Digital Corp company bio, he’s
a seasoned govt with 20 years of expertise in enterprise capital, direct gross sales, and vitality options.
Because the co-founder and president of Verdant, he passionately introduced built-in options to the worldwide market and helped elevate over $100 million in Enterprise Capital for varied direct gross sales firms – main them via profitable IPOs.
Verdant seems to be a collapsed automotive turned vitality firm. The information part of Verdant’s web site hasn’t been up to date since 2015.
Learn on for a full evaluation of Agora Benefit’s MLM alternative.
Agora Benefit’s Merchandise
Agora markets itself as a ‘enterprise options supplier”.
Agora Benefit is main the best way in enterprise options and methods.
It doesn’t matter what sort of enterprise you personal, now we have options and methods that can assist you succeed.
Options marketed on Agora Benefit’s web site embody:
- web advertising – “search engine optimisation, Paid Visitors, Video Advertising and marketing, and Evaluate Advertising and marketing”
- eLearning Platforms – “a strong method for entrepreneurs to learn to achieve success in enterprise”
- web site improvement – “hold[s] up with the ‘design traits’ [and] focuses on search engine optimisation and conversion”
- new enterprise launch – “our highly effective sources and methods will assist your new enterprise succeed”
- bank card processing – “we can assist enterprise cut back their current charges or discover new options to higher fit your firm’s wants”
- enterprise financing – “now we have many options which might be able to serve you with nice charges on your monetary wants or enterprise objectives”
No particular pricing is offered for the above marketed companies. As a substitute potential retail purchasers are directed to “guide a free session”.
Issues get a bit complicated, as elsewhere on its web site Agora Benefit presents Enterprise Bundle Particulars:
Agora Benefit’s Enterprise Packages begin off free and climb to $1297 a month.
- Market Consciousness (free) – consists of Agora Market, entry to Enterprise Community occasions and a LocalConnect enterprise listing itemizing
- Market Accomplice ($97 a month) – provides gross sales help, Enterprise Academy, video conferencing, Agora Enterprise Compass and Enterprise Locator
- Market Elevator ($197 a month) – provides “automation & workflows”
- Market Accelerator ($697 a month) – provides Instagram advertising
- Market Dominator ($1297 a month) – provides “press launch”
Agora Benefit’s Compensation Plan
Agora Benefit’s compensation plan pays on commissions generated by Enterprise Bundle subscription gross sales.
I’m assuming “guide a free session” gross sales are additionally included, nevertheless this isn’t actually clear as there’s no pricing to work off.
Due to this I’ve solely referenced Enterprise Packages within the break down beneath.
Agora Benefit Affiliate Ranks
There are 5 ranks inside Agora Benefit’s compensation plan.
Together with their respective qualification standards, they’re as follows:
- Member Advisor – promote a Enterprise Bundle
- Certified Member Advisor – both promote two Enterprise Packages and recruit at the least one Member Advisor or larger or promote three Enterprise Packages
- Regional Member Advisor – both promote three Enterprise Packages and recruit at the least two Member Advisors or larger or promote 5 Enterprise Packages, generate two Certified Member Advisors or larger in two separate recruitment legs, and generate and preserve 100 PV and 2000 GV a month
- Nationwide Member Advisor – both promote 5 Enterprise Packages and preserve two personally recruited Member Advisors or larger or promote seven Enterprise Packages, generate three Certified Member Advisors or larger in three separate recruitment legs, generate two Regional Member Advisors or larger in two seperate recruitment legs, and generate and preserve 200 PV and 10,000 GV a month
- Govt Member Advisor – both promote seven Enterprise Packages and preserve two personally recruited Member Advisors or larger or promote 9 Enterprise Packages, generate 4 Certified Member Advisors or larger in 4 separate recruitment legs, generate three Regional Member Advisors or larger in three separate recruitment legs, generate two Nationwide Member Advisors in two seperate recruitment legs, and generate and preserve 300 PV and 35,000 GV a month
Word the next different rank qualification standards is accessible from
- Certified Member Advisor – generate 1000 PV a month
- Regional Member Advisor – generate 2000 PV a month
- Nationwide Member Advisor – generate 10,000 PV a month
- Govt Member Advisor – generate 35,000 PV a month
PV stands for “Private Quantity”. PV is gross sales quantity generated by way of the sale of Agora Benefit Enterprise Packages to retail clients and recruited associates.
Gross sales quantity shouldn’t be a 1:1 ratio in opposition to the value of a Enterprise Bundle subscription, it’s a decreased quantity. Agora Benefit don’t disclose PV quantities corresponding with Enterprise Packages.
GV stands for “Group Quantity”. GV is PV generated by an affiliate and their downline.
Word that Enterprise Bundle subscriptions should be lively to rely in the direction of rank qualification.
An Agora Benefit affiliate should purchase a Enterprise Bundle. This may rely as one sale.
Referral Commissions
Agora Benefit associates earn 50% on gross sales quantity producing by private Enterprise Bundle gross sales.
Word that if an Agora Benefit affiliate requests assist from one other affiliate to shut a sale.
Gross sales quantity on assisted gross sales is paid break up 20% (the serving to affiliate) and 30% (the affiliate making the sale).
Residual Commissions
Agora Benefit pays residual commissions by way of a unilevel compensation construction.
A unilevel compensation construction locations an affiliate on the high of a unilevel group, with each personally recruited affiliate positioned immediately below them (degree 1):
If any degree 1 associates recruit new associates, they’re positioned on degree 2 of the unique affiliate’s unilevel group.
If any degree 2 associates recruit new associates, they’re positioned on degree 3 and so forth and so forth down a theoretical infinite variety of ranges.
Agora Benefit caps payable unilevel group ranges at seven.
Residual commissions are paid as a share of generated gross sales quantity throughout these seven ranges, primarily based on rank:
- Member Advisors earn 9% on degree 1 (personally recruited associates), 7% on degree 2 and 5% on degree 3
- Certified Member Advisors earn 9% on degree 1 (personally recruited associates), 7% on degree 2, 5% on degree 3 and three% on degree 4
- Regional Member Advisors earn 9% on degree 1 (personally recruited associates), 7% on degree 2, 5% on degree 3 and three% on ranges 4 and 5
- Nationwide Member Advisors earn 9% on degree 1 (personally recruited associates), 7% on degree 2, 5% on degree 3, 3% on ranges 4 and 5 and 5% on degree 6
- Govt Member Advisors earn 9% on degree 1 (personally recruited associates), 7% on degree 2, 5% on degree 3, 3% on ranges 4 and 5 and 5% on ranges 6 and seven
Bonus Swimming pools
Agora Benefit takes 10% of company-wide gross sales quantity and locations it into three rank-specific Bonus Swimming pools:
- Regional Member Advisors obtain a share in a 5% Bonus Pool
- Nationwide Member Advisors obtain a share in a 3% Bonus Pool
- Govt Member Advisors obtain a share in a 2% Bonus Pool
Particular person share percentages in every pool are decided by every qualifying affiliate’s GV.
How typically Agora Benefit pay out the Bonus Swimming pools isn’t specified however is assumed to be month-to-month.
Vendor Commissions
If an Agora Benefit affiliate refers a third-party vendor to promote one thing via Agora Benefit, they earn 3% of company-wide generated gross sales quantity from that particular vendor.
Becoming a member of Agora Benefit
Agora Benefit affiliate membership is $97 a month.
Agora Benefit Conclusion
After I noticed Agora Benefit declare they’d been in enterprise for eight years, I took it at face worth. Every part simply kinda feels… dated.
To be honest at this level I went again and approached Agora Benefit’s web site as a perspective enterprise consumer questioning what they bought.
After I first visited Agora Benefit’s web site it wasn’t till I hit the footer that I discovered the enterprise packages.
Turns on the market’s a button to the packages within the carousel on the high of the web page. It doesn’t auto-rotate however perhaps I’d manually rotated a number of occasions.
That apart, every part you’ll want to know concerning the enterprise is on their homepage. It’s only a bit info-dense.
BehindMLM’s web site is about up the identical method however we do break off into articles. This navigation isn’t easy on Agora Benefit’s web site.
I can’t converse to Agora Benefit’s advertising companies as a complete however I’m skeptical about some issues.
Agora Benefit make an enormous deal about Native Join.
It’s introduced as a third-party enterprise listing web site however there are references to Agora Benefit (“get listed right this moment” button, FaceBook web page hyperlink and many others.).
My concern is who’s utilizing on-line enterprise directories in 2024? It’s a nugatory service that died out as search engines like google and yahoo have gotten higher (deeper map integration and scraped enterprise particulars make directories ineffective).
Reflecting this,site visitors to Native Join’s web site is so low that SimilarWeb doesn’t observe it.
But Agora Benefit would have you ever consider itemizing on Native Join is price $5900 a yr.
Agora Benefit additionally provide a press-release spam service. As above, that is purportedly price $12,000 a yr.
Press-release advertising spam is usually utilized by companies with nothing happening to create the phantasm one thing is happening.
Outdoors of BehindMLM, usually to substantiate an govt appoint or launch of some type, I by no means discover myself studying press-releases. No person does.
However uh yeah, $12,000 a yr. One might make the argument that placing releases collectively is an efficient chunk of that price – however that depends upon what number of releases you’re getting throughout the yr.
Then there’s “Enterprise Locator”.
The Agora Enterprise Locator crawls the net for companies that suit your search standards. Right here we extract their telephone, emails, Google My Enterprise data (Together with evaluation rankings), Yelp data (Together with rankings), we additionally discover their Linkedin, Fb, YouTube, Instagram, and test to see if their web site is SSL secured & cell pleasant. Please Bear in mind it solely retrievers the info that has been printed by the Enterprise.
You simply Google these things by yourself… or for some cause pay Agora Benefit $7000 a yr as a result of lol?
It seems like Agora Benefit was arrange and hasn’t had a lot carried out to it in the best way of innovation.
As a advertising service, this places a little bit of a query mark on the retail viability of the Enterprise Packages.
That press-release spam service I discussed earlier than? It’s the one distinction between the Market Dominator and Market Accelerator packages – but they’ve a $600 a month distinction between them.
In 2024 is press-release spam actually price $600 a month?
Agora Benefit’s MLM alternative is easy: Promote the corporate’s merchandise and receives a commission. Recruit others and receives a commission in your downline’s gross sales.
Sadly there’s no differentiation between retail and recruited affiliate gross sales (notice Agora Benefit consult with associates as “Member Advisors” and clients (retail or recruited associates) as “Members”):
A Member Advisor might also decide to affix as a Member below their very own private account to take benefit for themselves the financial savings on services and products.
This opens the door for Agora Benefit to be marketed as a device to market the MLM alternative. You recruit individuals who use Agora Benefit to promote it, with the purpose of recruiting others who do the identical.
That is typical of promoting device MLM alternatives. Given the scope of companies Agora Benefit are promoting although, isn’t a serious concern.
Nonetheless, if the vast majority of gross sales quantity generated firm broad is from associates, Agora Benefit can be working as a pyramid scheme.
As a potential Agora Benefit affiliate, a fast take a look at you are able to do is ask your potential upline what number of affiliate “members” they’ve versus retail buyer “members”.
Something lower than a 50/50 break up weighted in the direction of extra retail clients then associates, would point out a pyramid scheme.
One last thought I’ll go away you with is SimilarWeb monitoring solely ~1600 month-to-month visits to Agora Benefit’s web site in February 2024.
Given Agora Benefit’s entire factor is advertising, and them having full entry to their very own advertising suite, makes you surprise why that determine is so low.
My private take is that advertising on the dimensions Agora Benefit is fiercely aggressive. For those who’re spending hundreds a yr, “in-a-box” options in want of a refresh most likely isn’t going to chop it.