Advocare Review

Posted in MLM Reviews

AdvoCare was founded in 1993 by Charlie Ragus. The name “AdvoCare” was a combination of “advocate” and “care,” reflecting the founder’s stated desire to be an “advocate who cared.”

AdvoCare’s product line includes a variety of health and wellness products.

The company’s headquarters is in Carrollton TX. According to Dun & Bradstreet, AdvoCare has 247 employees and has annual sales of $15.8 million. Its independent sales force is estimated at 50K.

The current CEO is Richard Wright, who took over in 2007.

Advocare Products

Advocare’s products fall into five main categories: Active, Well, Trim, Definite Difference, and Performance Elite.

Correspondingly, their brands include a line of weight-loss products, energy products, nutritional products, and products aimed at naturally enhancing sports performance.

Some of the more well known include the Spark energy drink, the AdvoCare® Muscle Fuel, and the Post-Workout Recovery product.

Advocare Opportunity and Compensation

Advocare’s compensation plan is a stairstep breakaway plan, meaning that once one of your downline members achieves a certain amount of total sales, they “break away” from you – meaning you earn less on their organization.

The company also offers 5 ways to get paid.

1. Retail profits – Distributors earn up to 40% profit on the products they sell.
2. Wholesale commission – When distributors become “advisers” and start to sponsor other distributors, they can earn up to a 20% commission on each product they sell.
3. Overrides – Distributors earn overrides on the sales volume of their organization.
4. Leadership bonuses – from 3 to 19% can be earned based on the performance of distributors’ organizations.
5. Incentives, trips, and Pay-Period Bonuses – Distributors can qualify for trips, gifts, and twice monthly pay period bonuses. “Top achieving” rookie advisers can be awarded up to $20K.

In order to maintain the advisor status and get paid on your group’s volume beyond your front-line distributors, you have two options. You must either achieve at least $3K in personal and/or group volume in one to three consecutive pay periods – each of which must be at least $500 personal and/or group volume. Or, achieve $6K in personal and/or group volume for the year – $3K of which has to be personally purchased by you or a customer at retail price.

Recommendations

Although AdvoCare’s products seem to be legitimate, the company is competing in the extremely overcrowded health and wellness market. Also, many of their products have equally viable alternatives available to consumers for lower prices at local drug, grocery, and health stores.

While the company does a good job of courting endorsements from various sports figures, this does not necessarily translate into a successful business for each and every distributor or advisor.

In fact, you will need to achieve a high volume of sales – on a consistent basis – in order to make a decent living selling AdvoCare. The requirements for personal consumption and/or sales to requalify are also set pretty high.

The company also relies heavily on traditional methods of network marketing. It’s up to distributors and advisors to carve out their own niche online in order to have a decent shot at a sustainable business.