A Logical Loop

As Ratbert would say: "ow ow ow ow ow my head, it's gonna explode!"

Posted by: Clifford Phillips | July 11, 2004 2:29 AM

Reminds me of the old George Carlin bit:

"If God is all powerful, can he make a rock so big that even He can't lift?"

Posted by: Dave S | July 11, 2004 10:03 AM

Hey Scott, was my comments that bias about Quixtar you didn't show it or was it my error. I swore I saw it posted immediately but now I check your site and its gone? You seem like a fair guy(once its anti-quixtar

PJ.

Posted by: PJ | July 12, 2004 12:37 AM

Who the hell is Scott?

Posted by: QBlog | July 12, 2004 1:12 AM

I'm Scott. I think poor old PJ there is confused

Posted by: Scott | July 20, 2004 10:02 PM

I've only just recently been introduced to the Quixtar business plan and I have to say that I was almost convinced to join. The Big Picture that they're selling seems very enticing. ($150,000/yr in just 2-5 years) I've met with various IBO's on at least 3 separate occasions and have become more skeptical each time. I was given a sales pitch about potential and possibility but never given any real information about the true mathematics that supported their claims. Each time I asked a legitimate question, the question was dodged and more sales pitch was given and followed by a programmed response: "I know the system works, but I'm not that good at explaining it. Let me introduce you to so in so who can give you their own unique perspective to better explain it and answer all your questions." Each new so in so did no such thing. They only repeated the same sales pitch of potential and possibility: The tone and pitch of the voice from the person selling the system was the only thing unique about their perspective. Eventually I got tired of the repetition and said O.K. I'm convinced; I just need to see it all in writing before I fork over the $160 required for registration. I was given a brochure and start up packet which was chock full of more marketing Bull$hit. I have to say that I found the whole thing quite amusing and laughed myself to tears while reading it. There was one section written in small print at the bottom of the IBO business plan page that did however answer some of my questions. I'll get to that shortly, but let me explain this four step business plan the way it's written on these pages first.
Step One.
Register with Quixtar and spend $250 on merchandise receive 32% in return and qualify for a 3% bonus on volume
Receive $87.50 from Quixtar.
Step Two
Convince 6 people to do the same and qualify for a 9% bonus on volume - 3% paid to each IBO + 32% on purchased merchandise.
(6+1) X $250/mnth = $1,750 x 9% = 157.50 - ($250 x 3% x 6) = $112.50 + ($250 x 3%) = $192.50/mnth
Step Three
Convince 6 people to convince four more people each to do the same qualify for 18% bonus on volume
((6X4) + 6 + 1) = 31 X $250/mnth = $7,750 X 18% = $1,395.00 - ($250 x 5 x 6% x 6) = $945.00 + $80.00 = $1,025.00/mnth
Step Four
Increase total number of IBO's below you up to 79 including your self qualify for 25% bonus on volume
Same math as above = $2,677.00/mnth or $32,124.00 per year
If you’re encouraged by the dollar signs and not discouraged by the number of convinced people needed for you to succeed with Quixtar here’s the kicker. In small print: 1 out of every 272 active IBO's actually spent $250/mnth during the survey period and only .0061% of this .0036% actually achieved the level of success in step 3. This was at the end of 2003.

In order to make $150,000.00 per year "The Big Picture" you need to reach step four have 6 of your down line IBO's reach step four giving you $89,004.00/yr and still have an additional monthly income of $61,050.00 from some other source. Where this additional $61,050.00 comes from is not mentioned in the brochure.
So according to the statistics in Quixtars very own IBO business plan it would require statistically 21,488 new active IBO's be convinced 79 of which to be yours, unfortunately only .0061% of them or (131 of 21,488) are going to reach the status required for you to make $89,004/yr. It all depends upon how many of your 79 belong to this .0061% Better learn the sales pitch tune quickly and keep repeating it.

So in conclusion if you get sucked into the Quixtar Program you will have to maintain a positive selling attitude spending hours talking to new people, selling and convincing each of them to join, though statistically you are destined to fail a great number of times before succeeding. Don't get discouraged just sing your tune.You will also have to maintain your spending habits with quixtar to qualify for the bonuses for several months even years before ever making any real money. You will also need to keep everyone who is failing to make money beneath you motivated to keep trying by basically feeding them the same sales pitch over and over and over and over again. Chances are your friends will stop answering their phones unless of course you've successfully brainwashed them as well and the people beneath you will begin to realize how difficult it really is to convince more people. They'll start calling you to here another positive reinforcement pep talk and you get to refer them to someone in your up line so that they can repeat the same sales pitch. all while spending $250 a month on merchandise, going to weekly meetings and talking to new people in your free time and maintaining your 40 hr a week job making 60+k a year. Actually chances are that your not making this much money and it's kind of odd because their 5 year business plan requires this income, yet their sales pitch actually targets people who aren't making this kind of money. It just doesn't make sense. The only way to actually make it "BIG" with quixtar is to ignore the real numbers and blindly repeat their mantra like a happy little minion for the cause.
Needless to say, even after being bombarded with a plethora of positive reinforcement I decided that it wasn't for me. Actually, going to these meetings reminded me of a certain TV program featuring a big purple dinosaur named Barney. The show had a song that was repeated over and over brainwashing children with it's happy little tune. You know the one I'm talking about; that annoying little melody that quickly got stuck in your head and made you want to punch something after hearing it a couple gazillion times. Quixtar has something similar to offer, and they'll be happy to teach it to you for a price. Only Quixtar's version is more sugar coated with dollar signs. I'll teach it to you for free. "I love you. You love me. We're an I B O family blah blah blah blah blah ki$$ my a$$ from me to you. I'll ki$$ yours if you ki$$ mine too."

Posted by: Bob | January 16, 2005 12:01 PM

Ok, for you people who are promoting Quixtar....

Instead of negative and positive figures (of which even the brainwashing meetings of Quixtar mention are meaningless yet they offer you so many far fetched numbers) I was a possible IBO candidate. I was approached by a guy who was a friend of a friend that supposedly was a "real go getter at this" and I talked to him on the phone, and I thought it was going to be a part time job interview, but oddly was to take place at Panera Bread by my house. Now he told me the same mantra anyone from Quixtar will tell you...you will hear tbe same pitches at both public "events" and personal meetings...Walmart and McDonalds will be brought up, and the concept is correct in that it takes many Walmarts and McDonalds for the franchises to make the amount of money they do. But what threw me my first red flag was this: I met with Dan three times, and went to one meeting where a bunch of potential IBO's told the same story, get rich, residual income is the best. etc, etc (same thing anyone who was tried or been part of this business will hear) and I admit at first they had me. Why would I want to make my boss money, when I could go out on my own and make thousands a year and retire when I was 30. The red flag came up when my parents and girlfriend kept asking me what is this about. and I could not give a straight answer "E commerce job" was the best I could come up with.

Well, that same red flag made me research everything about Quixtar, and figures aside, success and failures even aside...lets look at what they want you to do.

1. Sell/Buy products from the Quixtar website, real products through their website (this is the big you shop and make money part of this....NO ONE HAS GOT RICH FROM BUYING/SELLING THE PRODUCTS ON THEIR WEBSITE and even Dan admitted this when he called me after I said I wanted no part of this. The amount of money spent and returned is a VERY sad ratio. You spent $250.00 and I was told for that you get $7.25 back. This should be a BIG red flag in itself, because think of how many people you actually need to succeed at that rate and how many people are going to stick around? You can never know that)

2. Get them a list of as many friends, family, and acquaintances to do the same as step 1. (Be warned....even if this does work for one out of 13000 or whatever the ratio is, most if not all of these people are going to fail, and they might be pretty peeved at you and you may lose some very close friends, family, and be labeled a scam artist. You are basically scamming people that know you in that you are making Quixtar grow bigger but you won't get a dime from that person until they get suckered in and they sucker people in. Many divorces and lost friendships result from Quixtar and MLM failures, is it worth losing those close to you to take a big chance? You are told to stay away from those who advise you against this...then I must now alienate my girlfriend, my parents, and my 2 best friends?)

3. They say they don't care if you stay or go they are just telling you what they learned to make you rich as well (Why would someone do this without something in return? You think the guy holding the seminar is going to travel from x to y destination just to teach you something, use his gas, time, etc? No, because for one he needs you, without you he is making less money, he is your upline, and the only people who make the true money is your upline. That same guy that is holding the seminar, listen to his success stories, and then listen to him tell you that he is retired now at 38 or 30 or whatever....if he is retired why is he at the seminar? Because if he truly retires, he will go broke, he needs you (his downline) to stay afloat. How does he do this, by BUYING AND SELLING THE TAPES/CD's/BOOKS and making you get more people to get suckered in by this. Plus if the event has a door price, he gets to profit from you showing up...not bad to be him but at least I can look at my friends and family in the eye.)

4. Even though you are told the events and whatnot are beneficial and "No one has succeeded without them" you are "encouraged" to attend every event that you can and even those you can't, attend anyhow. "You might lose 6 months worth of information for missing one 2 hour meeting" Wedding, Funeral, birthday party, skip them, you are building you business with your Quixtar group! (Though those programmed by Quixtar seminars can argue no one ever tells you to not go to important events, good old Dan told me he blew off his Ivy League school and a big scholarship for being part of a sports program because he was informed by his Upline that he will never make it if he does not go to the meeting they are having in South Carolina. You may say "Those meeting must teach you a lot!" Hell no they do not, they teach you about potential money, how to sucker other people in, the same old jokes, same lame lies, and that's it. All that for sharing a room with people you don't even know, having to pay for the trip, babysitting for those with kids, and you learn very little if not anything about making your business work. Also these trips are told to you with little or no advance. Dan actually told me on a Wednesday that there is a big event in South Carolina (we are in Illinois) and could I attend. On a day's notice!

5. Consider all these events, of which you must sign over all of your life (part time riiight) and come to the events to "succeed" and bring all your friends with you. Alienate those closest to you because hey, what Quixtar tells you is more important that anything and they are "losers" you are the "winner" and you are the one who will succeed. I can imagine informing my non Quixtar supportive parents about how successful I will become and then fail and never be able to talk business with them again.

6. You are given a I.B.O. (Individual Business Owner) number.....yet Quixtar is your business owner....wait I am independant... (actually no, your old boss was just replaced or added on to by your new ones....your upline, you got 1000 upline people? You just got 1000 new bosses. They claim to not be your boss, just be there as basically "success advisors" yet you don't make money, they don't make money) It's the bottom line, they say they don't need you, THEY ALL NEED YOU AND YOUR DOWNLINE you are the free McDonalds store for them, your word of mouth is the free advertiser for them. The more word you spread, the more people try and fail, the better the car your resident Diamond can afford at the end of the year.

7. You can retire in 4-5 years or sooner if you work hard (WRONG you will be doing these events and such for as long as you can, using your gas, airfaire, or whatever else you have to spend to hold your conventions. You will make up this money by people's door charges and such right? Maybe, possibly, but you are not retired and your income is not residual now is it? ) Anyone who does this and stays with it I am sure will work as hard as they can but everyone is limited to: People at hand, money in pocket, personal life, business life (need to maintain that 9-5 to promote that business), family events

So you never actual retire, you just become a "success story" which is a fancy title for a scam artist that leeches off people's desires to get easy money and retire early, show the baby the candy, dangle it in front of him, let him crawl over to you, then open it and eat it right in front of him. And be able to look these same people in the eye.

I have just given you the base of what this is all about, the lies you will hear, the many hundreds of "exciting statistics" they will give you, and just think of all the events you have been to for all those who are into Quixtar. What have you learned except for statistics and about Walmart? You are only a true IBO if the business does not have someone else to answer to. Hope this helps those who are not too bought into the system that nothing but failure (which is almost gauranteed) will deter them.

Posted by: Rick S | January 24, 2005 6:47 PM

I was just looking for some things and google and decided to look at quixtar sites, and i came here. I started reading and at first thought that this site was for quixtar but i see its not. I just want to say that this does work but it was hard. I told about 20 people first but they did not agree with me. So i started looking for help on how to get a person to believe this is true. Soon i told 2 people and they got very excited and joined imeditaly. Then later after they joined i saw that they also told some people about it. About a month later i looked to see how many people where under and saw THERE WERE 16 PEOPLE UNDER ME. I was very happy then another month passed and i have over 40 people under me. I was so excited i didnt know what to do. So i decied to make a meeting every week where we could all come and learn on how to tell others. It has been a great succes and im hoping to reach emerald 2007 which is $100,000 of income each year. Now what you are saying (im refering to all the negitive people about quixtar) is just so funny because you didnt believe and you gave up. I did not quit, i belived it could work and i did all that i could and i am happy about my choice.

Posted by: ANdrew | February 10, 2006 9:29 PM

And i just wanted to say if any one has any questions to me about it feel free to contact me to my phone -2672652146 or email me to ndrew56890@yahoo.com

Posted by: Andrew | February 10, 2006 9:31 PM