About a week ago BehindMLM reported on Vasayo shutting down.
The company was sold to CEO Daniel Picou, who plans to relaunch the company under a different name.
Coinciding with this is Life Wise, another Vasayo spinoff pre-launched by former Vasayo Black Diamond Rob Alwin.
Not surprisingly, Alwin was also a Black Diamond in Monavie, Vasayo founder Dallin Larsen’s previous MLM company.
Alwin left Monavie in June 2012. Three months later he signed on as Jeunesse distributor.
I don’t know how long Alwin was with Jeunesse but Vasayo launched in December 2016.
In addition to MLM, Alwin runs Lake Life Properties.
Lake Life Properties is a home flipping / property developing / property management company.
We purchase run down homes and major projects and rebuild the home to like new condition!!
We sell some and rent some. We have been doing this since 1987.
In pre-launching Life Wise, Alwin is joined by former Vasayo Chief Scientific Advisor Tracy Gibbs.
On LinkedIn Gibbs cites himself as a “world renowned formulator in the nutraceutical industry.”
A 2021 marketing puff-piece, published by the Native American Fatherhood & Family Association of all places, additionally cites Gibbs as ” the formulator of over 900 dietary supplements and skin care products”.
Although Larsen has sold Vasayo, one would think Alwin, a Black Diamond, would want to stay on with the company.
Further questions arise when you consider it takes time to put together an MLM company, suggesting Life Wise has been in the works for some time.
Gibbs left Vasayo in June 2022, which gives a maximum seven-month time window.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to definitively pin down why Alwin isn’t continuing on with whatever Daniel Picou relaunches Vasayo as.
I might be reading too much into it, but one Life Wise marketing video addressing transparency caught my eye.
In the video, Alwin states;
I have a very, very strong message that I want to share with you folks.
There is something called leadership, and it is either authentic and honest, or it is manipulative.
There are companies out there with absolutely no transparency, and unfortunately that’s a heartbreak.
But it’s why I’m not with those certain companies.
In another video, Alwin states;
We’re not building this compensation plan to make a bunch of money and sell the company.
We’re not building the business so that we can sit in an ivory tower.
Over the last three years as I searched and searched and searched my heart to motivate myself to go do it, my integrity wouldn’t let me go build because it was too many things I didn’t agree with.
So I thought I’ll just pray for them and surely they’ll make changes.
Nope, those doors closed and now they’re right back at the same old things.
Given Vasayo just came to an end and with it Alwin’s time at the company, I think the context is pretty obvious.
One thing I will say is, for all of Alwin’s talk of transparency, Life Wise currently doesn’t appear to exist beyond a YouTube account and closed FaceBook group.
If Life Wise does have a web presence, it has not been made public (so much for transparency).
Another name of interest is Life Wise’s Vice President, Gregg Adelman (right).
Adelman cites himself as a “founding partner” of Vasayo. As per Adelman’s LinkedIn profile, he joined Vasayo in January 2017.
Prior to Vasayo, Adelman was a promoter of the notorious OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
The Ponzi side of OneCoin collapsed in January 2017. As of November 2018, Adelman was still desperately trying to cash out of OneCoin:
At the time Adelman had accumulated 145,990.69 worthless ONE Ponzi points in his OneCoin backoffice.
Adelman hoped to offload his worthless ONE points onto a new victim for $1 a point:
Getting back to Life Wise, in a 15th February Facebook post by Alwin we learn the company is based out of Arkansas.
Life Wise’s headquarters presently appears to be a residential property.
Read on for a full review of Life Wise’s MLM opportunity.
Life Wise’s Products
On February 20th Life Wise uploaded a video to their YouTube channel titled “Life Wise Products with Dr. Tracy Gibbs”.
In the video Gibbs confirms he is behind Life Wise’s product line and details three products:
- Dream – cyclodextrin delivered sleep aid containing melatonin and saffron extract, sold in a box of 30 single-use strips
- Restore – SMEDDS delivered black cumin seed oil and frankincense supplement targeting inflammation, sold in a bottle of 60 softgel capsules
- Clarity – cyclodextrin delivered “energy boosting” supplement, sold in a box of 30 single-use strips
In another video Rob Alwin states Life Wise will also have a $35 “leadership development program”.
The program is put together by Chris Clem, Senior Pastor at Highland Assembly.
The best teaching from the best people. Dr. Clem will be interviewing all the right people, people you want to learn from.
He’s developing curriculum to help lead you into your own personal promised land.
Retail pricing has not been disclosed for any of Life Wise’s products.
From their compensation marketing however, it appears Life Wise’s products will be priced between $35 to $39.
This is presented as wholesale pricing. Whether retail pricing is more or even available is unknown.
Life Wise’s Compensation Plan
Life Wise affiliates sign up and commit to a monthly autoship order.
Commissions are paid when they recruit others who do the same.
Life Wise pays commissions via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Life Wise caps recruitment commissions down seven unilevel team levels.
Commissions are paid as a flat amount based on orders placed on any of the seven levels:
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – $5 per product purchased
- level 2 – $3 per product purchased
- level 3 – $2 per product purchased
- levels 4 to 7 – $1 per product purchased
Life Wise Affiliate Ranks
There are seven affiliate ranks within Life Wise’s compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Bronze Partner – earn $200 a week
- Silver Partner – earn $300 a week
- Gold Partner – earn $500 a week
- Ruby Partner – earn $1000 a week and have three Silver Partners or higher in your downline
- Emerald Partner – earn $2000 a week and have three Gold Partners or higher in your downline
- Diamond Partner – earn $3000 a week and have three Ruby Partners or higher in your downline
- Black Diamond Partner – earn $5000 a week and have three Diamond Partners or higher in your downline
Note that required rank specific downline affiliates must be in separate unilevel team legs.
E.g. At Emerald Partner you need three Gold Partners or higher in your downline. Each Gold Partner or higher must be in a separate unilevel team leg.
Whether there are any rewards attached to Life Wise rank qualification is unclear.
Joining Life Wise
Life Wise affiliate membership is $99 annually.
Life Wise Conclusion
Whereas Vasayo had a strong retail offering, Life Wise is a simple autoship recruitment scheme.
Rob Alwin: This is going to be a place where you can get involved and spend $39 a month … you’re never going to be asked to buy more than that.
We might suggest different business proposals to show you how to build big and powerfully, that maybe you get two products and spend $78.
Maybe we only require you to sponsor one person on autoship of $39 a month. But, what if I laid out a plan where if each person for four you would eventually, with just one product, with no front loading, you could end up making a significant six figure income folks?
In fact you could make a significant income even if you only got one person started.
Here I am, I’m in for free until after launch. Free.
I’m determining whether I want to spend $35 or $39 on autoship. There’s your comp plan.
Nowhere in Life Tree’s publicly available marketing material are retail sales mentioned. In fact I don’t even know if retail sales are even possible.
The FTC has made it clear that retail sales are what differentiates legitimate MLM companies from scams.
If an MLM company isn’t generating the majority of its sales revenue from retail customers, they are operating as a pyramid scheme.
Life Wise’s compensation plan, as presented by founder and CEO Rob Alwin, is seven levels deep of autoship recruitment. There is no retail component as presented.
Rob Alwin: Sign someone up for free and spend $35 or $39 … you can do that as many times as you like or only once.
And you got four friends, and they say to you, they go, “What do we do?”
And what do you say? Go get four.
You only need one but we recommend go get four.
When your four people each go get four, now there’s sixteen people. And you got sixteen times three, and you just made 48 bucks.
You’re bringing in four. Your four grows into a $285,000 a year income.
And even if there was (one might be hastily tacked on following publication of this review), Life Wise’s core business model is obvious: sign up, commit to autoship and recruit other affiliates who do the same.
That’s your classic MLM autoship recruitment pyramid scheme.
And, naturally, sitting at the top of said autoship recruitment pyramid scheme, is Alwin and the rest of Life Wise’s executives;
Tracy Gibbs: I’m super excited to be teaming up with Rob on this new venture of ours, and having a compensation plan that’s completely transparent.
We’re building teams, right there with you. And that’s our salary … we get paid off the compensation plan.
Rob Alwin: We got positions in the business, building the same comp plan and getting paid exactly the way you do.
Ironically Alwin seems able to identify fraud…
Most compensation plans at most companies, there’s massive fraud taking place.
They’re inserting positions above you to attract the leader instead of allowing the leader to come up and show you how it’s done, authentic and real.
…but takes issue with secrecy behind pyramid schemes, as opposed to the pyramid scheme itself.
Moving on to Life Wise’s products, they seem reasonably priced for what they are. Unfortunately any products attached to an autoship recruitment scheme are secondary to the scheme itself.
Another disturbing aspect to Life Wise is the heavy integration of religion. Believe what you want to believe, but mixing religion and MLM lends itself to toxicity, cliques and discrimination.
To illustrate a point, let’s say hypothetically I’m an atheist. Pyramid scheme or no I see Life Wise as an income opportunity and make my way up the company’s affiliate ranks.
I’m earning a decent income on recruitment. But how long will it be before me thinking Christianity is a crock of shit becomes a problem?
One especially potential problematic area is Pastor Chris Clem “developing curriculum to help lead you into your own personal promised land.”
Is Life Wise’s leadership development program religious themed? If so, that’s a potentially major problem for anyone not religiously inclined. Or potentially even worse, following the wrong religion.
So? Just don’t buy the program then, duh.
Sure, and if that was the only red flag I’d be willing to give Life Wise and Alwin the benefit of the doubt. Life Wise’s marketing material however is already heavily laced with religious undertones.
I’d be very surprised if Clem’s program wasn’t heavily pushed onto Life Wise affiliates.
Again, by all means believe what you want to believe – but mixing religion and MLM is generally a bad idea.
When combined with a pyramid style autoship recruitment model, it also enables religious affinity fraud as a marketing tool.
As with all pyramid schemes, once affiliate recruitment dries up so too will commissions for existing Life Wise affiliates.
Unless new victims are found, those at the bottom of Life Wise’s compensation plan will over time cancel their monthly autoship.
This will see those above them stop getting paid and in time cancel their own autoship.
Once enough Life Wise affiliates cancel autoship, an irreversible collapse is triggered.
The math behind pyramid schemes guarantees that the majority of participants lose money.
Currently in prelaunch, Life Wise is scheduled to launch in full on July 4th, 2023.