Just recently, I was asked by a potential new Utility Warehouse Distributor to help them make an objective decision. They were researching the business opportunity market and had arrived at two potential opportunities - Tiscali and The Utility Warehouse. What an interesting situation, being asked to offer an opinion on the two business opportunities. So in case my findings are helpful to anyone else, as follows was my response...

Ok, lets discuss the two businesses...although, ultimately, you will need to be the judge. I know a fair bit about both, so I'll do my best to give you a 'balance sheet' or something similar.

Tiscali Network

Is a household brand and is extensively advertised in the UK. Offers broadband, land line telephone and a TV package (in certain areas). There have been suggested questions regarding the quality of their customer service. Training is mostly via Conference Calls, although there are now a limited numbers of training meetings.

Free to join, with a £20 annual admin fee to pay on each 12 month anniversary.
Customer Gathering Bonus of £10 per service. A flat rate of 0.75% on all customers monthly billing (personal & team). Their matrix structure is a little difficult to understand & has some limitations. Significantly, Tiscali Distributors are not paid to infinity & matrix structure is a little rigid (3x7 matrix). Customer orders are mostly placed online. Their website is effective. The back-office is good. Commission is paid weekly direct to bank & you receive an electronic statement.

To my knowledge, Tiscali does not offer a car plan, holiday incentives or share options. There are some enhanced earnings available by building a team. The Company can testify to the success of UK Distributors & I personally know one of their top guys who earns a six figure income from his Tiscali business.

Utility Warehouse

Whilst not yet a household name, is supported by some very positive press and does have in excess of 200,000 customers. Channel partners include: T-mobile & nPower. Service offering: Landline telephone, mobile phone packages, gas, electricity, broadband, non geographic numbers & white goods (both business & residential). Award winning Customer Services - acknowledged by Which Consumer Magazine & The Daily Mail.

A deposit of £199.75 to join (refunded when you gather 12 customers in first 90 days) or by requesting a refund inside 90 days. Training is mostly professional training via The Company's College of Excellence, with 30+ venues around the UK.
Training is also offered by a number of online resources and my gut-feel is that Upline Support is far stronger with UW than with Tiscali.

You receive a tangible Starter Kit with UW - including stationary, order forms, training manual, training DVD's etc. Websites (3 of) are included, along with a very good back-office (The Extranet). You get paid a customer gathering bonus (“CGB”) of £10 when a new customer takes a mobile phone or SIM card, £5 if they take the Home Phone service, £2.50 each for gas & electricity, up to £20 for broadband and £5 if they use an 0800 number. A typical new customer will generate CGB of £20 - £40. Residual income paid at 2.4% - 6.3% on your personal customers & 0.8% on your group customers.

Uniquely, The Utility Warehouse offers an infinity compensation plan - meaning, no matter how many levels there are in your business, it is possible to get paid 0.8% to infinity (This is highly significant). Customers can sign up online or via a form. Commission is paid monthly direct to bank, with a very good / fully itemised commission statement sent electronically.

The Utility Warehouse offers two car plans - Porsche Boxters & BMW Mini Ones.
The Utility Warehouse offers holiday incentives.
The Utility Warehouse offers share options.

There are numerous other potential bonus payments - Promotional, Team & Leadership
The Company can testify to a lot of Distributor success with the top guys earning significant six figure incomes and new Marketing Directors coming through the ranks as quickly as three years or less

Taking note of your comments regarding what it takes, my experience of Telecom plus is a little different to Amway. With Amway, I was Mr White Board Man, out showing the plan in all weathers and all that rubbish...paying the price & pounding the steering wheel. I have never done that with Telecom plus. I have been consistent over 3-4 years and probably never more than 15 hours per week. We have just taken a whole four months off - zero activity and the income continues upwards. There are of course folk who go all out for it and that's fine. For us, we have five kids, two other businesses and quite busy lives. We wanted something with a little more flexibility and none of the hype that you so often get with these things. There is security in the customer base and not just in the size of the team. For instance, there are folk who have gathered over 1000 personal customers - that's a very nice income, with security based on 1000 accounts.

In summary, success in any MLM takes a lot of hard work. Not for the feint hearted or lazy...you already know that and understand that they all work on a 3 years plus plan. I would say that Telecom plus takes at least 36 months (on average) to get somewhere decent. Because there is a lot more money on the table with UW, my personal opinion is that with Tiscali, you would have to work a great deal harder & longer to get to the same place. There is not as much fruit on the trees. I have no problem with Tiscali - it's a good opportunity, but in my humble opinion, it's more of a hybrid affiliate scheme than a business opportunity.

I sincerely hope that my ramblings are helpful. Don't hesitate to pick my brains further, only too happy to help and should you wish to 'bite the bullet' and join The Utility Warehouse, we would of course be delighted to help you to get started.

Labels: distributor-opinion

posted by Jeremy Tromans at 6/09/2007 01:45:00 AM