What is TOD?

I had the opportunity to attend a Team of Destiny ^® open meeting. Typical of all Amway/Quixtar open meetings I've attended, it started 15-20 minutes late. The open meeting paralleled the format taught in Team of Destiny ^® tapes.

The speaker was Harvey Ostrander who works for General Motors. Harvey drove from Defiance Ohio to show the plan. Harvey's pin level was not mentioned, but he still garnered a standing ovation when he came in and when he left.

Harvey has been with Team of Destiny ^® 2 years. Harvey is a retread Amway distributor who claimed that "Amway didn't work for him" after three years of work. Harvey surely knows that Quixtar took over the North American Amway distribution business. It is no wonder that Harvey never mentions the Quixtar-Amway relationship since Amway never "worked for him".

As with all open meetings the "dream" came first and took up most of the time in the presentation. He then moved on to Michael Dell's "3-C's" and said how Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady (Team of Destiny ^® ) solved the problem of customer loyalty by "bribing" people to buy from their website. What Harvey fails to mention is the need for a majority of the sales to be made to people who are not participating in the compensation scheme to be not considered an illegal pyramid.

Harvey states that your bonus is based on the volume you generate by "shopping on the Internet". In the presentation, Harvey never mentions acquiring retail customers. He is promoting the business as a "wholesale buying club", which is a violation of Quixtar rules.

Harvey only presents the IBO option and never mentions the Quixtar Member and Client options in the meeting for prospects. Later in the second session or, "night-owl", he mentioned the "Member and Client" options. He never mentioned the need for retail volume (M/C rule) to qualify for bonuses. This lack of disclosure might also violate Quixtar rules.

Harvey also states "He (Michael Dell) says we need a website to do business on the Internet. "Ours is www.teamofdestiny.com. We also tie in with several companies...Microsoft, Fry Multimedia, Quixtar, and IBM. So we have our website taken care of by contracting with these folks."

Harvey blurs the Quixtar relationship and probably breaks another Quixtar rule by implying that the Team of Destiny ^® website is the main shopping portal and that Quixtar is a contractor or broker to TOD.

Harvey then lays out the Team of Destiny ^® depth model of building your first leg with 50 people deep and a second leg 15 people deep (1-50,1-15). Harvey states when you have this structure you will make $2,000-$3,000/month. his structure is much different from the standard 6-4-2 or 9-4-2 model used in other Amway/Quixtar "Lines-of-sponsorship".

Calculations
If each and every IBO in the Team of Destiny ^® (1-50,1-15) model had 100PV and the BV/PV ratio was 2.5, this example would earn only $606¹/month not the $2k-$3k claimed. Leg one would earn him just $250 in bonuses, leg two would earn him $300, and his personal purchases would earn him $57.5.

Quixtar reported in 2002 that the average IBO had only 38.5 PV per month or just 38.5% of the example above. Team of Destiny ^® is also on record saying that they have one of the lowest average PV per IBO in the business. One could then assume that Team of Destiny's ^® average PV is below Quixtar's 38.5 PV/IBO/month. The Quixtar average PV of 38.5 results in a bonus, for the 1-50,1-15 model, that is less than or equal to $365²/month. This is just 18% of what Harvey claims the model should make (i.e. $2,000 minimum). Harvey did not mention the TOD compensation plan for sales of tapes, books and seminars so I am unable to estimate what these amounts might be.

In data sent to me by a 2500 PV TOD IBO, the average IBO in the group of 94 IBOs had just 26.5PV. This is just 70% of the overall Quixtar average. 77% of the IBOs in this group had no purchases for the month exceeding 2 PV. Applying this data to the TOD model, the model would earn just $226.34³, or 11% of the minimum $2,000 per month Harvey claimed.

How could a Team of Destiny ^® IBO earn $2k-$3k/month which Harvey stated?
Even at a very generous 140PV/IBO, which is 10 PV less than TOD's ideal 150 PV/IBO, and almost 4 times higher than the Quixtar IBO average, this IBO would earn $1971⁴/month when including the $10,000/year Q-12 bonus. If the IBO did not qualify for the Q-12 bonus his average income would be below $1113⁴/month

If we increase the sales per IBO to 150 PV then something remarkable happens. The 50 person leg goes "direct" breaking away from the group since it is 7500PV. As a result, the IBO's income plummets 68% because a majority of the volume has left his group due to "breaking a new direct". This IBO doesn't have 2500PV in side volume (width) to collect any portion of the 4% leadership bonus. The IBO ends up collecting 25% on his personal 150PV and 10% of the downline 5625 BV, for a total of $656.25⁵/month down from $1971/month.

Team of Destiny ^® teaches building depth as the key to stability but if you play with the various bonus scenarios, as I did here, you can see that the Team of Destiny ^® depth method lacks profitability/IBO as well. It can be easily proven that the income potential of the 1-50,1-15 model shown by Harvey is exaggerated.

Harvey stated how he hoped to one day be making $2k-$3k extra per month from the business. Looks like he will be waiting quite a while with the 1-50,1-15 model. The exaggerated income claim and the failure to state that the SA4400 says the average IBO earns just $115/month might also be a violation of Quixtar rules.

Harvey then goes on to "detail" the income of a diamond and an executive diamond IBOs as "way mo" and "way, way, way mo". Harvey avoids getting himself in trouble by not telling us how much a Diamond and Executive Diamond IBO actually make. Maybe he really doesn't know. All we know is that the average qualifying Diamond makes $150k/year from Quixtar before expenses.

Now just before the open meeting ended, there was a pitch to sell tickets ($90 each) for the next upcoming function called "Winter Leadership" on January 24, 2004 in Toledo, OH. The featured speakers are Orrin Woodward (Team of Destiny ^® ), and Chris Brady (Team of Destiny ^® ), Tim Marks (Team of Destiny ^® ) and Casey Combden (Interbiz). It is interesting to note that these are the same speakers used over and over for Team of Destiny ^® functions. Why are there no WWDB, Pronet, or Network 21 Diamonds speaking at Team of Destiny ^® functions?

After about 55 minutes the open meeting stopped and after a 15 minute break, the "night owl" started.

The night owl was a combination of motivational and peddling the TOD system. He started with a song, "I hope you dance", from female country singer, Leanne Womack. It was embarrassing for Harvey when he had problems starting the CD player and then the CD player skipped. He cut off the music and then read the lyrics. Harvey applied the words of the song to the Team of Destiny ^® business and life. He them jumped back into "the dream" and importance of keeping "a hunger for knowledge".

To satisfy your hunger for knowledge you should attend the next function where Chris Brady will be speaking. Then he promoted the Team of Destiny ^® "book of the month", "top 5 books" and tape of the week. If you are having problems in your relationship, they have a book for it called "the five love languages", which is number 6 in the Top 5.

He explained that tape of the week consists of actually two tapes costing $6 each. There is a third tape called standing order leadership tape. If you are not on standing order leadership tape then you are "SOL" (shit out of luck). hen there is the "TOP 50" tapes. If you have the "TOP 50 tapes" you have everything you need to build the business.

Then there are the weekly opens costing $5, the monthly meetings for $25 per person, and three major functions costing $90 per person.

Then he reminisced on his three years in Amway and all the plans he had shown with nothing to show for them. He always thought "what if", "what if".... When he saw Team of Destiny ^® he jumped at it. He said to have faith in the system and tie into it. Buy the books, the tapes and attend all the seminars. "If you are not on book of the month or tape of the week, tell the person who showed you this that you want on the system".

He mentioned building a group of 10 people with 4 on the system and building another group of 5 with 2 on the system in three months, and a few other things and you are a Team of Destiny ^® "power player".

Then he highlighted the 8-step pattern.

1. The dream
2. Commit to that dream
3. Make a list of everybody you ever known.
4. Contact those on your list. There are tapes on contacting and we have scripts. Keep the information down to a minimum to build their curiosity when you contact them.
5. Show the plan
6. Follow up after the plan and sign them up.
7. Rotate the pattern. Help those you sign up do the pattern.
8. Check progress with your mentor.

It is interesting to note the 8-step pattern focuses only on recruiting new people and mentions nothing of retail sales of products to non-participant end users.

The meeting ended and I was able to talk to Harvey about the BSMs and the profit potential from the "B" type business outlined on Orrin Woodward's web site. I asked him if I had to buy the tools to be able to participate in the tool profits. He told me that if I was not using the tools, that I would probably not be able to attain the level required to participate in those profits. Harvey would not confirm that the tools are "required" for success but did state that using them would "ensure your success" in the business.

Calculations:
^1. 100PV average per IBO
Total PV is 6600 (5000 + 1500 + 100), bonus level = 23%
Leg 1 5000PV x (.23 $/BV - .21 $/BV) x 2.5 BV/PV = $250
Leg 2 1500PV x (.23 $/BV - .15 $/BV) x 2.5 BV/PV = $300
Personal .23 x 100 x 2.5 = $57.5
Total Bonus = $607.5