The farmer’s market is an unusual and wondrous place. There are customers and vendors from all over and you hear all sorts of different languages, not just Spanish and English (we live in Florida, so hearing folks speak Spanish is somewhat commonplace). Prices are rarely listed and normally customers just inquire or vendors will volunteer pricing information. It’s fascinating and rare to see such a pure and free market. You can even haggle if you so desire, although the prices are so low you really don’t need to.

Indeed we were able to purchase all our produce for a single $20 bill. The merchandise we walked away with would have easily cost us more than double at the grocery market. Not only are the prices much better, but everything is fresh too. The only drawback is that because everything is fresh, you won’t find items that are out of season (for instance, strawberries). Unfortunately, you will still have to purchase out-of-season items from your grocer. However, you should still be able to find the majority of your produce at the farmer’s market. If you like to save money and enjoy people watching, you should definitely try visiting your local farmer’s market.

Antiques and Collectibles

Getting The Most Out Of Your Credit Card Reward Program.

Article Marketing 2.0

What is Multilevel Marketing?

People often equate MLM with pyramid schemes, but believe it or not there is a difference. The mechanics for both are very similar in that there is a hierarchy in which commissions are paid at multiple levels. The difference between multi-level marketing and a pyramid scheme is whether or not an actual product is promoted and delivered. In a pyramid scheme, the bottom level is left holding the bag and has nothing to show for it. A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model. In a proper (and legal) multi level marketing system, some members may not make any money, but they have purchased and received an actual product.

Of course, there are some gray areas in between (which is why the terms are often used synonymously), the darkest of which is when the product does not work as advertised. There is also the lighter gray area when the system promises riches but fails to deliver. However, if a good product is being promoted that provides value to customers and a participant fails to achieve their desired goals, then it is more their own failure than a failure of the marketing system.

Like it or not, multi-level marketing is a very effective method for promoting and delivering a product. Rather than paying a lot of money on traditional advertising, sales, and marketing, the incentives of multilevel marketing make it self promoting. I do not have any problem with multilevel marketing, as long as the product promoted actually works as promised and is worth the price that is paid. I believe that MLM provides an excellent mechanism for companies that choose to use it for promoting their products, and also provides tremendous opportunities to those that participate. The idea of a product that can not only save people money, but help people to make money as well certainly intrigued me. I didn’t even visit the website until a month or two after my neighbor mentioned it to me, but one day my curiosity peaked and I finally decided to check it out.

The EnviroMax Plus Website

Being somewhat lazy, one thing I wanted to find out was if the business could be completely run online. I don’t have the time nor the inclination to call everyone I know and tell them about a great new product I’m selling, only to face more rejection than acceptance. I would rather promote the product online, where potential customers/partners can decide for themselves whether or not they are interested in buying the product and possibly selling it as well. If things go well for me online, then it will make convincing friends and family much easier.

I liked what I saw on the website. I went all the way through the process of ordering (without actually placing the order). They provide two options for someone to buy, either as a “preferred customer” or as a retail customer. The preferred customer option is the option that provides you with the money making opportunity and gets you into the multilevel marketing system. The retail option is for those that are not interested in selling the product but are interested in buying it. On the website and order forms, I saw my neighbor’s name and enroller ID. This is a good thing, as it indicated to me that it indeed was something I could do completely online.

The Regular Monthly Orders

When you sign up to become a preferred customer, you also sign up for a monthly order for which you will automatically be charged. This is somewhat of a double-edged sword. It is good because after you have signed up people under you that stick with the program, you will receive commissions on their monthly orders (in addition to the commission you receive when they purchase their initial order). On the other hand, if months go by and you do not sign up anyone, the monthly orders could result in a lot of extra inventory that will take a while to consume personally.

The monthly order is enough to treat 640 gallons of fuel, which is very likely to be much more than you would consume in a month. This may not be as much of a problem if you have some regular retail customers to which can sell your monthly order. They refer to the 2-oz. bottles as “mission bottles”, because they include sales literature to entice the recipient to join. It is their “mission” to reach 1 million members. So far they have reached around 40,000. The 2-oz. bottles retail for $10, but you could always give them away (as my neighbor did) and consider them to be an advertising expense.

The 12-oz. bottles are probably a bit more than you’d want to give away, so you might want to try selling those. Those are great to sell to people that like the product and want to buy it, but aren’t interested in joining the multi level marketing program. If you sell them for $50, you’ll be able to cover the majority of your monthly order expense (and if you sell the 2-oz. bottles for $10, you’ll make a small profit). Since it is enough to treat 480 gallons of fuel, you would need to have a few regular customers to be able to cycle through that inventory on a regular basis. If the average person uses around 60 gallons of fuel per month, you will need to have 8 customers to buy the 12-oz bottles in order to resell your personal monthly order on a regular basis.

Joining the EnviroMax Plus Multi-Level Marketing Opportunity

There are two options for becoming a preferred customer and enrolling in the rewards program: family member and individual member. The family member enrollment costs a total of $359.90 (that includes shipping and handling), and includes an initial shipment of 3 12-oz. bottles and 24 2-oz. bottles (total of 84 oz.). With a family member enrollment, you will enjoy more lucrative rewards on indirect sales (sales made by people you sign up and further downline). The individual member enrollment costs a total of $124.90 including shipping and handling, and includes an initial shipment of one 12-oz. bottle and 8 2-oz. bottles (total of 28 oz.). The initial shipment with the individual membership is smaller and less expensive, but the downline rewards are lower as well.

Both enrollment options include the initial shipment of product, because otherwise it might be considered a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes typically include enrollment fees (from which commissions are paid) and deliver no product, which is why they are not sustainable and illegal. The required initial order is quite large, so you will probably want to sell it off. Like the monthly orders, if you sell the large bottles for $50 and the small bottles for $10, you will make a small profit.

You will receive the same commissions for new preferred customers that purchase the initial order under you, regardless of which membership you have. You earn $75 for when someone joins as a family member and earn $25 when someone joins as an individual member. Whether you decide to join as a family member or an individual member yourself, each month you will receive your shipment of one 12-oz. bottle and two 2-oz. bottles and you will be charged $52.95 + shipping & handling.

Rewards Program?

They have everything set up as a rewards program (you’ll see “Extreme Rewards” plastered all over the site), in that commissions are not paid immediately for sales. Instead, you accrue “reward dollars” which can be used as credit towards your monthly order and you can request that a check be sent to you in the amount of the rewards dollars you have in the account (you can request a check once a month). They have gone to such great lengths to refer to it as a rewards program rather than multilevel marketing. More than likely they are doing this to emphasize the fact that they are selling you an actual product that works. Perhaps they are also trying to get away from the poor reputation that MLM has and it’s close association with pyramid schemes, I’m not sure. Perhaps their legal counsel advised them to set it up in the manner in which they did. Don’t let all of that fool you. Fundamentally speaking it is still a multi-level marketing system that pays you commissions for selling their product.

Any rewards that are used to pay for your monthly order (or additional orders) will not be considered taxable revenue since you will have never received the commission. However, because you didn’t pay for the orders either, I don’t believe that the expense would be tax deductible either, since there really is no expense. The benefit here is negligible, particularly if you are already making a lot of money with the rewards program. You would be using a relatively small percentage of the rewards dollars for personal and monthly orders.

Because they only send you rewards checks when you request them, there are some additional tax benefits. You can pay yourself as much as you want rather than getting paid no matter what. If you are making a lot of money with the system, deferring the payment of your commissions is to your benefit. You could consider it to be like a pre-tax savings account (that earns no interest) that is only taxed when you make withdrawals.

The Neighbor’s Testimonial

After having visited the site and becoming well acquainted with the product and marketing system, I decided to go and talk to my neighbor about his progress with using and promoting the product. He told me that he has been using the product in all his vehicles and his gas mileage has indeed improved. He also said that is making about $400 a month, and his father is making about $1,800 a month.

My neighbor had only signed up three people and most of his income was coming from retail sales. His father had signed up a pastor with his church, and apparently he had been gifted with the divine power of salesmanship. The pastor has been a tremendous salesperson and has helped my neighbor’s father to achieve many bonuses each month. He also told me about a state trooper that tried it out in his patrol car, saw a great improvement, and he was sold. After speaking with my neighbor the second time, I was nearly ready to sign up. He gave me one of the 2-oz. bottles to try out.

The First-Hand Testimonial

I drive a Honda 2000 and as it is, I get pretty good gas mileage on it considering it has over 120,000 miles on it. I most certainly drive more conservatively than the average S2000 owner, and very likely more conservatively than the average driver. To conduct a proper test, I first ran without the fuel catalyst. I travelled 281 miles and purchased 10.41 gallons to refill the tank. So my mileage without using the product was 26.99 mpg. I’m telling you, I drive like a little old woman.

When I was ready to fill up, I wasn’t sure if I had previously used 89 octane or 93. To make sure I would err on the side of conservatism, I filled up with 89 octane and added 1/2 ounce of the fuel additive. I was a few miles down the road when I had realized I forgot to reset the trip odometer. Oops! Well, once again, I will err on the side of conservatism. When I finished the tank and refilled, I had travelled 279.5 miles (actually a few miles more) and purchased 9.61 gallons of fuel. My calculated milage with this revolutionary fuel catalyst was 29.08 mpg!

On the very first tank with Enviromax Plus, I made an improvement of 7.74% (it’s actually a bit higher since I left off a few miles). So let’s do the math. If I hadn’t used the fuel additive on the second tank and achieved the same mileage as the first, to travel 279.5 miles I would have purchased 10.35 gallons of fuel (rounding down). At $4 a gallon (was actually a little higher), that would have cost me $41.40. However, with the improvement in gas mileage I only had to purchase 9.61 gallons at a cost of $38.44. On the first usage, I saved $2.96. Because the dosage I used was actually twice the normal dosage, the dosage would have cost me about $2, so my net savings was about $1.

I was sold! As soon as I got home I placed my order and joined. After my next two fill-ups, I should be able to use only 1/4 oz. of fuel additive for every 10 gallons of gas that I purchase. I anticipate that my gas mileage will only get better as well. Even if it stays the same with the lower dosage, I’ll still be saving $2 for every $1 of EnviroMax Plus that I purchase.

The Numbers

For the first tank of treated gasoline, you should use 1/2 oz. of Enviromax Plus for every 10 gallons. For vehicles that have more than 50,000 miles, you should maintain that dosage for three full tanks. Then you can use the optimum dosage of 1/4 oz. of the fuel additive for every 10 gallons of gas. You should get anywhere from 10% – 30% improvement in fuel economy. A 10% improvement in your gas mileage should save you $4 for every 10 gallons of gas you purchase (with gas @$4 per gallon). At a cost of $1 per dosage, this will net you $3 for every dollar of EnviroMax Plus you purchase.

If you have a family with two cars and purchase about 150 gallons per month, just 3.75 oz. of the fuel catalyst will save you $60 a month in gross savings! The savings you receive on your own improvement in gas mileage will cover the cost of your monthly order. Basically, you’ll be left with a single 12-oz. bottle that you will need to sell. You can even sell it well below retail and still come out ahead. You could try selling it to someone in person for closer to retail value or sell it on eBay for around $15.

Summary

All in all, I think that EnviroMax Plus is great opportunity to make some additional income as well as save on gas, which is why I’m giving it a shot. I figure that if worse comes to worst and I quit, I’ll eventually recoup the money I spent with the money that it saves me on gas. I believe that the pros outweigh the cons and potential rewards are well worth the small risk. Here’s a summary of the bad and the good of EnviroMax Plus as I see it:

Bad

• The refund process is very poor. If you want a refund, you have to return a full order (they won’t accept anything partially used), and even then you only get half of your money back and have to spend money to ship it back. Basically, if you want your money back you can forget about it.
• The required monthly order is enough to treat 640 gallons of fuel, very likely to be much higher than your monthly fuel consumption. You’ll either have to sell the surplus, give it away, or eat it. (Don’t actually eat it, it’s poison!)
• The minimum retail order is 16 oz. and about $60. It would be better if they offered smaller order sizes to allow people to try the product without having to order enough to treat 640 gallons.
• Although the website does have all the pertinent information and allows for online orders, I’m not a big fan of the manner in which the website uses the “Extreme Rewards” brand. I think that all of this can be somewhat confusing to people that visit. I can imagine someone going to the site and saying, “What the hell is extreme rewards? I just want to buy and sell EnviroMax Plus!”
• The shipping and handling price for the monthly order is not posted anywhere on the site. S&H for the monthly orders is $10.95 and the total cost of the monthly order is $63.90. The same S&H applies to any 16 oz. retail order as well (one 12 oz. bottle and two 2 oz. bottles).
• The cost of requesting a rewards check is $3.50.

Good

• The product is competing in a market that everyone constantly talks about. Most people complain about gas prices being high (although I still think that gas in the U.S. is cheap), so you will have plenty of opportunities to talk to people about it.
• The website is very comprehensive. You can just hand a simple business card with the URL and your member ID to anyone complaining about gas prices, and they will have enough information to decide whether or not it is for them. If you do this often, you are bound to have people sign up under you.
• Because the website is comprehensive and everything can be done online, you can also promote it online. It is possible to never talk to anyone in person about it and still make money. This is good if you are not a salesperson (or do not want to become one) or are adverse to rejection.
• If you have a blog and have had success with promoting products with reviews, EnviroMax Plus presents you with another great opportunity.
• There doesn’t appear to be a lot of promoting of this business online quite yet. If you join now, it might be a good opportunity to get in on the ground floor before the ‘Net becomes cluttered with talk about it.
• In terms of a work at home business, $350 in start-up costs and $50 in fixed monthly overhead is minimal. You can claim this as a business expense too on your taxes, so that will help to probably save at least an additional 25% on the start-up cost. There are also a lot of other tax benefits if you treat it as a home business. You may wish to consult a tax professional before you do any of this.
• You don’t need to hire staff. If you’d like to consider the people you bring into the business as contractors, you don’t have to worry about payroll, accounts payable, IRS tax forms, etc. All that is handled by the system.
• There is no need to order, store, and deliver inventory. Once again, everything is handled by the system. The storefront, ordering, and payment is all handled by the system as well.

If it all sounds like something you’re interested in learning even more about or joining, please be sure to visit my Enviromax Plus website. I will be updating the blog with information about my progress with this new stream of alternative income.

Bobbleheads

I was a bit surprised to learn that we were the only session taking place in our time slot. With no other session taking place, everyone was observing the blogger panel. I was surprisingly at ease and wasn’t all that nervous. It probably helped that there was a crew filming the session with 10,000 watt light bulbs that made it difficult to see the crowd. It also helped that I hadn’t prepared a whole lot and simply responded to questions with my experiences and knowledge.

I’m anxious for the video to come out so that I can see how I performed. It’s difficult for me to assess my own performance, because it almost seemed as if I would just open my mouth and words would come out. I have a difficult time recollecting the things I said and how well I answered the queries. I’ll post a link to the video as soon as it’s available, along with my self-assessment.

Introducing to VBlogging

The Friday Gathering - Broken Arm Edition

Source: End-User Petroleum Product Prices and Average Crude Oil Import Costs report from the International Energy Agency

By comparison, the average price of fuel in the U.S. for January of 2008 was $3.06 per gallon, but in Germany it was $7.80 per gallon! The UK isn’t that much better at $7.71 per gallon. Even our neighbors to the north (Canada) are paying nearly $4 per gallon ($3.97 to be more precise) so I think those of us in the USA really have very little to complain about.

Cadillac Escalade Hybrid 2009

Gas Is A Steal In The U.S. Compared To Europe.

Prosper wins by a score of 135,000 to 13,700!!!

Weekly Wrap Up March 9-15

Google is leapfrogging Apple