"I feel that if you are not skeptical, you are a fool. I feel that the best business people in the world are the most skeptical people in the world, because they want factual information. They don't want a bunch of hype. Fair?" Bo Short Emerald Distributor

In a package sent to me by a former Britt distributor, I found his "show the plan book". In it contained the following slide. This is a very interesting slide. It attempts to provide a "credible" document loaded with facts and statistics about Quixtar incomes. I will lead you through an easy analysis of the numbers to see if they even stand up to simple cross checks. A note from Quixtar confirms that some of the data were given to the IBOA by Amway/Quixtar.

Many IBO site visitors have written me claiming Platinum distributors make on average of $62k/year. I am sure they received their information form slides like this below.

Back ground on Income claims from the FTC:

The TL424 with 1996 official data from Amway Scan of original document.

From Britt WorldWide

Scan of original the Britt document

Average Yearly Income For IBOs powered by Quixtar	Q-12 Qualifiers	$62,537
	Emeralds	$73,793
	Founder's Emeralds	$87,881
	Diamonds	$136,322
	Founder's Diamonds	$173,105
	EDC & p	$442,186
	Founder's EDC & up	$977,334

The average monthly gross income for "active" IBOs was $88.

Subsequent slides in the presentation had the following:

• In the fiscal year ending Aug 31, 1999, 0.00771% of Direct Fulfillment IBOs of record in North America qualified at the Diamond level. This contradicts the above slide, which classifies the success level as a percentage of "Active" IBOs and not "Direct Fulfillment IBOs.
• Approximately .13417% of direct fulfillment IBOs of record in North America achieved at least this level of success as Q12 qualifiers in calendar year - ending Dec. 31, 1999. This contradicts the above slide, which classifies the success level as a percentage of "Active" IBOs and not "Direct Fulfillment IBOs

• The Q-12 achievement level of 0.13417% is equivalent to one out of 1810 IBOs in the first slide and one in 745 active IBOs in subsequent slides, qualifying for Q-12 status. Per the first slide, those that qualified for Q-12 grossed $62,537 (Britt Worldwide sheet)
• Calculations show a 7500PV Q-12 would need a minimum of 136 IBOs each doing only 55PV/month or 75 IBOs each doing 100PV/month, or as few as 25 each doing 300PV.
• The 9-4-2 plan to make Q-12 platinum requires 117 IBOs at 64PV.
• The 6-4-2 plan would require 78 IBOs to make a Q-12 platinum at 96PV.
• Press releases before 10/30/00 claimed Quixtar to have 400,000 IBOs.
• The Britt material does not clarify if the pool of Q-12's includes Sapphire Q-12's, Ruby Q-12's or even Diamond Q-12's and above. One is led to believe that the base $63k/year income is for a basic 6-4-2 Q-12 Platinum.
• The average PV for distributors is less than 100. "When Georgia-Lee and I went direct distributor 23 years ago...Guess what our average PV per distributor was? 65PV... Guess what the Directs going back to Ada, MI at the new direct distributors seminar... guess what their average PV per distributor is today?.. Guess what it is today? About 65 PV." Triple Diamond Ron Puryear Tape: Basics of the business

There are some glaring contradictions in the Britt Worldwide material concerning Q-12's.

1. Q-12 Contradictions

• To qualify for Q-12 Platinum, one would only need 136 IBOs each doing 55PV, not 1810. Diamond status can be attained with only 1000 IBOs, each doing 55 PV. In the 9-4-2 plan, it is planned that only 117 IBOs (64pv each) are needed for Q-12. Note that Triple Diamond Ron Puryear states the average distributor does 65PV versus my lower assumption of 55PV.
• Using the slide's Q-12 percentage of 0.1347% and Quixtar's 400,000 IBOs, it would calculate that only 221 Quixtar IBOs qualify as a Q-12 distributor. (400,000*.41*0.001347= 221) I am positive there are more than 221 qualifying Q-12's in Quixtar. I would estimate there to be 2,900 qualifying Q-12's in Quixtar, based upon 136-55PV IBOs per Q-12.
• The Q-12 receives a $10,000 annual qualification bonus and a free trip, usually to Orlando, FL. Assume these add up to $15,000. The Q-12 platinum would need to keep $47,000 in performance bonuses to earn $62,500 from Quixtar. At the 25% bonus level, the Q-12 Platinum would need monthly BV of 15,666BV, or 7,833PV to generate $47,000 in gross bonuses. In order to keep the whole $47,000, the Q-12 Platinum's downline earned nothing.
• The Britt 6-4-2 plan calculates yearly gross income for a 7900PV Platinum of $32,070/year (gross) versus $47,000 from above.

So what do their data really say? Does that average Q-12 Platinum earn $62,537/year? Do the Q-12's that earn $62,537 per year comprise only.1347% of active IBOs? Which one is it? It cannot be both, if the numbers are correct. It would seem the Britt Worldwide claims are pretty shaky. Their numbers cannot stand up to these simple crosschecks.

The same problem exists for all of the other levels as well. The table below breaks down each example made in the Britt table.

• If this slide's data are correct and 0.00096% qualify as Founders EDC and up, then only 1 or 2 IBOs in Quixtar earn the $977,334 average claimed. This is one out of every 254,065 IBOs.
• If this slide's data are correct, then only 330 out of 400,000 IBOs earn $62,537 per year or more. This is 0.08% of all IBOs and they earned 20% of Quixtar's total payouts. This would mean that only one out of 1212 IBOs earn more than $62,500/year.
• If this slide's data are correct then those active IBOs, not in the above 330 top performers, grossed an average of $58.90/month.

We can also cross check the Britt Worldwide income numbers, ignoring their percentages and using reasonable group size assumptions. The crosscheck will see if the claimed payouts using reasonable group sizes are what was actually paid out by Quixtar. The assumption is that each IBO does 55PV/month, and there is 136 IBOs per Q-12 distributorship.

1. Pay out discrepancies

• If the Quixtar claim of $88/month earnings for average "active" IBOs is correct, and there were 41% active IBOs out of 400,000 total IBOs, then Quixtar would have paid out $173,000,000 instead of $143,000,000. This is a 20% discrepancy.
• If this slide's data are correct and each Q-12 Platinum IBO averaged $62,537 per year, Quixtar could only support 2287 Q-12 Platinums to completely consume the $143 million in pay outs. No one else but Q-12 Platinums's would earn any money from Quixtar. This implies an average Q-12 Platinum group size of 175 IBOs. IBOs would average 43PV.
• Multiplying the "average" income of various achievement levels by the expected number of IBOs for each level would result in a pay out of $1.090 Billion. This exceeds what Quixtar paid out by eight times. The payouts would also exceed Quixtar's reported sales by 110%. Even if the number of IBOs in each downline, for each achievement level, were seven times my estimate then 100% of the Quixtar pay outs would be paid out to just 1040 IBOs.
• If the EDC bonuses and above were eliminated from the calculation, the calculated bonuses would still be four times the actual bonuses paid in 2000. Eliminating the EDC bonuses and above, the bonuses are still equivalent to all the Quixtar and partner store sales combined.

It would appear that the "average" income claimed for various levels of achievement in these slides by Britt Worldwide cannot be possible even with unreasonable assumptions. The "average" Quixtar paid income at various levels of achievement must be significantly less than what is claimed by Britt Worldwide in their material.

• The slide states "The following are approximate percentages of "active" IBOs who achieved these levels of success in the year in which they were surveyed. Q-12 Qualifiers -.13417%" A subsequent slide states "Approximately .13417% of direct fulfillment IBOs of record in North America achieved at least this level of success as Q12 qualifiers in calendar year - ending Dec. 31, 1999." These two slides show the same percentage, 0.13417%, but one statement refers to active IBOs and the other statement refers to "direct fulfillment IBOs". This implies that all Direct Fulfillment IBOs are "active". Being on Direct Fulfillment is not one of the requirements needed to be considered active. This leaves the probability of being a Q-12 somewhere between 1 in 745 and 1 in 1810. A difference of 2.4 times.
• In the slide above showing the incomes for various levels, it says, "Average yearly income for IBOs powered by Quixtar". This statement is of course false. The disclaimer at the bottom says "Based upon an Independent Survey in 1994-1995". At this time, Quixtar did not even exist. These numbers must be from the Amway program and might be as old as 5 years. This slide was sold as a BSM to IBOs before Quixtar had been in business one full year. There was no full year Quixtar data at that time.
• All "averages" are gross income figures only. They do not include any normal and customary costs to run the business such as tapes, seminars, travel and living expenses.

Were you misled by these deceptive income claims? Write the FTC about it.

Fill out a survey at: http://www.mlmsurvivor.com/ftcletter.htm

I wrote Quixtar on 11/23/00 for clarification of the Britt Worldwide "facts". Let's see what they say.

From: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/predawn/F86/amway.htm

 It would seem that distributors are allowed to make outrageous claims of above average distributor earnings as long as next to it is the boiler plate "$88/month" for active IBOs. Which is most likely outdate and 20% too high.

If the slide's percentages are correct and are for "active" IBOs, it suggests the following:

• One in 1810 IBOs make $65K/year
• One in 7,009 IBOs make $73K/year
• One in 14,432 IBOs make $87K/year
• One in 31,635 IBOs make $136K/year
• One in 227,946 IBOs make $173K/year
• One in 254,065 IBOs make $997K/year

In a copy of the CSA4400W from a Canadian site visitor the following data were found ending Aug 31/1998.

Q-12 Platinums earned an average gross yearly income from Amway of $61,320 $CA, and does not represent net earnings.. On average these distributors personally sponsored 16 people, each of those brought an average of 12 IBOs to the business. .112% of all North American IBOs qualified at Q-12 platinum. 16 IBOs x 12 IBOs = 192

Q-12 Diamonds earned an average gross yearly income from Amway of $608,306 $CA, and does not represent net earnings. On average these distributors personally sponsored 37 IBOs. The 31 other non-platinum IBOs sponsored on average 10 IBOs to the business. 65 IBOs in North America qualified as Q-12 diamonds. .006% of all North American IBOs qualified as Q-12 diamond. 6 x 192 IBOs + 31 IBOs x 10 IBOs = 1462 IBOs

Conclusions:

Assuming 65 Q-12 diamonds and .006% diamonds the North American IBO count ending 8/31/98 was 1,083,333.

Assuming .112% Q-12 platinums there would be 1213 qualifying platinums. A Q-12 group averaged about 892 IBOs. 

The average monthly gross income for active IBOs in Canada was $173. An IBO who had at least on year prior in the business and earned at least $100 in the time between Sep 1, 1995 and August 31, 1996.

The TL 424 (1996 data from Amway)

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