Recently there have been some sad changes within Leaders Club.
Leaders Club has black-listed me and many others from our own organizations. As of Friday the 15th of June I have been unable to access my Leaders Club Members Area as well as many other associates. In addition we have been informed that they are withholding our commissions earned in May until further notice.
What this means is that I am no longer able to service my subscribers as their Leaders Club upline. If my subscribers look on their report they will see that I am still showing there but Leaders Club plans on terminating us on June 29, keeping the money we have earned. My email address on my subscriber's reports has been changed to molly at leadersclub. This have been done in order to keep us from accessing our organizations.
Now you may be thinking that Leaders Club wouldn't do that without reason, so I am going to give you their reasons here so you have the truth and you can decide for yourself what you think.
“Ann Sieg's Renegade Network Marketer program is a competitive program. Any CMC member involved or promoting this program is in violation of the CMC Agreement and Leaders Club's membership terms. “
First, this program was designed to help our people learn online marketing after or while learning the fundamentals in Leaders Club. This is a complementary program. None of the material is taken from Leaders Club material. This was never designed to compete against Leaders Club. Secondly, I am an independent distributor and Leaders Club has no right to determine what I can or can not promote. They are always telling distributors in other network marketing companies that it is okay to promote Leaders Club, and the subscriber's primary company has no right to prevent them from doing so, so this is hypocritical to say the least.
“We (LeadersClub) have found that the WorksTeam is offering training which is similar to Leaders Club, to persons not involved with Leaders Club. Additionally, the tone and language observed is indicative that this training is meant to dilute Leaders Club services. We consider this to be a breach of the CMC agreement.”
Now does that mean that if a Leaders Club subscriber learns things through their paid subscription in Leader Club they are not allowed to teach their downline any of these concepts? What is the point of membership then? The irony here is that the majority of the material in Leaders Club was developed by Jeff Zalewski, former National Director of Training, who LeadersClub just terminated May 30, owing him income earned as well.
“We (LeadersClub) have numerous complaints with supporting evidence that there is a concerted effort from numerous WorksTeam members to recruit existing Leaders Club subscribers into another multi-level company. Our evidence show this contact is both coordinated and targeted to the entire organization. This is a clear violation of the Leaders Club membership terms.”
What they are referring to is the fact that I and others in SendOutCards conducted a Webinar on how SendOutCards can be utilized in ANY business to increase referrals, retention and increase sales. The subject and content of the Webinar was to help people be more successful in their chosen business. My associates and I only invited the people we have direct contact with - the people we have personally sponsored into Leaders Club, our own leads, and those who have contacted us.
So according to this it is okay for distributors in other companies to join Leaders Club to utilize training and even earn referral commissions in this multi-level company, but it is not okay to offer services like SendOutCards to Leaders Club subscribers.
My goal has always been and still remains to help people become professional network marketers and to help them obtain the level of success they desire within their chosen company.
Fortunately I have stressed the importance of always developing multiple income streams because I have seen and experienced this before - people in control getting greedy or making poor decisions which affect the lives of the distributors in the organization. So I will concentrate on building my other businesses, filling the gap of no longer utilizing the training in Leaders Club, and help others get back on track.
I work with a lot of good people. These are strong leaders who will not just let Leaders Club steal their earned income, so Leaders Club will ultimately see the repercussions of their actions.
At the same time, we will move on and be stronger for it.
“Adversity is a fact of life. It can't be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it.”
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8 comments:
Hi Wendy,
I thought I would pass along the sad news regarding our dear upline leader and friend. I am including Curt's mission website for those who feel so inclined to support him during this tragic time.
I met his family when they drove up to see me this past December. What an amazing family that has done missionary work all over the world. We love you Curt and our prayers and support is for you to be united with your family soon. God will provide!
http://www.johnsonfamilymissions.org
http://www.mlm-dra.org/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=200&PN=1
Missionary attacked.
No, we weren't attack physically. And it wasn't by the people of the nation we serve in. We were attacked financially by the owner of a network marketing company. Our family of 7, wife of 27 years and 5 children, had achieved financial FREEDOM in the network marketing industry by helping others. After pastoring in America for 20+ years, we are living our dream of being missionaries - currently serving in the nation of Fiji. In June of 2007, without explanation and without warning, the commissions I had earned in May (having built up some great residual income over the past 3 ½ years) were not sent to me. As traumatic as that was to lose a month’s income for our lives and work here in a 3rd world country - currently being run be a military dictator, I discovered that I was locked out of my network marketing business and could no longer service my downline, again with no warning or explanation. It was only efforts and initiation on my part that I was able to determine what was wrong. Because of some changes we made with our team starting in June, I was being falsely accused, with judgment already rendered, for participating in “competing” activities in the industry. I had worked hard for my FREEDOM, as had many of my team mates. I write this not so you will feel sorry for me, but I feel compelled to defend FREEDOM wherever and whenever it is threatened. The FREEDOM promised in the network marketing industry is real. I have lived it. It is under attack. But lets go back a few years . . .
It is not easy to raise a large family on a pastors income. As my children got older it became harder. Doing network marketing part time was a wonderful answer for us. After 3 years of part time success, we resigned our paid pastor position, and I went into NWMing full time to prepare for missions work. I was already successful in NWMing when I discovered Leaders Club. The owner, Andre Vatke, and the National Director of Training, Jeff Zalewski, assured me Leaders Club was a safe place to bring and service my team of over 1000 representatives and build another income through Leaders Club. (FYI - Jeff Zalewski has also recently been terminated from Leaders Club.) Although I had already been training my team on most of the concepts taught at Leaders Club, I liked the way it was packaged and thought it could help my organization. Leaders Club become even more important to me when my primary company changed products and pay plan and I lost 80% of my income from that source.
By the summer of 2005 we had built up a good and growing residual income through Leaders Club. I had become one of their first 2 “Certified Marketing Consultants,” and later became one of only 4 of their official coaches (2 of the 4 were Andre and Jeff.) My income began to grow even more rapidly when Ann Sieg, whom I had introduced to Leaders Club, really started to do well with her incredible skills and marketing. My estimates is that our team was bringing in 80% of Leaders Club new business.
Ann’s new marketing methods and systems were doing incredible. After our family’s missionary training we relocated to Fiji in January of 2007. Andre Vatke and Ann Sieg were working together in marketing Leaders Club. Although I knew things were difficult at times with this, I didn’t give it much thought knowing anything new would have problems. Ann was creating a marketing system* - all designed to build Leaders Club. We also had adopted a service to send out cards for business purposes which happened to also be a network marketing company.** AFTER my commission check of thousands of dollars from May 2007 was withheld, and AFTER I was locked out my business, I then had to find out on my own initiative as to why.
Ann Sieg, myself, and many other of our team leaders are being condemned as participating in competitive programs. It is ironic that Ann was building this marketing system to bring MORE subscribers than ever before to Leaders Club! We were blind sided. Just the month before I was assigned a new coaching client by Leaders Club and had a coaching appointment with him - as I was discovering I was being thrown out! We were also judged as sharing proprietary Leaders Club training material. Certainly as one of their official coaches and trainers I would understand what might be considered proprietary or competitive, nor would I want to do anything to jeopardize my income. Even if it was true, WHY wasn’t Andre trying to contact me and discuss his concerns? Both of these claims are false, which I am confident will be determined in court. After the news of my suspension, I wanted to talk directly to Andre, but he didn‘t answer his cell phone and we were informed he went on vacation and was unreachable. In the meantime FREEDOM is under attack, and my family is here is on the mission field shocked and traumatized. If it was just me, I don’t think I would write this, but I do for two main reasons: #1. Many other family’s incomes have also been robbed, and I want to help them if I can. #2. If any paranoid and tyrannical network marketing company owner can discard people easily, this disease could spread to threaten all those pursuing FREEDOM through NWMing - one of the main reasons I love our industry. I forgive Leaders Club and Andre Vatke, and God will take care of the Johnsons; but having served our great country of the USA in the United States Air Force, and the great ultimate commander of FREEDOM, I know I must speak up.
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
Sincerely,
Curtis Johnson
PS: If you would like the more nitty, gritty details, with facts and web sites URLs,* ** etc. I would be happy to respond: curt@trainingandleads.com Just put - “tell me more” in the subject line. I will send you the email that I sent to my former Leaders Club subscribers, and my notice to the BBB and Attorney General of OHIO. I have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong. Honesty and integrity mean a great deal to me. The only question I can not answer is to why an owner would turn against the companies most successful organization. Irrational paranoia is my only guess. I take no pleasure in this being public after my attempts to have conciliatory conversation with the owner were thwarted.
Leaders Club has a statement about Jeff Zalewski and his termination on their site. I'm wondering where is the line drawn between distributors having rights and rules and laws? If you go to far in either direction you have issues. Something to think about.
Amy,
How do you know what is true in the statement Leaders Club makes about the termination of Jeff Zalewski?
Without knowing what he says it is difficult to judge isn't it?
Something else to consider.
Wendy said: "How do you know what is true in the statement Leaders Club makes about the termination of Jeff Zalewski?"
Wendy, that works both ways, does it not? How do we know what you say is true? A blog is hardly an objective medium. Looks like you're just out to get a little revenge.
What is interesting is that at the time of this post Jeff Zalewski has not been involved in any training for Leaders Club for a year and a half. (This is according to a friend who is a member.) In fact, the data indicates that you were also a trainer there. So if things went downhill, based on your reasoning, you were a part of it.
What I find interesting is that Jeff Zalewski seems to have taken concepts like "Consultative Approach" out of a 1999 Nebulis Networks sales manual (which I received from the former National Marketing Director) which according to his resume he was affiliated with. Only this manual was not written by Jeff Zalewski.
Since you can't seem to get over Leaders Club screwing you over (and making a point of it), one can only imagine how well things have gone for you since. It's a shining testimony of what is wrong with the entire network marketing scene.
"mlmtruth" is quite a misnomer. The truth is "mlmtruth"'s blog was put up simply to slam Ann Sieg. Funny how there is no profile as to who "mlmtruth" is.
Since I made this post, "Sad Truth about Leaders Club" right after Leaders Club withheld my commission check and the checks of the rest of the people involved, June 2007, and it is now Dec. 2007, it would appear that "mlmtruth" is the one who has not "gotten over" this.
The truth of the matter is, I have absolutely no interest in revenge and have been doing very well since all this nonsense. Even though Leaders Club had no right to take the income I had earned nor keep my residual income, I have more than made up for that income loss in the last 6 months. That is why it is so important to have multiple income streams and not have "all your eggs in one basket" in our industry.
I, and the others involved, certainly had enough justification to bring a class action lawsuit against Leaders Club, but personally I really had no interest in spending the time, energy and money, in doing so. The lawyers end up getting it all in the end, so my focus has been to get on with building my business.
As "mlmtruth" knows, I had nothing to do with Leaders Club going downhill. I was a guest speaker on several of the training calls, but had nothing to do with the running of the company: the drop in lead quality, poor customer service at corporate offices, and more.
I have no reason to lie about Jeff Zawlewski, but Leaders Club certainly does. My purpose in posting information about Leaders Club was simple to warn others so they would not find themselves in similar circumstances.
"mlmtruth" is the one who needs to "get over it".
Well well well, I see the world or Leaders Clubd is in a pity party.
If I were till in LC I woould # 1 never tell anyone that fact. #2 make sure I did not use their leads( side line out of 400 leads this writer call allof the did not know how LC got their info nor did they ever respond to aLC program or survey (HUH)) #3 Grown up and move on and stop the whinning.
The world does not raise and fall in Columbus ,Ohio. True professionials would agree to disagree meet the promises and agreements and move on.
After reviewing the current LC program I would never refer anyone to the program. The Renegade Marketers have the true servant leaders heart and are out to help and not worry about who gets the credit. For those who do not know who the Blindguy55 is It is me Dr Robin Rushlo.
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