Can you really build a business selling “neurological coffee” and other “functional beverages” with Valentus? CEO Dave Jordan says you can, but there’s something you should know before you marry your fortune to magical coffee.
Product: A Direct Marketing Business Opportunity
Website: valentus.com
Price: $59.95 to $499.95
Owner: Dave Jordan
Opinion: Not Recommended
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What is Valentus?
Valentus is a multi-level marketing company that promotes “functional beverages.”
Their product line includes; SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM, PREVAIL TRIM™, PREVAIL ENERGY™, IMMUNE BOOST™, BREAKTHROUGH AM/PM™, SLIMROAST COCOA™, PREVAIL SLIMROAST™, PREVAILMAX™, KETO CREAMER™, and PREVAIL-K9™.
Read Why Affiliate Marketing is Better than MLM
A Valentus Review.
In this review, I focus on the most popular Valentus product and the Valentus business opportunity.
Magic Coffee?
According to the Valentus website, their flagship product is SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM, which is essentially instant coffee enhanced with energizing and mood-lifting supplements. It’s promoted on valentusproducts.com as a “Weight management Coffee.”
In the business opportunity, video SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM is described as coffee with a purpose that will help you lose weight, crush cravings and support mood.
Valentus Slim Roast Contains Illegal Stimulant
October 24th, 2019 Update – The FDA and Medsafe, the New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority, warn that Valentus SlimRoast contains the stimulants Phenethylamine and Dimethylamine (DMAA).
Phenethylamine and Dimethylamine (DMAA) are synthetic stimulants that act on the body, much like amphetamines.
DMAA is illegal in the United States and regulated like a prescription drug in New Zealand.
It has been associated with severe, life-threatening side effects such as agitation, anxiety, psychological effects, cardiovascular effects, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and neurological effects.
DMAA is a synthetic stimulate initially used in nasal decongestants and later banned.
The FDA considers DMAA an unsafe food additive and advises consumers NOT to buy or use dietary supplements containing DMAA because of possible health risks.
DMAA is NOT approved as a dietary supplement.
Phenethylamine is thought to be unsafe for most people and may trigger manic episodes, hallucinations, and delusions in some people.
Does It Work?
Apparently not.
In some of the SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM sales material, it claims to be the “…first weight loss coffee that really works.” However, I have not found anything that substantiates this claim. In fact, it doesn’t appear to work for Dave Jordan, founder, and CEO of Valentus!
There are many pictures of Dave Jordan online. I have yet to find one where he appears slim.
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Meet Dave Jordan.
In the video below. Ask yourself does Dave Jordan appear to be managing his weight?
It’s Just Instant Coffee.
People are not overweight because they have not been drinking SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM. Barring medical issues, weight management is the result of lifestyle choices and perhaps emotional issues as well.
SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM is not magical. It’s just instant coffee with trace amounts of mood and energy enhancing supplements, and green tea extracts.
You can get the same supplements online for pennies per serving here and add them to your beverage of choice. Or, just drink green tea.
Also, if you are looking at the Valentus opportunity, you should know that there are several competing weight-loss coffees on the market that cost less. Walmart has one and Amazon has several.
No Retail Prices.
There are no retail product prices listed on the Valentus website. You’ll have to contact a Valentus distributer to get prices. Or, check Amazon or eBay.
I found it on Amazon for $109.99 for two boxes containing a total of 48 servings. That’s approximately $2.29 a serving! A serving contains 3.6 grams of coffee which is about a teaspoon.
The fact that the company does not have retails sales is a red flag. Lack of retail sales suggests that the majority of the company’s revenue is coming from recruiting new distributors. According to the Federal Trade Commission, if the majority of a company’s revenue comes from recruitment, it may be a pyramid scheme.
What is Valentus, Really?
At best, Valentus is a Multi-Level Marketing company and that’s NOT a good thing.
Valentus describes itself as a Direct Marketing company, but MLM is a more appropriate description because the sales force is built on multiple levels and compensation is paid out based on a distributor’s level in the sales force.
MLM is the most inefficient business model imaginable. It’s a lousy way to try to make money. Most people who try MLM never break even.
Expensive Products.
Unlike traditional retail supply chains, in MLM a product must be priced high enough to support multiple levels of upline.
Every level above the distributor who makes the sell gets a piece of the commission. This means the products must be heavily over-priced.
For example, Starbucks Italian Roast instant coffee is only 65 cents, compared to the same serving size of SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM which is $2.29 a serving! Three and a half times more expensive than the most expensive mass-marketed coffee available.
Folgers instant coffee is about 15 cents per serving, making SLIMROAST™ OPTIMUM 16 times more expensive than mid-market coffee!
Not only does the top-heavy commission structure mean products are overpriced, but it also means that most of the revenue from the bottom of the organization is funneled to a handful of people at the top.
I suspect that is the true purpose of MLM.
Perhaps the only way Valentus can sell their expensive instant coffee is to convince people it’s magical. It’s not. Or, to convince people that the Valentus income opportunity will help them fulfill their dreams, which is doubtful.
Selling the Dream.
People don’t spend two bucks for a teaspoon of instant coffee unless it has an amazing flavor or magical properties.
Maybe the only way to sell the Valentus opportunity is to sell the dream of making lots of money.
On their website, the recruiting video mentions enjoying more free time, more money and better health. Who wouldn’t want that, if it were true?
If you are considering buying into the Valentus opportunity, ask yourself, is it because of the products? Or is it because you believe you will make lots of money? Have you been sold a dream?
If you are passionate about the Valentus products and can tirelessly promote them without ticking off your friends and family, AND you can easily absorb the recurring cost of monthly auto-ship, AND if you can recruit legions of people to join your team maybe Valentus is your calling.
However, if you are just searching for a legitimate way to make money, I would advise caution.
Pay to Play.
Ironically, while there are no product prices or retails sales on the Valentus website, there are prices for the distributor starter packs. Prices range from $59.95 to $499.95. Clearly, the focus of the company is recruitment.
That’s not good.
If you want to sell Valentus products, you must first pay for the privilege. On the website page promoting the opportunity, we are told “To advance ranks… you will be required to purchase the Business Builder Pack.”
This sounds like Pay to Play to me, another red flag that might indicate a pyramid scheme.
I’m reminded of the scene from the novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” where Tom persuades his friends to pay him small treasures in exchange for the privilege of whitewashing the fence.
The same thing is happening with the Valentus opportunity. Valentus expects you to pay them for the privilege of selling their products.
Walmart doesn’t pay their suppliers for the privilege of selling their products, neither does Amazon. In fact, there are tens of thousands of businesses online that will gratefully PAY YOU to sell their products.
It doesn’t make sense to pay a company for the privilege of making THEM money.
Valentus Compensation Plan.
The Valentus Compensation Plan can be found on their website.
The Valentus compensation plan rewards distributors for signing up for monthly auto-ship and for recruiting new distributors who also sign up for monthly auto-ship.
In other words, the entire structure is dependent on recruitment and locking people into auto-ship, not retail sales.
This is troubling because the FTC litmus test for a pyramid scheme is whether or not the majority of a company’s revenue comes from recruitment or retail sales.
Base on the evidence apparent on the Valentus website, it appears that the majority of the revenue is earned by recruiting new distributors which indicates Valentus may be a pyramid scheme.
The Trouble with MLM.
When you build a business with an MLM company like Valentus, you are actually building a business inside a business. You are treated like an independent business person when it suits the company, but your behavior is controlled like an unpaid employee.
In the case of Valentus, if you are a distributor, you are helping Dave Jordan build his business and paying him for the privilege.
When you build a business inside a business, all your work and investment is vulnerable. At any moment, everything you’ve built can be taken away. The rules can change. Your downline can be taken away from you. The company can go bust or get shut down by the FTC.
MLM companies typically have a short lifespan.
The Last Word on Valentus.
MLM in any form is an expensive and difficult way to try to make money. Plus, if you become a distributor for Valentus, you will be committed to monthly auto-ship which is like creating a new monthly bill. Who needs that?
The sales pitch, the perceived magical qualities of the product and the group energy can be intoxicating. However, if you are looking at Valentus as an opportunity to make money, you owe it to yourself to remove your emotions from the equation.
Take a cold hard look at Valentus before you commit your time, energy and treasure.
If possible, discuss the opportunity with a trusted friend who can help you analyze the business and the opportunity from a rational perspective. Purchase sample products and take a few days to fully test them.
Also, have a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve as a Valentus distributor and determine to your satisfaction if your objective is realistic.
Do you have the personality and energy to succeed in MLM? In my experience, people who succeed with MLM are high-energy and charismatic and have influence over large numbers of people.
MLM has a huge turnover. Distributors are constantly quitting. Recruiting is like trying to fill a bucket that has a large hole in the bottom. You must be able to recruit new distributors faster than old distributors are leaving. It’s difficult and most people can’t do it.
99% Lose Money with MLM.
Research conducted by Jon M. Taylor, MBA, Ph.D., Consumer Awareness Institute, shows that less than 1% of the people who try MLM succeed with it. It no surprise that this 1% is at the top of the pyramid. 99% of the people who try MLM lose money.
Here’s where it gets sick.
The only way anyone can succeed with MLM is to recruit an army of distributors. What kind of person can recruit hundreds, if not thousands, of people knowing that 99% of them will lose money?
Another way to look at it, if you want to succeed with MLM, you will have to callously recruit hundreds, maybe thousands of people, look them in the eye, sell them the dream of financial independence, and motivate them to buy boatloads of overpriced products while knowing they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
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Related Articles:
Why Affiliate Marketing is Better than MLM
How to Evaluate an MLM Company
Is MLM a Scam?
If you found this article helpful or have experience with Valentus, please leave a comment below. Thank you.
This company is a scam. They never shipped my order. Kept ignoring my emails and refused to give a refund.
Hi, Joom!
Thanks for sharing your experience with Valentus.
Gary
Ok MLM – no thank you already. I don’t even have to read any further than that to know that I am not interested in something. I absolutely detest the MLM business model. To me I just see pyramid scam.
OMG you made me laugh about the amazing, magic slimming coffee and the fact it clearly does not work for the CEO. You are so right about there being no sales, MLM is not about the product, it is about the opportunity. The only reason that MLM companies have a product is because without the product you are looking at the truth – it is a pyramid scheme!
Isn’t it amazing also that the only place you can buy MLM products is through an MLM agent yet people are flogging their amazing MLM products on Amazon which goes against their TOS with the MLM company. This is because people get sucked in, they get a starter pack of products or they buy products to sell but nobody in their right mind will buy the products at that price. Then the agent has to to try and flog the product to recuperate his loss.
It is so sad and I can’t understand why the MLM business model is still legal.
Hi, Lynne!
I’m glad I made you chuckle. If I can’t find the humor in some of these MLM’s, I think I’d lose my mind.
Back in the day, I joined a few MLMs and learned the hard way that they are an awful business model. The people I saw succeeding with MLM were not nice people.
Like you, I can’t understand why MLMs are legal. It might be because the FTC is swamped with MLM complaints and goes after the biggest fish first. Valentus is not a big fish.
The good news is MLM enrollment is in a steep decline, thanks to the internet. The truth is out.
Thanks for stopping by,
Gary
Maybe if the product doesn’t work they might be trying to get an advantage of the placebo effect. We give our self a belief if zi take this then it will make me feel full or not hungry when in reality i think is all about how you approach with what kind of mindset you are pursing your weight loss goals, I am telling you by experience I been trying tons of other diets and they work but then i start craving the food that are not included on the diet resulting on a binge and weight gain which most people case happen, fortunately i found a type of diet that allow me to be more flexible and more happy with my dieting approach and that i can sustain year round.
Hi, Erick!
You bring up a good point about the placebo effect. That is a very powerful psychological response. It would take a double blind study to determine how much of the results, if any, were due to the placebo effect.
The bottom line is that people are not overweight because they didn’t drink Valentus instant coffee and drinking Valentus instant coffee is not the answer to their weight issues. People are most often overweight because of lifestyle and dietary practices.
For the cost of the monthly Valentus auto-ship, a person could join a nice gym and hire a person trainer. THAT would do more for their health than drinking instant coffee laced with nootropics.
Thanks for stopping by,
Gary
Well, I have to say that this is one of the more ‘interesting’ online scam opportunities that I’ve seen. Magical coffee? Not sure that’s something I would want to invest my hard earned money into.
As soon as you mentioned that it was a MLM scheme it clicked. As you rightly say, the majority of MLM structures just funnel the money straight up the line to the big bosses at the top. It’s an incredibly frustrating scenario to watch people fall into; the MLMs at the bottom of the funnel are victims more than anything else. Do you think that there are ANY MLM scheme’s that are even somewhat ‘legit’?
Hi, Danny!
I learned about MLMs the hard way. Over the years I tried four different MLM “opportunities,” and spend far more money than I earned. Looking back, the red flags were abundant, but I was sold the dream and wanted to believe. The MLM lies caused me to make some really stupid financial decisions. Finally, I saw the truth and now want to tell others.
No, there are no MLMs that are somewhat ‘legit.’ The structure of MLM is nothing more than a pyramid scheme adjusted to be inside the law by a hair. Most MLMs aren’t even that credible.
Regardless of the MLM, they will claim they have a very special product. As with Valentus, it’s magical coffee. A closer look shows that the special product is only special in price which is usually several times greater than retail. As you mentioned, it’s all just an excuse to funnel money from the bottom of the organization to the top.
Thanks for stopping by,
Gary
WoW, I can honestly say I am not surprised in the least. Although I have never heard of this product or company before, I am very glad to come across this information first!
It amazes me how people can actually have the nerve to do stuff like this.
Thank you for sharing this great information!
Timm
Hello Gary.
I found your post right in time. My stepdaughter is about to fall into the trap of another MLM. In fact, she has already done so. I warned her not to do this, but she decided to try. The only difference from your example about Valentus coffee is that looks like this product works. To prove I even borrowed some cash and purchased the first set by myself for €161.
It is ZINNZINO balanced oils. It is more than a month passed since she started promoting that product, none is purchased yet.
I’ll let her read your post to prove that it is the time wasting business.