Championing travel entrepreneurs
WITH an unemployment rate of over 25% and the cost of living steadily on the increase, many South Africans are looking for creative ways to generate income, or to supplement their monthly income to ensure that they are able to maintain the standard of living that they are accustomed to.
Joining a direct sales company or a multilevel marketing (MLM) company is often considered as a viable option but choosing the right company to join is often a challenge and can hold some risk since the differences between legitimate companies and illegal pyramid schemes are often difficult to differentiate.
“Direct sales companies are often lumped in with pyramid schemes and cause consumers to cringe when approached by a sales person in this context,” says Kemble Morgan, WorldVentures general manager, South Africa.
“Direct sales companies continue to grow and provide income for many entrepreneurs and sales people according to a report released by the World Federation of Direct Selling Association (WFDSA).
“The WFDSA reports that in 2015 sales volumes generated by member countries (excluding the Chinese market) totaled $184-billion with 103 million individual sales people contributing to this number representing a 7.7% growth from 2014,” adds Morgan.
WorldVentures has made a commitment to being the most-trusted name in the direct-selling industry through its transparent business processes and open management philosophy.
“WorldVentures is dedicated to helping our independent representatives live richer lives: to enjoy unique travel and leisure experiences; to earn extra income doing something they love; and to help others improve their lives.
“Through our direct-selling model, WorldVentures provides our independent representatives with everything they need to market and sell vacation and lifestyle memberships and other travel-related products and services. They can work full or part time—from home or anywhere in the world,” says Morgan.
WorldVentures has become one of the world’s largest vacation and entertainment direct sellers. With a network of independent representatives spanning 29 markets and growing, the company offers a unique opportunity for independent representatives to earn income doing what they love. In other words, ‘making a living... living’!
“Thanks to our pioneering “mobile-preneurship” business philosophy, representatives enjoy low startup costs and access to social media tools, technology and training to help them easily conduct business from anywhere in the world.
“WorldVentures has opted for a direct-selling approach because, by its very nature, vacation planning is a very personal, considered process. WorldVentures independent representatives are committed to helping our customers make the right membership choices for themselves and their families.
“With distinct vacation and lifestyle club options and a vast array of vacation and local experiences to choose from, we believe the hands-on approach serves our customers best,” says Morgan.
WorldVentures offers the following advice to determine whether an opportunity is an illegal pyramid scheme versus a legitimate direct sales or MLM company:
A pyramid scheme as the name suggests is a hierarchical organization where new recruits form the base of the pyramid and they provide returns for those higher up in the pyramid. The objective is to recruit new people below you so that you begin to make money instead of selling something or investing money in something. The more people you recruit; the more money you make. In reality however, very few people closer to the base of the pyramid ever really make any money.
Pyramid schemes may offer products and services but in reality they are relying mostly on money from the recruitment of new people into the organization. So pyramid schemes can be spotted by realizing that recruiting new people to the company is more important than selling a product or service.
“Multi-level marketing is a sales strategy that some direct sales companies use in order to increase the sales of products or services. This is done through incentivizing their sales force by offering them a commission on product or service sales generated through new and existing customers,” explains Morgan.
“The sale of the product or service is the key focus with a second objective of increasing the size of the sales force to sell more products. Many MLM and Direct Sales companies use direct sales in addition to retail channels for distribution of products,” adds Morgan.
WorldVentures is a good example of such an organization. Worldventures Independent Representatives are selling memberships to a vacation and lifestyle club called DreamTrips.
The membership presents members with more than 6 500 DreamTrips holiday packages to choose from throughout the year. These packages are exclusive to members and are offered at member-only rates.
Being the world’s largest curator of group travel, WorldVentures encourages families to take trips together to create lifelong memories. The company also offers individuals an opportunity to earn extra income selling DreamTrips memberships. The added benefits of this particular organization are the travel and lifestyle incentives associated with it.