Is Touchstone Essentials A Scam?(A Pyramid Scheme In Disguise?!)

It’s likely that you have come across Touchstone Essentials through an email list, on social media or got it recommended by a friend or family member.

Is Touchstone Essentials a scam? The reasons why you’re here is because you have want answers right so, that’s what I’m going to provide for you within this Touchstone Essentials review.

First and foremost I must commend you for actually doing a bit of extra research before committing to joining Touchstone Essentials. For all you could have known, the product could be a major scam so the fact you’re here right now, researching whether or not that’s the case is a pretty smart move on your part.

To be fully transparent with you, I am personally not a member of Touchstone Essentials so I can assure you that I will not attempt to sell you it unless of course it’s worth investing in.

What I will aim to do is provide you with an unbiased 3rd party look at Touchstone Essentials that will hopefully help you to make the best decision you can in the end.

PRODUCT NAME: Touchstone Essentials (TE)

OWNER/S: Norwood Eddie Stone

TYPE OF PRODUCT: health and wellness MLM

PRICE: $19.95 + autoship

SUMMARY: As far as I can tell, Touchstone Essentials isn’t a pyramid scheme or a scam, it is a legitimate MLM company however this doesn’t mean it’s a company that I’d recommend.

Besides having products that consumers genuinely like, it does have a few major issues such as the the heavy emphasis on recruitment, it’s really expensive to stay active and the really low success rates within the MLM scene.

These are the main reasons why I can’t say TE is a great business opportunity to pursue as there is a big chance that you will fail.

FINAL RATING: 1.5/5

RECOMMENDED: No

Table of Contents

WHAT IS TOUCHSTONE ESSENTIALS?

TE is a MLM company that focuses on the health and wellness niche, primarily dealing with nutritional and detox supplements, and was founded in 2012 by Norwood Eddie Stone.

Stone himself, at least on his website, claims to be someone with over 2 decades of experience in the marketing space, particularly in the nutritional MLM space. I guess this is a good thing in its own regard because if given a choice, I’m sure the majority would want the owner of a company they’re joining to be competent in that specific field.

Anyhow, before starting up TE, Stone was the Co founder of another MLM I’ve reviewed called Waiora, Waiora was also a health and wellness based MLM. The main reason why he ultimately left the company was due to a lawsuit regarding an issue with too much zeolite within a supplement.

This was discovered in 2010 but the lawsuit was officially launched in 2012. This is also when Stone decided to cut ties with Waiora and start up TE. In the end the company founded guilty and had to cough up a staggering $12 million in fines.

Of course ever since, Stone has been working on and trying to expand TE.

==>Click Here To Get Access To My FREE Make Money Online Guide!<==

TOUCHSTONE ESSENTIALS PRODUCTS

TE have a decent variety of products within their line up with hemp based oils to products with zeolite within them, much like Stone’s other businesses.

Of course because the number of products are so vast, I won’t list them all here but, just to list some of their products, they include :

Pure Body Extra Strength – $79.95
Transform Pack – $179
Pure Body -$38.95
Super Green Juice – $79.95
Organic Super Protein – $59
Supergreens +D – $52.95
Wellspring – $49.95

And a ton more, of which you can check out by clicking here and visiting their online shop.

As you can see, the products themselves aren’t really all that affordable setting individuals back upwards of $40 however, admittedly these figures are pretty normal for health and wellness based MLM’s (at least from what I’ve seen) so, I can’t knock it too much in that regard.

In regards to the quality of the products offered, on bbb I found that the majority of consumers did find them to be very good quality and even among the best products they’d tried.

So, even though the products are expensive (to an extent) the quality isn’t half bad meaning you shouldn’t be too worried when it comes to selling the products to others.

HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY WITH TOUCHSTONE ESSENTIALS?

As is the case with pretty much all MLM businesses there are 2 ways to make money with them, TE being no exception.

1. The first method is by directly selling the product to other individuals and in return make a commission for the sales

2. You make money through your recruits and downline, by getting residual income by following and meeting certain criteria as well as make money through bonuses and incentives due to meeting company set goals.

HOW TO GET STARTED

If you want to join the company, there are a few steps that you’ll need to do. The first step would be to sign up to the company through an already existing member. The next step would be to pay a $19.95 yearly membership fee.

Lastly, in order to make the most out of the company’s plan and ultimately make the most out of the compensation plan, you’d need to purchase either 1 of these 2 products packs :

purchases at least 500 PV worth of product when they sign up or
sign up with an Advantage Pack for $659.

Doing this waives off the yearly membership fee for the year too.

Discover How I Made $173 Through A Single Sale Using This Online Business Model, Click Here To Read My Full Money Making Guide On How I Did It!

COMPENSATION STRUCTURE

The compensation plan is quite in depth so you’ll definitely need to look it over if you’re serious about joining TE nevertheless, I will be going over it, although in simple terms so, that you have a rough idea on how to make money with TE.

Firstly I want to cover the different ranks and the criteria needed to achieve them :

Affiliate – sign up as a Touchstone Essentials affiliate
Active Member – generate 100 PV a month
Manager – maintain 100 PV a month and 600 GV in monthly downline volume (max 60% from any one unilevel leg)
Regional Manager – maintain 100 PV a month and 1500 GV in monthly downline volume (max 60% from any one unilevel leg)
National Manager – maintain 100 PV a month and 3000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 60% from any one unilevel leg)
Director – maintain 100 PV a month and 9000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 50% from any one unilevel leg)
Regional Director – maintain 100 PV a month and 25,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
National Director – maintain 100 PV a month and 75,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
Executive – maintain 100 PV a month and 150,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
Regional Executive – maintain 100 PV a month and 300,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
National Executive – maintain 100 PV a month and 500,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
Ambassador – maintain 100 PV a month and 750,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
Presidential Ambassador – maintain 100 PV a month and 1,500,000 GV in monthly downline volume (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)

In total there are 13 ranks, with the twelve main ones requiring you to invest in an autoship plan just to remain active. The larger number of ranks also means you’ll need to recruit a ton in order to make larger sums of money within the company but, that’s just standard for MLM’s so I’m not all that surprised.

Retail Commissions

The first way you can make money with TE is through retail commissions. In order to make money in this way, you’ll firstly need to purchase one of TE’s products at their wholesale price, sell it at the retail price established by TE and keep the difference as profits.

Residual Commissions

TE pays its members residually through a unilevel structure. If you’re unsure of what a unilevel structure is, it’s simply a system where you’re at the top and are able to recruit infinitely horizontally but vertically the levels are capped. In this case the earning potential is capped at level 10.

How this residual commission works is dependent on how highly you rank and the number of sales you make in each level.

The residual system works as follows :

Active Member – 5% on level 1
Manager – 5% on level 1 and 7% on level 2
Regional Manager – 5% on level 1 and 9% on levels 2 and 3
National Manager – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 and 3 and 8% on level 4
Director – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 to 4 and 7% on level 5
Regional Director – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 to 4, 7% on level 5 and 5% on level 6
National Director – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 to 4, 7% on level 5 and 5% on levels 6 and 7
Executive – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 to 4, 7% on level 5, 5% on levels 6 and 7 and 3% on level 8
Regional Executive – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 to 4, 7% on level 5, 5% on levels 6 and 7, 3% on level 8 and 2% on level 9
National Executive and higher – 5% on level 1, 9% on levels 2 to 4, 7% on level 5, 5% on levels 6 and 7, 3% on level 8 and 2% on levels 9 and 10

Royalty Bonus

This is another unilevel based residual bonus but is only paid out from the first 5 levels within your downline team. Of course considering it’s name, it’ll only be available for the much higher ranked members within TE.

Director ranked affiliates earn a bonus 20% on level 1
Regional Director ranked affiliates earn a bonus 20% on level 1 and 10% on level 2
National Director ranked affiliates earn a bonus 20% on level 1, 10% on level 2 and 5% on level 3
Executive ranked affiliates earn a bonus 20% on level 1, 10% on level 2 and 5% on level 3 and 4
Regional Executive and higher ranked affiliates earn a bonus 20% on level 1, 10% on level 2 and 5% on levels 3 to 5

There are various other bonuses that TE offer too such as a rank achievement bonus, referral bonus, infinity bonus, an advanced referral bonus and a star bonus but, I don’t really think they’re worth looking into as a beginner.

However, if you still want to check out the compensation plan in a lot more detail, you can also do so by watching the video below.

THE NOT SO GOOD THINGS

Recruitment Is Essential For Success

From the larger number of ranks to the majority of the elements of the compensation plan relying on recruitment, makes it quite clear to me that recruitment is more or less essential to succeed with TE.

I’m not saying that it’s not possible to make a full time income through just retail sales however, the fact of the matter is recruiting others into your downline team is the most effective way to make money with TE.

Firstly considering your downline will need to pay for an autoship plan to remain active, you’ll already essentially be making money on autopilot and when you also consider that you’ll eventually be required to work less yet make more profits means it’s as a whole a lot more sustainable than trying to sell maybe 300+ products every month.

That’s why I’m always of the belief that if you’re no good at recruitment or aren’t willing to get good at it, you are highly likely to fail, whether there it be with TE or pretty much every other MLM in the market

Then again this isn’t a model I really like when it comes to business and if its pushed more than retail sales, it can be argued that the company in question is showing characteristics of pyramid schemes.

It’s Quite Expensive To Maintain Your Rank

The autoship plan means that the overall investment will be quite steep for most. If 100 pv is equivalent to around $70 – $100, you’d be looking to spend around $1k to maintain your active membership status on a yearly basis.

To be fair this is the most I’ve seen a MLM require affiliates to invest in order to stay active but, there’s no denying that it is a really large amount of money to spend and, the fact the autoship is some what mandatory is also going to be annoying if you’re unable to make sales.

This is because you’ll be stockpiling products which may be another problem as a result of the expensive investment.

Most People Will Fail

Although I couldn’t find an income disclosure statement discussing the amount of money affiliates make on an a yearly basis, I have seen many income statements from other MLM’s so I do have a pretty decent idea of how much affiliates will be making with TE.

I’ve found that generally 5% of all members tend to make a full time income of around $1k/month whilst only 1% of all members seem to make a full time income of around $2k+/month.

There may be a chance that the numbers might be slightly better or worse from TE but, I doubt it’ll be any better the what I’ve mentioned above.

THE GOOD THINGS

There’s not really anything about the company which I’d consider to special and worth the cost of admission. I guess the owners experience in the field is quite positive and the fact people do like the products is another positive however, from the perspective of an individual who’s looking to do business with TE, there isn’t very many good thing going for them.

==>Click Here To Get Access To My FREE Make Money Online Guide!<==

IS TOUCHSTONE ESSENTIALS A PYRAMID SCHEME/SCAM?

As far as I can tell, Touchstone Essentials isn’t a pyramid scheme or a scam, it is a legitimate MLM company however this doesn’t mean it’s a company that I’d recommend.

These are the main reasons why I can’t say TE is a great business opportunity to pursue as there is a big chance that you will fail.

MY PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION

I personally will always recommend against using a MLM business model to make money, not because you can’t make money through it (you totally can) but, the system has always seemed shady to myself and is kinda synonymous with the likes of a pyramid scheme or scams (MOBE and Digital altitude).

Instead I prefer working with something created through ones own means and is ultimately dependent on yourself and your work ethic alone.

This method I’m talking about is affiliate marketing.

The reasons as to why I recommend it over MLM based structures are because

– there is no need to recruit constantly

– it is a legitimate method that has been working consistently and continues to grow as more businesses want individuals to promote products

– and because it is free to start up, no unnecessarily large start up funds needed.

The service I recommend is Wealthy Affiliate. It’s free to sign up to and will get you set up and ready to start your affiliate marketing journey within minutes, as it did for me when I begun my journey.

If you have any questions that you would like to ask me regarding TE, feel free to do so in the comments section below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you have your own thoughts about TE and would like to talk about it, again feel free to do so in the comments below!

Thanks

Amhil