Free No More

There was a time when you could work real hard recruiting people into YTB and Coach Tomer would invite you to become a member of his Coach's Corner. This was all part of his goal to make 10,000 millionaires. He still has a long way to go. But he has found a way to maybe help him along on his way to his next million.

Coach's Corner is no longer a free honor. Yes, you can now pay to be a member of "Coach's Way".  Now instead of mentoring you on how to become a millionaire by recruiting for free, he will do it for a one time charge of $50.

Now, most of the people who were with YTB and Zam Zuu before have left. Now Coach Tomer has a whole new flock of newbies to bilk mentor.  I wonder if those few loyalists were averaging $1100 a year income on $1700 a year expenses will see the benefit! Certainly there are some that will buy anything this man says to buy.

But with a reported 30,000 new reps, that is a cool $1.5 million.

A Few More Comments On The Quarterly Report

YTB / ZamZuu has done a good job of muddying the waters in their financial reporting. It is becoming nearly impossible for anyone to make an informed opinion about joining this business because they keep changing their methods of reporting.

It is like trying to fill your car with gas and the car sometimes reports the levels of gas, sometimes of oil, and sometimes of all liquids in the car. You know the tank takes 20 gallons, there is a gallon of wiper fluid, a gallon and a half of oil, and a case of bottled water in the trunk--but you have no idea of the quantities of each, so you end up guessing.

In years past, YTB / ZamZuu used to report travel sales and marketing sales separately--remember the whole "we are two different companies" line? Now they have muddied their travel sales with all of the other potions and lotions and call it "product". So, you can't tell if they sold more purses or cruises.  But we are working on that with some suppliers. They also used to differentiate the number of travel "agents" and split them apart from the recruiting people. But no more. Now they are all call everyone a "subscriber."

But, if I focus on those two numbers it is evident that YTB / ZamZuu is still in a serious decline.

For the most recent three months (January to March 2011) YTB saw a net loss of 2,729 "subscribers".  This equates to 30 per day or 1.26 "subscribers" per hour. With an exodus rate like that, one might hope that people would take notice. Now to be fair, for the same period last year, they lost 4,687 "subscribers" which equated to 52 a day and 2.1 per hour.  But if the company is growing as their marketing hype would lead you to believe, why are there more people leaving than coming in? It is sort of like a building on fire--most everyone is trying to get the hell out, and a few (the firefighters) are trying to get in.  But maybe, their "product" sales are making the company so attractive.

Nope! In  the latest quarter, they saw a 20% decrease in "product" sales.  Now again, we do not know if the "product" is travel, purses, lotions, girdles, coffee, or magic wands. All we know is that in the first quarter of 2010, they sold $2.302 million and in 2011 they sold $1.838 million. Wow, that is a 20.2% decline.

So the mystery remains, why do people go into a business where more people are leaving and sales are declining. Put aside all the legal issues for a moment and how YTB / ZamZuu claims that being fined more than a million dollars is a "win".  Wait, maybe they are using the Charlie Sheen definition of winning.

Aside from one quarter last year, YTB has been losing significant numbers of people for the past 27 months.

 

Yet everyone keeps on drinking the Kool-Aid.