We recently found out about Revolution Financial from our favourite Reddit MLM group. Given that it was a combination of MLM and Finance, it was a no brainer to write a review of Revolution Financial Management

We looked at the Revolution Financial homepage. It starts with a video which says the word ‘family’ over and over again. We’re supposed to work with our family and make the work people feel like a family. It then mixes it up by repeating the word ‘teamwork’ for a bit. We then get the combination that teamwork feels like family.

After a little further digging on their website, we found that Revolution Financial is an offshoot of World Financial Management. We already did a review of WFG, but we’ll take this an opportunity to see if Revolution is any different or just a carbon copy.

What Does Revolution Financial Do

According to the Revolution website, their goal is to help American families improve their financial positions. They do this by meeting with clients, going over their financial needs, then coming back to them with recommendations. This is no different to how any financial adviser works.

We had a look at the Revolution Financial products page. We see that they offer products for both insurance and savings. They even have a debt management area. Here we found the disclosure that Revolution Financial sells products using the WFG license agreements. To us this suggests that Revolution Financial Management is just a re-branded version of World Financial Group.

There could be many reasons for the company operating under a different name. Maybe they didn’t want to share the good reputation of the WFG brand. Using a new name would mean that new prospects wouldn’t hear all the good reviews from previous WFG clients and agents. I’m sure we could all think of a few other reasons for operating under a different name.

How Do You Make Money With Revolution Financial Management

Revolution uses the WFG mulit-level marketing system. This means that if you join, there are essentially 2 ways to make money. You can sell products to customers for commission, or you can recruit a team below you. If you recruit others, you will make a share of any sales they or anyone they recruit make. This theoretically will build what’s known as passive income for you. Here at The Finance Guy, we believe you can’t make money with MLM, but many people seem to try.

We wanted to know what you’d be doing as a new recruit. To find out, we looked at a copy of the Revolution Financial new agent kit. The first thing we want to point out, is that this manual directs new agents to the mywfg website. This confirms that Revolution Financial is exactly the same as WFG.

You can find out why you can’t make money with Revolution Financial from our WFG review. To give you an idea of how they operate, we’ll use this review to take a closer look at the new agent kit. This is a Fast Start guide designed to show you exactly what you need to do to succeed in their MLM system.

On the first page of the fast start manual, we see that Revolution has used a baseball diagram to help us understand what our goals should be. This is shown below:

What we see here, is that the business appears to be fairly simple. We’re supposed to get our friends excited, ask them for referrals, sell them products and recruit them to Revolution Financial.

We also notice the line above the baseball diamond saying ‘get out of the way of your own warm market’. This line might not make much sense at first, but to us it highlights a major problem with the Revolution business model. What they are trying to say here, is that you should let your upline coach (the person who sponsored you), run all the meetings with your warm market. They will tell you that this is how you will learn, but we see it as a way for them to sell to your warm leads without paying you.

The next 3 pages are all about building a prospect list. First there’s an extensive memory jogger, where they encourage you to think of everyone you know. Their ideal prospects include ‘someone with glasses’, someone who is ‘out of state’, and someone who ‘attended a wedding’. In other words it’s everyone you know.

The goal is to write down 100 names and phone numbers. Then next to each name is space to give them a profile score. Some of the things they will get points for are ‘being married’, ‘having dependent children’, ‘being dissatisfied with their current situation.’ It may seem odd for a financial adviser to want clients who are unhappy with their situations. To us it appears that they are focused more on recruiting than providing financial advice.

Once you’ve got your list of 100 people, the next step is to identify the ‘top 25 start up list’. We assume this is the ones who score the best on the Revolution profile points. They even give you a script to use so you can start calling your friends and family.

The phone script involves calling your warm leads and asking them to help you by being a ‘training appointment'. What this means is that you can watch as your upline sits with them and tries to sell them into Revolution Financial Management. What they probably expect is that you would be doing a practice and the trainer would be helping you.

The phone script is intentionally vague. They even say that giving too much information is a ‘scenario for disaster’. Essentially when you show up at your friends place with a Revolution recruiter, they have no real idea why you’re there. It this happened to us it would feel like the Revolution recruit is using their friendship to pressure you into something you probably don’t want.

Having spent several years in financial services, this is an unusual structure. Usually during training you would go with an experienced adviser to see their clients. Then after you have your licenses you can start approaching your own leads. That way they become your clients. To us it looks like Revolution wants to turn your leads into their clients, leaving you with no clients and no warm leads for yourself.

After the phone script is a very simple 90 day plan. Revolution gives you space so set some of your own goals, but they also give you some to get started. First and foremost is recruiting, then it’s pass your exams, and after that it up to you.

The Revolution Financial Fast Start Guide could essentially be used for any MLM. Apart from the brief mention that there are licenses, they don’t appear to offer any financial education. it looks like you are on your own when it comes to studying and passing the tests. This is disappointing because if they were really helping you become a financial adviser, the first focus should be to help educate you properly before you try and prospect any clients. Instead the focus here is on using your own warm leads to try and recruit as many new members as possible.

Why Is It Difficult To Make Money With Revolution Financial

The challenge is not unique to Revolution Financial, it’s common to all MLMs. The problem is that MLM is a system which is designed to make sales for the company, not to sell franchises. If you join Revolution Financial, or any MLM, you are a customer, not a business owner.

Recruiting a ‘downline’ is never as easy as they suggest. Our review of WFG, (which is the exact system used by Revolution), found that to get 3 senior members in your downline, you would need to prospect around 2,500 people. That’s a lot of prospecting!

Another interesting fact we learned about the business model used by Revolution, is that only 1 in 4 associates gets their insurance license. Given that this license is part of the 90 day plan, we can only conclude that the other 3/4 quit. You can expect 75% of your recruits to quit Revolution within their first 90 days of joining. It could be that Revolution Financial uses a system designed to churn and burn recruits. It looks like once they’ve got your warm leads, they’re done with you.

Is Revolution Financial An Illegal Pyramid Scam

Even though MLMs closely resemble pyramid schemes, they are not illegal. The reason dates back to the 1979 case of Amway vs the FTC. After 4 years in court Amway was found to be offering a business opportunity, rather than a pyramid scam. The technicalities came down to wording in their paperwork. One example requires consultants to make retail sales.

The Amway ruling effectively opened the doors for all other MLMs to operate within the law. However we should remember that being legal doesn’t make it ethical. If you know that 75% of recruits will quit without completing a 90 day start up plan, would you feel comfortable recruiting all your friends and family? If you join Revolution Financial, that’s exactly what you’d be doing.

Even though they have managed to operate within the legal system, there are people who believe that MLMs should be classified as illegal product based pyramid schemes. Of note is Dr Jon Taylor, who identified 5 characteristics of product-based pyramid schemes, which are listed below:

An Endless Chain Of Recruitment
Promotion Through Recruitment
Pay To Play
More Than 5 Levels Of Commission
Most Of The Rewards Go To Your Upline

Based on Dr. Taylors definition, we believe that Revolution Financial Management resembles a product based pyramid scheme.

Should You Join Revolution Financial Management

Unless you already want to become a financial adviser, there is no reason to join Revolution Financial Management. Regardless of what they tell you in the recruitment, to be successful you will need to be a good at selling financial products.

If you are considering a career in financial advisory, then we’d suggest considering all your options. It’s quite possible that you’d be better of with a role at a regular company, where the focus is on clients, not recruiting.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think in the comments section below, especially if you an share your experiences with Revolution Financial Management

Are you wondering if you can make money in an MLM? Check our our list of mlm reviews before you join. If you find one that’s not on the list, let us know and we’ll do our best to write a review