ACN vs. Ambit Energy

Grab some coffee because this ACN versus Ambit Energy review turned into a novel

For years I’ve been hit with requests to do a comparison for various multi-service mlm companies like ACN, 5Linx, Momentus, the late FHTM and others that expanded into energy. I even started a Momentus review shortly after they launched, but got sidetracked and after a few months all the buzz around them vanished and the demand for a review disappeared. Out of the remaining companies, ACN is the clear leader and it looks like their second stab at energy is starting to pay off, which is what brings us to this review.

ACN touts themselves as the “world’s largest direct seller of telecommunications, energy and essential services for home and business” and while that is very true on one hand, it’s extremely misleading on the another. They do have the largest network marketing sales force focused solely on service type products, but with Ambit’s 2012 revenue being almost twice that of ACN, they are nowhere close to being the largest by actual production. Although 2013 numbers have not been officially announced for either company, unofficially it was announced at Ambit’s 2014 kickoff event that 2013 numbers were 1.2 Billion. As for ACN, I recently noticed a FB post by an SVP of ACN saying they added 90 million in new revenue which would put their 2013 number at $672 Million. Applying some math to these numbers means that in 2012, ACN did 62% the revenue of Ambit and in 2013, they shrank to 56%.

So the question of questions of this whole review is this: How is it that ACN with 20 years in business and operating in over 20 countries with a double digit lineup of services has been eclipsed by and is falling further behind a company that has only been offering energy for a mere 7 years and currently only does business in 1 country?

If you want the cliff-note answer, here you go: ACN doesn’t compete well in energy because their rates are consistently higher than the incumbent which means IBOs/distributors have to convince friends and family to pay more to be a customer. ACN’s comp plan contains more fluff than a Presidential State of the Union Address. In spite of these major flaws, if you like the idea of selling all the other services they offer or you don’t live in an area Ambit service area, then you may want to give it a shot.

If you want a nearly ridiculous amount of detail on why the preceding paragraph is true, the rest of this marathon review is dedicated to you.

In every conversation I’ve ever had with an ACN rep, three areas are brought up in which they tout an advantage: 1. More services to offer 2. More states/countries to offer said services and 3) More compensation for selling said services. Let’s tackle each, one by one, to find out how it’s possible all these “advantages” are adding up to a significantly smaller company.

Ambit’s Energy versus ACN’s many services

It should already be obvious, but energy is where the big bucks are. If you think the many services offered by ACN are a strategic advantage, you are entitled to your opinion, but the numbers just don’t back you up. Until ACN’s combined revenue from all their products in all their countries catches up to or at least begins to close the gap on Ambit’s revenue from one product in one country, there is really nothing to debate. It would be like trying to argue who won WWII.

My personal opinion on this topic and that which has a lot of merit in network marketing is the concept of simplicity and duplication. More products means more complication, more training and more distraction… all of which lead to less duplication.

For the purposes of this review I’m going to focus on comparing ACN and Ambit in the one area they compete. ACN’s “jack of all trades” approach has served them well and plenty of money can be made there, but Ambit is the “master of one”… and the money to be made in energy dwarfs that of all other services combined.

Footprint/coverage…

ACN makes a big deal of having the largest energy footprint in network marketing. This is accomplished through a reselling agreement with Planet Energy in Canada and Xoom Energy in the US. These reselling agreements currently give ACN a larger footprint than Ambit, but looking at the big picture, there is a very finite number of states/countries that are deregulated. Within the next couple years all the major players in the industry are going to be operating in all the same territories and as new territories open up to deregulation, we’ll all be expanding into them at the same time. The more important question to ask is not “who has the larger footprint,” but rather “which company gives me the best ability to compete in a competitive marketplace?” (For the record, I was giving this same advice years ago in previous reviews against companies Ambit Energy smoked on coverage footprint)

Depending on your situation, here is my recommendation…

1. If you are in a state or area that is not deregulated for energy and either don’t have the connections or desire to develop connections in areas that are deregulated, then ACN is clearly the better opportunity for you because their other services do give you something to work with in your area.
2. If you are in a deregulated area where ACN offers energy via Xoom, but Ambit currently does not, then ACN may be the better opportunity for you because you are able to get started now. I could not fault you for this, although you will want to keep reading to find out what’s coming your way soon. If you do see Ambit as the better option, then you may want to get in touch with an Ambit consultant to find out how starting now and moving up the compensation plan a few notches can put you in a very lucrative and strategic position to capitalize when we do expand into your area.
3. If you are outside the US where ACN offers Energy through a reselling agreement with a company besides Xoom, then you may as well not even bother with energy and I’d give you the same advice as #2. My reasoning here which I’ll validate more later is if you are not aligned directly with an energy company(or at least under the same umbrella as is the case with ACN), then you’re by default only getting paid a fraction of what’s possible and you’d be building a business on a foundation that can get yanked out from under you far to easily.
4. If you are in an area where both Ambit & ACN/Xoom compete (which is the most likely scenario that would bring you to this review), continue reading because you’re about to find out why Ambit is the clear choice…

The real figures behind ACN’s compensation plan…

At first glance on paper, I’ll be the first to admit ACN seems to have a far superior compensation plan, but as the old saying goes… “when something seems too good to be true,” well, you know how it ends.

The normal way I would compare residual payout is to take an average customer bill, apply it to each comp plan, then add up all the multiple levels and ways each company pays out residual on a per customer basis to get a total payout that can be directly compared. There are some variables like breakage (when a consultant/IBO is not qualified, they don’t get paid and the company keeps that money) which vary by compensation plan but doing so usually gives a ballpark that has been helpful as a point of comparison for my other reviews.

When you add up the multiple levels and ways ACN pays residual compensation, you come to 35.75%, see figure below…

Since ACN pays commissions on 50% of the total energy usage, we need to cut the 36% in half and use 18% for an apples to apples comparison moving forward. So on an energy bill of let’s say $150 where $100 is supply charge, ACN is theoretically paying out $18 per customer. Sounds great, except this amount is well more than the entire average profit margin on a per customer basis. As a point of comparison, Ambit’s compensation plan would pay out $4.30 for non-Texas customers and $8 for Texas customers on that same bill. With numbers that far apart, either ACN has found a way to grow money on trees, they’ve morphed into a non-profit organization and everyone at Xoom/ACN is working for free or there is more to the book than the cover.

MASSIVE BREAKAGE is the first and biggest reason ACN’s real payout is a lot less than their comp plan shows

CRITICAL NOTE – I will be quoting all ACN figures as they are in the compensation plan, but you will also see a figure in [brackets]. This is to remind you that ACN pays energy commissions on only 50% of the bill, so everything gets cut in half. The figure in [brackets] is the number you should focus on because it is the real figure and the only one you can use for an apples to apples comparison.

As mentioned above, breakage is a concept that applies to both companies, but as you are about to see, one much more than the other. Let’s take a closer look to see how it breaks down.

First let’s tackle the theoretical 10% [5%] commission on personal customers.

There is a document floating around ACN circles comparing themselves to Ambit and I’m not sure who put it together, but it’s rather comical. I’ll show the full document later, but for now I just want to show you the portion related to personal commission…

Notice they use cell phone service as their example. This allows them to omit the fact that they only pay commissions on 50% of an energy bill supply charge which is usually about 2/3 of the total bill. Essentially they’re comparing apples to watermelons and applying fuzzy math at the same time. ACN refers to our $.05 as “ridiculous” but by that same token, so is the 1% [.5%] the vast majority of ACN reps make until they gather more than 30 customers. Run these real numbers and instead of ACN paying out $15 as this example implies, you really end up with $.50 ($150 bill means on average a $100 supply charge so .5% of that is $.50), which is just as insignificant as Ambit’s 5 cents.

Either way though, it honestly doesn’t matter in the big picture. Network marketing is fundamentally a business of “a lot of people doing a LITTLE”. By requiring 60 personal customers to earn 10% [5%], ACN is essentially trying to change this fundamental law of mlm into: let’s get “a lot of people to do a LOT”. Yes there are people who gather lots of customers, the problem is they don’t join ACN or Ambit or mlm period because they know it won’t reward them proportional to the effort. These are the traditional sales guys who don’t want to get paid on anyone elses effort, they want the max on their own effort. By ACN’s own projection, the end goal of getting 60 customers for the full 10% [5%] commission on personal customers only projects to pay you $120 [$60] per month, which  (A) isn’t worth it and (B) it isn’t why people join Ambit or ACN. People join MLM for leverage, which means the only people getting the 60 customers aren’t even interested in the 10% [5%], they just want get paid on their downline. Unfortunately on a part time basis, even the well above average person has virtually no chance of getting and maintaining 60 customers and at the same time trying to build a teams of reps to do the same, it’s a classic catch 22! You can compensate for leverage (mlm) or personal production (direct sales), but you simply can’t do both. Although 10% [5%] looks good on paper, the vast vast majority of the sales force (my guess is at least 95%) is only getting paid 1% [.5%] because they don’t have 30 customers. Where does the other 9% [4.5%] go? That’s breakage my friends, ACN keeps it.

On a personal note: I maintain qualifications for 3 positions in Ambit, my own spot along with 2 family members who joined and referred some people that ended up building a large business.  Since my family isn’t really active but I want them to get paid, I’m the one who makes sure they each maintain 20 customers for qualifications. The reason I share this story is obvious… me qualifying 3 businesses in Ambit at 20 customers a pop is the same as qualifying 1 business in ACN at 60 customers a pop.  I’m full time in the business and I find it extremely difficult to make this happen, it pains me to think of what every single ACN rep has to go through.

Now let’s take a look at how breakage affects the multi-level residual payout…

In both ACN and Ambit, missing that fully qualified mark by even 1 customer means you don’t earn the full 16% [8%] cumulative residuals on the meaty 5,6 and 7 levels. This means unless you are fully qualified with 60 customers, that tantalizing 36% [18%] theoretical payout has been shredded down to just 11% [5.5%]!

Here is the math: comp plan adds up to 35.75%, we rounded up to 36% [18%] because I’m a nice guy, minus 9 [4.5%]for lack of personal commission qualification and minus 16 [8%]for lack of being qualified to get paid on levels 4, 5 and 6.

We’re not done yet though, it gets worse…

8.5% [4.25%] of the remaining 11% [5.5%] can only be accessed by hitting RVP, the second highest rank in the business.

How hard is it to hit RVP? You need a minimum of 2,400 customers who average $60 in usage per month (which is 50% more usage than the $40 ACN considers average in their comp plan) and these customers need to be perfectly positioned across 4 separate legs. In reality you would need at least two to three times this many customers via natural organic network marketing growth.

We’re now back on planet earth where the laws of reality dictate it’s impossible to pay out more in commission than the entire margin of profit you have play with. On this the real world, we find that only 2.5% [1.25%] is allocated to the overwhelming vast majority of ACN reps who don’t have 60 personal customers and are not RVPs/SVPs.  The gap between 36% [18%] and 2.5% [1.25%] is a large one and that my friends is the shocking power of breakage.

One final way to put this into perspective…

20 customers in Ambit qualifies you to get paid through all 7 levels, which means you have access to 76% of the total compensation payout. 20 customers in ACN qualifies you to get paid through 4 levels, which means unless you are an RVP you only have access to 6.3% of the total compensation payout.  YIKES!

Here is the math: Ambit 76% calculation = $3.3 paid out via 7 levels divided by $4.3 paid out total. ACN 6.3% calculation = 2.25% [1.125%] paid out via first 4 levels divided by 35.75% [17.875%] paid out total.

With qualifications 3 times harder (60 in ACN versus 20 in Ambit), reason would suggest you will have 3 times fewer people qualify.  It’s impossible to speculate exactly how much this reduces ACN’s payout, but to say that it’s VERY SIGNIFICANT would be an understatement.

COMP PLAN FINE PRINT is the second factor that can dramatically affect how much money ACN really pays out.

There are two huge GOTCHAs in the ACN compensation plan at the bottom of page two…

*Commissionable revenue is billed revenue less taxes, surcharges and an allowance for bad debt. ACN reserves the right to reduce commissionable revenue by a percentage factor for promotional plans, products, negotiated pricing or certain services.

** Energy rates subject to fluctuation. ACN reserves the right to cap commissionable billing at $1/therm and 13.5 kilowatt-hour. Commissionable revenue percentage may be lower for Large Business accounts depending on rates and terms offered to customers.

Yep you read that right, for pretty much any reason ACN reserves the right to reduce or cap commissions. So anytime XOOM is offering special promotional rates (as happens to be the case at time of writing), there is a good chance it’s coming out of your check. Ambit has no such GOTCHA, what’s in the comp plan is what gets paid, every month… regardless of promotional plans, products or negotiated pricing.

An interesting note regarding ACN’s 2014 comp plan “enhancements”…

ACN’s old comp plan (which was retired end of 2013) was a bit (I stress BIT) more upfront about their breakage by only requiring 40 customers (versus current 60) to be fully qualified. But under this old compensation plan they also reduced residual commissions by 50% on all IBO’s who had 30 or more personal customers. This was to compensate for paying the extra 3%, 5% or 10% on personal volume when IBOs reach 30, 40 or 50 personal customers respectively. I say this was a bit more upfront because here the max theoretical payout was around 25% [12.5%], which is still more than the average profit margin, but at least we’re closer to planet earth.

Of course this is all past tense since ACN’s 2014 compensation plan (which was used for this review) removed the 50% cut and created a new position of Platinum RVP where they allocated an additional 2.5% to be paid out. The only catch was the new 60 customer qualification to get paid on 7 level residuals (previously 40) and the full 10% commission on personal customers (previously 50). Amazing how powerful breakage is, adding just 20 customers to the qualifications allowed ACN to show a paper increase of roughly 11% in residual payout. That’s some serious number manipulation!

The bottom line on ACN’s residual compensation…

It simply doesn’t pay out anywhere close to as much in the real world as it implies on paper. I’ve analyzed every major network marketing energy company for the past 7 years and can very conclusively say that every company has about the same amount of margin to work with. This means no matter what the compensation plan shows on paper, in the real world no company can viably pay significantly more than another. Companies will pay it out in different ways and you could make argument one way is better than other but the total amount being paid out on the average customer is always going to be about the same.

In this review, you may have noticed I only looked at the residual side. I could have gone into the upfront income and made this more of a novel than it already is, but the residual is what most people are focused on and so I did the same. What I will say about ACN’s upfront bonus payout is it has all the same qualities as it’s residual payout, looks great on paper but reality is far different.

If even after factoring in all these adjustments, ACN does actually pay out more than Ambit (which is highly unlikely), the nail in the coffin is coming up next.

Is there value for the customer?

Rates aren’t everything. I’ll be the first to admit it. Neither Ambit or ACN/Xoom will breakany records for cheapest rates in the industry, but there is one small little thing to consider when it comes to rates… “can you beat the incumbent?” For those few who may not know that that means, the incumbent is the standard provider in each area that we are switching customers away from.

If you can’t beat the incumbent…

• then you are not in the business of delivering value.
• then you are having to ask your friends and family to pay more just to be your customer.
• then you’re making money at someone else’s expense

Here is a chart showing ACN & Ambit Energy rates alongside each incumbent…

Rates were pulled on 10/7/13 with Xoom rates taken from http://xoomenergy.com/partner/acn and Ambit rates pulled from PowerZone. Territories shown in chart are only those in which both ACN and Ambit mutually competed and offered a 12-month plan at the time of the rate check. 

To put this chart into perspective, I’ve run some quick figures for you. Based on this snapshot in time, Ambit would on average save customers 4% compared to the incumbent rate.  ACN would on average increase customers bills by 11.5%.

For the first time in this review, the numbers speak for themselves.

Yes I know rates fluctuate but considering we’re looking at and averaging the rates of each company across every territory we mutually compete, this is a pretty good indication of reality. I was going to pull recent rates and update the chart to show a moving average but both companies instituted major changes in their plan offerings.  ACN at last check was no longer offering a 12 month contract in many of these territories and Ambit changed most of the above territories over to its Guaranteed Savings Plan, therefore an apples to apples comparison is no longer possible.

I’m all for making more money, but if delivering value isn’t a part of the equation, count me out. I’m not saying Ambit is less than the incumbent 100% of the time. Market fluctuations can cause rates to spike, but we have a consistent track record of delivering rates below the local incumbent under normal circumstances.

As a part of reviewing ACN, I went through every page of their back office and came across a product overview page for Xoom Energy showing the following instructional disclaimer…

Do Not Guarantee Savings
ACN Independent Business Owners should not guarantee savings. Although there are potential savings over the contract term, they are not guaranteed. Energy rates listed on the XOOM Energy/ACN website for variable products or components of products are estimates and should not be quoted to customers. Customers are billed at the variable rate in effect when they consume the energy.

I’m not pointing this out as a knock to ACN. No matter what rate you are offering, conventional variable and contract plans don’t allow you to guarantee savings for a customer.  Even if you signed a customer on a contract rate that is cheaper than the incumbent today, tomorrow the incumbent could lower their rate below yours. This is the reality of the industry. Unfortunately for ACN, their contract rates start off above incumbent. Not a good strategy for delivering value in my opinion.

The reason I included the ACN disclaimer is to contrast what is the industry norm which is that you simply cannot guarantee savings… to a growing trend in Ambit which is that we can guarantee savings!

Our savings guarantee is a hybrid between a variable and a contract plan. It’s not offered in all states, but where it is available, customers receive a variable rate that follows the market. At the end of their one year term, Ambit reviews the account and compares it to what they would have paid with the incumbent. If they didn’t save at least 2% or 3% (depending on territory), then Ambit cuts a check for the difference. We started offering this plan in New York 6 years ago and it’s proven to be wildly successful and a big reason JD Powers rated us #1 in customer satisfaction for the state.

Other major considerations regarding customer value…

• In non-Texas states where Ambit does NOT offer the savings guarantee plan, we instead offer fixed rate term plans WITHOUT the traditional early termination fee.  This means customers get the price security in case rates go up along with the flexibility to change plans or cancel early if they so choose.
• Ambit has a customer referral program that starts off by giving a free trip to customers at the 5 referral mark and free energy at the 15 referral mark.  ACN is currently offering a free energy program that only requires 10 customers, but it’s not available to customers, only to IBOs in the business.
• Ambit gives every new customer a 3 day/2 night vacation voucher immediately upon activation.
• Ambit only requires credit checks in Texas whereas Xoom runs credit checks potentially requiring customer deposits in a number of other markets we mutually compete like California, Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
• I’m not sure if it’s a typo because I don’t really know how they can legally do this, but pursuant to Xoom’s customer service agreement, customers who are coming out of a contract and don’t select a new plan are automatically renewed into a new contract which of course also comes with an early termination fee.  With Ambit, if you don’t renew you simply roll into a monthly variable rate with no contract.

A key intangible to consider… ”Who is Xoom, how are they related to ACN & why should you care?

It’s not very well known, but Xoom Energy was actually started by and is owned by the same ownership group as ACN. The odd thing is you will find NO DIRECT links or reference or any clue to this relationship anywhere in print with either ACN or Xoom. It took some serious internet searching for me to find anything online to validate what I had heard only as rumor. The question is why?

Three reasons ACN takes the cloak and dagger approach with Xoom Energy…

1. Easier to get licensed in states that have a propensity to make things difficult on mlm or network marketing companies.

2. Opens up the opportunity for Xoom to sell through other channels other than ACN, which they have done on at least one other occasion via the ill-fated network marketing company FHTM. Not sure if they have any current re-selling agreements with other companies but I’ve always wondered how ACN reps felt about their ownership reselling to other network marketing companies.

3. Provides a shield and layer of separation in case any number of things go south for ACN and/or Xoom. This is likely the most important advantage for a number of reasons. First off, this is not ACN’s first foray into energy. They made a stab at it back in early 2000’s and for reasons I haven’t been able to determine, they ran into trouble and ended up selling all their energy customers to Commerce Energy (which ironically also ran into trouble and ended up selling their Texas customer base to Ambit back in 2008, awkward!). With a past failure in energy on their resume, ACN took a cue from Ignite which sells for and is owned by Stream Energy and decided to put the wall of separation in place. This wall works both ways… should ACN go the way of FHTM, Xoom will not be affected and could continue to do business. If Xoom runs into financial or other difficulties, ACN simply needs to ink a reselling agreement and could sell energy for another company as they already do in other countries.

Three downsides to going cloak and dagger…

1. Does the guy signing your checks have his toe in the water or is he all in?

Energy is where the big money is at and if I’m putting my blood, sweat and tears into building a residual income around it, I want the highest level of commitment from the company that signs my commission check. For the ownership behind ACN & Xoom, if something happens to one entity, they still have the other to fall back on. At the end of the day, the wall of “separation” is a fallback “plan b” option that provides security for the owners but none for the distributors. Ambit on the other hand, was built from the ground up as an energy company that chose network marketing to acquire customers. Personally I think this is something to be proud of, not hidden.

You may think this isnt a big deal and I’m just fear mongering but the graveyard is filling up with network marketing companies sticking their toe into the water of energy but not giving it their full focus and commitment.

• AMA Nation was started by Public Power and failed miserably
• Zurvita was started primarily on the hype of being a reseller for MX Energy but that failed and now they have morphed into a nutritional company
• Ampegy starting with tons of hype as a reseller for Spark but they’re on life support and have now diversified into travel of all things
• Momentis launched with a ton of ballyhoo as a subsidiary of and reseller for Just Energy but they’ve also been fading off into obscurity.

The common thread in all these examples is you have either an mlm trying to get a piece of the massive energy pie by partnering with an energy company as a reseller, or you have an energy company trying to jump on the mlm bandwagon and starting their own mlm arm. ACN is a bit of both I guess you could say.

It reminds me of the first line of the famous quote by Goethe…

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

There is no question from a logical perspective, the best scenario is to be aligned with an actual energy company that is exclusively committed to the network marketing business model, this is the business model and brand of Ambit Energy. I’m not here saying Ambit is going to last forever and ACN is doomed. In fact, I honestly think ACN will be the first to do well as a multi-service network marketing company adding energy to the mix, but considering this is round two for energy, clearly they are still tinkering with the recipe (one would think that after 20 years they wouldn’t need to make such dramatic comp plan changes anymore). My concern is that perfecting a recipe can take years and produce a lot of burnt cake in the process. In life there are no guarantees, but from a structure standpoint, Ambit provides for the most sound sleep and while no company is perfect, they numbers clearly show Ambit has gotten closer to the perfect recipe than anyone.

2. More layers = More Overhead

With an additional layer in the structure, you have additional overhead and thus by default, less margin to work with. Xoom is not a charity, they make money and so by default the margin per customer ACN has to work with is by some percentage less than if Xoom wasn’t in the picture. Exactly how much this affects rates and commissions is impossible to tell. but as you’ve already seen, rates being offered by ACN via Xoom have a history of being consistently higher than the incumbent, so I’d say this issue is valid.

3. It’s confusing enough, don’t add to it

Throughout ACN’s marketing material are strict instructions for IBO’s (distributors) to make it clear to the consumer that Xoom is the energy supplier and ACN is only the direct-seller. I’m sure the reason for the language is legal in nature to prevent any crossover liability issues, but sure makes it harder on the distributors and tons more confusing for the customers. From experience I can tell you that many potential customers are leerie enough about switching energy companies (especially in newer markets), there is no need to complicate the process.

Regarding the “Ambit VS ACN” comparison floating around

Not sure who came up with this, but it’s pathetically riddled with bias, exaggeration and in some cases outright misrepresentation.

Here is the point by point dose of reality…

• Monthly website fee – Not required for either company but for all practical purposes you can’t actively work your business without it.  The only difference is with Ambit you will pay $24.95 and with ACN you will be heavily encouraged to go with the $39.99 option.
• Residual Income – Personal Customers – We already covered this one above, a lot of fuzzy math here.
• Residual Income – Downline Customers – We also covered this one above, an even greater amount of fuzzy math here.
• Number of Services Offered – Knock yourself out with all those toys, we’ll keep focusing on energy and continue to run circles around you on revenue.
• State of Operation – Already covered this above. Depending on your situation this could be one of the only clear advantages to ACN.
• Pay Levels – You boys really are on the up and up!  Great job completely ignoring the fact that we both pay to unlimited levels.
• Teams to Build – Comp plans are totally different styles so it’s pointless to try and compare this aspect and show and advantage one way or another. Each side has advantages and disadvantages over the other. I am curious though, by using 3+3, is that supposed to sound less intimidating than just saying you need 6 legs? Were you going for the “scattered peas strategy” where kids spread out peas on their plate so it would look as if they ate more than if they were piled up all together?

About those “top Ambit leaders” that jumped ship to ACN

You may have heard about some quote unquote “top Ambit leaders” that made a move over to ACN. Since I’m hearing some very disturbingly inaccurate information regarding each of these individuals (I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and not speculate on the source of the bad info), for the sake of balancing the scales, I’m going to share the real story (or at least the other half) story. I’ll go with fictitious names for each person, but the stories are very real.

John Doe – Started with Ambit at the ground floor as one of a few founding consultants who were offered a position with rank based on past success with network marketing.  In John Doe’s case, he started as a Senior but was then promoted to Executive after fully committing to get to work. He then moved to a new expansion state and began hosting open meetings where he was very fortunate to run into a prospect who was looking for a sponsor and John Doe, being the nice guy he is, volunteers his services. This new prospect turns out to be the top producer in the new state. John Doe as a result becomes a top 50 income earner. I have my opinion why John Doe makes his move to ACN but that take this review outside of the black and white facts I’m committed to sticking with.

John Smith – Started Ambit from the bottom but works his way up the compensation plan by perfectly stacking consultants in the exact spots necessary to promote up and repeatedly recycles the same customers to trigger bonuses along the way. After repeated warnings to stop activity in violation of consultant agreement, John Smith gets terminated and claims discrimination. Obviously without a paycheck John Smith is forced to find a new home.

If ACN is as happy to have John Doe and John Smith as I am that their gone, then they are in a very loving place.

Of course ACN has it’s own John Does and John Smiths.  I’ve spoken with 2 of them specifically… both RVPs who moved on after years of winning trips and being paraded on stage as top ACN producers. Reasons for moving on were the same… Qualifications are extremely difficult to maintain, residuals that never went anywhere and one of the two who left fairly recently got fed up with sky high energy rates from Xoom.

There you have it and there you are, my final thoughts…

I don’t normally get too sarcastic in these reviews so I apologize for the tone of the last 2 sections. I have no problem with competition and no problem with people touting the merits of their company.  In this case certain parties involved have gone far beyond the facts and delved into the unfortunate realm of deception and nothing tweaks me more.

You will find countless grammatical mistakes in my work (for which I really don’t care), but I’ve done my best to represent everything with 100% accuracy (for which I’m beyond obsessive about). If I misrepresented anything please let me know and I’ll fix it.

Thoughts? Opinions? Please do share.

Shawn Cornett

Ambit Energy National Consultant

Top 20 Income Earner
Co-Founders Impact Award
Co-Founders Leadership Council
Seven Time 5-Star Club Qualifier
Pacesetter, Powersurge & Pure Energy Award Winner

(210)232-6032
ambitpros@gmail.com