Green Compass Review: Is Green Compass a pyramid scheme?

Welcome to my Green Compass Global MLM review.

You probably came to this page because you wonder if Green Compass Global is legit or a pyramid scheme?

No need to worry you’re in the right place for the answers to these questions.

Over the last few years, I’ve been busy creating reviews about all kinds of online products.

Some turned out to be fake others were legit ways to make money online but in the process, I learned how to spot scams.

In this post, I’ll show you absolutely everything you need to know about Green Compass Global and after reading it you’ll know exactly if you should give it a chance.

Green Compass Global MLM Review Overview


Name: Green Compass Global
Website:
greencompassglobal.com
Founder:
Sterling and Meredith Cook
Product Type:
CBD MLM Program
Earning Potential:
Low
Price:
$49,95 + $9,95/month

Summary:
Green Compass Global is an MLM company that manufactures and distributes CBD products. Green Compass Global isn’t a pyramid scheme and in my opinion, one of the better MLM companies. 

That being said, succeeding with Green Compass Global won’t be easy because of the reasons I’ll mention in this review. The only people I could see succeeding with this MLM program are expert salesmen and recruiters that have a big budget.

Similar to: Younique MLM programYoung Living essential oils MLM programMaryKay MLM programAmsoil MLM programSavvi MLM ProgramTrades of Hope MLM program
Recommended:
No


What is Green Compass?

Green Compass is an MLM company founded by Sterling and Meredith Cook that sells CBD-related products. Their mission is to bring the power of the Hemp crop to the masses.

After the 2018 farm bill was passed which removed hemp from the controlled substances list they created a team and launched Green Compass in February 2019. The products are all manufactured in North Carolina

Green Compass mostly targets the United States and the United Kingdom. In both countries they have headquarters.

The US headquarters is located at 1121 Military Cutoff Road, Suite C339 Wilmington, NC 28405 United States

The UK office is located at 115 Mare Street London, E8 4RU United Kingdom

Learn more about Green Compass by watching this video: 

How does Green Compass work?

Green Compass is a company that distributes health and CBD-related products. Instead of directly selling it to consumers they have chosen to use the MLM model which gives you the choice to earn money by:

  • Selling the products for a commission
  • Recruiting people to earn bonuses.

What is MLM?

MLM (a.k.a network marketing or direct selling) stands for multi-level marketing.

According to Wikipedia, multi-level marketing is a marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue is derived from a non-salaried workforce.

As a part of this workforce, you sell the products from the company and/or you recruit people to do the same thing. This group of people you recruit will work under you and is referred to as your downline.

The bigger your downline is the more money you can earn passively (technically speaking) because you’re getting paid a percentage based on the performance of your downline.

This also means the person that recruited you which is called your upline is making money based on your performance.

The act of recruiting turns an MLM company into a pyramid-shaped organization where the first people to join make the most and are on the top of the pyramid and those last to join are at the bottom.

Multi-level_marketing structure

Source: Wikipedia

MLMs have been around for a long time. There are Multi-level marketing companies active today that was founded in the 1950s. MLM has a lot in common with pyramid schemes which is why scammers often use MLM to disguise their pyramid scheme.

Is it absolutely necessary to recruit people? No.

You can also stick to just selling products which you can order at wholesale price (25% discount) and re-sell to make a profit. This is easier said than done for multiple reasons which are why most members try to recruit others so they can earn more money.

How to join Green Compass

Most people get referred to Green Pass but you can also sign-up through their website.

After that, you can become a Green Pass advocate by following these 3 steps.

1. Choose a starter kit
You can choose 1 of 3 starters kits with the cheapest being the Basic Business kit for a price of $49,95. This starters kit comes with all the legal documents and other paperwork needed to get started + the online resources needed to start your training.

You could also choose the optional starter kits instead of the basic business kit. 

  • CORE Kit – $299.95 
  • CORE Runners Kit – $499.95 

2. Receiving Your Website
All advocates get a personal website that they can use as their virtual base of operations. It’s also used to get access to all the training resources that Green Compass.

3. Mentorship and Training
After receiving your website, you’ll be mentored by your sponsor to increase your chances of succeeding. If you weren’t referred by an advocate a sponsor will be assigned to you.

At the end of this 3-step process, you’ll be ready to start recruiting and selling products,

Is Green Compass a pyramid scheme?

To answer this question we need to know what a pyramid scheme is.

What is a pyramid scheme?

A pyramid scheme is a type of scam where people are promised money for joining the scheme and recruiting other people. No selling of a product or service is involved whatsoever.

So you might be wondering where the money comes from?

The people that join are expected to pay a one-time fee and in exchange for that, they get a percentage of the fee of everyone they recruit after that.

The problem is from a mathematical standpoint it’s impossible for everyone to make money because you simply run out of people.

Take a look at this picture below showing how it’s impossible for everyone to earn money.

A Pyramid_scheme

Source: Wikipedia

As you can see, in this pyramid model it’s required to recruit 6 people. You’ll notice from the 12th level and further, it’s not possible anymore for everyone to earn money.

The 2.2 Billion people on the 12th level need 13.1 billion recruits in total for them all to make money which is more people than there are currently on Earth.

Looking at the description of what a pyramid scheme is, Green Compass can’t be classified as a pyramid scheme from a legal perspective. Green Compass products has given people a method to make money without recruiting people.

That being said, there definitely is something a bit shady going on. Read below to find out what I mean.

Who can benefit from Green Compass?

Who could benefit from joining Green Compass Global:

  • Expert salesmen
  • Expert recruiters
  • People that want to use Green Compas products for themselves.
  • People located in The United States and the UK
  • People that are older than 18

Who shouldn’t join Green Compass Global:

  • People that hate sales jobs.
  • People that hate recruiting
  • People that expect to earn passive income

Green Compass products

A good MLM should have quality products that you can sell so I thought it was appropriate to look at what they offer. Green Compass Global is a health/supplement company geared towards men and women that want to cleanse and restore their bodies.

Green Compass Global products are made to combat your daily intake of toxins and chemicals that come from the air you breathe in, the food you eat, and the clothes you wear.

The products Green Compass Global sells to make that possible are: 

  • Powders
  • Lotion/ creams
  • Pet treats
  • Blends
  • Gummies
  • Bath bombs
  • Bug repellents
  • and more

Here are a few examples of the products you can buy on the Green Compass Global website.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • High Commissions
    You start at a commission rate of 20% which is high compared to a lot of other companies.
  • It’s a young MLM company
    Some MLM companies have independent sellers around every corner which makes it hard to find people to recruit and sell products to. It is a relatively young company which means there will be more opportunities to find people that haven’t heard of Green Compass Global.
  • CBD Products are popular
    There’s a large niche for CBD-related products. Finding customers that are interested in CBD products shouldn’t be that hard.
  • You can start relatively cheap
    Excluding the price of the products you have to accumulate monthly, you can start by investing $49,95. At this price, you won’t be able to take full advantage of the earning potential of Green Compass but you’re eligible for commissions.

Cons

  • You have to pay to play
    You have to purchase a specific amount of Green Compass Global products to stay eligible for earning commissions and bonuses. The same applies to getting commissions based on your downlines. The higher the rank, the more you have to purchase.
  • Earning decent money without recruiting is extremely hard
    Most of the products are around $20 to $30. At a commission rate of roughly 20%, it is going to take a lot of sales to earn a decent side or full-time income. When you start recruiting the money you can earn increases exponentially but so does the costs of maintaining the rank where recruiting is possible.

Green Compass Compensation Plan

Green Compass Global can be considered a traditional MLM when you look at their compensation plan. You either re-sell their products for profit or you can recruit people and receive residual income, climb up the ranks, and earn bonuses.

In total there are 11 ranks that all come with their benefits such as getting a higher commission percentage of all your sales starting at 20% to a max of 40%

Independent Advocate
Team Leader
Senior Team Leader
Executive Team Leader
Director
Master Director 
1* Master Director
2* Master Director
3* Master Director
Gold Master Director
Platinum Master Director

How much does it cost to start a Green Compass Global “business”?

The compensation plan is very confusing at first sight but these are the most important things to know when it comes to the cost of staying a member.

To become an independent advocate, you only need to buy the business basic kit ($49,95) or the optional core kits. With the title of an independent advocate, you can only earn commissions based on personal sales.

When you want to start recruiting you’ll need to earn a higher rank. The lowest title that allows you to earn residual income based on recruiting is the “Team Builder” rank. 

To maintain this rank you have to be considered “active” which means you have to purchase $150 worth of products every month and have 2 personally enrolled active advocates.

The earning potential becomes higher with every title, but the qualifying costs also increase.

In summary, the minimal costs for starting your business are $49,95 + $9,95/month which is called the advocate technology fee for the website.

How much can you earn with Green Compass?

As a Green Compass Global Independent Advocate, you’ll go through 3 phases. Each phase has a higher earning potential than the previous phase. 

Here’s a list of the 3 phases:

1. The Marketing Phase
18% to 30% commissions on personal sales and preferred customer sales.
2. The Team Builder Phase
Teambuilding bonuses up to $1000 + commissions on downline up to 6%
3. The Master Phase

Teambuilding bonuses up to $50.000 + commissions on downline up to 25%

Technically, the sky is the limit but in reality, we know because of factors such as your ability to recruit, your competition, and the performance of your downlines there’s is often a limit. 

Let’s take the Marketing phase for example.

Most products on the website aside from their bundles are between $20 and $30. The commission rate up to when you spend $499 in a month on products is 20%

This means for every product sold you earn a max of $6. 

Just to get to the point of earning $100 is a herculean task.

This commission rate increases the moment you purchase more products that you can sell.

The average US income is somewhere around $51,916.27 a year which is roughly $4326 a month. 

To get to this point with a max commission rate of 30% would require you to purchase at least $1000 worth of products and after that sell 480 products a month.

Unfortunately, Green Compass Global hasn’t published an income disclosure to see what current members are earning but I do see it shares the same “handicaps” most MLM companies have which prevents members from earning decent money.

Why aren’t people earning decent money with MLM companies like Green Compass Global?

I have summed up the reasons why it’s hard to make money with Green Compass Global and MLM companies in general into 3 points. As a Green Compass Global advocate, you’ll have to deal with the first 2 points mentioned below.

1. MLM’s are often associated with pyramid schemes
MLM’s have a pyramid recruiting structure that you often have to join to be able to make decent money or at the very least not lose money. The problem is a lot of pyramid schemes disguise themselves as MLM programs making it difficult to differentiate the two.

This is the biggest problem why most distributors have a difficult time recruiting people. The moment people hear about how you can make money by recruiting people red flags appear in most people’s minds.

2. You have to consistently invest your money to earn commissions
You’re only eligible for bonuses and commissions if you buy their products. The bigger the bonuses the more product you have to buy. You do get discounts but if you can’t sell the products I can see you easily fall into a financial deficit (which happens to the majority of MLMs).

3. The price of the product often isn’t aligned with the market

It’s hard for a multi-level marketer to sell products because most MLM products tend to be a lot more expensive than similar products sold by non-MLM companies. This means even if you’re really good at recruiting your downline still needs to sell those same expensive products for you to make decent money.

You can see that translate in these statistics I found about Multi-level Marketing.

  • Nearly half (47%) of MLM participants reported that they lost money.
  • One in four (27%) MLM participants reported that they broke even (made no money).
  • MLM participants are 7% more likely to declare bankruptcy during their lifetime.
  • Direct sales have risen 79% in the last decade, but MLM participants continue to lose money.
  • 90 – 99% of distributors in multilevel marketing only receive a couple of hundred dollars commission per year.
  • Out of 33,000 interviewed, 90 people made enough money to cover costs in building their business.
  • 50% of the people who start a network marketing enterprise abandoned it in the first year.

Sources:
FTC

AARP
Jobsinmarketing.io

Green Compass Reviews, Opinions, and Ratings

To keep this as objective as possible I wanted to look at what others had to say about Green Compass Global. I took a look at a few blog reviewers to see what they had to say about it. 

It seems most of the reviewers are on the same page when it comes to Green Compass Global. A few things these bloggers agree upon is:

  • That Green Compass Global isn’t a pyramid scheme
  • The market is hot because CBD is trending
  • Earning decent money might be hard without recruiting

My Personal Take

I don’t think Green Compass is a scam but I also don’t think it’s an opportunity that everyone can take advantage of. As I said earlier in the review, earning money just by selling the products is possible but hard.

Not because the product is hard to sell but the volume you need to sell to make decent money is a lot. Traditional network marketing requires you to be face to face interact with people most of the time.

This makes it hard to scale unless you’d do it online ( which is a lot harder and takes a lot of time). That leaves recruiting as your only option but that’s when monthly costs skyrocket because of the products you have to purchase. 

This is where the financial risks become higher unless you’re confident that you can sell these products and maintain your recruits at the same time.

I do think this MLM company is better than most but unless you’re an excellent salesman and recruiter I’d go with other methods that have less financial risk but higher earning potential.

Verdict

Is Green Compass A Pyramid scheme? No. Green Compass Global is a legitimate MLM program. In terms of costs, it’s cheaper than most MLM programs to start but the earning potential is lower. 

This leaves recruiting as the only option to earn more money but to do that you have to take a lot more financial risk. The only people I could imagine making decent money with this MLM program are expert salesmen and recruiters.

Green Compass Alternative

Let’s be honest unless you’re very skilled at selling and recruiting, MLM’s seem like a bad deal.

What if I said to you there’s a method to make money online that doesn’t require you to recruit people or resell products?

Sound like a better option for most right?!

If you want to make money online from anywhere including your own home I recommend looking into affiliate marketing.

I think this method is a better option for most people because you can earn just as much as with multi-level marketing but you don’t have to bother people to join your downline.

There is no need to dig yourself into a financial hole of $700 without knowing if you can succeed and you aren’t required to sell a minimum of products to stay eligible for commissions.

I learned how to do affiliate marketing with the help of a step-by-step beginners course on an affiliate marketing training platform called Wealthy Affiliate.

about Wealthy Affiliate

Interested in doing the same? Learn more about the training platform and try out their FREE starters course.

If you have experience with MLM companies like Peach leave a comment.

I’d love to hear what you think about it.

That’s all for today.

See you at my next post!

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About Rogier

I’m an Affiliate Marketing and SEO veteran, Blogger, and Pinterest Marketer based in The Netherlands. On this website, I share my learnings about online entrepreneurship, and digital resources while enjoying life to the fullest.

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