Onehope Wine MLM Review: Is OneHope Wine a scam?

Welcome to my OneHope Wine MLM Review.

You probably came to this page because you wonder if OneHope Wine is a scam or legit?

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 One Hope Wine and after reading it you’ll know exactly if you should give it a chance.

Is OneHope Wine A Scam?

What is One hope Wine?

The company distributes wines and wine-related products for wine lovers. 

One Hope distributes their products by using the MLM model. One Hope started in 2007 with small charity events but was transformed into a million-dollar business. 

The founders of One Hope are:
Jake Kloberdanz, CEO/Co-Founder,
Tiffany Wojtkiewicz, President/Co-Founder,
Tom Leahy, CCO/Co-Founder,
Sarah McPeake, VP of National Sales/Co-Founder,
Brandon Hall, CBO/Co-Founder, and
Kristen Shroyer, VP of National Accounts/Co-Founder

The OneHope is a winery located in Nappa-valley and their headquarters is located at Newport Beach, CA 92659-1117.

How does One hope Wine work?

In short, OneHope Wine distributes wines and wine-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.

Source: Wikipedia

MLMs have been around for a long time. There are Multi-level marketing companies active today that were 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 that you can order 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 Onehope Wine MLM

You have to be introduced by a member or you can sign-up through the website. After that, you have to purchase their join kit for $39. After that, you have to pay a recurring fee of $99 a year or $12 a month.

According to the website, these fees cover:

• Your personalized website where customers can place orders with you
• Access to the CE Back Office where you have all the tools you need to run your business
• Access to business resources and tools
• Access to training courses and world-class wine education

The next step is to select a wine kit. OneHope Wine provides you with choices that all have a discount during the enrollment phase.

• $59 Add on Wine Kit
• $99 Add on Wine Kit
• $199 Add on Wine Kit

You’ll get training and after that, you’re ready to organize taste events of which 10% will go to a charity.

OneHope Wine Training

The OneHope Training for Cause Entrepreneurs revolves around their “duplication” system. The system revolves around the 4 core competencies. 

1. Booking Events & Host Coaching
2. Selling
3. Sponsoring
4. Developing

You’ll receive a mentor and be part of a group with other cause entrepreneurs. You’ll also go through their training program. Most of it will be done online through courses you can find in your back office.

Is Onehope Wine 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.

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, OneHope Wine MLM can’t be classified as a pyramid scheme from a legal perspective. 

OneHope Wine has given people a method to make money without recruiting people. How much you’ll be earning just by selling wine is a different story.

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

Who can benefit from OneHope Wine?

Who would benefit from joining OneHope Wine:

• Expert salesmen
• Expert recruiters
• Wine lovers

Who shouldn’t join One Hope Wine:

• People that hate sales jobs.
• People that hate recruiting
• People that don’t have the budget for it
• People that expect to earn passive income

OneHope Wine products

A good MLM should have quality products that you can sell so I thought it was appropriate to look at what they offer. OneHope is a Wine company geared towards all adults that love wine.

OneHope sells all kinds of wines such as Red, White, Sparkling, Rose, Dry, and Sweet wines. They come in mixed packs and in all kinds of gift combinations.

Here are some of OneHope’s best sellers:

The Wines on the website seem to be a bit higher in price than the rest of the market but not to the point that they’re unsaleable.

This is a good thing if you’d want to become a cause entrepreneur.

I do think because they sell the same wines as other Wine MLM’s you’d encounter a lot of competition.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• One Hope products have tangible benefits
  Unlike MLM’s that sell essential oils you know exactly what you’re getting and how it works. This makes it easier to sell to people.
• One Hope knows how to handle adversity
  It has proven to be a stable company which even survived the last financial crisis. 
• You can stay a member without accumulating PCV
  Your account isn’t deactivated when you don’t fulfill your monthly quota. You won’t be eligible to earn a commission but you don’t have to purchase the starters kit again to become a member.
• High Commission rates
  You start at a commission rate of 20% which is high compared to a lot of other companies.

Cons

• Products and commission rate imbalance
  Onehope Wine has a high commission rate but because of the prices of their products and most people not being alcoholics, you won’t earn much just by selling wine.
• You have to pay to play
  You have to invest a minimum of $138 just to become a member. After that, you’re also financially investing by accumulating 300PV worth of products every month.
• Limited to the US and Canada
  The MLM program isn’t available for people outie of the United States and Canada.
• OneHope doesn’t provide you with unique products
  Other Wine MLM’s sell the same wine just with another packaging. This means you aren’t only competing with cause entrepreneurs but also distributors from other MLM companies.

OneHope Wine Compensation Plan

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

In total there are 10 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%

• Cause Entrepreneur
• Lead Entrepreneur
• Senior Entrepreneur
• Executive Entrepreneur
• Director
• Lead Director
• Senior Director
• Executive Director
• Senior Executive Director
• National Executive Director

How much does it cost to start a OneHope Wine “business”?

This question can be answered by looking at the compensation plan.

Like a lot of MLM compensation plans, the OneHope Wine compensation plan is confusing at first sight. This is why I’m going to only share with you the most important aspects.

The initial cost for starting a OneHope Wine business is $39. After that, you pay $99 a year or $8,25 a month and one of the 3 wine kits.

By paying the initial costs you get the rank of Cause Entrepreneur.

Unlike a lot of MLM’s, a Cause Entrepreneur doesn’t have to “accumulate” products to retain their title but just because you have the title doesn’t mean you can earn money. 

To be eligible to earn commission you must sell a minimum PCV of $300 in that given month.

In summary, to start your business (and start earning) it’ll cost you a minimum of $438 and after that, you’ll have to spend money on products that you’ll have to sell for a commission.

This only applies to remaining in the lowest rank. The higher ranks will require you to sell an even higher minimum PCV.

How much can you earn with OneHope Wine?

The commission rate starts at 20% which is decent and becomes higher every time you increase rank. There are multiple bonuses you can earn while recruiting and climbing the ranks such as:

• The Unilevel bonuses
  Commissions based on every level of your downline up til level 4 range from 3 to 5%
• The personal group bonuses
  Bonus that is based on the group volume of a cause entrepreneur. The bonus is 2% of your group’s volume.
• Generation bonuses
  Bonuses are based on the group volume of a cause entrepreneur at the rank of director or higher. The percentages you are paid and the number of Generations you are paid are based on your Paid-As Rank in
  a given period. The bonus ranges from 1 to 3% on each generation of your downline.
• 1st Time promotion bonuses
  Bonus based on the first time you reach a new rank. These bonuses range from $25 to $10.000 depending on the rank and the timeline you achieved it in.

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. 

Unfortunately, OneHope Wine 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 OneHope Wine?

I have summed up the reasons why it’s hard to make money with One Hope and MLM companies in general into 3 points.

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

OneHope Wine Reviews, Opinions, and Ratings

To keep this as objective as possible I wanted to look at what others had to say about OneHope Wine MLM. Here are the opinions of a few YouTube Reviewers.

Most of the people reviewing OneHope Wine MLM are Cause Entrepreneurs which seem to be a bit biased but I did find an ex-member of another MLM. She raises some interesting points about the One Hope MLM model and the similarities that made her worry about One Hope

I also took a look at what the bloggers had to say about One Hope as an MLM company.

The general consensus among bloggers is that One Hope Wine isn’t a pyramid scheme but it isn’t a great opportunity to earn money either. You’ll probably lose more money than you’ll earn according to them.

My Personal Take

I do think that OneHope Wine is better than most MLM programs but it still has the same pitfalls the MLM model has in general. To be eligible to earn commissions you have to purchase OneHope products which can cause you to fall into a financial deficit which according to stats happens to the majority of multi-level marketers.

I wouldn’t invest time in money in an opportunity that uses a model that has been proven to stack the deck against you. I’d rather go with a make-money method that has better odds of succeeding.

Verdict

Is Onehope Wine A Scam? No, but the model makes it hard to succeed. I do think it’s better than most MLM’s because you don’t lose your membership if you don’t sell enough products. The problem I have with this model is that you barely make money just by selling products which means you’re being pushed to recruiting.

Onehope Wine 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 $1600 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.

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 Matilda Jane leave a comment.

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

That’s all for today.

See you at my next post!