ACN Review - A Review Of The ACN Home Business Opportunity

This ACN review will enable you to evaluate the ACN services and home business opportunity. We will give you the essential facts about the ACN company, services, compensation plan and training that determine the potential of the ACN opportunity.

ACN Company and Business

ACN is short for American Communications Network. The company is privately held and was founded in 1993. Currently, the company is operating in 20 countries including North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. ACN is marketing its services through independent distributors, according to the multi-level marketing model.

ACN is claiming to be the world's largest direct selling telecommunications and home services provider, with revenues exceeding half a billion dollars. The company is endorsed by Donald Trump, who is commending ACN for its founders, business model and video phone service.

ACN Services

ACN is marketing landline telephone service (local and long distance), cell phone, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), dial-up and high-speed internet service, satellite television, and home security services. Customers are mostly private consumers and, to a lesser degree, small businesses.

The company owns the Voice over Internet Protocol and the Iris 3000 Videophone services, and acts as a reseller for internet, TV, other phone and home security services. These markets are very competitive, allowing ACN only a small profit margin and commission share for its distributors.

ACN Compensation Plan

In the ACN compensation plan, you are receiving income as 

• direct commissions from your personal customers,
• override commissions from customers in your network, and 
• customer acquisition bonuses (CAB).

ACN Commissions

The direct commission rate increases with billing volume from 1% to 10%. The following examples illustrate the effect of increasing income rate. We assume an average customer order of $100.

The override commission rate start at a mere ¼% at the first level to 8% - 10% at the 7th level and beyond.

You start your ACN business as a "Team Trainer" for a one time fee of $499. To earn commissions, you need to get "qualified," which means that you need to acquire at one personal customers other than yourself, and generate a total of 5 points. Business points are assigned to ACN services. For example, the Business Assistant (including personal website, web store, communication services, training DVDs) is 1 point at a cost of $29.99. The regular ACN services are at 1 to 3 points, with prices ranging from $20 to $80. You need 40 points from your personal customers to qualify for override commissions.

As you begin to recruit new Team Trainers and satisfy the corresponding requirements, you will advance to leadership levels, from Executive Team Trainer through various levels to Senior Vice President. These levels entitle your to receive Customer Acquisition Bonuses (CABs) on new Team Trainers that are sponsored in your downline and are meeting their qualification within 30 days.

ACN Customer Acquisition Bonuses

Customer Acquisition Bonuses (CABs) start at the Team Coordinator level with $50 for each new distributor that is qualified in your downline within 30 days. A Senior Vice President is receiving a CAB of $30. For the Team Coordinator level, you need to have at least 200 points in each of 3 separate legs. Assuming that each customer is generating 3 points on average, this means that your organization needs to have at least 200 customers

The Customer Acquisition Bonuses encourage you to make it to Team Coordinator, by recruiting at least 3 active distributors who each will generate at least 200 points (about 60 to 70 customers or $4,000 in monthly sales).  

The ACN compensation plan is not for the faint of heart. 

ACN Training

ACN training is offered through the company at local, national and international events, and through several Regional Vice Presidents by conference calls and web videos.

The training is focused on warm market approaches, targeting family, friends and local acquaintances. Training materials include phone scripts that are designed to bring prospects to personal business receptions, three way calls, online presentations or to set up a demonstration of the ACN IRIS 3000 Videophone.

These approaches will allow you as a new Team Trainer to acquire enough customers to get qualified and even recruit a few team members, but they cannot provide the number of prospects you need to build a large organization quickly.

ACN Review Summary

The ACN business opportunity offers strong advantages and challenges. On the positive side, the video phone is an attractive new technology that can be marketed well. The endorsement by Donald Trump is a marketing plus. Furthermore, the services are all providing recurring monthly sales volume, which is essential for building residual income.

The main challenge is in the low commission rates. The direct commissions start at a mere 1% and top out at 10%. Compare that to compensation plans with a 25% to 30% commission rate (you will find these mostly for consumable products, where getting repeat orders is the issue). To be successful, you need to be able to add large numbers of customers to your organization quickly, so you benefit from the higher commission rates.  Plus, it is important to provide excellent follow-up and make sure that your customers are happy and stay with your services. 

Override commissions will not add much to your bottom line, unless you can build at least 5 levels deep. For example, to generate $100 in overrides from levels 1 and 2, you rate is only 1/4%, and you need a group volume of $40,000, corresponding to 500 customers with an average monthly billing of $80.

Without ongoing recruiting, it will be very difficult to make money in ACN. As you can see from the table above, even 30 personal customers will give you a revenue of only $90 per month, not enough to cover your own business expenses. With warm market methods including referrals you will be challenged to add 10 personal customers, and this will generate only $10 in monthly commissions. Distributors in this situation are likely to quit marketing efforts and may continue as ACN customers.

Therefore, the key to success in the ACN opportunity is effective marketing, recruiting and training. This must include access to large numbers of qualified leads, a proven sales process, and an excellent customer retention program. I have prepared a MLM marketing report and a series of video training lessons for you, all free of charge.

Enter your contact information below for your free report and MLM training videos.

For a limited time, I will also included a free copy of the Internet Starter Kit, with your personal lead capture site, free hosting and autoresponder

To Your Success Dr. Kai Drühl

Sign Up Now For Your Free Report, Training Videos and Internet Starter Kit! Name: Email: Phone: