Club Sea Breeze Review
A Five Essentials Review
Club Sea Breeze was the first of the “Five Essentials Reviews”, however, at the time of the original review, CSB was in pre-enrollment and the review was only preliminary. Club Sea Breeze officially went live on Monday, April 5th at noon Mountain Standard Time.
CSB released a major announcement Thursday, August 26th, 2010 and this review is based upon the available information at that time. This is the 3rd update of the original review.
There are significant enhancements and information in this current review that supersede information in prior reviews.
Five Essentials, 5 Stars per Essential. Perfect score is 25 Stars or an average of 5 stars.
Reviews have previously been completed on TVI-Express and LGN-Prosperity. There are Five Essentials Reviews forthcoming on Diamond Holiday Travel, Pyxism, Dream Style Vacations, Royal Cruise Matrix, Traverus, Resorts 360, Life Path Unlimited, Global Resorts Network, Wealth Masters International/Carbon Copy Pro, and more, stay tuned.
Again, in the spirit of telling you where I sit before I tell you where I stand, I have a position in Club Sea Breeze and a growing team.
These reviews are researched and written from the perspective of someone looking at, analyzing and performing their due diligence relative to making a decision on whether or not to become an associate of a particular opportunity and begin representing that company and its products.
US based associates, please note that every network marketing company in existence can, has and/or will be compared against criteria established by the FTC and can be categorized as a legitimate network marketing company or an illegal product based pyramid, recruitment pyramid, and/or ponzi scheme. There is a discernible difference between all four and potential associates evaluating any opportunity are encouraged to include as part of their due diligence, research on the Federal Trade Commission’s Official Website.
In the end, it’s a personal decision each associate has to make, either those already in or those thinking of joining. You have to decide for yourself, if, based upon what you discover in this process, if you want to promote a company and opportunity.
The structure of these critical reviews will follow the keys to analyzing network marketing opportunities established in an earlier article, “Due Diligence 101 – Five Essential Elements Key to Analyzing Network Marketing Opportunities“
ESSENTIAL ONE–The Company 5 Stars
Where are they located?
Corporate headquarters:
Club Sea Breeze,LLC
1438 North Highway 89 Suite 120
Farmington, Utah 84025
U.S.A.
Is their corporate presence legitimate and consistent with a multi-national, multi-million dollar company?
Anticipating future growth CSB has secured adequate corporate office space to house the current business and future expansion. Logical management team functions like legal, accounting, IT, programming, web administration are being directed by the management team, but delivered by 3rd parties, most of which are off-site and scattered around the globe.
Currently CSB is global and growing with associates active in 26 different countries.
Company ownership and/or management team, who are they, are they accessible?
Kelly Williams Family is both ownership and management team. The management team also includes a core group of Advisory Board Members. Kelly, the members of his family involved into the CSB project and the Advisory Board Members are all readily accessible and are continually relaying ideas from and to the membership. Major changes and enhancements have been implemented as a result of this cooperation and continue to be considered and implemented.
Detailed profiles of the Executive Team and Advisory Board Members can be found on the corporate web site. The transparency and accessibility of the company ownership and management team sets Club Sea Breeze firmly into the upper echelon of network marketing companies. You can know and communicate with exactly who you will be working with and for in CSB.
Does the company and/or principals/management team have a track record and/or experience in the industry?
Kelly Williams and family and the Advisory Board Members have a broad spectrum of experience and proven records of successes in network marketing, internet marketing, financial planning, the travel industry, multiple business ownership, and private sector business operations. Part of what makes Club Sea Breeze unique in its market is the fact that the company and opportunity have been put together with the associate first and foremost. This mindset creates an environment ripe for success for the typical associate as well as the mega-builder.
Most network marketing opportunities are using the model, network marketing, to sell a product and the opportunity side of the equation is put together to favor builders and the company, waving the big payday out for them, but it isn’t readily attainable for the average person getting in and that average “Joe” isn’t likely to make much if any money. Some opportunities even count on Joe failing-sad, but all too often true.
What measures has the company taken, are they continuing to take to insure legal compliance?
Because CSB is located in the USA, compliance is a major issue and one that any legitimate opportunity is compelled to address and ideally not just address, but incorporate into its structure from the beginning if it’s aiming for long term stability and sustainability.
Through the guidance of two separate and independent top network marketing attorneys and a separate attorney specializing in the travel industry, retained by CSB, the company, opportunity, product suite and patent pending compensation plan have been developed and will continue to develop in compliance with current and known rules and regulations of the FTC and other governing and regulatory agencies.
ESSENTIAL TWO–The Product 5 Stars
What market sector and specific niche is the company competing within?
Club Sea Breeze offers a suite of products that currently address two distinct market segments, Travel and Financial Planning.
What specifically is the product?
Currently, there are four (4) aspects to the Travel Membership. The first is Club Sea Breeze weeks offers Luxury vacation rentals of vacation condos, cottages, resorts and villas. Over 5000 properties worldwide to choose from. Weekly stays for CSB members are discounted heavily and CSB Members pay from $299-950 for the week, never more than $950, no blackout dates, no restrictions, great value. There are 3-year and lifetime memberships available.
Second is a complete Travel Booking Portal where members and anyone they send to their personal travel booking portal can book air, automobile, hotels and cruises at prices competitive with other widely known and used internet travel booking portals like Travelocity, Expedia, Price Line, Orbitz and others.
The critical difference between your CSB Personal Travel Booking Portal and its competitors is that because Club Sea Breeze is a licensed reseller of travel, commissions generated as a result of booking through your personal travel portal, whether your own personal travel or some elses that booked via your site, as the owner of that portal you will receive 50% of the commissions generated.
Bottom-line, you get competitive internet pricing on travel booking and receive half of the commission back.
The third component to the CSB Travel Membership is a Personal Travel Assistant available to help you secure the very best possible travel arrangements. Because CSB is an authorized and licensed reseller of travel, our Personal Travel Assistants can oftentimes secure even more highly discounted pricing than the internet, and even when using the PTA’s, you still receive 50% of the generated commissions back to you.
And the fourth component is what Club Sea Breeze calls, Discovery Adventures. CSB has over 200 preferred travel partners and frequently these partners run special offers and pricing and CSB opens these opportunities to its Travel Members.
The Financial Planning component is both a software package and ongoing program, which has won awards from BYU and is endorsed by Stephen R. Covey, renown author of the best selling book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This product also provides a residual income stream and additional component to the compensation plan.
Is it in demand? Can the product hold interest on its own?
Short answer is YES. Success and demand in the Travel industry for opportunities and products is well documented and represents the hottest segment of the industry at present. There is no shortage of new opportunities with travel based products, and even some that offer a similar product. But only CSB offers this suite of products at this price. For example, the ability to book a vacation condo, villa or resort for a week for 4 for $299 versus the retail rate of $1300+ saves 3x+ the cost of the CSB membership. And that is either a 3-year or lifetime benefit.
There are other opportunities out in the marketplace right now that charge $1000’s more for the same product and still others that may offer a similar product, but with access to only 3,500 properties and not 5,000 (that’s 30% less) and don’t have a complete travel booking portal, 50% commissions share, personal travel assistant, the Discovery Adventures or the financial planning/wealth building and management program.
One determinant the FTC uses is the degree of real and perceived separation of product and income generating opportunity. In other words do people get in just because of the money they can make or is there real value to the product? In the case of CSB, there is real and true value to the product suite and there will be demand for the product alone.
And here again, compliance is paramount. It’s why you can just buy the membership and not participate in the opportunity and you can participate in the opportunity with no obligation to purchase the product (though it is difficult to market a product you don’t actually own) And because of the value in the product alone, there will be retail or product only sales, something else the FTC likes to see, a reasonable ratio of product sales to business owners. In other words when everyone who owns the product also has a business whether they want one or not is a huge “red flag”.
THREE–The Compensation Plan 5 Stars
What is the investment? And are there any additional charges? Monthlies, autoship, etc.
Club Sea Breeze, as part of its ongoing commitment to remain compliant with FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and other regulatory agency rules and regs, identifies two separate and distinct classifications of participants, Members and Associates. Members and memberships refer to participation in Club Sea Breeze Travel Membership benefits only, with no connection to the income opportunity. Members have either 3-year or lifetime access to CSB benefits for a one time fee of $369.00 (3-year) or $569.00 for a lifetime membership.
Purchases can be made via a number of different options, including direct deposit, Western Union, e-checks and major credit Cards.
Commission payouts will be made via several options, you choose from, ACH, bank wire, “Alert Pay” and for international associates a debit card.
Associates and associate-ships refers to participation in the income opportunity with a monthly cost of $24.95 which includes two (2) replicated websites, marketing tools, opportunity calls, webinars, access to trainings, and a Personal Sales Assistant, which is a live CSB corporate person who is a trained sales professional whose sole purpose is to help your prospects gather the information they need and guide them to a decision, i.e. close a sale. But not just for CSB, for you, the associate.
While there are a select few other companies/opportunities offering this service to associates, none offer it for this price. The Personal Sales Assistant is highly valuable, especially to associates with limited sales experience in network marketing because with the CSB Marketing system, sales can be closed for and on behalf of associates and they (CSB Associates) are not just left out on their own to make sales, the company trains and employs professionals to do that for the associates.
You can be both member and associate, only a member or only an associate which is part of the compliance issue or in the case of CSB, not an issue since the income opportunity is separate from the product. It is important to understand that each associate-ship is “activated” by a retail sale so that if you become an associate and just pay for the CSB Marketing System at $24.95/mo. you will not be placed onto a Panel unless and until there is a retail sale associated with your associate-ship.
This happens in one of two ways, When you become an associate and pay your fee of $24.95 you also have the option of purchasing a membership for $369 (Silver Membership) or $569 (Gold Membership) and doing so at that time will insure you are placed onto a panel immediately.
You can also sell a membership to a retail customer who chooses not to activate an associate-ship and then you can use that sale to activate your associate-ship and at that point enter onto a panel and permanently into the system.
How and or why does that happen? Well there are numerous scenarios, for example, you sell a membership or gift one to a family member who has no intention of using the income opportunity, in this case you, as the sponsor, retain the associate part of that membership and can activate it as an additional profit center (PC) at a time of your choosing. Or perhaps an associate/member sells several memberships to a group of customers in an assisted living facility who like to travel, but have no interest in the business, again, all of those memberships would have the associate part separated and conveyed to the seller or sponsor.
In all cases where you earn an additional profit center, your associate monthly fee for your original associate-ship also covers and qualifies any of the additional profit centers you have earned.
Please note this is a major compliance issue and consideration. You can not purchase additional positions which would equate to “Front End Loading” or “Stacking”, both of which are strongly prejudiced by the FTC, not approved of and in the long term, nearly always not tolerated.
However earning additional profit centers falls within the current and existing guidelines and is compliant with known regulatory guidelines.
Because the product suite will have genuine market demand, CSB correctly anticipates there will eventually be more members than associates, further strengthening its position of compliance with existing FTC rules and regulations.
How many positions are you allowed to have?
In CSB an individual is allowed to have one position per tax identification number, generally their social security number or passport number for international associates. And again, this is a compliance and legality issue. When you can purchase multiple ID’s under a single Tax ID this situation, commonly known as “front end loading” and/or “stacking”, is considered non-compliant and you absolutely cannot do this in CSB.
Again, please do note however, when an associate makes a retail sale, they earn the additional profit center and are allowed to activate the associate part of that membership as previously discussed.
The Math, can the compensation plan sustain itself on it’s own?
The CSB “Panel-Revolution” is a never before seen, never before programmed linear cycler with unique and powerful features.
Membership/Associate-ship costs break down as follows:
$369 less $50 personal sell commission or $569 less $250 personal sell commission, less $54 to CSB less $265 Panel entry fully accounts for the cost and more importantly fully funds the CSB compensation plan.
When you enter a new Panel, the first 3 of 7 positions are already filled and there are 4 empty positions and you occupy the first available position of the four possibly available spots. When all 4 are filled, $265 x 4 = $1,060 in revenue less $500 Personal Panel Cycle Over Ride less $250 Sponsor Over Ride less $45 to CSB, leaves $265 for entry into a new Panel.
In this way all monies taken in are accounted for and all commissions are paid from proceeds coming into the Panel, also accounting for a 20% operating margin for CSB..
What is needed to create $10,000
This question goes directly to how exactly do you make money in CSB? Again, the compensation plan at CSB is centered around a single, panel that fills and cycles, quickly and easily. That’s 4 people, the panel reorganizes and splits, someone gets paid and follows to their sponsor’s Panel AND that persons sponsor makes $250.
The interesting “Features” include: the ability to control the placement of your own Spill Over and qualifiers to help your team members
“Follow me” feature which has you following to your sponsor’s current panel whenever you cycle and any of your personally sponsored people following you to fill the first available spot on your panel when they cycle.
Spill up that will help you qualify quickly
Over ride Bonus that pays you $250 each time a personal sponsor or any of their additional profit centers cycle. These collectively combine and have the ultimate effect of helping even the average marketer, to make money as they build and not having to wait for the big pay day that most never achieve, while at the same time creating an environment in which a good marketer can generate massive income, quickly and efficiently.
There are actually 6 ways to get paid in CSB, the personal cycle $250-500 and the sponsor over ride at $250 are only two, there is also personal sell commission each time you sell a membership of $50 or $250, a leadership award program and residual pool based your group, infinitely wide and infinitely deep, an awards program based upon company-wide growth, and finally an additional residual income generated by the financial planning and wealth management program product.
For a comprehensive discussion of how the Panel functions, splits, monies are earned and paid see the presentation on the company website or the detailed article at Ezine Articles, “The Club Sea Breeze Compensation Plan – What You Must See and What You Have to Know“.
The important points to know are that it takes only 4 people to enter and split the panel generating $250-500 for the cycling person, $250 for their sponsor and that the maximum number of people is 11 and the minimum number of people you would have to personally sponsor onto a panel to actually cycle and collect $500 is two (2), that’s right only 2. And that between sponsors placing spill over onto a panel, the “follow me” feature and all businesses cooperating together to fill only 4 spots, quick cycling panels are the norm and not the exception.
As for generating that first $10K, this is strictly a mathematical exercise and individual results will and do vary.
For this example, we will assume that you do all of the work. No help from up-line, no help from down-line, though in reality, both can and do help. Secondly, we assume that everyone buys the membership.
Mathematically each time you cycle with two qualifiers you cycle for $500 and that would happen after every 4th person sponsored and for each lifetime membership you make $250 up front on the personal sales commission.
So a group of 26 personally sponsored people would generate an income in CSB as follows:
Creating $10,000
Personally sponsor or make 26 sales: 26 x $250 personal sales commission = $6,000
These 26 positions divided by 4 positions per cycle = 6 personal Panel Override Cycles @ $500/cycle = $3,000
Due to the “Follow Me” aspect, these 6 cycles plus the 2 positions remaining from the original group will lead to two additional cycles at $500 or 2 cycles x $500 = $1,000
That’s $6,000 + $3,000 + $1,000 = $10,000 on 26 people.
And with your group at 25+, but less than 50 people, then based upon the Leadership Awards and Bonus Program you are now a 1-Star Navigator and you’ve just won an engraved iPod Nano and a quarterly bonus of $160.
Again, for a comprehensive discussion of how the Panel functions, splits, monies are earned and paid see presentation on the corporate site and/or the detailed discussion in the Ezine article, “The Club Sea Breeze Compensation Plan – What You Must See and What You Have to Know“.
What’s critical to note here is that the CSB Compensation plan now pays upon any membership sale a significant commission ($50 or $250), and then on the efforts of you and your team ($250 or $500) and then again on the accumulated efforts of you and your team (Leadership Awards and Residual Bonus Pool) and yet again on company wide growth.
FOUR–The Marketing/Support System 5 Stars
Does the company provide marketing support, training, tools, etc?
Kelly Williams and one of the Advisory Board Members, Mike Leroux collectively generated a team in a prior opportunity of 25,000 plus associates in less than 3 months, largely on the strength of the support, materials, training, tools that they provided.
They will be bringing the same energy, professional quality of tools and training to CSB.
Associates for their $24.95 monthly fee receive two replicated websites to send prospects to. One is targeted towards the Membership and Business Opportunity and the other is solely targeted to the retail marketing of the Travel Membership. The websites are integrated with a “Live Chat” feature that is functional in 53 different languages and the back office portions of the websites for members and associates are translatable into 53 different languages so that associates in foreign countries, all over the globe can view their back office in their native language. And foreign language support of the materials and presentations have developed in German and Korean where there are already significant teams developing.
The sites are also integrated with a “Request a Call Back” button, which allows a site visitor to complete a short information form and have a Club Sea Breeze corporate personal sales or travel assistant call them back. This is a vital and important functionality of the CSB Marketing System. These professional sales and travel assistants are personally trained by Kelly Williams and follow his philosophy of providing information and leading to a decision with an absence of hype and high pressure.
For first time network marketers and even seasoned pros, this is very valuable because it allows people to use their company sites and personal sales assistant to educate and close sales, bring aboard new associates and maintain existing teams. People not only see how simple and duplicatable the marketing system is, they experience it first hand.
There are also multiple opportunity calls during the week at varying times hosted by CSB to invite prospective business partners to overview the opportunity, webinars to educate associates about the compensation plan, marketing webinars to helps associates with both on-line and off-line marketing sources and techniques.
There are also an array of marketing materials, business cards, brochures, sales tools available thru the back office.
Are there established teams which provide these same services, tools and mentorship?
Because CSB is being developed by actual marketers, the corporate site and tools are already unusually strong. Additionally because there are always strong marketers out there who want to do things their own way, there have been options for associates from the beginning.
Each of the Advisory Board Members have some additional tools available For example the Extreme Global Success, EGS Team has a comprehensive free site offering resources for all associates, including 3rd-party vendors for web sites and other services at very reasonable prices, a quick start guide, personal business planning, coaching, and mentoring, a 90-day turnkey system to the income you desire, lead source and more. Most of these options are part of joining the team, but of course the 3-party vendors are not working for free.
FIVE–The Model 5 Stars
Is this general model something I can work with? Can I see myself doing this? Is this something I can put my dreams and future behind?
Ultimately this is the “WHY” every marketer must answer for themselves. The company and model can do everything possible to make it easier to succeed, faster, but in the end analysis, it is still network marketing and as a marketer you do have to get out in front of people and share the opportunity with them.
And CSB helps to even mitigate this aspect by developing a model that actually has a component of other, unrelated businesses cooperating to help fill the current panel-people helping people. Club Sea Breeze has and continues to develop a product suite in demand in the marketplace, in demand for it’s value above and beyond and separate from the income opportunity.
CSB has developed a compensation plan unique in the marketplace. It is so unique and so powerful in fact that there is a patent pending on the “Panel-Revolution” and the company programming the software, in business 12+ years-developing compensation plan software for network marketing companies, was so impressed with the comp plan the owner bought a position in CSB. When people who should know get that excited over your plan, you have a hold of something special.
CSB is founded and is being developed by experienced marketers who really are focusing on the success of the average person, while at the same time developing an opportunity irresistibly lucrative to an accomplished marketer.
And finally, CSB is being developed and originally structured to be compliant for the long term stability and sustainability of the opportunity. It is a family company, headquartered in the USA, with the guiding principles and values of work ethic, highest levels of service, ethics and integrity. CSB is truly interested in, motivated and committed to accountability.
In addition to your own effort this is exactly what you want from a company you are representing.
Based upon the Five Essentials criteria outlined in the original article on these Reviews, “Due Diligence 101 – Five Essential Elements Key to Analyzing Network Marketing Opportunities“, Club Sea Breeze, CSB earns a total score of 25 out of a possible 25 and a Five Essentials Rating of 5 Stars.
