ACN, Inc, is a network marketing company that provides consumers low cost telephone service, internet, wireless service, as well as digital and video phones. They have built themselves into a well-known MLM company, and claim to be the worlds largest direct seller of communication products.
ACN has also gained much attention for their income opportunity, and there are some very real concerns about starting or participating in an ACN business. In this article, we will go through and give an unbiased review of the pros and cons of doing an ACN business, and see if ACN is a great business opportunity…or a great scam.
1. ACN – The Good
ACN was founded in 1993 by Greg Provenzano, Robert Stevanovski, Mike Cupisz, and tony Cupisz. They operate in 19 countries and have over 1,000 employees worldwide. The company itself has a pretty simple product line – low-cost telecommunication service, internet service (DSL, broadband, and dial-up) and other basic wireless services. They have experienced double-digit growth for the past few years, and claim to reap $500m in revenue annually. One of the more notable achieve of ACN is that they have gotten Donald Trump to publicly endorse them as a great business opportunity. So far, so good.
2. ACN – The Bad
Whether or not ACN is a good business opportunity, it is clear that Mr. Trump has no intention of starting an ACN business. Additionally, making RVP or SVP (the top positions in ACN) take considerably more work than finding 3 people…who find 3 people…who find 3 people…etc. etc.
The theory of growing an ACN business is that the representative will simply find a few people who are already using telecom service, and switch over to ACN because of the income opportunity. The picture is painted that the distributor can be paid off everyone in their neighborhood who has a telephone…which is most everyone. The problem comes with a marketing concept called positioning.
3. ACN – The Ugly
ACN, like many other MLM’s, teach their distributors to leverage their “warm market”, friends and family. However, when a new distributor comes talking to their friends and family about making a tremendous income with a business opportunity…and the distributor is not making any money…there is a credibility issue that occurs, and the distributor is positioned as a gopher for someone else’s business.
Growing an ACN business can be a great opportunity. They appear to have a good service, but there are plenty of companies that have great products, and many people that market great products never make a dime. There are also plenty of terrible products that generate millions of dollars in revenue (anyone remember the pet rock?) The difference is the marketer, and their ability to target their market effectively.
In closing, I would say that starting and developing an ACN business is lucrative if you know how to effectively use the telephone, the Internet, and other effective marketing tools. It is not a scam, but like any business, success will be determined by the skill-set of the marketer. ACN is definitely not a lottery ticket or a stock option – meaning, you do not just buy in and wait for a payout.
If someone does not have the first clue on how to market effectively, then I would suggest they either learn how to be an effective marketer, or else just use ACN as a way to save a few bucks on your phone bill.
This article can be freely published on a website as long as it is not modified in any way including the author bylines and active hyperlinks.
