What Is Now Lifestyle? A Viable MLM Opportunity For Retirees?

Hello and welcome to my review of Now Lifestyle. This company has undergone many changes since its launch in 2017.  The health/fitness component has now broken off into another website and the current Now Lifestyle company offers digital products only.  It’s a little confusing but I will try to explain it further on.

I am not an affiliate, or ‘Reseller’ as they are called,  for Now Lifestyle and in my review, I will focus on the so-called business opportunity here for you.  There are many dubious as well as authentic programs online and my goal is to research and write about those that I believe could help us generate online income in our retirement as well as schemes that I warn you to avoid because I don’t want any of us investing in something that will end up leaving us out of pocket.

What Is Now Lifestyle?

Launched in 2017 by Joel Therien with headquarters in Schertz, Texas, Now Lifestyle started out as a multi-level marketing company in the health/fitness space and also sold digital products including a website builder, an email autoresponder, business conference software, and an HD video streaming service.   In April 2020 the company relaunched as Now Lifestyle 2.0 separating the health/fitness components into a new website called Now Body.  Now Lifestyle currently focuses only on digital products that are sold via independent ‘Resellers’ who have joined the MLM business opportunity offered by the company.

Who Is Now Lifestyle For?

The business opportunity is for those who would like to use and sell digital products that generate online income such as network marketers, affiliate marketers and people with brick and mortar businesses to raise awareness of their brand on the internet.

Whether you think this is a business you would like to invest in is something only you can decide after you have read my review.

Brief Details and Price

website for digital products: nowlifestyle.com

owner and CEO: Joel Therien

price to join:

Gold Membership: no setup fee: $49 a month/$441 yearly

Platinum Membership (most popular): No setup fee: $99 a month/$891 yearly

Enterprise Membership: setup fee: $150:  $299 monthly/$2691 yearly

guarantee: 30-day money-back guarantee

CRIO rating (out of 10): 2.8

My Review Of Now Lifestyle

Joel Therien is the founder of Now Lifestyle and company headquarters are in Texas as well as offices in the Ukraine and India.  Joel has a long history as a network marketer.  He started off out of college as a Pulmonary and Cardiac rehabilitation specialist which he quit doing after only 8 months.

He developed some mysterious health issues and was struggling along until, In 1998, he created a company called GVO or Global Virtual Opportunities.  That company offered business to business products to network marketers and he achieved great success.  He regained his health and launched Now Lifestyle in 2017.  His company,  GVO is the parent company of Now Lifestyle.

How you get paid

There are ‘customers’ and there are ‘resellers’.  If you are involved in the MLM and recruiting business opportunity you are a reseller.  Now Lifestyle makes zero income claims and does not promise that you will earn anything.

There are 3 ways to get paid at Now Lifestyle:

1. Direct – paid weekly.  This is 50% commission paid on each  of the 3 core packages mentioned above
2. Check match – paid weekly. 25%
3. Binary team – paid monthly up to 25%

Now Lifestyle 2.0 – the relaunch

In an effort to expand globally, There was a relaunch in April 2020 called Now Lifestyle 2.0 which introduced new features to all the digital products the company sells.   The compensation plan was also changed.

Additionally, weight loss and fitness products were moved to a new website called NowBody.com. To avoid confusion, I will not discuss any of the products or features of Now Body since it is completely separate from Now Lifestyle 2.0.

Now Lifestyle digital products

The 5 core digital products include:

• landing page builder/funnel builder to generate leads
• email autoresponder
• site builder – a variety of templates to build your own site
• business conference software – gives you the ability to host live webinars
• HD video streaming service – you can host, stream and record your own videos

There are 3 core package products:

1. $49 a month
2. $99 a month
3. $299 a month

Each one of the 5 core products come within the packages at different levels.

For example with the landing page product, you will be purchasing a certain number of landing pages that you can create based on which monthly amount, or level,  you have chosen.  The more you pay monthly, the more landing pages you can have.  You can also resell domains and websites and have them host with you.  You keep 100% of the profits.

Once you have set up your website, you host it yourself and you can host other people’s websites.  The digital tools can be sold separately but you are encouraged to sell the package.  You are told to start writing down the names of people you know so that you can sell them these digital tools.  This is when you will have to start recruiting.  This is of course normal in the MLM business model.

how to join and be eligible for commissions

You must join via a sponsor who has introduced you to the Now Lifestyle ‘opportunity’.  To remain active in the binary commission structure you must:

• maintain your monthly payment of $25 for your marketing tools
• have at least 2 direct referrals – 1 placed in each leg
• create what is termed a ‘cycle’ which is 4 people on your ‘power’ leg and 2 people on your ‘weak’ leg. Prior to the VIP program which dropped the membership fee from $50 to $10, you could earn up to $20 for each cycle.  Now it is only $5.
• you must recruit a new referral each month.  When you have recruited 6 people you qualify for commissions for life as long as those referrals stay active themselves

Any new recruits you bring in will go into what is termed a ‘holding tank’ until you decide the optimum place to position them in your downline team.

new compensation plan

I could not find the new Now Lifestyle 2.0 compensation plan though I did view many videos outlining it on YouTube.  This company has undergone so many radical changes in a very short time that it is confusing at best but I will try to make some sense of it for you.

Compensation plan part 1

In this first part, you will earn a 50% commission on all of your direct sales.  You will also earn an additional 25% matching bonus on earnings from your direct referrals (this used to be 50% before the relaunch).  This used to include the health and wellness products but since this component is gone, I don’t know how this bonus is calculated now since there is no new detailed compensation plan.

Compensation plan part 2

This is a binary residual compensation plan in which all resellers may participate.  Binary commissions are generated via the $25 a month marketing products and autoresponder.

This is what a binary tree looks like.  You are at the top and you have two ‘legs’.  These can be called left and right or one and two or power and weak.  You recruit two people and place them in each leg.  They, in turn, recruit two more people and so on.  Those below you are your ‘downline’ and you are their ‘upline’.  All of you together are the ‘team’.

Since the relaunch, it is not possible to say how commissions have changed until a new plan comes out but here it is anyway.  How that one change affects everything else will remain to be seen.

Here is the entire original compensation plan if you choose to view it.

income disclosure statement

There is no income disclosure statement available.  This is a red flag because with all the hype about how great their compensation plan is, you’d think they would want to disclose what their resellers are making.

They do say this though:

So, I guess they cover themselves with that statement.  Make sure you are not average or typical.

Now Lifestyle University

Again, there was no current compensation plan for Now Lifestyle 2.0 so I will tell you what the cost for the Now Lifestyle University events/trainings are based on the original compensation plan:

• Email Marketing Mastery: $497 – this course covers the fundamentals of email marketing as it is one of the most effective ways to build relationships and generate revenue.  If you sell this course to others you get 50% commission.
• Now Body Certification: $2997 – here you will be taught all there is to know about exercise and nutrition and become certified as a trainer with Now Body.  When you have completed this course you qualify to go to Texas headquarters and train for a week with Joel himself.  Selling this course to others earns you 50% commission.
• Now Lifestyle Seminar Retreat: $14,997 – for 7 days you will network with your team leaders and guest millionaire speakers in Cabo San Lucas Mexico.  Every aspect of the Now Lifestyle brand will be covered. 50% commission on this one.

Note: You must own these Now Lifestyle University products in order to be able to collect commissions from them.  If you do not own them and one of your direct sales (or recruits) purchases one or all of them, the commission will go to the next NLSU qualified member who does own them.  To own them you must participate in the ‘Masters Package‘.  This whole thing is not clearly explained at all in the compensation plan.

shakeup issues when top reseller left Now Lifestyle

Daniel Kump, a top reseller, was with Now Lifestyle for 22 months.  He started in March 2017, and was with the company when it launched and he was deeply committed to its mission and also produced a lot of their training videos.

In a few months, he was making a 5 figure income ($13,000 to $15,000 a month), albeit he is an exceptional network marketer because he had 800 people on his downline team.  Then, in October 2017 all the merchant accounts that pay the affiliate commissions were stopped.  In other words, all the funding for the Now Lifestyle company terminated.  This resulted in payments and monthly subscriptions not being processed and so on.

By April, 2018, Daniel had 1600 people on his team but his income went down to half of what he had been earning before October 2017 (below $7,000 a month and as low as $3000), when he only had 800 people on his team. No doubt everyone else trying to run a business was feeling the pinch and making less as well.  This is a dramatic drop!

In May of 2018 the merchant issue was resolved.

In July of 2018 a new program called VIP was launched by the CEO Joel without discussing it with other top leaders.   Prior to this, the cost of a monthly membership was $50 a month (Platinum Membership).  After the introduction of the VIP program, the monthly membership went down to $10 a month.  This resulted in a reduction of commissions to everyone who was running a business with NLS.

I find this to be a huge red flag because not only Daniel left Now Lifestyle but other top earners did as well.  If your top people are leaving this says something about the internal struggles going on within the corporate headquarters.  Other things happened that finally broke the camel’s back and Daniel decided to leave the company. He created a very lengthy and detailed YouTube video, which I viewed in full and extracted the above information which you can see if you click on this link.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• actual products
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• the affiliate marketing component

Cons:

• the flawed MLM business model
• major changes in a short time
• no income disclosure statement
• the departure of top resellers

Final Thoughts About Now Lifestyle

So, is Now Lifestyle a scam? No, it is not because they do offer these digital products and I like that they have introduced an affiliate program to the MLM model, but with all the dramatic changes in such a short time, I would be concerned as to where the CEO is suddenly taking the company next. The fact that he lost some very high producers in his company does nothing to make me feel confident about him.  Every business has its ups and downs of course, and a business needs to evolve as it grows, but these major changes over a short period of time is confusing to me.

I have viewed many of Joel Therien’s heavy-duty sales pitch videos and, on a personal note, I find his delivery style very off-putting.  He swears a lot and frankly, I find him pretentious.   His videos tend to jump around from one subject to the next in a confusing manner and he seems unprepared a lot by not having things ready to show you that he is talking about.  Perhaps his style is attractive to some and might be construed as spontaneous and contemporary but it does nothing for me.

It is also very confusing that the company has divided into two now.   I am concerned that the compensation plan for 2.0 is not readily available. There are a few videos but they do not detail the whole plan.  If I do find it, I will certainly update this post and let you know.  Finally, no income disclosure statement is a huge red flag because we cannot see what people have earned which we should because they really carp on about what a fantastic business opportunity this is.  It is shrouded in mystery.

Based on all of the uncertainties and changes and given the nature of the CEO and his top producers leaving, I would say to avoid Now Lifestyle.  The flawed nature of the MLM business model is a recipe for failure for most people anyway and this is well documented in this informative article from the Consumer Awareness Institute.  97% of people make no money or actually lose money who participate in multi-level marketing programs.  Those odds are just too high for me.  I created a checklist for you that details what to beware of before taking part in a network marketing program.

I do not recommend Now Lifestyle as a viable MLM opportunity for retirees.

Consider This Alternative

What if I told you there was a much easier way to generate an online income from home?  It is an element of the Now Lifestyle platform but without all the other confusing components. You don’t need to stress out over binary compensation plans and an uncertain business model.

Any business takes time to develop, that’s true but what Philip and I do is straightforward to learn and easy to understand when you find the right place to learn it.  If you would like to learn more about the business model we follow and the platform that we recommend, please read Philip’s article here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this review of Now Lifestyle.  I hope it has helped you to make a decision about whether to join or not and I sure hope you don’t!

Till next time I wish you health, happiness, and success

your friend,

Colette