It's the Right Path for ME!

What's really great is that I am getting calls every day from Enagic distributors trying to convince me I made the wrong decision to leave the best ionizer in the universe for an 'inferior' product.

One of the major arguments I hear is that ONLY Enagic's water ionizers are considered to be medical devices. And that is simply not true. After the first introduction of home water ionizers in the 1980s, the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare recognized that ionized alkaline water from water ionizers had proven health benefits and described water ionizers as medical devices. If a water ionizer is sold in Japan, it is recognized as such. If it is sold in Korea, the Korean government recognizes it as a medical device.

Yes, it's just another of many myths designed to create an aura of uniqueness and high value around the LeveLuk line of ionizers. Let me be clear, I think Enagic makes an excellent product - the ONLY one I would sell until recently. If the company had been in charge of communication from the beginning, probably none of these myths would be out there today. But they are, and naive new distributors still hear 'the story' today.

Another argument I hear is about the expected life span of the SD501 .... 15- 20 years. First of all, this time span is based on speculation since the SD501 hasn't been out that long. Given the experience of some distributors who use it to make 100 gallons or more per day, it's likely that it will last far beyond its warranty period, but that depends entirely on the care it receives and the type of source water it is ionizing. In Japan, the DX has shown a 15-20 year life span, but that's with Japan's soft water.

Another objection raised is about the power supply and how the new ionizer technology is inferior. A friend copied me on what she told another Enagic distributor:

"If I compared a turbo-charged V-8 with an electric car side by side, and I wanted to sell that turbo-charged V8 because it was what I knew, and what I was selling, I would call the electric car inferior technology ... where's that huge engine?

Bottom line in this economy is cost coupled with results. We are definitely getting results with this ionizer. So are all of my local team ... they are picking up water at the store instead of using their SD501s! We drank water from SD501 for 3 years so we can make a solid comparison. This water tastes cleaner, it produces a better ORP most of the time (can't say always because of the strangeness of our local water.)

You and other Enagic people are welcome to the customer base who can freely spend 4K ... we'll take all your NOs, knowing that they can spend 1/3 as much and get terrific health benefits from restructured, ionized alkaline water."

******

Finally, the ultimate red herring: Enagic ionizers produce 'stable' water ... the ORP does not decline as fast compared to other water ionizers (based on reports of comparison tests that may or may not be reliable.) First, let me tell you that it depends on the characteristics of the source water ... where I live, the ORP never held for any length of time. It also depends on the ins and outs of the accuracy of the ORP meter (I've owned them all, and none of them are accurate.)

But the real question is: Aren't we in the business to sell water ionizers? And why should someone buy one if they can pick up water from you and it has the same negative electrical charge tomorrow as it did when it came out of the ionizer? Yes, you want people to 'Try the Water' and feel something, but you also want to make it hurt enough to make them want to buy one for themselves. Hurt, as in being inconvenient to come get fresh water every single day. We NEVER give out more than 1 gallon per person ... they must come get it fresh daily.

Finally, no one has tested the stability of the ORP when the water is transported, exposed to light, heat, other factors. I venture to guess that not even Enagic's ionizer produces water that holds up under the conditions most people expose it to.

The marketplace is diverse. There is room for many options. I personally believe in diversification and building a business that has a consumable aspect to create residual income. Enagic didn't offer that, the price point was an increasingly large barrier, and my goal is to offer something that more people could afford.

So send me your NOs ... I'm happy to work with them!

Is Kangen Water® Special?

Here's a question I got from a recent prospect who had been 'educated' by their friend who is selling Enagic® SD501s. "Isn't Kangen Water® different and better from water produced from other brands of water ionizers?"

All water ionizers I have personally tested and researched contain a purification filter and ionizing chamber and produce water with alkaline pH, negative ORP, and restructured characteristics. The same water test using the tea bag, the tomatoes and the ORP meter show the same results from just about any water ionizer on the market. (There are differences, which we will cover in future posts.) But the ionizing chamber in an Enagic® ionizer uses the same original solid plate/membrane technology as do most other water ionizers (except the new technology I have written about which uses a disk) to split the water into acid and alkaline streams.

Kangen Water® is Enagic's registered trademark in the US. (Kangen is not their trademark.) It is a Japanese word that means 'reduced' in chemistry, or 'return to original state' in common use. It could not be trademarked in Japan because it is historically used to described all ionized reduced water, regardless of brand.

When we first bought our SD501, one reason was because we were under the mistaken impression that Kangen was something special. We were taught by Enagic leadership that "technically, in order to be classified as Kangen Water®, it needs to show a negative ORP (-ORP) in the range of -200mV to -450mV," and that other water ionizers did not meet that requirement. The truth is, all ionizers on the market accomplish that result if source water contains ionizable minerals.

As a former Enagic® representative, I am thoroughly aware of the stories that the company and its distributor leadership created around the word Kangen® to differentiate the product from other ionizers that had been sold in the US since 1995. A valid registered trademark it most certainly is, and I am pleased they are vigorously defending its use, finally after 6-7 years of competitors dragging it through the dirt. Enagic has a great product ... at a premium price. A great compensation plan is one reason for the premium price, no doubt. And for every person who purchases an SD501, there are at least 8 or 9 who could not afford the premium price. I'd love to show them how they can get water with an ORP of at least -200 mV to -450 mV for a lot less money!

The Psychology of Pricing

Why is it that $1999 sounds so much more affordable than $3980? Why was there so much resistance to the nearly $4000 price of the SD501 and at $1999 retail our new water ionizer is flying off the shelves?

This is just speculation, but here it is. What's your credit card limit? If you're like most people, it's probably between $2000 and $2500. You couldn't just put the SD501 on your credit card ... you had to use two.

How much did you pay for your last computer? Your flat screen HDTV? How much do you pay for your cell phone and data service? Cable or satellite TV? Does $1999 sound like much more than that?

We are used to paying around $2000 for something electronic or digital or technical. But $4K ... that could buy a motorcycle or a really good mountain bike. Or a vacation. Or a used car.

Just sayin' ....

Why Enagic's Comp Plan Won't Hold Water

"A binary?" my friend moaned. "Please tell me you are joking," she said. "I've been in three binary comp plans, and never made any real money."

Silently, I agreed with her. Been there, done that. Got the empty bank account to prove it.

"Listen, give me a minute and I'll show you why this plan is different," I replied.

I have to admit, I wasn't too excited when I first heard that this fantastic new water ionizer was under a binary compensation structure. "Why couldn't they have been as innovative and pioneering about that," I grumbled to my partners when they told me what we were going to be doing.

Turns out, it's not your average binary bear. It's a retail-unilevel-binary hybrid. If you make the sale, you get 20% up front, and 25% of the commission that the person you sponsored (your direct) forever as a bonus. That's the unilevel part. If you sell retail, you can make $700-999, plus your PV points. If you build a nice binary structure, you get 5% of your PV, paid weekly, up to the amount of your lesser leg. AND your excess volume in the power leg doesn't disappear. Your personal purchase volume over $200/month rolls into your weaker leg. Finally, the company has a host of other products to keep the 100 monthly PV going.

I know that sounds like mumbo jumbo if you don't know binarys, but if you do, you know it sounds like gold.

So why all the whining from Enagic leadership about binarys? Simple. There are several new binary companies that are raiding the ranks of Enagic distributors so they have to make binary compensation look like the devil.

In fact, they are right if you look at the original binarys of the 80s and 90s. They were designed to leave money on the table and benefit the company, not the distributor. And most failed because distributors don't stick around if the money doesn't flow. The newer hybrids are much better. And the biggest difference is depth.

Do your own research ... just google binary MLM and read the articles. The one big plus of a good binary is that it pays based on volume, not levels. They cap your weekly income based on various considerations - like how many people you have developed into successful distributors - but it is not capped based on depth. In Enagic's plan or other types of MLM comp plans, if you have a highly motivated "runner" 100 levels away from you, you'll never see any income from that person. In a binary, you can if people between you and the runner aren't doing a lot. You have only two legs to worry about, so there's no agonizing over where to place someone. And in this unilevel-binary hybrid plan, you are definitely rewarded for being the direct sponsor no matter how far down one of your legs someone gets placed in the binary.

Email me if you want to know more details. It's too much to explain in a blog. Just know that it works, it's favorable to the distributor, and you can make as much if not more money in it than with Enagic, especially since you have true residual income potential.

(Yes, I know you make more on one sale as a 6A to someone ... but the cost of the SD501 is $3980 because of the high payout to the distributor structure.)

When I finished the white board exercise drawing lines and circles and dollar signs and numbers, my friend was quiet. She had this far away look in her eyes. "Are you OK?" I asked. "Any questions?"

"No," she said, dreamily. "Just thinking about what I'm going to do with all that time and money when I quit my job!'

What I Learned About Electrodes and Electrolysis Chambers

OK, this is a big topic. It will probably be modified a lot as I clarify more and more.

You know how some people in Enagic teach that 'bigger is better"? "More power" is the refrain heard in the lobby of Enagic's HQ more often than Tim the Tool Time guy ever said. If you were taught by some people, you believe that the only way to get "deep" ionization that creates "hexagonal" clusters is to use more power!

BS. Mostly. OK, partially true - there is a relationship between plate surface area and power in what I will be referring to as "old technology" which dates back to 1989. And old technology is what everyone in the water ionizer selling pool is using in one form or another.

That pool is crowded with all the different water ionizer manufacturers and marketers pointing fingers at each other, stabbing each other in the back, and shouting "My tool is bigger than your tool," and turbocharging their power delivery, surface area, number of plates and so on.

In the other pool, there's just one. It's innovative and pioneering, thinking outside of the electrolysis chamber box. It's not even a plate. It has no membranes. It has nothing to collect scale and mineral deposits. It is recyclable and affordably replaceable (all ionizer plates have to be replaced at some point ... depends on how much you use them, how much you clean them and how hard your water is.)

Here are some of the indisputable facts about electrodes in the old technology pool:

• The electrolysis chamber is made of a series of solid or mesh titanium alloy plates coated with varying degrees and purity of platinum. You will find 3, 5, 7, or 9 plate machines. In between each electrode plate is a mesh that separates the alkaline and acid water.

• Solid plates, like the ones used by Enagic, are what we call "1G" technology, or first generation. They've been around, pretty much unchanged, since 1989.

• Mesh plates are what we call "2G" technology having been introduced a couple of years ago by Jupiter and Tyent, and perhaps some other brands of ionizers. They use less precious metals because they are much thinner, and have slits cut in the plates that increase the surface area for ionization.

• The problem with mesh plates is that they just don't hold up. Brand new out of the box, the ionizers appear to work very well, but 6 months of use, especially in a hard water area, you get different results. If you have the guts to void your warranty and look inside, it will gross you out. Scale accumulation, wearing away of the platinum coating, and burning of the plates from the electricity is common.

• Another issue with mesh plates is that the platinum coating is not reaching the inside of the slits, thus exposing titanium alloy to the water. I don't know about you, but I don't want cadmium, lead, nickle or other metals in my water or in my body.

• To be fair, plate wear is also a problem for solid plate ionizers, even Enagic. Is anyone willing to open up 1 year old SD 501s and inspect the plates? Since we own three of them, we are planning to do that with a metallurgical lab manager and see what we find. We know that plates wear, the question is, how fast? And how do you know? By the time your pH or ORP results have been affected, you've been drinking titanium alloy-contaminated water for awhile.

• You can, of course, replace a worn plate or an entire electrolysis chamber. Replacing individual plates won't break the bank, and Enagic does have the benefit of being able to open up the chamber to inspect and replace plates. Others are designed to replace the entire chamber. To do that typically runs nearly $1000 for the 5-7 plate machines.

• Cleaning is also an issue. When Enagic first started marketing in the US, the rule was to clean with citric acid once or twice a year, and now and then send your machine in for deep cleaning at the US office. Now they recommend running 1-3 gallons of Beauty Water (5.5 pH where the charge to the plates is reversed) daily, cleaning twice a month, and yearly deep cleaning. All that cleaning will reduce the life of the plates. On the other hand, the totally automatic cleaning process touted by Jupiter relies on frequent charge reversal, and that, too, is known to create a lot of wear and tear on the platinum coating.

• Do you have iron in your water? Then you better have a good ion-exchange pre-filter because iron will rust and create a mess in your electrodes.

• Finally, don't mess around about changing your internal carbon filter sooner rather than later. Chlorine MUST be removed from source water before ionization because chlorine reacts with platinum and will shorten the life of the plates. If your tap water is high in chlorine, you will probably need to change your internal filter more often than recommended, or use a KDF pre-filter.

To close, we know plates lose their platinum, exposing titanium, over time. But how do you know when? You have to test your water with pH drops and an ORP meter to see any decline in performance. Do most people do that? I don't know about you, but most people I sold machines to forgot that they should run Beauty Water daily and clean the machine even once a year. And I know they didn't buy an ORP meter.

So how does "3G" technology compare? Well, you have just one electrode - a disk - and no membranes. Nothing to clog up with scale. One moving part instead of several valves and motors. And the smart technology modifies the delivery of power depending upon the TDS or hardness of the water, so less scale is created in hard water areas. Should you have to replace the electrode, that cost will be well below $300. And I've already said that it performs as well, if not better, than the SD501 from Enagic.

It's a no brainer, right? That's what we thought, and that's what a lot of other now XEs thought. Sorry, Enagic. You might have built a better mousetrap in the 90s, but technology does not stand still. The trend is always more for less.

You snooze, you lose.

No Logic Here!

I apologize up front that this blog is not going be very logical in its progression. I'll write about whatever I think about at the time, or what I uncover in my paper piles and computer files. If you want more information about the new technology I am referring to, the best thing to do is email me and I'll answer your question or hand you off to another expert. You'll find my email at the top of the page.

It's been an amazing week ... for the first time in the history of our career selling ionizers, we had meetings attended by 20+ people and 6 people bought this new machine and became distributors! We don't live in Southern California where this apparently is typical ... we are in a small community of less than 100,000.

It's not a surprise, really. We have informally surveyed all of our 100+ distributors and the downlines of many of our associates within Enagic from all over North America (Canada included). We found that about 65% felt very stuck, and believed that the price point was the major stumbling block for them to make this a profitable venture. When asked if they would market a machine that retailed for half the price if they could confirm that it produced the same outstanding results as the SD501, 100% said yes. 

Really? Even 6A2s and more? They would give up those amazing bonuses that you can retire on? (sarcasm here)  You betcha. Why? It's a lot easier to sell an affordable machine. And that leads to more healthy, happy people which leads to .... tah dah ... selling more machines!

I'll just talk about my experience as an example. Only 5 people out of 100 ever made just one sale. So there was no residual income. And residual income is important if you want to leverage your efforts and build something lasting that can support your family and leave a legacy for future generations.

In a future post, I'll talk more about that and about the myths promoted by certain Enagic leadership that MLMs and Binarys and all that are no good. Folks, they're real good when they're done right, when the products are outstanding and there's a variety to choose from. And while I appreciate the elegance and uniqueness of the Enagic comp plan, it has its downside ... that being the fact that your upline gets the lions share for a long time for doing nothing. Yes, they are supposed to support you, train you, educate you, help you close, do three-ways, hold meetings, and keep you informed of important information, but the reality is, most don't. So distributors who are successful get there on their own because they are persistent, tenacious, enthusiastic ... or they have a big downline that they flip from another MLM. (and then they flip to another, and another, and another ....)

'Nuf said. Bye for now.