With the legalization of medicinal marijuana in 2016 and the immense growth that the CBD market is undergoing year after year since then, more and more CBD MLM companies keep emerging to get their hands on a piece of the pie.
CTFO (Change The Future Outcome) is one of them.
Change The Future Outcome is a CDB-based company which has an MLM compensation plan in place meaning that it offers people the opportunity to build an income by distributing its products to retail customers as a “CTFO Associate” as well as for recruiting and building a team of other CTFO Associates who will distribute the company’s products themselves…
However, with all those awful rumors you’ve heard about MLM companies you can’t help but wonder whether CTFO is actually legit or just another CDB-based pyramid scheme which is just after sucking your money fry and wasting your time without giving you anything in return.
In this review, I am going to answer every single question you have about Change The Future Outcome in order for you to be able to make an informed decision about whether it’s worth your time, attention, and money or not, such as
- What is CTFO?
- Is CTFO a pyramid scheme or a legit MLM?
- Does its compensation plan offer the potential for you to achieve your financial goals?
- How can you become a CTFO Associate?
- How much does it cost to join CTFO?
- Pros and cons
- Are CTFO’s products high-quality?
- and many more
Let’s get cracking!
CTFO (Change The Future Outcome) Overview
Name: Change The Future Outcome (CTFO)
Owners: Stuart Finger & Steve Finger & Michael Khan
Price:
- Free
- $19.95 per month premium membership
- $47.47 per month to qualify for commissions
I’ll explain later.
Official Website: ctfocbdofficial.com & myctfocbd.com & myctfo.me
Suggested? No
Increase your chances of reaching success in multi-level marketing by following a dedicated MLM course.
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- Free Personalized Website & Sales Pages
- Free to Join
- Money-back Guarantee
- Provides Training
- Positive Customer Testimonials
- MLM Business Model
- Competitive Niche
- Extremely Complicated Compensation Plan
- Too Many Websites
Before I move on to the actual CTFO review, I want to reveal to you some general statistics about MLM companies that will likely shock you to your very core.
10 Shocking MLM Statistics
- According to FTC, 99% of all MLM participants lose money
- The chances of profiting by running your own small business are 38% more than by joining an MLM
- The profitability rate of running an online business is 10% - 20% higher than the profitability rate of joining an MLM
- The odds of winning from a single spin of the wheel in a game of roulette in Las Vegas could be as much as 300 times higher than actually profiting in an MLM
- According to AARP Foundation, 47% of MLM participants lose money and 27% make no money whatsoever
- Among the 26% who actually earn a profit, 53% of them earn less than $5000 a year
- 39% of MLM participants quit because pitching crappy products and services to friends and family jeopardized their relationships
- At least 50% of MLM reps quit within 1 year after joining an MLM and 95% quit within 10 years
- 75% of those who have joined and left an MLM state that they would never join another MLM in their life
- A 2018 poll of 1049 MLM reps across various companies found that most of them make less than 70 cents an hour, 20% of them never made a sale, 60% of them had earned less than $500 in sales over the past five years, and 32% of them acquired credit card debt to finance their MLM involvement
…until you’ve taken a good look at these shocking MLM statistics.
What is CTFO About?
Change The Future Outcome is a company that specializes in distributing a variety of CBD-based products.
The company was founded back in 2015 by Stuart Finger, Steve Finger, and Michael Khan.
CTFO was originally the acronym of “Chew The Fat Off” and the company used to distribute fat loss products until early 2018 when it shifted its focus towards distributing CBD products.
Steve has over 35 years of experience in sales and marketing of products and services that range from telecommunications to nutrition.
Stuart has been a successful network marketer since 1989. He owned and operated his own successful company for 18 years with tens of thousands of distributors and hundreds of thousands of customers. Stuart has also owned and operated multiple traditional businesses including restaurants and retail sales.
Michael has been a self-employed business owner for all of his adult life. He has owned multiple traditional businesses including leather goods manufacturing, financial exchange services, retail nutritional supplement sales, wholesale/resale bakery, and for the last 17 years, network marketing sales.
The mission of CTFO is to positively impact every aspect of one’s life.
You can find a lot more about CTFO’s, its founders, mission, vision, products, policies, certificates, etc on the company’s official websites.
CTFO's Products and Prices
The categories of products that CTFO manufactures and distributes include health, anti-aging, nutrition, vape oils, and pet health among others.
CTFO distributes dozens of CBD products so I am not going to list each one of them individually.
You can find out specific CTFO product information and retail pricing right here.
How to Join CTFO as an Associate?
Becoming a CTFO Associate is very simple.
All you have to do is click here, fill in your personal information, click next, and you are in (it’s free to join).
As a CTFO Associate, you get your hands on
- Personalized back office
- Training and support
- Website and sales pages
- Sales reporting and tracking tools
- Marketing documents
- A ton of online marketing materials
- and much more
To remain an active CTFO Associate and qualify for commissions you’ll have to maintain a monthly personal purchase of at least $47.47 worth of CTFO products or have at least 10 personally recruited Preferred Customers or CTFO Associates.
So, let’s start talking money, shall we?
CTFO's Compensation Plan
The majority of MLM companies have so overly complicated compensation plans that it feels like you need to have a rocket scientist doctorate to understand just their first paragraph.
CTFO is no exception…
In fact, CTFO’s compensation plan is easily the most complicated I’ve come across until now.
Nonetheless, I’ll try my best to get you up to speed 😉
So, Changing The Future Outcome compensates you for your sales and recruits in 4 different ways.
- Retail Profit
- Unilevel Pay
- Regenerating Matrix Pay (With copyrighted Profit Sharing Positions)
- Infinity Bonus Pay (And Top Gun Pool)
1 • Retail Profit
Whenever a retail customer purchases CTFO products through your replicated website or sales page you earn commissions which are equal to the difference between the wholesale price and the retail price of the products (an average of 30%).
For instance, when a retail customer purchases $1000 worth of CTFO products through your website, you will earn $300.
Retail commissions are paid weekly.
2 • Uni-level Pay
In a uni-level structure, all your personal recruits are placed right below you (level 1).
All the recruits of your personal recruits are placed right below them (level 2), and so on (see image below).
As a CTFO Associate, you earn 20% of the CV (Commissions Volume) of all the people on your 1st level (personal recruits) and 4% of the CV of all the people on your 2nd to 5th levels.
This equals a total of 36% (20%+4%+4%+4%+4%) of the total CV amount of all the people on your team 5 levels deep.
However, in order to earn commissions on your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, levels, you need to have 2, 3, and 4 personally recruited CTFO Associates respectively.
In order to earn commissions of your 5th level, you need to have 5 personally recruited Associates under you plus $25K PTV (Personal Team Volume).
3 • Regenerating Matrix Pay (With copyrighted Profit Sharing Positions)
In addition to the Uni-level Pay, Changing the Future Outcome also pays you a percentage of your team’s CV via a 3×21 Regenerating Matrix.
In a 3×21 Matrix, there are three available positions directly under you (1st level).
Each one of those 3 positions on your 1st level has 3 available positions on their 1st level as well, which means that there are 9 available positions on your 2nd level.
Each subsequent level has thrice as many available positions as the previous one so there are 27 available positions on your 3rd level, 81 on your 4th level and so on.
CTFO pays you a percentage of the total CV generated through 21 Matrix levels as follows
- Up to 1% of the total CV of each level from levels 1 to 5
- Up to 10% of the total CV of each level for levels 6 and 7
- Up to 1% of the total CV of each level from level 8 to 21
Be aware that you won’t be able to earn commissions through all those 21 Matrix levels at once… You have to actually qualify by recruiting other CTFO Associates as well as maintaining certain amounts of Personal Team Volume!
You can see the qualifications right below:
- Have 1 Active personally recruited Associate = earn 25% of the total CV down to 7 Matrix levels
- Have 2 Active personally recruited Associates = earn 50% of the total CV down to 7 Matrix levels
- Have 3 Active personally recruited Associates = earn 100% of the total CV down to 7 Matrix levels
- Have 4 Active personally recruited Associates = earn 100% of the total CV down to 14 Matrix levels
- Have 4 Active personally recruited Associates + $5K PST = earn 100% of the total CV down to 16 Matrix levels
- Have 4 Active personally recruited Associates + $10K PST = earn 100% of the total CV down to 18 Matrix levels
- Have 4 Active personally recruited Associates + $15K PST = earn 100% of the total CV down to 20Matrix levels
- Have 5 Active personally recruited Associates + $25K PST = earn 100% of the total CV down to 21 Matrix levels
CTFO allows you to earn commissions beyond those 21 initial levels of the Matrix.
After you get 3 personal recruits, every additional personal recruit you get thereafter is placed in a new Profit Sharing Position in your Matrix which is directly above your new recruit.
This means that from your 4th personal recruit on, every single new recruit will be placed on the 1st Level of your new PSP (Profit Sharing Position) as well as on the corresponding position in your original Matrix.
Commission payouts PSPs are the same as in your original Matrix.
4 • Infinity Bonus Pay (And Top Gun Pool)
CTFO Associates who have reached the rank of Vice President and higher qualify for the Infinity Bonus which pays you a percentage of your entire team’s CV.
As you advance through ranks, from Vice President all the way up to Top Gun, your Infinity Bonus Pay percentage increases as well.
In addition to everything else, Top Gun ranked Associates also qualify for the Top Gun Bonus Pool.
The Top Gun Bonus Pool takes 8% of the company’s total CV and shares it equally among all the Top Guns.
You can take a look at CTFO’s full compensation plan right here.
The two videos below also explain the company’s compensation plan in great detail so if you still have gaps it would be helpful to watch them before you move on.
Please note that CTFO’s compensation plan might undergo changes from time to time so by the time you read this review, some of the info, the commission rates, the rank qualifications, etc that are displayed in the videos I shared with you right above might not be that accurate.
If you still have questions about CTFO’s compensation plan, you could contact its support team at the telephone number 707-449-4567 or through the emails ctfocbdofficial@gmail.com & referrals@myctfo.com
Or you could contact me at harry@dearboss-iquit.com and I will do my best to help you out.
CTFO Ranks & Qualifications
You can find a complete chart of all CTFO’s Ranks, qualifications, and commission rates right here.
How Much Does It Cost to Join CTFO as an Associate?
You can become a CTFO Associate and start earning money with the company completely for free.
The company also offers an optional “Premium Plus” membership plan which costs $19.95 per month and offers some more benefits to Associates such as
- Personal autoresponders
- Coded blog content
- 20 personal video shares
- and more
Also, you need to make a personal purchase of at least $47.47 worth of CTFO products per month in order to remain active and keep qualifying for commissions. You can eliminate this monthly fee by having at least 10 personally recruited Preferred Customers or CTFO Associates.
If you haven’t made the qualifying purchase of at least $47.47 within the previous 31 days and you have less than 10 personally enrolled Preferred Customers and/or CTFO Associates you are considered an Inactive Associate.
As an Inactive Associate, your website and sales pages remain active and you can re-qualify at any time by simply placing a personal $47.47 order or getting Preferred Customers and/or CTFO Associates until you have a total of 10 or more.
Any Associate, whether Active or not, will keep receiving their 20% Unilevel Pay from any personally referred sales or recruits.
Is CTFO a Pyramid Scheme?
Most of the time it’s very hard to distinguish between a legit MLM company and a pyramid scheme.
The video below will help you understand how to spot and avoid pyramid schemes in general.
The main difference between an MLM and a pyramid scheme is that MLMs give you the opportunity to earn commissions by selling actual products or services to other people in retail without having to recruit them while with a pyramid scheme the only way to earn money is by recruiting other people into the scheme.
Not all MLMs are legitimate. If the money you make through an MLM is based on your sales to the public, it may be a legitimate one. If the money you make is based on the number of people you recruit and your sales to them, it’s not legit. It’s a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal, and the vast majority of their participants lose money. – Federal Trade Commission
Since CTFO offers you the option to earn commissions by selling its products to retail customers, technically it cannot be considered a pyramid scheme despite the fact that its compensation plan is mainly geared towards recruiting.
CTFO Pros
- Free Personalized Website & Sales Pages
- Free to Join
- Money-back Guarantee
- Provides Training
- Positive Customer Testimonials
1 • Free Personalized Website & Sales Pages
Once you join CTFO, you get your hands on a personalized website (sample here) as well as 5 more replicated sales pages that people can visit and purchase CTFO products online.
When someone who visits your personalized website/sales pages purchases one or more CTFO products through them, 20% of the total amount of money paid by that customer goes into your pocket.
In addition, if someone signs up as a CTFO Associate through your website/sales pages you become their sponsor and they become part of your downline.
If marketed the right way, this website could help you maximize your customers and your recruits, and subsequently your income.
If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business – Bill Gates
2 • Free to Join
I like the fact that CTFO is free to join.
If I hadn’t been given the opportunity to get my first online business up and running for free by Wealthy Affiliate 3 years ago, this very website would probably not exist and I probably wouldn’t be where I am today!
As a free CTFO member, you have access to everything you need to start earning money with the company such as
- Training
- Your dashboard
- Replicated website and sales pages
- Monitoring tools
- Marketing tools
- etc
However, as I mentioned earlier, be aware that in order to qualify for earning retail commissions you have to keep making a $47.47 monthly personal purchase. But, you can omit that monthly expense by maintaining 10 personally recruited Preferred Customers/CTFO Associates.
Also, you can participate in the 20% Uni-level Pay whether you have made your monthly purchase or not.
This means that if you play your cards right, you could basically slowly build your income from the ground up completely for free with CTFO.
3 • Money-back Guarantee
All CTFO’s products come with a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Products with money-back guarantees are much easier to sell than those who have none!
People just seem to feel more comfortable spending money on something for which they could get a refund anytime they want if they needed to.
In addition, research shows that money-back guarantees increase customers’ feelings of satisfaction with their purchase, making them more likely to make another purchase from the same seller.
And more sales = more money for you!
4 • Provides Training
Something that the majority of MLMs don’t offer to their newly recruited members is proper training on how to actually make the most with the company (no wonder that such a small percentage of MLM participants manage to make a profit).
Surprisingly, CTFO offers an abundance of training videos to help you understand how the company and its products work, its compensation plan, how to market your website and your products, how to use your personal dashboard, how to use social media and YouTube to increase conversions, etc.
The videos range fro 20 to 45 minutes each.
There is also an abundance of training videos on how to maximize your earnings with CTFO published on YouTube by other CTFO members.
5 • Positive Customer Testimonials
While conducting research about CTFO before putting this review together, I came across a ton of positive reviews and testimonials about its products.
People with back pain, migraines, chronic pain, stress and anxiety, sleep problems, hair loss problems all seem to experience some amazing results after using CTFO’s products.
This is a very good sign because when a company has such a good reputation its products will naturally be much easier to sell.
Plus, you can incorporate all those positive reviews and testimonials in your marketing attempts and dramatically increase your sales and recruitments.
Take a look below at some of those positive testimonials I am talking about.
You can locate a lot more positive testimonials on YouTube as well as on CTFO’s website.
CTFO Cons
- MLM Business Model
- Competitive Niche
- Extremely Complicated Compensation Plan
- Too Many Websites
1 • MLM Business Model
As mentioned earlier, I am not fond of the MLM business model in general for many reasons…
First of all, the success rates of MLM participants are awfully low (74% – 99%)
Secondly, I hate selling…
And thirdly, I’ve heard so many stories of people losing all their friends, family, and money due to the pushy and sleazy practices they were being taught by their “mentors” that I have become repulsed by the MLM business model in general.
Being involved in an MLM is just not worth the trouble in my mind…
Especially when there exist other much more legit ways of earning a lot more money with the exact or even less effort.
2 • Competitive Niche
The CBD industry is already overcrowded with companies. both MLM and normal, and since it’s expected to grow even more (50% per year) during the next few years, the competition will probably keep getting fiercer and fiercer.
Where money flows, competition grows.
Companies will keep releasing innovative products in order to get the upper hand over their competition, the variety of products will increase exponentially, and it will probably be hard for someone, especially those who have no previous experience in direct selling and marketing, to break into the market and find success.
Not impossible though.
3 • Extremely Complicated Compensation Plan
Regenerating matrixes, infinity bonuses, profit sharing, 1st, 2nd, and a million more levels, uni-level structure pay, percentages here and there, dozens of different ranks and qualification, pools, blah blah blah…
A person who is relatively new to MLMs doesn’t stand a single chance of really grasping CTFO’s compensation plan.
This is not a random occurrence though…
MLMs deliberately make their compensation plans so complicated in order to confuse people into joining them.
I am not making things up…
Did you know that according to research, complexity sells way better than simplicity?
This is actually called “complexity bias” and marketers use it all the time.
They do this by incorporating confusing language or insignificant details into product packaging or sales copy.
Most people who buy “ammonia-free” hair dye, or a face cream which “contains peptides,” don’t fully understand what those claims mean but they see them and imagine that they signify a product that’s superior to its alternatives.
People are way more likely to choose a complex product rather than a simple one based on the assumption that the simple one is way too simple to really work as expected and that the complicated one must work since they don’t understand it.
Sneaky right?
4 • Too Many Websites
While doing my research about CTFO, I came across 3 different websites of the company and on each one of them there were links here and there that were redirecting me to the other two.
This was extremely confusing for me and I have been around computers and the internet for more than 15 years now.
I can only imagine how confusing this must be for a normal customer who just wants to buy some products from the company.
Personally, if I wanted to buy something online and it the company’s website kept redirecting me from page to page and from website to website, I’d leave and never come back.
I hate confusing websites!
CTFO MLM Review Summary
Income
Potential
The income potential of the average MLM rep is low (less than $5000 per year).
Resources
Provides training, tools, website, sales pages, marketing materials, automail service, and more.
Price
Free to join. $19.95 Premium Plus membership. $47.47 per month to remain active (can be omited by recruiting).
Legitimacy
CTFO is not a pyramid scheme but it’s compensation plan closely resembles one as it focuses on recruiting.
Overall Rating
Is CTFO Suggested?
CTFO is not suggested for many reasons but mostly because its compensation plan is geared towards recruiting other people as Associates and not on retail sales, something that makes the whole company resemble a pyramid scheme.
If you are interested in building an income by selling CBD products with an MLM company, then you might want to check out CBD BioCare.
On the other hand, to tell you the truth, I am not at all fond of the MLM business model in general…
- The success rate of MLM representatives is awfully low
- They are way too volatile and unstable
- You need to invest a ton of money, time, and energy until you manage to make a profit (if you ever actually make a profit)
- And most of them focus on recruiting people instead of actually providing an actual valuable and beneficial product/service
Plus, in order to make money with the MLM business model, you’ll have to turn into a sleazy salesperson and I really hate selling as much as I hate being sold to.
12 Responses
It is true that the CBD niche is very competitive and making a good income with MLM businesses is always close to impossibilities but then, CTFO seems to be a little different because I have heard quite a lot of good reviews on it from people.
Even two of my friends have joined them and though they are yet to build a big team and good profits, they speak highly of the platform. Though it surely is an MLM business and that is a factor for me but then, the platform is giving me benefits of doubts.
Well, it’s not that everyone automatically fails after joining an MLM. And the CBD industry being competitive doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to make good money in it…
On the other hand, consider that MLMs just have a “special way” towards making people extremely excited in the beginning by promising all those perks and bonuses, and being part of a family, etc but once the honeymoon phase is over your friends might start realizing that everything is not as perfect as they thought…
Or maybe your friends are praising CTFO because they have made a bet on who will manage to recruit you first 😉
If you happen to come by again in a couple of months, I would love to hear about your friends’ progress with CTFO!
Thanks a lot!
Harry
Thank you for your informative review of the Change The Future Outcome. You give an honest look at the CTFO business.
I particularly like your Pros and Cons analyses, which make it clear to me that it is not the business I would like to pursue. I like a simple and transparent business model. I don’t know why CTFO has a so complicated compensation plan and so many websites.
Yes CBD is a competitive business. There are so many alternatives. Recently, I investigated a lot of MLM companies and find some interesting ones. If you like, you could contact me and I will give you their names.
It is kind of you sharing this useful information with us.
I am glad that you found my review helpful, Anthony!
As I mentioned in my review, MLMs probably make their compensation plans so complicated because the average person is more likely to invest in something complex than in something simple.
That’s why they have so many ranks, bonuses, qualifications, pools, etc…
Personally, I prefer simplicity…
As Einstein said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex but it takes a touch of genius to make them simpler”.
I’ll definitely contact you to find more about those interesting MLM companies you are talking about!
Harry
I’ve read some reviews on MLM companies and they all seem to have the same features and almost the same problems.
The main problem is that the chances of making a profit when dealing with MLM companies seem to be very slim.
CTFO distributes nice products but its main source of generating income is not selling those products but rather by getting more people to join as Associates.
This kind of business is not what I am looking for.
What kind of business are you looking for?
Have you checked my counter-suggestions, Wealthy Affiliate and Project 24? They have nothing to do with MLM or recruiting.
Maybe you’ll find what you are looking for in one of them.
Harry
I’ve been into online businesses for a while and during this period, I made up my mind not to deal with MLM companies as I’ve been in contact with 2 to 3 of them and I can say they aren’t profitable.
What I hate about companies like CTFO is the fact that it’s always hard to make profits as members and even if you’re going to make a little, it’s going to be by referrals which I consider to be stressful as not everyone will want to join this kind of business.
I’ll just like to say that it’s better we realize that the legality of a company does not determine it’s credibility.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Jay!
It’s true that an MLM not being a pyramid scheme doesn’t automatically mean that it will help you achieve your financial goals…
There have to be more things in place such as good training, good leadership, high-quality products, tools and marketing materials, etc.
Harry
Now, this is like another view entirely from what I have read on CTFO until now.
Since the legalization of marijuana, a lot of companies have been born in the CBD industry and CTFO seemed to stand out.
However, seeing what you have unveiled here that it is more like a pyramid scheme rather than an actual MLM is really shocking.
Well! I got my fingers crossed on CTFO for now.
Beware of the pyramid 😉
Harry
I know a person that suggested CTFO to me some time ago telling me that it is legit and I can make so much money with it.
Me already knowing all about MLM schemes didn’t give it a thought at all. There is so much research that shows that MLM is not lucrative to everyone.
Thank you for giving me a better option to earn money online at the end of this post.
Yeah, usually MLM recruiters will tell you everything to get you to join their MLM and become part of their downline because for most of them this is how they make money.
They will tell you things such as:
“I’ve got this amazing money-making opportunity” or “I am earning thousands of dollars per month for 2 hours of daily work” etc, etc…
Let me know if you have any questions about my suggested MMO platforms.
Harry