CTFO Business Review – Is It Worth Joining?

If you are interested to monetize from the CBD niche, Changing The Future Outcome is probably a name you’ve been hearing about lately. The company is creating a buzz online not only with their products but also the opportunity to generate a lucrative income stream. What are the actual potentials and possible setbacks are we looking at? In this CTFO business review, we shall expose everything you need to know before joining.

What Is CTFO?

CTFO is a distributor that markets CBD products in the United States. The founders, Steve and Stuart Finger actually started the business selling weight loss product under the name Chew The Fat Off (same acronym) years ago before getting involved in the CBD wellness starting in 2018.

Their products and product packages are priced between $30 to $1270, ranging from human to pet consumption, under the following categories.

• CBD Full Spectrum Oil Drops
• CBD Isolate Oil Drops
• CBD Vape
• CBD Topical Cream or Rub
• Hemp Anti-Aging Serum and Cream
• Hemp Message Oil
• Facial Mask
• Wrinkle Remover
• Eye and Body Moisturizing Cream
• Facial Toner and Cleanser
• Gummies
• Wellness Capsules
• Oral Spray
• Pet Treats and Oral Drops
• Pet Shampoo

The Business Opportunity

Despite the general controversy, science has revealed a tremendous amount of health benefits from the use of CBD. This isn’t marijuana that makes you go high. Instead, it is a natural property derived from a multiple-purpose plant that has been around for centuries.

These discoveries have lead to huge market demand in recent years and the push to legalize the substance for medicinal purposes in all of the US. With the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp-derived CBD is now legal in all 50 states and businesses are already seeing positive sales as a result. In most cases, consumers can even buy them online without the need for prescriptions.

And that’s where the CTFO business opportunity comes in.

Promoting CTFO as an Associate

Starting a CBD business from scratch can take a long time to materialize. You need to find a good farming source and get it patented before launching any products. By becoming a CTFO member however, you can jump straight into marketing without involving with management planning.

That means, you just need to refer customers to the company and earn sales commissions through these 4 methods.

(1) Retail Profit – If someone buys through you as a retail customer, you’ll earn from the difference between retail and wholesale prices. Say, if a wholesale price for a bottle of 500mg CBD oil is $59.97 and the customer chooses to buy at the retail price of $80.97, you’ll pocket $21 from the sale.

(2) Univel Commission – If someone buys through you AND also sign up as a member, you’ll make 20% in commissions. If that member signs up another person who makes a purchase, you’ll make 4% from that and this will go on for about 4 levels deep.

(3) Regenerating Matrix Pay – The profit sharing system puts you in a strategic position within a matrix that allows for indirect recurring income when downlines – up to 21 levels deep – generate sales. Level 1 to 5 gives 1%, Level 6 to 7 gives 10% and Level 8 to 21 gives 1%.

(4) Infinity Bonuses – After achieving a certain sales volume, rankings will be promoted and you will be qualified for bonuses (ranging from 1.5% to 5%) of the total team sales.

This compensation plan is designed in such a way to generate short term profit (Method 1 and 2) as well as long term passive income (Method 3 and 4). You could probably tell what we are getting into here, but let’s not jump into a conclusion just yet. There is still positive stuff worth mentioning about the company so let’s see what they are.

The Advantages of Marketing CTFO

(1) Product quality is everything when it comes to selling premium CBD products and CTFO seems to meet most of the standard requirements such as Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Organically Grown and the No THC validation. They also backed their products with 3rd party lab results (that are available for public viewing) and 60-day money back guarantees to prove the claims are true.

(2) Becoming an associate is totally free. You don’t need to purchase any type of starter kits nor required to make a minimum purchase to qualify for earnings. Even though you may not be interested in the business side of things, you will still save a lot by purchasing at discounted prices. In other words, it’s absolutely zero-risk in becoming a member.

(3) The associate program gives you access to a personal dashboard where all the information about the company, products, and opportunities can be found in the form of video tutorials. It also comes with some free website templates (attached with your username), social links and banner ads to be used for online promotion.

(4) When it comes to commissions, CTFO isn’t the only one that is paying big. Other companies are also offering their affiliates between 15% to 25% for direct sales and CTFO falls within this range. Imagine earning a $10 profit for recommending a CBD oil that costs $50 – that’s a lot when compared to most wellness products.

The Disadvantages of Marketing CTFO

I salute the company for taking advantage of the online market. After all, that’s where all the shopping activity is happening nowadays, but there are a few setbacks that need to be addressed.

(1) First of all, the training doesn’t really teach the strategic methods of marketing products online. The ready-made websites are just simple webpages that have generic content and subdomains. Chances are, everyone will be using more or less the same templates so there’s a lack of personal approach when presenting the benefits of CTFO.

Such sites will never rank on the search engines and as a result, people who Googled about CBD products or want to make money with CBD, will never find your page either. To make the most out of search queries and targeting a wider audience size, you need to have a website that is constantly fresh with content and engaging.

A few smart members seemed to have realized this because when I searched for “buy CTFO online”, the first few results are actually associate’s sites that were NOT from the free webpage. They were published using platforms such as GoDaddy website builder, Google website builder, and the all-in-one WordPress.com.

These aren’t really the best because there are limitations to how much you could scale in terms of online traffic, but they are still better than the free ones. Interestingly, some of these sites even surpass the official CTFO website which can be found on the 4th place of the first page.  

If you really want to rank for any type of keywords, the best platform to use is a self-hosted WordPress blog because it gives you more control over the content and when done right, can attract massive free traffic from the search engines. That way, you don’t have to rely on paid traffic all the time.

(2) As it turns out, the free membership is also a disadvantage to the business operation because it encourages people who aren’t real buyers to sign up OR worse, abuse the system for the purpose of recruiting members rather than actually promoting the product itself.

I can totally see someone using their links to spam others (which is happening already) and trying to rope in as many members as possible just for the profit. And that brings me to the next obvious point.

(3) When I talked about the money making process earlier, did you get the impression that the compensation plan behaves like an MLM structure? Well, you are absolutely right and that’s because the founders are actually network marketers by experience. When their previous ventures discontinued, they turned to CTFO as their new brand moving forward, hence the replication of the same business model and some say, the same sales pitch.

The deep tiered commissions and confusing matrix system used to calculate profits should raise some alarm bells to the way they advocate their business. It is exactly what triggers some members to chase after aggressive recruiting instead of marketing the product genuinely to end-users. This can give a very twisted impression to the CBD market and it’s probably one of the reasons why some people avoid buying from and joining the company altogether.  

(4) At the point of writing this review, there are already many companies selling CBD products online at very competitive prices. They too have affiliate programs plus, nicer online stores where you can read actual customer reviews on specific products, something that CTFO seems to lack on their site. Due to the bad rap of MLM companies, people who don’t want to be part of such an organization are likely to buy from more transparent and customer-friendly outlets instead.  

So, Should You Join CTFO?

A friend used to tell me, a good product needs a good marketing plan. If CTFO truly has good stuff to offer to the consumer markets, I think using the MLM model can backfire on their efforts. It may not be obvious now, but after several years competing with more innovative and creative brands online, the decline will start to show because controversy will inevitably surface.

So despite the free membership, I have my reservation towards this business opportunity. CBD as a niche has great potential, but when you marry referral marketing with MLM, it can be misleading and hamper your efforts as a whole.

If you are still interested in making money with CBD or any other niche for that matter, I highly recommend looking into the affiliate marketing route instead. Prioritize the consumer’s needs and concerns and help them build a rewarding and long-lasting relationship with a brand that is trustworthy. Keep it simple and people will appreciate you for that.

I do hope this review has been informative. For more tips on how to start an affiliate business, please check out my favorite training platform here.