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My posts about XL Results Foundation Life Membership have sparked some debate here recently. Things really hotted up after a recent comment from a woman who was about to join XL after attending Roger Hamilton’s Business Breakfast Presentation in Melbourne. On returning home she decided to do some research on Roger Hamilton and his XL Results Foundation. When the search results served up my blog post, she was alarmed and left a long comment explaining her concerns about the sum - $12,000 - that she had almost paid over. Since that comment there have been contributions from other former XL members and those who had almost joined, expressing scepticism over the value of the offer. Some of these members asked me not to pub lish their comments as they were nervous of going public, and I have used their material as sources for this article. These comments brought several long and involved comments from the XL Results Regional Manager in Melbourne, Jeanette Jifkins, who was clearly very upset that others were not enthralled with her company. There have been other contributions from Paul Dunn, whose Ecademy profile says he ‘runs XL in Australia and he’ll soon be taking XL to America’, in staunch defence of XL’s charitable achievements.

Let me make it quite clear why I have written reports about this business opportunity. The offer to the potential member is membership of a network of entrepreneurs, and extensive training opportunities, whose quality is not independently verified or accredited. New prospects do not get a chance to study the contract terms before signing up, they are swept up in the moment by a persuasive presentation. They are often left to reflect on the implications of this decision only after they have parted with a substantial sum in hard cash. Paul Dunn has asserted in one of his comments that there is a cooling off period for new recruits. I would like to see evidence of that.

I do not view XL as a classic pyramid scheme, but I think others are labelling it that way because they do not see the Life Membership package offering a value to justify its high price - why is there not an annual membership option? This company has been in existence for less than a decade, it is privately owned so what guarantee do members get on the prospects of it existing in another ten years? If I decide to join any Chamber of Commerce or similar organisation in Britain there is a set annual membership fee, and at the end of a year’s membership I decide to renew if the organisation has given me value for money.

When I attended the XL Results presentation the big selling point was the scope for getting freelance work from other life members. Most freelance consultants spend their lives chasing more contracts, and I heard a lot of sad stories at the last Ecademy members’ event. So if a carrot is dangled in front of a hungry consultant, they are very likely to go for it. None of us know if our next contract will be our last and a carefully designed pitch can prey on those anxieties, making us think that life membership of XL Results Foundation is a possible answer to our problems. But of course there is no guarantee of any work and none of the comments in support of XL have given any proof of income generated through membership of the foundation. Charitable work is all well and good but this is meant to be a business networking organisation. The proof of a business organisation should be just that - real, tangible business results for its members.

The XL organisation business model seems weighted towards getting money from new members, instead of improving the value of the membership package. If the company wants transparency (as they have requested from me) then I would like to see them publish full detailed accounts of its revenue sources. They should also be able to show independently verified examples of members who have obtained worthwhile contracts and expanded their business as a direct result of their membership of the foundation.

Yesterday we received an alert from Natalia that Roger Hamilton has begun selling the infamous XL Results Foundation Life Memberships in Melbourne Australia at breakfast meetings around the city. Roger Hamilton is charging A$15,500 and those attending were told that membership are ’strictly limited’. Well, those limited spots are on sale in major cities every day of the week, so I think the only thing in short supply is the number of people willing to pay up.

If you signed up and realised your mistake after leaving the meeting, you are not alone. The presentation is designed to lead you to pay up on the promise that you will be entering an ethical organisation. You will be told that members refer valuable business among themselves, and everybody can be trusted. Sounds great? In fact, one of the guests in Melbourne was David Schirmer, a scammer of monumental proportions - he is a target of investigation by the Australian Securities Investment Commission (ASIC). He is also currently being taken to court by investors who were duped into investing in his Life Success Pacific Rim company with the promise of returns as high as 500 per cent. The investors lost everything while Schirmer continues to live in the lap of luxury. If  a character like David Schirmer is associated with the ‘Circle of Trust’, hold on to your wallet - very tightly!  You can see a video investigation of David Schirmer at Get Rich Slowly - a site full of sound advise and exposes of major scams.

If you are a disgruntled member of the XL Results Foundation, please leave a comment here or if you would like to make contact with others who have been scammed - in confidence - you can email your details to me: flora@brilliant4biz.com.

There have been quite a few comments on the earlier articles I wrote about my experiences with Roger Hamilton and his XL Results Foundation, which claims to be dedicated to World Wide Wealth. Only one person made a really positive comment in support of joining the foundation. According to its website, XL Results foundation uses collective power to create and contribute wealth through Social Enterprise. XL Results Foundation claims to be a global entrepreneur network whose entrepreneur members share the tools and knowledge to greater profit and greater contribution. When I attended the business breakfast I saw nothing at the time to prove that Roger Hamilton is in a scam organisation. He is a persuasive speaker and by the end I wanted to find out more about this organisation that promised me the chance to network with thousands of other like minded entrepreneurs helping each other generate wealth. Read more »

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I reported on the Roger Hamilton seminar that I attended last week, and at the end I was in two minds over whether life membership of the XL Results Foundation is a scam or a legitimate business network. Hundreds of readers have visited the article that i wrote but I am still looking for clear evidence for either side of the argument. One are I was concerned about was how easily life membership of XL foundation can be transferred if a member decides it is not offering good value for money. The paperwork issued by Roger Hamilton states that membership can only be transferred after one year, however I have found a website that deals in reselling the life memberships in XL Results It appears to be authorised by the proprietors of XL Results Foundation. The good news, for anyone considering joining, is that the resale prices are much lower than the figure of $12,000 that was being charged at last week’s seminar. The agent is called eXchange at a website called lmex.net, a business operated by Qualvin Advisory Pte Ltd (Qualvin). The website is called Life member Exchange and there are currently four life memberships for sale, at prices ranging from $5400 to $6000. If I can get some solid evidence as to the value of a life membership in XL Results, I intend to buy my membership from the resale market. I will save up to $6000- that is half the quoted price!

UPDATE 5 June 2008:

After a lot of recent comments on my other posts regarding Roger Hamilton’s much-criticised Results Foundation I checked out the resale market for Life Memberships again this week.  The same offers that I saw in January are still available at the Lmex website - none appear to have been sold.  Nothing that I have discovered since attending the XL Business Breakfast has shown any value in signing up for a Life Membership.  I feel sympathy for anyone who was swept up with enthusiasm following the powerful presentation and is now trying to sell a worthless life membership …..

I have attended a couple of interesting entrepreneur seminars in London recently, this week I was invited to a complimentary breakfast event in London with Roger Hamilton. The seminar promised to focus on ways to connect with people, ideas and opportunities all over the world through an organisation called XL. Roger would discuss how to improve the quality of your connections and your business network to make money. The talk would also cover “four critical factors that all great entrepreneurs focus on harnessing grow and manage their businesses - four things that could bring more wealth, certainty and ability to make a difference than virtually anything else you could learn on business elsewhere.”

I booked my place and turned up on time, and listened to the hour long presentation with my fellow guests who all seemed fairly bright and positive. The speech was interesting and described a lot of the business ideas that members of XL foundation had been able to use to help them make money ethically using connections through the foundation.

So far, so good. There was plenty of positive stuff about getting the right mindset to create and seize business opportunities, plus an insight into the eight categories of entrepreneur identified through his Wealth Dynamics test. At the end of the formal presentation it became clear why we were here: stakeholding is, according to Roger Hamilton, one of the four factors mentioned above. He offered us the chance to stay behind and hear how we could have a stakeholding in the XL Results Foundation and get the benefits that go with life membership of the group.

I stayed behind to find out more, along with around thirty others. We all received a life subscription form, showing a cost of US$15000 for life membership. Roger then proceeded to sell the idea well: there is a limit on the number of memberships released this year, we would get free entry to other seminars and training, access to network with all the foundation members. Sounds impressive, but would any business coach advise you to sign up so much money without doing proper due diligence? I gave my excuses and left.

When I got home, I did some thinking and some research. First let me say I think the Foundation has some good things to offer, but a financial commitment of life membership to a private company that has only existed for five years does not appear to be a sound investment. There was no cooling-off period, and I found conflicting evidence on the possibilities of transferring your membership if the scheme was not right for you.

If the presentation comes to London again I will take another look, but for the moment I will stay with my existing business networks - Linkedin and ecademy. They are both free and have worked well for me so far.

If you have any experience of XL Results Foundation, please leave a comment.