Quixtar Tools Business

Mlive.com:

But within the sales ranks, there is another, more controversial product being bought and sold not to customers but to fellow distributors: Motivational CDs, books, tapes and seminars.

Commonly called “tools” in the Quixtar world, most of these items are created by IBOs at the highest levels. They are designed to keep people selling and to recruit others into the business.

Critics claim the “kingpin” distributors make more money off the tapes, meetings and books than selling Quixtar products. They also complain that lower-level salespeople fork over a lot of hard-earned money for the materials.

Profits from those materials are at the core of a lawsuit in Missouri that has ensnared Quixtar and several large distributors.

Keeping the sales force motivated is big business among the distributors of Quixtar, the Web-based, direct-sales organization that morphed from the Amway business in North America six year ago.

At the heart of this controversy is this behind-the-scenes business within a business that operates mostly outside of Quixtar.