What is Touchstone Essentials? Is It a Scam?

Touchstone Essentials (also known as The Good Inside) looks like a typical multi-level marketing scheme in the health supplement industry. But what if it really works? Is Touchstone Essentials the right opportunity for you?

Continue reading to find out. 

What is Touchstone Essentials? 

Founded in 2012, Touchstone Essentials is a multi-level marketing company that markets a wide range of supplements, ranging from nutrition supplements to detox products. We'll talk about the best sellers later on in this review. 

Touchstone Essentials seems to have a good reputation online. There aren't many negative reviews and complaints about this company, which is interesting to say the least. 

Either way, in this Touchstone Essentials review we're going to examine the company together, and figure out of it's the right choice for you. We'll discuss the company's history, the products, the requirements to join, and the income opportunity. 

So if you want to know exactly what is Touchstone Essentials, this review is for you. When you're done reading this review hopefully you'll have enough information to make the right decision. 

Just a quick disclaimer: 

We don't promote Touchstone Essentials. In fact, we rarely recommend MLM companies because hardly anyone makes money with them. The income disclaimers are proof enough. What we recommend is not only simpler but also has more income potential. 

Quick History: 

Let's run through Touchstone Essential's history real quick. Who founded Touchstone Essentials and is he legitimate? Has he founded similar companies in the past and can he be trusted? Let's take a look. 

CEO: Norwood Eddie Stone

Touchstone Essentials was founded in 2012 by Norwood "Eddie" Stone. Not much information can be found about this person online, but I did find one interesting fact. 

Norwood seems to have been involved in the MLM industry for quite sometime, working with Unicity International, Rexall International, and Nu Skin (Read our Nu Skin Review here). 

He also founded a similar company called Waiora. While researching Waiora, several class action lawsuits can be found. One of which charges Waiora with a class action lawsuit for consumer fraud. Allegedly, the products contain nothing more than water. In fact, an independent lab tested Waiora products and discovered they only contain 10% of the promised ingredients.  

To be specific, one of the Waiora supplements was supposed to include 2,400 milligrams of zeolite. In reality, the tests revealed it only contained 150 milligrams which is no-where near the advertised amount. False ingredient labels. 

But as far as Touchstone Essentials goes, it hasn't been involved in any major lawsuits to date. It looks like the company does try their best to create high quality products, sourced from natural organic ingredients. As far as lawsuits and shady histories go, Touchstone Essentials is relatively clean.

What about the compensation plan? Can you really make money with it? 

Find out below. 

Touchstone Essential Products: 

Let's take a quick look at some of the Touchstone Essential products. These are what you'll be promoting if you choose to become a distributor, so it's important to familiarize yourself with them. 

The Best Sellers: 

• Pure Body Extra Strength - $79.95
• Transform Pack - $179
• Pure Body -$38.95
• Super Green Juice - $79.95

If you choose the auto-ship option, a discount is added. These are all one-time payments. From the looks of it, the products themselves don't look bad, a bit expensive, but overall the quality seems legitimate.

Couple things you should know:

Touchstone Essential products are supposed to be 100% natural, GMO-Free, Vegetarian, and healthy for long-term use.

The products all contain a mineral called Zeolite, which is supposed to help clear toxins from your skin and system. Zeolite is a category of minerals, and there are over 200 different types of Zeolites. 

Companies that promote Zeolite claims to is the best mineral for removing heavy metals from the body, some even claim it cures autism. Though these claims don't sound too outrageous, it doesn't look like there is much supporting science. 

Another point to keep in mind:

There are many different companies that produce products with Zeolite, and most of them are much cheaper than Touchstone Essential. 

Nevertheless, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly bad about these products. So it's worth a look. 

Entry Requirements: 

Most MLM opportunities require an enrollment fee and a single-package purchase to participate in the compensation plan. Let's take a look at the Touchstone Essentials requirements. 

Touch Stone Essentials recommends buying a kit, but there is an option to skip this step and choose an annual membership without a kit-purchase. This is called a VBO Pass, and it costs $19.95 for one year. 

The VBO pass is not included in most of the packages, so be aware they will add it to your bill. Take a look below. 

Notice the packs on the left and right do not include the VBO Pass. To waive the pass you need to purchase the middle package, Advantage, which costs $659 in total. But each pack will qualify you as Active.

Want to sell products online without buying kits or products? This post will show you how to sell anything online without that risk.

Monthly Requirements: 

But there are some other requirements too. For instance, in order to remain active you need to order 100 CV worth of products. 

The CV value varies depending on the product and the price, but usually it comes to around 100 CV for $100 worth of products. There is a label next to the price that indicates how much CV will be added to your account. 

As far as entry level requirements are concerned, Touchstone Essentials are quite low. Not nearly expensive as some other MLM packages which is great. Members are also encouraged to sign-up to the Auto Ship service, that sends the same package to your door every month. 

To summarize, here are the prices: 

• Annual VBO $19.95 Fee. 
• Monthly Required CV 100 ($100-120)

Interestingly, there are a different ways you can collaborate with Touchstone Essentials: Affiliate, Visionary Business Owner, and Influencer.

You can become an affiliate for free, but this will only entitle you to a few of the payment opportunities (retail and weekly bonuses). The Visionary Business Owner is what we talked about earlier, and there are more cash bonuses and rewards.

Influencers are people with a large audience on social media or another platform.  Touchstone Essentials partners with these people for brand exposure, offering free samples in exchange for some promos. 

I do like how there are several ways to collaborate with the company, instead of the usual sign-up-as-a-independent-distributor scheme. 

Making Money With Touchstone Essentials:

Now that you know the requirements to join, let's talk about the real meat of the opportunity; the compensation plan.

Some ways to earn with the company: 

• Retail Bonus
• Referral Bonus
• Double Builder Bonus
• Triple Builder Bonus
• Residual Rewards
• Matching Check Bonus
• Rank Advancement Bonus
• Infinity bonus

Let's run through them real quick. 

Retail Bonus:

The standard income opportunity; buy wholesale and sell at retail, and pocket the profit. Affiliates can make money with this method. In fact, it's one of the only opportunities that are available for the "Affiliates". 

Referral Bonus:

Also standard. Members earn by referring new people to the program. You'll also earn a bonus depending on how much Personal Volume they generate, ranging from 5 to 20% cash bonus. 

Double Builder Bonus:

The way the builder bonuses work is you earn a small commission on every sale made under you. It counts towards residual income. 

Earn Double Builder bonus by referring at least two new people in one month's time. You can now earn commissions from every sale those two people make. Similarly, the Triple Builder Bonus is the same, but with three people under you.

As you can imagine, this is what most people focus on because it has the potential to bring in the most cash. That is assuming everyone under you meets the minimum requirements to remain active, of course (easier said than done). 

Touchstone Essentials Residual Rewards: 

Similar to what we mentioned earlier; you earn commissions on every re-order from people under you, up to nine levels deep. The deeper the levels, the lower the commission rate. 

For example: 

• Levels 1 to 7 = 5% 
• Level 8 - 3%
• Level 9 - 2%

So can earn some easy commissions just from your recruit's sales. The idea is to sit back and let your referrals bring in all the cash. Once again, easier said than done. 

Matching Check Bonuses: 

Up to five levels deep you have the chance to earn a 10% payout on personally enrolled members. For example, if someone under you earns $1000 you will earn $100 and so on. There's no limit to how much you can earn from a matching check bonus. This encourages you to motivate your team to earn more. 

Rank Advancement:

Earn a bonus whenever you reach a new rank in the program.

• Reach Director, Earn $600
• National Manager, Earn $300
• Reach Regional Manager, Earn $150

(Ranks discussed in more detail in the next section)

It's a nice way of encouraging people to work more towards rank advancement.  

Infinity Bonus:

This is similar to the "Global Pool" payment option in other MLM companies. You can earn up to 1% on all cash bonuses. But this is only available at Ambassador level. 

Speaking of ranks...

Touchstone Essentials Member Ranks:

The company has over 12 ranks. As you can imagine, each rank comes with benefits like higher bonuses and commission rates, but also more requirements.

Let's run through them real quick:

1. Affiliate (First Rank, Start Here)
2. Active Member
3. Manager (Regional, National, etc) 
4. Director (Regional and National)
5. Executive (same as above)
6. Ambassador
7. Presidential Ambassador (Highest Rank)

As you can imagine, most of the member are in the first few ranks, hardly anyone is an ambassador or Presidential Ambassador. 

Interestingly enough, in the Touchstone Policies, one of the rules (3.17) is members cannot share their income reports with anyone or make income claims. 

Here's the direct quote:

"At Touchstone, we firmly believe that the Touchstone income potential is great enough to be highly attractive, without reporting the earnings of others."

Though this sounds a little suspicious, it actually makes sense. The rule is there so people don't makeup crazy income reports to lure people into the system, like so many MLM marketers do at the moment. 

On the other hand, if you're trying to find some legitimate information on how much money, on average, Touchstone Essential members earn, than you'll be disappointed.

That information is hard to come by, since the company does not have an official income disclosure statement, and it's against the company's terms and conditions for members to share their income reports. 

Rank Requirements: 

As is the norm, each rank in the opportunity has certain requirements that must be met in order to maintain the rank. We already mentioned some of the requirements earlier in this review, but we'll go over some of the other ranks in this section. 

(PV = Personal Volume, based on the monthly requirements)

• Manager - 50 PV
• Regional Manager to Regional Director - 100 PV
• Regional Director to Ambassador - 100 PV. 

As far as Personal Volume goes, the requirements stay relatively the same for each rank in the compensation plan.

But there are other requirements too, such as Active Personal Enrolled (People in your team) starting at a minimum of 3 up to 10. Keep in mind, these people under you need to remain active so you advance in the ranks.

This is quite a challenge because if people don't see results, they'll drop out, and that means you'll have one less active person in your down line. The most difficult part of these compensation plans is actually keeping people active. It's not easy!

Now let's move on to the list of pros and cons. 

Touchstone Essentials Pros: 

While examining the company, there are a few things we liked, listed below. 

1. Cheap Membership:

The $19.95 VBO pass is rather cheap, as far as MLM companies are concerned. But this does not "Activate" your account. To activate your account and earn commissions you need to either buy a pack or purchase 500 CV worth of products. 

2. Cheap-ish Packages:

If you looked at the image of the packages at the beginning of this review you'll see most of them are affordable. The middle one is on the expensive side, $659, but the others are around the $100 mark. Not too bad. 

3. Extensive Promotion Rules:

One thing I liked about this opportunity is they list a whole bunch of rules so you can promote the company without feeling like taking a shower afterwards. The rules state members are not allowed to make income or health-related promises, which is good.

But it also forbids members from sharing their income reports, making it difficult to find actual income figures. 

4. Three Ways to Collaborate:

I thought it was interesting how there are three ways to collaborate with the company; affiliate, VBO, or influencer.

So if you want to promote the products without joining the whole compensation plan and recruiting others, the affiliate option is available. I thought this was a nice way to cater to marketers who don't like recruitment-based programs. 

Now let's move to the cons. 

Touchstone Essentials Cons:

This is what we don't like: 

1. Monthly Sales Requirements:

To remain active, you need to meet certain sales requirements. Not only do you have to spend over $120 to activate your account to earn commissions, but you also need to meet monthly sales requirements too. So even if you make a sale or two, that won't be profit. 

If you're tired of minimum requirements and want to focus on building a consistent source of internet marketing leads, check out this post to learn how to build daily traffic to your website or any online product. 

2. Keep People Under You "Active":

As mentioned earlier, if you want to advance in rank and earn more bonuses you have to have a certain amount of active members under you. That means convincing your friends or family members to spend over $100 a month, at a minimum. Not many people have cash for that. 

3. No Income Reports:

There are no income reports from people who have tried the plan. No income disclosure statements either, so it's practically impossible to figure out how much money people are earning inside the company. It would be nice to get some figures or examples. Everything on the site is theoretical at this point. 

Is Touchstone Essentials a Scam? 

Wrapping up this review, what do we think about this opportunity? Is Touchstone Essentials a scam? You probably already know the answer, based on the what we talked about in this review.

Our answer is this; Touchstone Essentials is not a scam. They do offer decent (expensive) products and their compensation plan is not as complicated as other MLMs out there. 

Though it's one of the better MLMs, we don't recommend it because you have to spend a lot of money every month just to remain active. You have to buy the products to promote them. It's not really worth it. 

Read this post to help you avoid online scams.

A Much Better Alternative: 

Instead, why not consider a business model that does not require hundreds of dollars every month? One where you can actually earn quite a lot, while spending very little. No need to bother your friends and family members, either. 

The method I recommend is creating a website and using it to promote products as an affiliate. Very simple. No complicated compensation schemes or monthly sales requirements. Hit the link below to learn more. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this what is Touchstone Essentials review. If you have any questions leave them in the comment section below. Thanks.