Could eating seeds be the next big thing?
That’s the bet that Rain International has made. It’s a multilevel marketing company that’s obsessed with the health benefits of exotic plant seeds.
Rain is a new company exploring a new space in health and wellness, but it’s got many of the hallmarks of a classic MLM.
So did I get on board? This explains everything:
It was founded in 2009, but it’s still very much a new and hot product. Analyzing search data for the company is tricky: you can’t just search for Rain and expect to see anything useful come up!
But search data for “Rain International” and “Rain Core” (one of their flagship products) are revealing. The company is on the march, and its search volume is tracking upwards. But it still hasn’t hit it big. Will it?
Based on their web design and product marketing, Rain International is targeting young, active people who want to live a healthy lifestyle. Their promotional literature shows rock climbers, surfers, and athletes chowing down on their seed food supplements. One of the core rules in any business is to know your market, so take note.
Products
Currently, Rain International only offers a handful of products. These are Core, Form, Soul, Fused and Revri.
You’ve got to cut through a lot of marketing lingo to figure out what Core actually is (yes, I know it’s a market-defining trend-setter, but what’s in it?) but essentially it’s a seed and herbal extract blend that comes in single-serving packets.
The seeds include black cumin, milk thistle, and cranberry. Some highlights of the numerous herbal extracts are kale powder, chlorella powder, spirulina powder, and wheat grass powder.
The health benefits of the seed ingredients are pretty obscure (they just haven’t been researched much yet) but there does seem to be some benefit to “green nutritional powder” supplements, which are comprised of the kind of green vegetable extracts found in Core.
A 1991 scientific article by Robert Kay and Larry Barton discusses these benefits, which extend to their anti-oxidant, anti-inflammation, and immunity-boosting effects.
Soul takes a similar tack, though the ingredients are a little different. This blend focuses more on the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of the cold pressed seeds themselves.
Soul contains black cumin seed, black raspberry seed, chardonnay grape seed, D-Ribose, and resveratrol, the popular antioxidant found in red wine.
Some scientific research highlights black cumin seed oil as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent and a pain reliever. A 2004 study published in the journal Phytotherapy Research subjected lab rats to black cumin seed oil under a variety of conditions.
They found that the oil relieved pain and also reduced inflammation. Given Rain International’s focus on athletes, this could be a key selling proposition.
The other seeds seem to have similar properties. Another study, this time published in the journal Food Chemistry in 2007, found that both chardonnay grape seed oil and black raspberry seed oil have protective effects on lipids, which could make them helpful for heart health.
These findings are preliminary, of course, and haven’t been tested in humans yet, so Rain International is probably going beyond what the science testifies to, but it’s still a promising new direction for a health supplement company.
The other three products that Rain International offers are more standard MLM products. Form is a protein powder that uses seed sources for much of its protein content, and the company predictably claims this is superior to something like whey protein.
It also offers Fused, a coffee that’s infused with (you guessed it) seed oils from their cold press process. In this sense it’s somewhat reminiscent of Bulletproof Coffee, though perhaps with the health benefits of the seed oil.
Revri is a bit of a groaner too: it’s a skin care supplement infused with seed oil extracts. There must be an unwritten MLM law somewhere that every superfood must also be used in a cosmetic product, right?
Compensation plan
So, the products are new and innovative, and the company looks lean, mean, and new on the scene. But what about the money making opportunity?
For starters, joining up is spendy. The absolute cheapest way to become a member is with a $70 basic startup kit plus a $40 internet service fee (which sets you up with a web store), so you’re looking at $110 for starting out.
Staying active (i.e. being eligible to earn money) is pretty standard. You need to move 50 product volume per month, either through personal purchase, customer sales, or some combination of the two. The good news is that there is no distinction between personal and business volume, so you are not required to auto-ship. They do recommend it, of course.
Rain International says it uses a “triple business center” model but this is really just a fancy way of saying “binary compensation plan.” Because one of the business centers is you, while the other two are your left and right sales legs. As is almost always the case, you are paid based on how the lesser leg is performing. This can be frustrating when one of your sales legs is doing very well while the other is foundering.
At the higher “executive” ranks, you can get some pretty sweet bonuses, but you’re going to need to build two very disciplined sales teams in order to make that happen. Your best bet to get those is to focus on keeping your sales legs performing well (and equally well).
Recap
Rain is definitely a company on the march. Is it about to make it big? The company certainly seems to be planning on it. They are bringing on doctors and PhD researchers, and their website is setup to pitch their product to an active, young, affluent crowd.
If you have studied the compensation plan and you think you can leverage it to make it work, give it a shot, but do be aware it’s a riskier endeavor than most, given how new the company is.
But if you’re just doing it for the money, there are better ways to kill your day job.
In other words, you might like our coaching because it shows you the good life without peddling products to your family and friends.
http://bodynutrition.org/rain-international-review/
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