Why I quit the Tardus coaching services and eased up my intensity on being a Tardus affiliate
Even though I’ve decided to leave Tardus, it is not because Tardus is a bad program. In fact…
Tardus is an excellent program.
It gave me hope for retirement within 10 years… something that had been hanging over my head like a death sentence. I have been a contract computer programmer for 2 decades but never saving anything for retirement. And of course traditional retirement programs are outdated and slow, taking 20-40 years and millions in savings to work (I’m looking at you, 401k).
Tardus has excellent coaches
I appreciate the 2 years I spent with my Wealth Coach Desmond Kane Balbin and my client success coach Danielle Glenn.
So if Tardus is so great, why are you breaking from it?
Leaving Tardus means I’m leaving two things: their personal coaching and being an affiliate of theirs.
Marketing for Tardus is not residual
It’s fairly easy to understand why I would not want to market Tardus. I busted my chops for about 6-8 months of daily posting Tardus videos at my TikTok channel. I generated a lot of awareness about Tardus and got 80+ opt-ins and closed 1 sale… but that 1 sale was a 1-time payment to me. If I had brought that person into my life insurance program, I would be paid for 10 years on that person and the entire deep/wide network that person produced… quite a difference in compensation.
Now, having an MLM-style comp plan presents legal issues for an international company like Tardus… but that has not stopped Herbalife and Melaleuca and Amway and others from spreading into many nations… but it is a serious hurdle to tackle and Tanisha may not have the time/energy/interest to tackle it.
But it’s in my best interest to get the most I can for the people I refer.
But let’s take a different tack on marketing for Tardus
I got 80 opt-ins and 1 sale. I did not have to email or talk to the person who joined. All I did was drive traffic to their capture page. So if I could get 80 optins per day instead of 80 opt-ins per year, then we’re talking full-time income. All I did was post various TikToks to my personal channel and got maybe 100-500 views per day, or 100k views per year. So I would need to do paid advertising to get 100kviews per month or week…
But, the Tardus capture pages do not track creatives – I cannot see which creative led to the most opt-ins or sales. I’ve told them about the Urchin Tracking convention as a way for affiliate marketers to get detailed metrics on how their ads are doing. So, before I would scale out on ads, I would need their affiliate system to have detailed tracking and stats.
I have limited resources for investment
Well, currently, I cannot commit financial resources to both Tardus and the other thing I opted to do: in other words, I put $850 of my personal cashflow into Tardus monthly and put in $1200 from investments monthly. But I would rather commit $2,000 monthly to Indexed Universal Life Insurance and with my job situation I cannot pump another 2k into both programs.
With Tardus, investment is an open question and perhaps a place where you may suffer scarcity
The investment aspect of building a Tardus income snowball is a moving target – they try different things and encourage their clients to try different things… but neither Tardus or the clients are investment experts… and sometimes they get burned (e.g. falling for the DRIVE planning ponzi).
In contrast, Life Insurance and Private Reserve Banking (infinite banking) predate the IRS and the federal reserve. And their ability to build wealth even through depressions which occur every 7-12 years is demonstrated.
For the duration of my 2 years with Tardus, I relied on Legacy Wealth to generate profits. They did fine with my conservative portfolio but I put 20k into an aggressive product of theirs and it was teetering on complete collapse, so I pulled out early. Putting that same 20k into Indexed Universal Life would have either grown in value or stayed level – IUL policies either hold or gain… they dont lose money invested and that is guaranteed in writing.
BIG UPDATE ON THE INVESTMENT ASPECT OF TARDUS
Michael Kwong solved the investment problem in his book “DIBS on your money” by using life insurance as the source for borrowing AND for investment returns.
My upcoming book provides qualitative numbers for what Kwong wrote about a few years back.
Amazing how permanent life insurance can provide both aspects of an income snowball best.
I never solved my “line of credit” problem in Tardus.
The big pain in the neck with Tardus was fear of having enough funding for larger flips. The other pain was paying 20% cash-advance fees on corporate credit cards because I did not have a personal line of credit… even with 700 FICO across the board. IUL policies dont have this problem because you become your own bank and can borrow against your policy 36 times per year.
But in reflection, I do know of other ways to liquidate credit cards at 6% and 3.5% now that I could’ve used.
An emergent con of Tardus – destroying the facebook forum in favor of live mastermind groups
Tardus had a facebook forum that I found quite useful to search through and conduct conversations on. ..
It was destroyed once by adding 80 million group chats
At first it was just a discussion forum and it was easy to search. Then they added a large number of realtime chat channels. Which means that vital information was no longer available unless you exposed yourself to a large number of realtime chats… which is not my thing.
Then it was destroyed twice and finally by removing it… immediately and without notice or truly consulting the members
Imagine that: one day you have a resource. And the next day, it’s gone and people are scratching their head because no advance notice was sent… unless you call this advance notice:
Here’s what Tardus said about getting rid of the Facebook group:
Clients have been asking us for mastermind groups with other Tardus clients. We know you want to know what others are doing, what mistakes they’ve made, how to conduct due diligence on new investments together, and get peer feedback about your specific situation without being pressured to buy products and services!
We’ve heard that the private FB page doesn’t meet these needs and that’s why we’re looking at other alternatives!
If this is something you think you would be interested in participating in, please reply to this email with:
MASTERMIND – YES! And please include your time zone and the best time of day for you to participate.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
And here is what I have to say about what Tardus has to say:
- the mastermind groups are going to segregate people based on realtime availability: the facebook group allowed people to connect when their time permitted.
- when you say “We’ve heard that the private FB page doesn’t meet these needs” I dont know who you heard that from: I was not asked and I would not agree. I STATE THIS EMPHATICALLY.
- Furthermore, why are you removing the facebook group altogether? It seems like a wonderful compliment to the Mastermind sessions.
- Why is the only reply to this email to say “yes”… why can’t we say “no” and you tally the votes and give us transparent feedback on the voting results?
Destroying the facebook group destroyed a huge treasure trove of many years of information.
But perhaps it is important to keep members in silos
It reduces the likelihood of members being spammed by others members…
A big pro of Tardus – no health/age requirements to join
Some people who wanted to do million dollar life insurance policies were rejected for health reasons. You can be overweight, 100 years old, smoke, drink, etc and still build the Tardus income snowball. They will welcome you with open arms. Life insurance carriers probably will not.
A minor con of Tardus – Tanisha, your book is good, but relax on the promotion please:
The income snowball is truly a gift from God. Here we have an attorney sitting at lunch with her husband and she says: “I’m having a download from God. Give me something to write on”… and a person with no background in finance comes up with a program unique and powerful enough to be patented and help 7000 people
But she has been over-promoting her book. For instance, check this out:
that’s right. In 1 hour, TWO emails soliciting Tardus members about the book.
Next steps
For those interested in Tardus and the income snowball, I would suggest
- Join the facebook group “Income Snowballers Support” – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1030253652238052
- Have a chat with Networthy
- Read Mike Kwong’s book “DIBS on your money”
- Read my book “Red Hot Cashflow: The 5-year blueprint to 5 figures per month and 6 figures in cash value” – should be out in 3-4 months
- Tardus Wealth Strategies – the original bona fide way to build your Income Snowball. The VIP program in Tardus is a great buy which helps people hit serious passive income goals in lightning speed. The normal program in Tardus is good for a year. In the second year, your time is cut down because you have become more familiar with the mechanics… but as I became independant, I did not feel that the overlap time was really that useful.. actually the group coaching sessions became more beneficial. But I also could not share my exact financial figures there.
Excellent post. I’m just finishing up my first year with Tardus and will not be continuing.
I also found the Facebook group interesting and useful. As I look back at it being pulled, there were several posts that were showing increasing engagement and all were related to Norada Capital. Norada was a “preferred vendor”, allegedly vetted by Tardus and offered as an investment vehicle for Tardus clients. People were beginning to post about how they hadn’t received their monthly distribution from Norada and were unable to reach anyone at the company as to why. A couple of days later the FB group disappeared. Turns out that Tardus was one of the largest “feeders” to Norada.
Norada is now accused by the SEC of misappropriating funds. Allegedly, a Tardus VIP who offered his tax consulting services to Tardus clients was the CFO of Norada and had been charged in 2018 with misappropriating funds. For a firm that coaches people on their investing journey and preaches due diligence to either not know, or even worse, not disclose this to their community is absolutely disgusting. Factor in the Drive Planning fiasco, another preferred vendor, and not disclose this is abhorrent.
Non-accredited investors have minimal options for investing in amortized investment vehicles that match with the income snowball, and will rely heavily on Tardus recommendations. I have attended the mastermind sessions and most of the investors are in the Tardus “preferred vendor” investing vehicles Prosper, Legacy, and Groundfloor.
Tardus will say “you have to do your own due diligence”. This is true. However when Tardus posits a firm as a “preferred vendor” an unsophisticated investor will assume Tardus has done due diligence on the company and that their money is safe from fraud and only exposed to the underlying investments risk.
I was also turned off by the relentless promotion of Tanisha’s book and the onslaught of emails on how to generate referrals for Tardus.
I think the Income Snowball is a great concept and will continue to practice it in my personal investing. Tardus as a company is not something I would recommend. If you are looking for how to begin your investing journey read the book on the Income Snowball, hire a CFP and create a complete financial plan.
Hey Don, good to hear from you. I didnt know Norada was a preferred vendor of Tardus. I did attend one zoominar about DRIVE planning but never got involved.
Yeah, the due diligence training started once the SEC hit DRIVE planning with charges if I’m not mistaken.
It’s so hard to know what is legitimate. I get calls from my Craigslist ads from people who will talk to me 30 minutes about what they are doing, but they have no LinkedIn or other social profiles. But even people with those profiles could be faking things. And the thing about contracts is that when the fraudulent company get charged, they dont have to pay the judgement. So even if you have a contract with Norada or DRIVE or whoever, good luck collecting on the judgement.
That’s why Mike Kwong’s book “DIBS on your money” and my upcoming book “Red Hot Cashflow” push using life insurance for the source of borrowed funds *AND* as the way to get “investment returns”.
Prosper represents a scarcity and quickness problem – you cant always find borrowers and thus you may not be certain of when your next cashflow stack will start.
Groundfloor returns interest only at first? I have a small groundfloor acct for fun. But the snowball requires amortized payments of principle and interest… If you put $10,000 into Ground floor, you cant get 12% amortized ($332/mo), month after month right after putting $10,000 in there.
Legacy is who I used – their conservative and tactical models worked for me for 2 years. Their aggressive product was about to flop on me so I pulled out early.
I would also look at Paperstac. But be sure to join the Income Snowballers support facebook group for the latest options.
Regarding “””If you are looking for how to begin your investing journey read the book on the Income Snowball, hire a CFP and create a complete financial plan. “”” I would say that Tanisha’s book has a killer paragraph that I expand into several chapters in my book. She only lightly touched on the power of the debt-split to pay life insurance premium and build a snowball… there has been some excellent independent research of this and other topics. But I will wait unitl you say “hi” in the Income Snowballers facebook group to give it to you (wink).
I’ve heard the term “certified financial planner” and noticed other people designated as “RFC (registered financial consultant). My trainer in life insurance had the CFP certification but dropped it. He didnt feel it added much to him. He maintains his subscription to the Don Blanton Circle of Wealth software.