Why Did Thrive Learning Institute Fail? Lessons to Learn...

(Thrive Learning Institute Fraud artwork by Don Hankins @Flickr)

Where Did Thrive Learning Go Wrong?

Well, it started with how they were set up.

I had a long phone interview some years back with a guy who went by "JoeBlow2000" in the forums. He's long since quit visiting there, but many of his posts are still around.

And you can take what follows as hearsay.

Dave Rasmussen used to work for Joe at a big online training company in Utah. That's where Rasmussen learned the ropes.

In that day, all online training was completely in-house. The only scene outside was some of the independent lead generators. All your sales, fulfillment, and CRM was internal, which meant that quality issues could be handled quickly.

Dave left Joe's mentoring and apparently tried to take some of the training materials with him.

He got in with Colton Moody as a partner to bankroll Thrive Learning. But it was always only a fulfillment operation. They just delivered training. If they had complaints about the sales floors, they would have to contact the independents and go over it with them.

As Thrive only got 10% of what was charged, they relied on the sales floors to be honest (a losing battle) and also to make up their income by upselling their clients with additional services. This is how a $6,000 investment could spiral up to $14K or more.

Prior to Thrive, the average cost of such training was about $4K. Per Joe, that was carefully worked out according to their experience of what people would pay and stay happy.

When Rasmussen raised it to $6K, it obviously attracted the independent sales floors, which took about 40% off the top. (The other 50%, per memory, went to the lead generator, who was also supposed to get a percentage of any upgrades, but that was a bit iffy.)

With that new higher price, Thrive attracted more sales floors and lead generators, then quickly started turning over millions in sales monthly (and at one point, weekly.)

The stage was set for failure, as customer relations management was inherently faulty.

Where they went wrong - couldn't be helped

They were working on the presumption that only 3% would finish the course, and only 3% of those would make their money back. (Another 3% of those wound up incredibly successful and wound up on the online infomercials and were used to push people to buy.) That model is actually standard for a lot of scammy industries, like what makes online spam financially possible.

That means that there's a potential for 97% to be dissatisfied. Theoretically, only about 3-10% would actually complain, and these would be simply paid off and silenced.

The problems and Thrive's Achille's heel were these:

• They were teaching people how to use the Internet for research and marketing.
• Their own marketing was  to pump up Lead Generation by being at the top of the search engine rankings (with tricks that were possible at the time.)

But complaint forums were found to rapidly take over Thrive Learning's standings, regardless of how many weird backlinks they could create. Thrive's solution was to get the complainers to remove their posts as part of their payment - failing that, to pony up legal harassment.)

Their complainers found out that they could start blogs and get on the rankings themselves. Not only could they submit a complaint online to Utah state, but they could also recruit other people to do the same. 

So a minority few people then started ranking for what they learned to research online and how to post online, using all the training Thrive had given them. This began a small movement of people who banded together to support each other's posts on complaint forums, comment on their blogs, and basically "complain like hell" everywhere they could about Thrive Learning and their principals.

Now, those few complainers looked like the majority opinion about Thrive. 

As more and more people complained to the Utah AG office, they became inundated with paperwork - almost all of it was about Thrive.

Eventually, Thrive couldn't keep up with paying everyone off and the excuses to their AG buddies didn't hold water. (It also didn't help that the Utah Governor also had an online complaint inbox, and these complaints were being sent directly there as well.)

So, in 2009, Thrive finally got hammered by the Utah Department of Consumer Protection office. All their other attempts at settling didn't work.

By 2014, they had quit.

Thrive Learning was started in April 2006 and were mostly out of the business by Fall of 2009, and gone by 2014.

A failed business plan, obviously. 

What's the Why of Rasmussen, Moody, et al?

Believing and following Get Rich Quick schemes that used shortcuts and treated people like commodities.

Lessons to learn

1. There is no such thing as "Get Rich Quick."
2. Give real value, far more than you are paid for.
3. Ask only what the market really wants to pay. Then deliver in excess of that.
4. Be honest.
5. Be accountable at all levels.
6. Go the extra mile and avoid quality and customer service shortcuts like the plague.

Can Thrive Learning Institute be reborn?

In short, no. But nothing of the original still exists. Everyone has moved on, and the phone number and training materials were taken over by a different company. 

Since the name is now open again (the trademark office notes some 75 entries with the word "thrive") it is possible to use this as a learning experience for everyone. 

While it would be smart to avoid that name at all costs, funny enough, it could be a viable marketing campaign to start a new company that builds on apologizing and starting fresh with lots of giveaways to former students. 

You'd have to:

1. Keep everything in-house. All under one roof.
2. Start with materials first. Give these away for free or low cost.
3. Make a name with the quality of materials and open-handed help.
4. Start free online courses as a sample.
5. Build a list of qualified, interested potential customers.
6. Get into coaching only if it looked like this was feasible.
7. Once a paid program was established, use affiliates for lead generation.

It is possible, if you start from the beginning with an honest content marketing approach, avoiding all GRQ approaches and people with this mindset.

If I find out about anyone attempting this, I'll let you know...

What Really Happened to Thrive - from the Musty Complaint Forum Archives

On Sept 9, 2009 - this was posted on work-at-home-forum.com:

Today on the Utah Better Business website if you search Thrive you find:

On July 2, 2009 the Utah Division of Consumer Protection ("Division") issued an Administrative Citation against Thrive Learning LLC, Infusion Media Inc, Concepts Executions LLC, Six Figure Consulting Corp, Vanuity LLC dba Platinum Training Solutions, The Summit Group of Utah LLC dba Momentum Marketing, Internet Auction Solutions Inc and Accelerated Business Solutions Inc ("Respondents"). The citation states that starting during or before July 2008 Thrive Learning LLC ("Thrive"), along with the other Respondents listed, has been offering a Business Opportunity to consumers. Consumers were solicited and sold materials, education and coaching services for the purposes of enabling the consumers to start their own internet business. The purchase price of the transaction for these consumers exceeded $300 in each case. Consumers were sold online materials and coaching services enabling a consumer to learn about how to sell products over the internet or on eBay. Consumers were provided with access to software that would enable a consumer to build their own customized website to market products and services. Consumers were also provided with ideas and resources on how and where to obtain products to sell, including access to lists of drop shipping companies. Thrive has formally or informally allowed many name and unnamed Respondent marketing companies to sell these products and services with Thrive being responsible for fulfilling the represented products and services to each consumer. Respondent marketing companies were responsible in most cases for all representations made to their respective consumers and were also responsible for collecting payment from each consumer. At all times relevant to these transactions, Respondents were not registered with the Division to offer Business Opportunity sales. These alleged actions are charged as eight (8) counts of violation with a potential maximum fine of $20,000 ($2,500 per count). Respondents also allegedly failed to provide the appropriate disclosure statements prior to transactions. These alleged actions are charged as sixteen (16) counts of violation with a potential maximum fine of $20,000 ($2,500 per count). The Division reserved the right to amend the citation to include unknown consumers who file complaints with their office in the future.

PS.
The BBB website that I obtained the statment was
http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/training-program-companies/thrive-learning-i n-orem-ut-22219354

- - - -

I've been looking for this data for years, as I'd read it then, but it was pulled pretty quickly afterwards.

I'd also seen where this was escalated and seemed to be upwards of a million in fines - but that's gone now, as well. If you're ever in Utah, you'd probably be able to extract it as a public record from the Department of Consumer Protection.

Note that 2009 date - this is when Thrive actually started shutting down it's social media campaigns as well. The last posts on most of them are in October.

FWIW.

Related articles

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Where did Thrive Learning Go?

(Photo: Seth Thomas Rasmussen)

Thrive Learning is Still Around - Just Disguised?

Welcome to Guidance Interactive. Same exact address. Same business (apparently) per their LinkedIn page:

At Guidance, you’ll have an experienced instructor who’s already done what you want to do, tailoring your experience and walking you down your chosen path, step by step. The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it, it’s usually too late. But things are different at Guidance. From day one you’ll benefit from your instructor’s years of experience.
Specialties: eCommerce, Financial, Small Business, Real Estate

Sound familiar?

Here's Thrive's old header (courtesy of WayBack Machine on archive.org)

"Real Estate, Wealth, Internet"

Thrive defined their Internet section as:

"Internet Education: Whether a company wants to extend an existing business to the Internet or launch the next big idea, Thrive is there to help each step of the way. Thrive helps you build your website using simple, functional and powerful tools. The Lightwave Builder allows you to build, manage and market a feature-rich, highly professional website. Our professional instructors are experts with internet marketing and online brand development. Our online education and personal training gives our students the attention they need to complete their goals. Our instructors have experience in their respective fields and know what knowledge and tools are required for success. "

Read Guidance' current page for their ecommerce offerings and decide for yourself.

Go ahead, try to contact Guidance Int.

Funny enough, there is no contact data on the Guidance Int. pages. None. They don't want you calling them, apparently.

Now, if you call up Thrive's old toll-free number, you'll get a non-branded recording which doesn't identify the business at all. Pressing "0" gives you "Support" - but again, no company, no person.

However, first on their list of options has (you guessed it) Real Estate and Internet

One of the problems Thrive had was it's long-in-the-tooth Lightwave Builder (that they got from the old Bright Builder as part of the deal for taking over BB's customers)

On that phone call you'll get a reference to "Ignite Builder". Look that up on Google and you'll get an "Ignite Website Builder" on a site called SparkHD Trial. If you go down that page, you'll see at the bottom a list of other programs: Lister Labs, Product Niche Organizer, TeraPeak Research Tool, Drop Shipping Warehouses."

That list is interesting as this is exactly what Thrive started out with, as it picked up from Bright Builder - Ebay businesses. Make your money by dropshipping, scoping out hot areas and buy wholesale and sell above cost using someone else to ship to your customer for a small fee. (Unfortunately, this area has tiny margins, and requires daily work. In other words - it's just another job, not a leveragable business. Believe me, that's the line I got scammed on.)

We have a lot of data here what walks and talks like ducks - even though they are called something else.

Is the new Guidance Interactive legitimate?

Guidance is properly registered with the state of Utah. You'll also see that their principals are not disclosed, something Thrive did in their later years.

We do have to note there that there are no complaint reports on file with the BBB. Google notes nothing on the various scam forums for them. Even the nefarious RipOffReport.com has nothing on them. Clean as a whistle - as far as the Internet concerned.

How about Zach Bradshaw? Where did he wind up?

You may recall Zach from his stint at Thrive - like the BBB still does:

(Oddly enough, searching Google for entries of BBB for Guidance Interactive brought this up...)

Zach is now the owner of SoJo CrossFit. (On Facebook.) Good for him. An honest business with a non-scammy business plan. (Or a nice front.)

How do we know that this Zach Bradshaw is the one who worked at Thrive Learning Institute?

Check out his Linked In Profile:

Experience:

Owner - SoJo CrossFit
January 2014 – Present (1 year 5 months)South Jordan, Utah

Customer Relations Director - Guidance Intl.
May 2008 – Present (7 years 1 month)Orem, Utah

It turns out that Guidance Interactive has only really been in existence since 2014 according to the State of Utah, the same year Thrive Learning Institute pulled it's own LLC Registration. Both companies share the same address. Zach's Guidance timeline matches when he was at Thrive Learning.

That's our Zach - the same one you've spent so much time on the phone with. (But apparently, he's too embarrassed to use "Thrive Learning Institute" on his resume.)

How about Colton (Colt) Moody?

Per his Experience on LinkedIn:

Partner - Equinox Nutraceuticals

April 2010 – Present (5 years 2 months)American fork
I am currently involved in several businesses as an owner and manager.

CEO - Momentum Marketing
2000 – 2010 (10 years)Draper, Utah
Ceo of Momentum for 10 years, business coaching

No direct link to Thrive here - but there's long trails on the complaint forums that say otherwise.

How about Dave Rasmussen?

This was the guy who started Thrive, apparently getting Colt to bankroll his project.

On LinkedIn: 

How do we know he's the right Dave R.?

Check out his LinkedIn Experience:

Chief Operating Officer - Vision Solar July 2013 – Present (1 year 11 months) Orem, UT
Vision Solar specializes in making clean and renewable power available to all types of homeowners. We offer affordable solar solutions that allow our customers to enjoy the benefits of solar with little or no up-front costs. Vision Solar is a full service solar provider including the design of the system, all required permitting, installation and inspection, and system maintenance, all for a fraction of the cost of traditional power.
We, along with our customers, take great pride in going green and lessening the impact on the environment. Improving the world one home at a time is a challenge that we passionately accept. For more information visit visionsolar.com.

Member Board of Directors - Enspark July 2012 – January 2014 (1 year 7 months) Provo, Utah Area
Enspark is a leading e-learning solution provider specializing in on demand interactive E-learning courses, custom E-learning course development and E-learning environment management. We deliver our courses in a user friendly Learning Management System that is easily re-branded to fit the needs of any organization. Our team is comprised of instructional designers, corporate trainers and multimedia developers. We differentiate ourselves by providing training that is highly interactive to the end user using technology that enhances learner performance.
SpecialtiesOn Demand Interactive Elearning Courses, Custom Elearning Courses, Elearning Environment Management.
...

COO / Managing Partner - Thrive March 2008 – July 2013 (5 years 5 months) Orem, UT
Managing Partner of Thrive
Over the past several years Thrive has mentored thousands of clients to achieve their goals. The education our clients receive allows them to launch businesses, develop multiple streams of income, and ultimately transform their lives. These results are invaluable to our clients and their families.
Thrive doesn't have a "one-size-fits-all" approach that caters to the easiest clients at the expense of others. Quality matters to us and we focus on every single client, their individual goals, and how to get them from where they are to where they want to be. Our flexible Business Consultants personalize our curriculum, tailor assignments, customize the learning experience, and mentor each client as a unique individual. Our system works.

There's the sound of other shoe dropping - he ran Thrive Corporate (into the ground).

Conclusion - Did they go clean?

That's up to you to determine. 

Obviously, Thrive quit making money about the same time they got busted for millions by the State. You'd have to find and talk to these these guys at their current business to see if they actually did change their stripes. The thin margins Thrive ran on couldn't keep up with the swamping complaints which deluged them - after they trained people how to research on the Internet. (Is that poetic justice or what?)

I can buy that Zach runs a cross-fit company. He told me he was mowing lawns (landscaping business) before he jumped in bed with Thrive. 

Colt Moody says on LinkedIn he's still managing companies. This gives him the shadiest alibi of the three.

Dave Rasmussen is the hardest to buy - could he really walk away from everything and just sell solar panels for a living? He went from Thrive Corporate to Enspark, which is another online training company, and then to solar panels. That's tough to swallow. 

New people you may want to know...

(CEO Guidance Interactive: Ari Monkarsh - LinkedIn)

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/ari-monkarsh/1/288/339

Not much there. At least you know his back trail.

Ari was involved in this type of business before. Maybe he's running this straight. Maybe. (Having an internet training business in the (Utah) Scam Capitol U.S.A with the same address - and maybe even phone number - as a scam outfit: that's not the best beginning.)

PS. The Bright Builder Connection

Above, I mentioned Thrive got a deal from Bright Builders and inherited their aging site-builder along with their customers. That's first-hand data told to me and verified by their own trainers and consultants.

Bright Builders was heavy into the then-popular Ebay home business model, developing their own site builder and buying HammerTap, which extracted data using the Ebay API.

If you look up Bright Builders' President, Greg Cole, it turned out that he first worked for "Colton Solutions" for 2 years and started Bright Builders in 1999.

Did Colt (Colton) Moody have an early involvement? We may never know...

Since Provo and Orem are right next to each other, it's likely there's some networking possible. The sheer number of scammers originating out of this area says something else might be going on. 

Let's hope they are all on the straight and narrow now.

PPS. Disclaimer: All this is verifiable online. 

I've linked everything except what they Zach and others personally told me. My conclusions are based on what I've found online and my own experiences in getting scammed through Thrive. Your conclusions are your own. I sincerely hope all mentioned are living great, honest lives now. Certainly their (and our) time with Thrive Learning Institute was an education all around.

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How to Use Email to Avoid Telemarketers on Your Phone

Telemarketers will (eventually) leave you alone if you never give out your email.

(photo: Bart)

I was digging around looking into whether a similar scene to Thrive Learning was happening in and among the Internet Marketing guru's. And this gave us another lesson which we knew about years ago.

Saltydroid states that there is a band of Internet Marketers who have banded together in something called The Syndicate - which they claim is more of a trade union. (The idea is that they organize between themselves to make sure they mail to each other's launches and coordinate. They also share price points and other data.)

Now saltydroid says on his site that Mike Filsaime is part of this Syndicate and has several articles on him.

What's more interesting is that saltydroid has a recorded interview with Filsaime - and it's all about his use of boiler-rooms (telemarketers) to sell his products. (That interview is here.)

The trick with telemarketers is that they sell their lists to each other, if they are unethical - which most are. Now the links I gave you earlier actually tell the story of how telemarketers work.

While the really interesting stuff is in Internet Scam Capitol USA, and the very dry edition is in Scammer Jammer. (As well as in it's younger brother, Get Your Self Scam Free.)

The main point of this is to say that if you don't accept telemarketer calls, and you watch what you are opting-into - then you can avoid a great deal of pain and annoyance on your lines. (Again, see those books above for more details on how to do that.)

Mike Filsaime Verifies Telemarketers Suck

In this phone interview, saltydroid gets some great data about how screwed up the various telemarketing scene can get. Filsaime actually tried to make his own, but it was a complete nightmare for him.

He verifies the pricing that Scam Capitol USA described:

• You already know that it’s built roughly on 10%’s - the Fulfillment Centers (Thrive Learning Institute, formerly Bright Builders) gets 10% to coach their clients.
• Sales Floors only make about 10% profit off each sale. (out of the 55% they take)
• 10% go into refunds with the balance going into operating costs.
• The sales person gets about 10-20% or so as commission.
• Credit Card companies extract their 10% of the take. (From the Sales Floors.)
• And the Lead Providers do something with their 35%

That last line is key. If you are providing leads to these sales floors/telemarketers/boiler-rooms, you then get 35% of the take.

For Filsaime, he was promoting Prosper, who started out with $2500 packages for phone coaching. So he was getting $875 for every person who signs up. (The trick is that Filsaime already sold some product to that person, based somewhat on Prosper's training, and then shared the email address with Prosper. Anything he gets from them is just extra cash - he doesn't have to deliver any goods to the customer or do fulfillment at all for anything Prosper sells them. Nice work.)

Thrive Learning was caught in their mess of being an independent with their fulfillment. That chapter in Scam Capitol laid out exactly why they failed. They had no real control over the independent boiler-rooms/sales floors - but were nailed for not fulfilling the promises. Sales floors would come and go. But Thrive was supposedly there for the long haul. Eventually, it got to be more costly than it was worth. (And in a little over a year, they were busted by the government, and in 5 years, they were completely gone.)

Note: Prosper is arguably one of the still-standing "decent" places which do telemarketing, because their sales and fulfillment are all in-house This means they can actually be regulated by the government. The indies are simply fined and forced out of business after wrecking lots of people's lives.

Now here's that link again, so you can hear Mike Filsaime talk about how weird and crazy the telemarketers are. Go ahead and get the books linked above for yourself for your own education.

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Utah Scam King - Former AG Mark Shurtleff Arrested

Mark Shurtleff was arrested for accepting bribes from Utah scammers.

(photo originally from  SLC Weekly)

The one guy who took money from Thrive Learning, Summit Group, etc. instead of shutting them down is now to spend 30 years in jail.

Happened in July - (just catching up - I've been off doing other things.)

SaltyDroid has been following this guy for awhile ('Droid started in 2009, interestingly) and was satisfyingly gloating over this.

Mark Shurtleff Attorney General of MLM … detailed a few of the many connections between Mr. Shurtleff and the Utah’s pyramid scheme “industry.” Most {prolly all} MLMs are pyramid schemes … and Utah is the undisputed center of that world. Mark Shurtleff didn’t just take bribes from these parasites :: he actively participated in their shenanigans … and continued to do so until the very end.

And there's some great videos on the blog post to watch.

Of course, it's at least 5 years too late for most of us. But at least it's something.

Far more details here:

SALT LAKE CITY July 15th 2014 -- After investigating for more than a year, authorities on Tuesday arrested two former Utah attorneys general on charges of bribery, misusing public funds and other counts. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill on Tuesday laid out allegations against John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff that involve gold coins, luxury houseboats and jets and thousands of dollars in cash or campaign contributions.

Cheers.

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