Danny Pollard’s Touchstone Success, a Virginia-based company launched in 2011, operates as a personal development multilevel marketing scheme. The firm charges affiliates a $35 signup fee and $25 monthly. Commissions are earned solely by recruiting new members who also pay these fees.
Touchstone Success lacks any products or services available for retail sale to the general public. Participants only market the affiliate membership itself. Each new affiliate receives a personal development audio CD monthly. This structure means 100% of all payments made are linked directly to recruitment activities.
Pollard previously ran a similar operation called Message of the Month. That venture also required monthly payments for audio content, reportedly produced by Tom Danley. Pollard appears to have adopted this model, replacing Danley’s recordings with his own. His LinkedIn profile lists his location as North Carolina, despite the company’s Virginia headquarters.
Affiliates earn $15 for each new member they directly recruit. Additional income comes from residual commissions paid through a 3x5 matrix structure. This matrix forces each member to recruit three people on their first level, nine on the second, and so on, down to five levels. Each filled position in the matrix generates $3 per month in residual commission for the recruiter, provided the recruited affiliate continues paying their $25 monthly fee.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defines a business as a pyramid scheme if its primary revenue comes from recruitment rather than actual product sales to consumers outside the network. Touchstone Success’ model fits this definition precisely. Every person who joins is an affiliate, and all payments are channeled into paying commissions for recruiting more affiliates.
The company’s own literature suggests a recruitment-focused approach. It states that to become a distributor, one must submit an application and pay a $10 account setup fee. However, to qualify for monthly commissions, a distributor must make a new personal product sale within the current month. This implies that while not strictly required to join, purchasing the product is necessary to earn money.
The structure, where participants pay fees with the expectation of earning money by recruiting others who also pay fees, mirrors the mechanics of illegal pyramid schemes. The FTC emphasizes that legitimate MLMs must have substantial retail sales to customers outside the distributor network. Touchstone Success does not appear to meet this standard.
According to FTC guidelines, a business model where participants primarily earn money by recruiting new members, rather than by selling goods or services to actual consumers, is a pyramid scheme. Touchstone Success’s entire commission structure is predicated on affiliate recruitment, with no provision for retail customers outside of its affiliate base.