If you were thinking that MonaVie was going to make you rich, it might be worth thinking like BobbyJ. He put his heart and soul in the business, converting his truck, and putting up YouTube videos. He got nowhere and explains why with common sense… the product is just 20 times more expensive that other competing products. It’s an impossible sales job for distributors unless they try to make MonaVie seem better than other similar juices (which is a proven lie).

Originally posted 2010-03-02 20:49:13.

The CEO didn’t start out at janitor and work his way up to CEO. The typical CEO graduates from a very difficult business school and almost typically starts with a salary upwards of $150,000 a year in an executive position. I have not seen MonaVie value an education like this and just start people at Gold or Ruby levels.

There’s another major difference… in some industries there are often significantly more people at the top than at the bottom. Think of your average restaurant. How many chefs do they have for every dishwasher or bus boy? I think you get where this going.

If you think that MonaVie isn’t a pyramid, why not look at the tips outlined by the FTC. I particularly like this article on illegal pyramids, because they add much needed common sense.

Originally posted 2010-03-28 06:25:29.

Warren Buffett has invested in Network Marketing company Pampered Chef. You can read a little why he did that in this CNN article. Some will be quick to ask, “What’s the difference between Pampered Chef and MonaVie?”

When you go to a Pampered Chef you get to see the objective benefits of their products. From one Pampered Chef distributor in the above article:

“‘How many times have you pulled those brownies out of the oven to find that they are done around the edges but still not set in the middle?’ she asks, as she lifts a 12-inch diameter cookie from the Pampered Chef’s round baking stone. ‘On our stoneware the heat is distributed evenly, and your cookie will come out perfectly.’”

You can clearly see that the product works right there in front of you before you drop a dime. If it doesn’t work, you don’t pay for it. That’s what I mean objective benefits. It’s clearly observable by all parties.

What objective benefits occur at a get-together for a health product? Do you drink it and are you instantly able to do more push-ups? We know our bodies don’t work that way (unless there’s adrenaline involved). The “benefits” of MonaVie are subjective and very possibly due to the placebo effect, since we know that MonaVie lacks nutrition.

Pampered Chef’s products seem comparable in quality and in price with what retail store Williams-Sonoma offers. Using that link above and the information there, we know that MonaVie lacks nutrition (it’s main purpose) making its quality quite questionable. Also MonaVie Active’s retail price of $45 for 25 ounces is, ounce for ounce, about 10 to 20 times more expensive than V8 Fusion Acai Berry or Tropicana Pure Acai Raspberry… and that’s not to mention that Welch’s Grape Juice was shown to have more nutrition in previous paragraph.

So to recap:

• MLM products that are health-based have difficulty proving their value to consumers. MLM based health products should always be a red flag to consumers.
• MonaVie’s product by all measurable methods falls short making it’s quality quite questionable. That’s not going to Warren Buffett’s sign of approval.
• Pricing a product at 10x to 20x more than comparable products without showing the quality is also not going to endear you Warren Buffett’s business team.

Originally posted 2010-03-28 07:13:39.