There are also customers who are going to look into the company, founder and opportunity – again, what does Josh intend on telling them when they enquire about Dynamic Essentials being shut down by the FDA, what does he intend on telling them when they enquire about their chances regarding the opportunity and will he tell them that greater than 99% of the sales force are losing money?

Again Josh, you clearly have no interest in facts concerning the products or ensuring that the company you’re pursuing is of good standing and reputation or whether the scheme is both legal and viable.

We’ve all seen distributors such as Josh who are of the mistaken belief that they have a chance at making a success of the venture – the products are so overpriced in the first instance that there leaves little to no room for profits for retail selling. Taking into consideration the demand for the products is driven by the opportunity, distributors are left to recoup their investments by recruiting other distributors – this is where the pyramid math comes to fruition and where the top weighted compensation plan is truly confirmed, aside from Monavie iteself only the highest ranked and those who got in first benefit from this.

You said, “I think it’s 80% of business in the world that fail in the first 5 years, and 80% of the remaining ones fail in the next 5 years, so I am not surprised at the success rate of customers trying to get free product by sellin enough to break even.”

Variations of this failure myth run rampant through the MLM world, and it has been debunked somewhere on this site several times. Here is an elegant look at some numbers based on real studies:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/startup-failure-rates.html

The comments that follow that article contain some good points. You can see that many businesses do fail, but not at the rate you were told.

Why does the exaggerated failure myth persist in MLM? Is it because it appears to make the actual ~95% of most MLMs seem normal?

Step 1: Combine one scoop of MonaVie RVL Nutrition Shake Mix with 8 ounces of water or milk for your breakfast and/or lunch. If desired, you may also add two ounces of your favorite MonaVie® juice. 54 oz = $89 for 28 servings; $3.20 serving, 190 calories.
Step 2: Enjoy half of a MonaVie RVL Nutrition Snack Bar between meals to satisfy your hunger. $38 for 15 = $2.50 each, 100 calories.
Step 3: Take one MonaVie RVL Dietary Supplement with your morning and afternoon snacks. $68 for 56 = $1.20 each
Step 4: Eat a healthy, balanced dinner consisting of 500-600 calories. This meal should include a variety of vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates.
Step 5: Participate in a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity most, if not all, days of the week. If you have any health concerns, please contact your physician prior to starting a weight management or exercise program.

If you follow that plan every day:
$6.90 X 365 = $2518
+ $2190 of juice
= $4708

Some alternatives:
Champion Nutrition Ultramet, 60 76gram servings
$108.91 = $1.80, 190 calories
$1.40 per day saving = $510 yearly saving vs MV’s shake.

EAS Myoplex Lite Meal Replacement
$1.70, 180 calories.

That’s not as outrageous as the juice’s markup, but it follows the MLM model of being more expensive than similar products, with the hope instilled by the business plan leading buyers/distributors to accept that fact.

I’m not really sure why you have faith in MV, as they seem to trigger several red flags. First, Dallin Larsen’s involvement with Royal Tongan Limu. Second, the historic, and well documented dishonest behavior of most of the top distributors (http://www.amquix.info/pdfs/monavie/2-08-cv-00209-db-02.pdf) and the company’s inaction in dealing with it. Third, the need to hype poor quality research and wrap their pitches in pseudo-scientific language. Fourth, the need to misrepresent advertising as “partnerships” and “documentaries” (http://monaviemediacenter.com/news/monavie-documentary-featured-by-world-progress-report-television-with-joan-lunden). Fifth, the atmosphere of self-motivation hype and vacuous platitudes to distract its distributors, while a related group offers them tools — at a price. Sixth, they haven’t released an IDS in almost 2 years and the one they did release shows pretty dismal success rates. Seventh, many vocal opponents, including former distributors, and most have plausible tales of deception and loss.

That’s off the top of my head, others could add more. My point is that this isn’t a regular company, and its future doesn’t look bright for anyone not at the top.

Also, you don’t actually have to be “active” or “qualified” to profit from preferred customers or retail sales. U could sign up, find one customer to buy something, and be profitable instantly, but its hard to sell someone something they can’t see or taste.

“I have seen nothing showing a lack of phytonutrients in Monavie.”

Educate yourself on phytonutrients using this WebMD as an example. Then refer to this article this article on the juice in Men’s Journal and take now of, “Miriam Pappo, director of clinical nutrition at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, says four ingredients make a juice nutritionally beneficial: phenolic acids (to prevent cancer), anthocyanins (to prevent aging), vitamin C (to aid in healing wounds), and beta-carotene (to boost the immune system).” Now follow how MonaVie scored in the testing.

The result is a lack of phytonutrients.

I’ve looked very briefly at the weight management products and they were not priced competitively for what they entailed. How are you determining “nutrition per calorie?” Is there a scale of how you quantify this? Perhaps you can give some insight into it.

It’s worth noting that MonaVie isn’t in any early stage of business growth. The business has been fading for some time. The last income disclosure statement is from mid 2009. In Canada it’s 2008. They simply don’t want to let distributors compare the two and see the wreckage.

It’s also worth noting there are legit companies like Avon. I don’t believe they require autoship to earn commissions. With MonaVie, we’ve found that the business historically has not been about selling retail product, but convincing others to be recruited into the business and turning them into the customerbase by requiring autoship to be in the business.

I wish you luck in finding 4 customers a week every week for four months. Finding 16 people for yourself is one of the reasons why failure is not a matter of effort – it’s a mathematical certainty.

The products do have value, I have seen nothing showing a lack of phytonutrients in Monavie, and the weight management system has more nutrition per calorie than anything else in the market, and is competitively priced with other systems similar to it (looking at price per gram).

If I do sponsor someone, the goal won’t be to sign up all their friends, but to help that one person become profitable through sales before even thinking about sponsoring someone else. This is how the business model should work. I think it’s 80% of business in the world that fail in the first 5 years, and 80% of the remaining ones fail in the next 5 years, so I am not surprised at the success rate of customers trying to get free product by sellin enough to break even.

Also, what if this lasts and turns out to outlive myself? Avon is 113 years old, and I’d hate myself for passing up the opportunity to be a part of something like that in such an early stage of the business’s growth.

What you haven’t considered is the fact that the opportunity you’re pursuing is characterised by losses in the vicinity of 99.64% (as evidenced in the 2009 IDS).

Do you intend on being truthful in your representation of the opportunity and revealing to your prospects that greater than 99% of the sales force are losing money, with fewer than 1% reporting any real profits?

And speaking of your prospects, I’d be interested to know how you intend to explain to your prospects the manner in which Dallin Larsen promoted his previous opportunity during his tenure at Dynamic Essentials which is identicle to that of Monavie, the illegal health claims he made concerning Royal Tongan Limu (which inevitably led to the company being shut down by the FDA and had the FTC and Department of Justice successfully launch a class action lawsuit) AND the fact that the products have such striking similarities (both were discovered in a remote area, packaged in wine bottles, 2oz twice daily, etc etc)…
web.archive.org/web/20020205212919/63.167.229.232/deistream/conf020128.wma

Josh, further discussion certainly is not pointless – however it’s becoming quite apparent that such further discussion doesn’t fit in with your ultimate agenda, which is tied directly to the opportunity.

It never ceases to amaze what representatives of scams such as Monavie are prepared to overlook and ignore in pursuit of the all elusive promises of financial freedom. Sad.

“Not widely used” is a tad generous. “Not used at all” in fact. The assay was first reported in a college research poster – the first author was a student (Dana Honzell) working toward their bachelor’s degree at Santa Clara U. Since then the assay has been reported in a grand total of 2 research publications, both of which were authored by Schauss, involved Monavie, and were published in a low-tier non-medical journal. CAP-e is a non-assay; essentially worthless and invalid — just like Monavie.

Lazyman said: “It isn’t uncommon for a company to say something like, ‘We like your resume and what you’ve done. Would you be interested in being in our advisory board. There isn’t much responsibility, but the pay is good’.”

Boy, you got that right! I believe we’ve discussed United Sciences of America before. Probably the biggest MLM scam in history. They ran a massive fraudulent ‘health-related’ pyramid scheme business selling BS nutritional supplements (along with distributorships and tools of course); bragged about all of their esteemed and unquestionably wise medical advisors and celebrity athlete endorsers (sound familiar), many of whom were called to testify before the Attorney General to exaplin themselves after the scam was shut down and excoriated. The advisors couldn’t distance themselves from the company fast enough after the shit hit the fan, although they had been only too glad to take those checks when no one was raising questions. Check out the Wikipedia article on the company for links to some very interesting background articles.