Sports Drinks | Juices | Energy Drinks

FreeLife, new energy called GoChi. I got a call from a nice confident lady, she asked if it was ok to inform me of an amazing business opportunity. I said “sure.” She is a representative from FreeLife. A long running, good network marketing company. Her pitch was familiar- we have an energy drink, using goji berry, that is literally BLOWIING REDBULL AWAY!

Think about that. What exactly does blowing the largest energy drink producer in the world, “away” mean? I assumed that she was talking about quality, taste, healthiness, anything but sales… right. Apparently GoChi is the fastest growing, taking the market by storm, blah blah blah.

My problem with network marketing is simple. So much BS, so much hype, so much misinformation, and so many people with the audacity to say anything to win sales and influence people.

My question is simple- is there a way to sucessfully build a network marketing organization without all the hype, all the misinformation, all the motivation by fear of loss (ie, the train is leaving, either you get on now or its too late)? It seems that those who build organizations with such tactics are building an organization of idiots. A little Harsh?

By the way, energy drinks for network marketing are a flop. Too expensive, too little commission. Don’t waste your time.

Look at all the new superjuices coming out to the market… almost ALL of them are “reducing” their bottle size to 750ml. Reduced in comparison to the original juice companies- where the standard was either 32 oz or 1 liter. I guess the argument is that the new stuff is more potent, so drinkers are getting more bang for the buck, you don’t have to drink as much to get the same results. You would think as the superjuice craze is all over the place, suppliers should be more plentiful, increasing competition, and thus driving prices down- all these guys buy their juice from someone. Apparently prices are not getting any cheaper….OR in spite of the 10X markup necessary to pay mlm commissions, maybe companies like Zrii, Xango, etc, are slaughtering a fatter pig- with the same prices relatively across the board, margins must be much nicer than their older counterparts…. to the envy of the old fathers of the superjuice craze.

Does it really matter? Look at Mona Vie, it seems this juggernaut is impervious- driven on amway zealotry, and a hype surge like the mlm world has never seen. It will be interesting to see if these new products have the staying power that the originals like Tahitian Noni and Aloe Vera have clearly proven they have- surviving attack after attack and still alive and well.

The network marketing world is going bigger. In order to exact more commissionable volume out of their distributors, companies are learning to take more advantage of what they have, instead of what they might have. There are several reasons for this, one of which is easy- the more you can charge monthly, the more commission you can pay. Look at Mona Vie, Xango, and others- they all have a “super” auto ship program- usually around $300 a month. Instead of the standard $150 (plus shipping, handling, and fees) that was a hard enough pill to swallow for newbies, it seems it is just as hard to exact the additional $150 out of them upfront. So why not? In addition, for the established distributors to take full advantage of the commission plan, the company essentially puts a gun to their head and forces the super auto ship on them. Lots of warm fuzzies there!

It is a well accepted rule that most new sign ups last about 3 months in a program. How long do the $300 club newbies last. Few if any companies are going in the opposite direction. What would happen if startup and autoship was $50 a month? Would retention be much longer? Would it be an MLM shoe-horn that will ease a newbie into the system rather than bust him in and out after three months?

In 1996, Tahitian Noni Juice started the super fruit juice craze. Since then, everyone and their grandmother with a million bucks has started their own version of TNI. Word on the street (and this is all the REALLY matters in MLM) is that TNI is old, tired, and a has been opportunity. As the founder of this craze, it is arguable that Tahitian Noni didn’t really appreciate what they had. Instead of focusing on the actual amazing new craze they had started- namely, Noni Juice, they apparently missed the mark by venturing into weightloss, animal feed, skin care- just like everyone else out there- in spite of their mantra, “We will NEVER be another network marketing company!”

Mona Vie- nothing new, just another juice right? What are they doing right? For starters, they have a highly aggressive marketing strategy. Giving away, Ferrari’s, millions of dollars, etc. based on a binary marketing plan so enticing that mainstay die hard Amway top dogs salivated to the point of lawsuits and controversy that propelled Mona Vie to near yearly billion dollar revenues. Will Mona Vie sustain? Doubtful it will sustain its current level of success (but in all fairness, who ever does?). One reason they will not sustain is that a binary payout pays out big on top- and very little to the average guy. Uni-level hybrid plans will sustain lower level distributors much longer than binary- therefore they will stick around much longer.

The dearth in growth TNI has experienced that last few years is a telling sign that innovation in the wrong direction can be fatal. It is never too late with network marketing programs however. It was once joked that once a company reaches $10M a month in sales- you couldnt kill it if you beat it with a stick…. it is certainly true in many cases. Neways Japan for example struggled severely in the end of the 90’s- it was all but over for them. Now they are a dominant force in Japan. What was the change? The right people, the right incentives, and the right products? Who really knows exactly… but it was something to do with motivated distributors.

Super Fruit Juices are here to stay. It is up to TNI, to see if they can reinvent themselves now the right way to revive what was once was most prolific and exciting stranglehold the business had seen in decades. Cutting distributor commissions was a deathly blow- regardless of the reasons. It was poorly executed, and arrogantly implemented. Products began to be less and less lucrative. If you are looking for a how-to-NOT grow a company from $500M to a $Billion, you need look no further than TNI in the last 3 years. But as it was true for Neways in Japan, so it can be true for TNI, time will tell.

We are on the brink of an all out network marketing explosion. The time is right, and now we have the economy to push us, the baby boomers will top out in 2009, more and more older people will want to stay young, and the best way to do that is exercise, and to get the energy needed they will need to use healthy, cutting edge products that are almost exclusively found from network marketing companies. This is the only place where it is profitable enough to make the products that work, and that people will buy. With the business package attached it is worth it for people to spend a premium for it, and there is sufficient profit for corporations to cash in, big.

Look for the next 5 years, those who grasp a hold of the vision of what is coming, will become millionaires. Consumption on staying-young products is already massive, baby boomers will have more time to research, more incentive to buy, the older they get, the more active they will want to be, and therefore…… you see what I mean.

No other product on the market is as popular as the super fruit. Noni, Xango, Acai, the list is growing. All of it is good, all of it works, and all of it will be sold direct sales. The stuff works, and it will sell.