USANA Rebrands Themselves and Makes Impossible Promise To Their Distributors

Get ready for the new USANA! After 20 years, USANA announced at their 2012 International Convention that it was time to re-brand themselves. They are starting with the United States first. USANA redid all their packaging, sales tools & literature, website, and even their logo!

USANA's New Logo

USANA states that their new Brand Promise is the following: "We promise everything we do will help you love life and live it — and that will help you help others do the same."

 I think USANA's new logo actually looks like something out of a nightmare. Maybe the Mirror Prison in the first Superman movie.

Unfortunately, 99% of USANA's distributors never make a profit. In fact, according to USANA, less than 1% of distributors are even considered "Full Time" working associates (0.76% to be exact). USANA considers a distributor full time if they are a "Gold Director" or higher. To get to Gold Director, a distributor must max out their "Business Center" four weeks in a row. To max out a business center, the distributor must accumulate 5000 "Group Sales Volume" (GSV) on their "Left Leg" and 5000 on their "Right Leg". The distributor accumulates this volume of points from either "Preferred Customers" or recruited distributors in their "Downline".  There are over 3 distributors for every preferred customers, so obviously preferred customers are not relied upon for this volume points.

In order to accumulate 5000 GSV on a leg, they need their downline to personally purchase at least 100 "Personal Sales Volume" (PSV) worth of points through an "autoship" plan. These aren't really sales however, they are personal "Purchases" made by each "active distributor". A distributor is active as long as they personally purchase 100 PSV every 4 weeks (13 times a year). These personal purchases count as GSV for each distributor in their "upline".

So, 5000 GSV can count for 50 distributors who each personally purchase over $110 worth of product. This needs to happen on both left and right legs of the downline. So to max out a business center, it may take 100 distributors to do it. Doing it once only makes you a Silver Director. When you do it however, you get a new business center at the bottom of your one of your legs so you can continue recruiting more distributors and make more money. So to max out four weeks in a row, you need to time when you recruit your distributors so they order at different times during a 4 week period. So maxing out 4 weeks in a row may take over 400 recruited distributors.

Now the reason each distributor makes these 100 (some cases 200) PSV purchases every 4 weeks is because it is a business requirement by USANA. If the distributor fails to make that personal purchase, then that distributor will lose any GSV they may have accumulated and can not qualify or collect any commission that may have been owed to that distributor.

Imagine what it must take to become a Diamond Director, or 4-Star Diamond Director, or 10-Star Diamond Director. A Diamond Director must have 4 business centers all maxed out four weeks in a row. A 10-Star Diamond Director needs to max out 14 business centers four weeks in a row! That takes upwards of tens of thousands of distributors in their downline, balanced between the legs, and actively personally purchasing 140,000 volume points of product (about $154,000) each week!

Now how many downline distributors does it take to cover the cost of these personal purchases? About 10 actively purchasing distributors. So 10 would give about 1000 GSV (500 on left leg, 500 on right leg) which pays out $100 in commission. You only get paid a commission when you accumulate enough GSV according to USANA's pay plan. This $100 still doesn't cover the $110 + shipping for something like the Healthpak100. So lets just say it takes about 11 distributors to cover the cost to participate as a USANA distributor. Right off the bat, USANA has designed the compensation plan to fail 11 out of 12 distributor.

Unfortunately there are many other problems with the compensation plan and how USANA pays out commission as well as other factors that cause about 99% of USANA's distributors to lose money and never make a profit. So only about 1% distributors even have a chance to make a profit. These are fixed percentages designed into USANA's Binary Compensation Plan. It's even evident by USANA's own statistical figures that show only 0.76% of distributors are Gold Directors or higher.

And now we have USANA stating that "we promise everything we do will help you love life and live it — and that will help you help others do the same."

Here's what I think would be a more appropriate logo for USANA:

I call it "Suffering MLM Distributors Trapped in a Web of Deception and Misfortune"