NuSkin is a legendary success story and fortunes have been made with this MLM giant, and now they hope to take it to the next level but it is even possible?
The economy is damaged,
jobs have disappeared and Network Marketing companies are seeing unheard of growth. A rising tide is said to float all boats, and even the old school MLM's are seeing their ranks grow, but can the opportunity they offer even begin to compare with the growth dynamics of a new deal?
The other day I got to experience MLM Deja Vu when someone called to try to recruit me into NuSkin.
They had no idea of course that I had previously been a NuSkin distributor, and that I had stepped down from active status many years ago, transfered my interest in the distributorship to my kids, and moved on.
They were the fist MLM I had ever tried, and a classic case in point of the runaway growth we all daydream about.
It had been a challenge in the beginning to learn the mysterious business of network marketing and I became so frustrated I quit more than once and then I hit my stride and became a “Team Elite” in about 2 1/2 years.
It had been a dizzying ride as the company jumped into their vertical growth moving from about $50 million to almost half a billion, and then a billion in a heart beat.
It's what we all dream about when we look at MLM, you bank account exploding, your downline exploding, it was beyond exciting.
Soon after I was asked to join the inner circle of the distributor board with 11 other company leaders and they said we had just broken all company records and had enrolled over 40,000 distributors that month alone.
Now we should have been jumping for joy, I mean lets get real here, this was great news. In one way it was good and in another it was bad, kind of like being on the 5th day of a 7 day ship cruise and things are now getting good and then you realize that in 2 days things are going to change
That brings up a key point, can a network marketing company or any company for that matter go straight up forever? Is there an ending point, and if there is what does that even signify in the universe of MLM?
If we listen to what the highly successful distributors in the company, that are making top income off of their huge downlines are telling us, then you would think that its "business as usual". Now for the distributor elite, that may be accurate, but what about the newbie? What does the future hold for the new team member that is just teaming up with a billion dollar company today?
Good question, because in today's declining job market most MLM's even the old one's are seeing impressive growth.
If a company hits the mark in the MLM world and knocks the cover off the ball, they go through one of those S shaped growth curves as they grow in popularity until they reach the tipping point and explode.
Then come the glory days, the ones you will tell stories about. If you have enough key players in the game, the legendary commission checks are yours.
Then the unthinkable happens! Bam!
You learn that a stability phase follows momentum growth when you suddenly hit the ceiling at about a billion dollars. The company sales volume, at least in the North American market starts to slow and then flatten, some even declining back 15% or more.
If you were one of the fortunate distributors who were well positioned, this is your Network Marketing pink slip, your retirement notice. You worked hard, go bank those checks and kick back or something, or maybe take up a hobby.
Now many companies will still see growth but history has shown us the dynamic growth days of momentum at least in the North American market have come to an end. Additional growth at this juncture is usually through moving quickly into the international markets.
It's easy to see the logic here, however, it's also easy to see that the weak spot of all business or financial analysis tools is using what has happened before to predict the future. It works sometimes, and sometimes not.
Now it could be said that today's market is different. In fact, It's pretty obvious, the economy is a disaster, and massive numbers of people are literally being driven into re inventing themselves, and into self employment.
In all fairness to NuSkin, if anyone can break through the ceiling, they probably can. Having been involved with many MLM's I believe that NuSkin stands out head and shoulders above them, they are a well run operation. They always seem to have been able to reinvent themselves over the years but most of the substantial increase in growth has been international.
A key difference here is that in past years they have tried to create increased growth in North America by creating new divisions, that distributors pretty much presented as separate companies.
Each of these divisions did do well at the start but then appeared to hit the wall in continued growth. One issue here is that, it may be that the type of products they used for the divisions were part of the problem here.
still this time may be a different animal, this time they are reverting back to their first product line Skin Care and Anti Aging, and in my opinion skin care being a visual, emotional, consumable product, is probably one of the best of not the best product type you have have in a Network Marketing company.
Many in the industry will watching this. NuSkin is trying a new tack this time. They have a lot of excitement going on with the “Galvanic Spa” and they are launching yet another exclusive product, AgeLoc, that they are rallying the troops around.
One note of caution here, NuSkin's comp plan has created many millionaires, but it takes some agressive building to get it powered up.. If you are committed to success, you need to develop an efficient marketing system and plan on enrolling at least 6 to 8 distributors per month. Too many people in network marketing base the success of their business on chance occurance and company momentum to make it happen for them. Don't leave your success to chance.
