Our old buddies at USANA have been kind enough to contribute to this discussion.
With USANA, as with all MLMs, recruiting new suck^H^H^H^H distributors is the Holy Grail. The boys on top of the pyramid have, of course, found additional ways to profit from this activity, in the form of "training". (Personally, I want to know where the Castle Anthrax is. Mmm,
Carol Cleveland. But I digress.)
Sometimes, these guys will publish recruiting props on their websites. USANA, for example, touts
a chart they prepared as "
a great way to illustrate what a prospect can reasonably expect to earn in his or her USANA business". (Emphasis supplied.) From this phrase, USANA certainly wants the reader to believe that the chart shows the average distributor's prospects. After all, the chart is entitled "North American Average Total Earnings". Right?
Man, would that be wrong. You see, in MLM-land "average total earnings" doesn't mean "average total earnings". It means, "let's take the top 2% and claim it's the average". Don't believe me? Well. look at the smallest print on the entire page, footnote 2 to the chart: "To be considered in a rank’s earnings, Associates must have earned checks at a median rank for at least 16 weeks". So the only distributors included in the "average total earnings" are those getting a check at least about one week in three. What percentage do that, you might ask. Well, they don't tell you. Down at the bottom however, in print almost as small, they do tell you this: "Those earning as little as one check a month equal approximately 3% of all Associates". So only 3% get at least 12 checks per year. Since they don't tell you how many get 16 checks, 2% is probably generous.
So USANA tells its distributors to pass out a chart to prospects, representing that it shows what they "can reasonably expect to earn". In fact, even assuming USANA accurately reports the numbers, it reflects what one in fifty "can reasonably expect to earn" - and then it's the bottom figure. If you told a recruit that his/her odds of making the modest "Director" income ($32K) or above was 1 in 300, how many would sign up?
Finally, of course, these earnings numbers don't take expenses into account. Given expenses, it seems likely that only a tiny percentage of distributors make anything at all. I thus suggest the following chart that more accurately shows what a prospective USANA distributor "can reasonably expect to earn":
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