Usana Review: What is Usana?
Company: Usana
Website: www.usana.com
Type: Multi Level Marketing
Products: Health
Rating: 4/10
Is Usana a scam or legit?
Usana is an MLM company that specializes in health products such as nutritionals and health care. The products seem legit enough and some of them look very good. My only problem with these type of companies is that most of them are MLM based.
I am not a big fan of multi level marketing because the business model itself is not very effective (There are better ways to build a passive income). At first it will look as if you can make a ton of money with it, but in reality, you won’t. With MLM you do not only make money from direct sales, but you also earn a commission from what your group is earning. So if your referrals are also selling products, then you get a small cut from what they make.
Some companies are on the borderline of being a scam because today it is very easy to quickly create a product to hide the pyramid scheme. So is Usana legit? I would say yes, but I would not recommend anything associated with MLM.
The compensation plan
The plan is actually very simple and not as complicated as most of the other MLM companies with all of their different levels and so forth. First of all you need to open your own business centre.
Retail sales
You can sell the products directly to customers if you wish which will earn you a commission rate of 10%. Some people only prefer this model which is fine, but most will go for the Binary leg plan.
Binary legs
With the binary legs you can only start by referring 2 associates to Usana. An associate can be a customer that also wants to make money by joining your team and open their own business centre. In simple terms you will have a left leg and a right leg which will result in 2 groups.
As these groups grow, you will earn more commission points and that is if your groups are making sales. The more expensive the product, the more points it will have. The points do not have an exact value because it represents all of the currencies in the world. The
For this to work, you need to work on both of your legs and keep in mind that you will always have a weaker leg which will be called your small side. Each week you will earn 10% of the matching volume of both sides. If your small side has earned 1100 points and your large side has earned 1500 points, you will earn 110 points on the small side and 110 points on the large side.
Remember that you will not lose the extra 400 points that your large side has generated, because it will be carried over in the next week. At the start of the next week you will have 0 points on the small side and 400 points on the large side. This will force you to continually improve your weaker side. It is also the same as earning 20% from your weaker side.
Once you have earned 5000 points on both your left and right leg, you will be eligible to open another store to increase your income.
Prerequisites
In order to earn money from your store, you need to generate at least a personal sales volume of 100 points per month. This prerequisite is in place to force people to sell the products in order to keep the group alive.
Do I recommend Usana?
It is possible to make money with Usana, but most people will not make it. I was involved with mlm before and found that you need to constantly feed your team with a spoon in order for them to make money. Usana is one of the better mlm companies out there, because they have great products, but mlm in general does not have my interest.
If you are someone that already has experience in network marketing, then you might stand a chance. Usana does not actually teach you how to promote the products and only gives you the opportunity. What you do with it and also how you do it is up to you.
MLM vs Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is where you direct sell the products from other companies such as Amazon or E-bay. You will earn a commission from each product you promote and there is no complicated compensation plan such as that of mlm.
With affiliate marketing you reap what you sow and only you will harvest the fruit of your own works. Most people go for mlm because they think that it is the only way to earn a passive income and boy are they wrong. Affiliate marketing also has the potential to earn you a passive income online and it does not even cost as much as mlm to start with.
Thanks for the heads up. Us and doesn’t seem like a total scam but probably not a program I am going to try. Do you have any set system for identifying which programs are scams and which are legit? Do you have any articles I could read?
All the best
Dave
Hi Dave
It is very hard to set a borderline of a scam. This is why I give the articles a rating out of 10. The closer it is to 0 the riskier the business. If a product is an obvious scam then I will call it so.
Hi Viljoen,
Great site. having looked at usana I can see its potential to earn some money but it would take an experienced network marketer to do that.
Like yourself I tend to avoid MLM’s simply because I do not want to be reliant or dependent in any way upon others in order to earn an income.
Great article, well balance review.
Hi Derek
The main reason why I avoid MLM is because you need to buy the products in order to sell them. It can take a couple of years for your business to take off because you need a lot of referrals to be successful.
Hi there,
My sister has been with Usana foe almost 5 years now, and I can say that it actually works. She earns some money and she also uses the products mostly the multivitamins. She recommended me a product before and I believe that helped me get pregnant as well since I am very difficult to conceive. She hasn’t succeeded recruiting me to this mlm and i also havent succeeded convincing her to do affiliate marketing instead. haha
Hi Pitin
In the end it really depends on the person whether they will be successful or not. MLM is not for anyone because it takes a lot of hard selling to actually sell the products.
There are specific types of people that will be successful with it, while others will not make a penny back.
If I ever feel tempted to go and try MLM, I will not do so. From the few articles I have read of yours, it sounds less and less like a good idea, and too much of a hassle. It also seems that MLM limits your freedom to an extent where the stress and frustration would make you quit before anything else.
Have you ever been involved in a scam? Simply a question born from my curiosity. No need to answer if you do not want to!
Hi Caleb
I would not use the word “involved” but rather that I was scammed before through a scam. Most people give up on mlm because of the frustration and stress they get because the business model is very slow to actually show a return.
I am continually drawn to business opportunities. As I read this review I once again realize how easy it is to get taken.
It sounds like you agree that MLM does not work out for most people. The only good thing seems to be, they have products.
Do you have ideas about finding or developing products to sell in your online business? It seems that is the only way to have a business without buy one. Like a franchise. Thanks, Robert
Hi Robert
You can check out affiliate marketing because this business model allows you to sell other people’s products without creating your own.
I am planning to create my own product in the future because I do not know how to create one at this moment.
Wow this is a great article. I’ve learned so much with his. But I did some research also after reading this because I’m really looking for an online business, then see this article. Any thoughts about this?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2014/07/08/4-myths-about-affiliate-marketing-you-need-to-know/2/#7e6dd3e26b52
Hi Albas
Thanks for referring to this article. This article mainly focuses on opening your own affiliate network. As an affiliate marketer, you will be selling the products from this network and not be running the network itself.
They also state that affiliate marketing is a thing of yesterday because of the new algorithms that Google has.
Just because the traffic methods has changed a bit, does not mean that the business model does not work anymore.
Affiliate marketing still has a lot of years to go.