Barry Minkow's YouTube Baloney On Usana's Products ...

I would like to start off my comments here by first of all stating unequivocally, that I have no interest in or relationship to Usana either as a distributor, spokesperson or stock holder.  I am by no means a Usana booster or promoter!  I was a Gold Director with Usana in the mid to late 1990's and at one time was a member of the corporate training team.  I left active participation as a distributor and became an outspoken critic of Usana on several levels eventually having my distributorship (in my mind) wrongfully terminated and with that, my bonus check and hard work and efforts and the income from that passing back up to the company for their enjoyment and pleasure.  But that's a whole other story.  Suffice to say, I would under no circumstances recommend Usana as a "best choice" business opportunity in NetWORK Marketing.  There are better choices within the industry in my opinion.

Secondly, I think it important to recognize Mr. Minkow for his efforts at restoring his name and reputation, retrieving it from the gutter of dishonesty and shame, where he deposited it after bilking untold numbers of people out of millions of dollars.  Apparently he has diligently worked at restoring to those people, whom he lied to and deceived the monies he stole from them.  I'm not sure what he could possibly do for making whole the people whose reputations were ruined and probably in some cases, "heads rolled" for falling prey to a slick, egotistical, self serving, money grubbing con artist.

Mr. Minkow is quite obviously a very bright guy.  One look at his background and level of accomplishments easily substantiates that assertion.  But being smart doesn't always mean right.  I'm of the opinion that Mr. Minkow for reasons unbeknownst to us has chosen to make a crusade out of going after Usana Health Sciences.  Its anyone's guess as to the motivation and there are those who suggest he's creating a market and windfall profit by playing the stock market of publicly traded MLM's selling short.  Maybe there's a bigger picture whereby he's creating an image as the protagonist in an industry that is fast becoming a major force in product distribution world wide and for which some folks find serious fault with given many scam artists like "the former Mr. Minkow" that ply the waters of MLM past, present and future.  Nobody can say for sure.  Only Mr. Minkow knows the answer to that one.  And of course any answer he might put forth will always be viewed under the microscope of his stained past and thus left to speculation as to the truthfulness of it.  On to commentary on Mr. Minkow's late night TV huckster like presentation ...

Mr. Minkow would like folks to believe that a vitamin is a vitamin, is a vitamin.  Hmmm ...  Is that the same as saying a car is a car, is a car?  I mean a Toyota Camry is a car right?  A Lexus is a car right?  And Toyota manufacturers Lexus right?  So then is a Lexus LS 430 a Camry LE?  They're both cars right?  They're both made by Toyota right?  So why then is the LS 430 $40,000.00+ more in price?!?!  Toyota must be ripping people off!  And my gosh how dumb must the Lexus buyer be?!?!  Don't they know it's just a Toyota?

Just the other day I was in a "Big Box" store and noticed a men's leather coat on sale for $59.00 ... nice price!  Later, I was in another retail outlet, a smaller specialty store and there was the very same coat hanging on display in the window ... at least it "looked like" the same coat.  So I went in to take a closer look and WOW!  Talk about "sticker shock"!  Why they wanted $499.99 ... and that was the SALE price!  Were they crazy?  Didn't they realize I could buy the very same coat ... well maybe not the "very" same coat, ahmm ... well maybe not the "same" coat ... but, well it looked like it ... I mean, it kind of looked like it - just a few miles away for a fraction of their price?!?!  I mean it was a brown leather coat.  Leather's leather right?  I mean thread is thread and zippers are zippers and buttons are buttons ... right?

Bearing in mind my opening comment here, I can tell you that I have sat in Usana conventions and watched an almost endless parade of people cross a stage sharing their personal testimonials, often tear jerker testimonials of how the Usana products radically changed their lives-- their health for the better.

The fact of the matter is you could not get that many people to all get up on stage and lie like that.  Certainly some people will lie and deceive people for financial gain.  We all know that happens.  After all, Mr. Minkow's living proof of that.  But you just can't orchestrate such a charade.  On top of which there were people sitting in the audience, who had personal first hand knowledge of the people on the stage sharing incredible testimonials.  And to be quite clear on this point, Usana is not unique in that regard.  There are numerous companies in the NetWORK Marketing industry that manufacture good to excellent, life changing products.  Some better than others.  I never repeated the mantra at Usana that the company had "the world's finest nutritional supplements".  Says who?  Try to tell that to the customer/distributor sharing their personal testimonial of a life changing product experience on stage at an annual convention from some other company.  Fat chance! :-)

In the final analysis, Barry Minkow fails to deliver anything other than a ludicrous stage performance leaving open to question and speculation the real reasons underpinning his lambasting of Usana's nutritional products.

Watch out Lexus!  You may be next!

P.S. For additional information and a rebuttal to Minkow's YouTube baloney read Len Clements challenge to Minkow here.