The Problems With Minkow's Interview With The Bishops ...

First of all, you need to know that I am a former Usana Gold Director and was at one time a member of the corporate training team.  With that said, I am also NOT a Usana booster.  In fact just the opposite is true.  I left Usana for reasons that I believe are compelling ones for NOT joining Usana, but that's a whole other discussion.  I've posted some of that elsewhere on this site.  With that said, I'll endeavor here to point out some serious flaws with Minkow's interview with the Bishop's.

The first "red flag" if you will was the assertion by the Bishop's that they lost $5,000.00 as Usana distributors.  Really?! How?  On what?  Obviously it wasn't on the products for if they consumed $5,000.00 worth of products, then they received a benefit.  I mean you don't go to the grocery store and spend say a $100.00 bucks on groceries and go back the next week with the thought that you "lost" a $100.00 bucks the week before on groceries do you? Of course not! Furthermore, to have consumed $5,000.00 in products even if the two of them were taking them daily would mean they would have had to have been on an autoship program for well over two years.  Something tells me Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, that you were not actively involved in Usana for over two years.

So this begs a few questions from the Bishop's, that I believe they and Minkow conveniently left out.  For example:

• So where did the $5,000.00 go Mr. and Mrs. Bishop? And over what period of time was this?
• On what did you spend the $5,000.00?
• Why did you spend this money like that?  Whose idea was it to spend the money like that?  Certainly not part of the corporate training materials I've ever seen from Usana in the past.
• Are you including personal products consumed in this $5,000.00 figure?  If so read the above and tell me you consider your grocery budget as lost revenues!
• How long were you distributors in Usana Mrs. Bishop?  And who was your Upline in Usana and why wasn't he/she part of this discussion?

Mrs. Bishop, you said that your daughter "is in the fitness business, that's what she does".  There was an implied message that your daughter is an astute health/fitness professional in some capacity.  If she was or is Mrs. Bishop, then why is it she could not herself afford the minimal start-up costs of a single Business Center?  We're only talking a mere few hundred dollars here Mrs. Bishop. (Yes, I know you said that you fronted your daughter Melanie "$5 or $600.00" ... enough to purchase product sufficient to activate three Business Centers.  Actually that's enough for three Business Centers with money left over!) I realize that people have times and circumstances in their lives in which even a couple a hundred bucks is very hard to come by, but if she is such a health and fitness professional, why then could she not even sponsor a few people?  You said she only sponsored one person "and then it stalled" were your words.  Something isn't adding up here Mrs. Bishop.

Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, you made the decision to go public on YouTube to tell your story and as you put it Mrs. Bishop, it is something "on your heart" was how Mr. Minkow phrased it and that you feel compelled from an ethical standpoint to do so.  All very well.  Therefore Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, you must of course realize that this public outcry on your part must by its very nature subject you to scrutiny and some degree of criticism ...

To that end Mr. and Mrs. Bishop and to a much lesser extent you Mr. Bishop, I find your presentation and you most disingenuous.  In fact I believe that your failure to reach even the most modest and I do mean modest level of success with your Usana business to be a reflection of you, of your failure to comprehend the training and systems in place that would have enabled you to achieve even that modest level of success necessary to at least pay for your products.  I find your claim of having spent some $5,000.00 growing your business to be highly suspect.  In the whole five plus years I was associated with Usana, I never spent anything close to what you claim to have spent in what was probably only months on your part.  And I did it mostly part time and earned nearly a quarter of a million dollars from that very part time effort.  And in those earlier years of Usana, we didn't have nearly the tools, the sophisticated web site nor the range of products you had at your disposal and available to you for creating and building a modest business.

I further believe that you Mr. and Mrs. Bishop are likely involved in one of the Class Action law suits that have been filed.  Well you better have real, verifiable receipts to support your claims if your are and know that you won't have Mr. Minkow there beside you feeding you the script as was rather apparent in this flimsy so-called interview on YouTube.

To anyone reading this, I want to further emphasize that I am in no way affiliated with Usana, nor have I had any contact with the company or any of its representatives. I am not a promoter of Usana, its products or its business opportunity.  A quick read of what I have written elsewhere here will make that point quite clearly.  My motivation for writing what I have here is strictly personal.  It was and is motivated by my utter outrage at the nonsense I listened to and watched coming from the Bishops, especially Mrs. Bishop and the carnival like huckster performance of Mr. Minkow.  Her whining and complaining coupled with Mr. Minkow's more than obvious playing these people like pawns in his self serving, personal gain motivated antics were more than I could stand or allow to go unanswered.  Even if it meant taking a position for a company I have strong disagreements with and one I would never under any circumstances recommend to someone as a "best choice" business opportunity.

For Mrs. Bishop and her daughter to have failed so miserably and in light of her "alleged" $5,000.00 loss leads me to believe that they are two of the most inept business people ever to grace the halls of Usana or any network marketing company for that matter.  I for one will presume the "alleged" loss is nothing more than a complete fabrication until I can see certified documentation of such expenditures.  And I'm beginning to think that Mrs. Bishop's sense of "ethical responsibility" is nothing more than the motivation of a woman who feels foolish in front of her family and friends for having failed so miserably, when she previously bragged about how much money she and they were going to make in her new business venture.  When it came time to hang tough and persevere and not quit when the going got tough, she and her daughter just plain wilted.

It's probably important to comment here that within the NetWORK Marketing industry there have been and will continue to be those companies, those so-called "opportunities" begun by slick, dishonest, huckster like promoters, who dupe the foolish into believing a lie ... "smoke and mirrors".  And there are legitimate companies out there marketing products and services of less than exceptional value.  In fact Mr. Minkow, who is now on a YouTube bent to sell his nonsense for his undisclosed personal and financial gain endeavors to prove that Usana's products are grossly overpriced and a rip off.  I'll have something to say about that as well.

I have long held the position that NetWORK Marketing is an easy business, that's hard to do.  Easy in that there are some very simple daily tasks that need to be done in order to succeed and hard in that most people are not willing to do them consistently over a protracted period of time.  They are just not willing to pay the price of success.  It cost little to get in and so it's easy to get out ... to quit.  So don't feel badly and embarrassed Mrs. Bishop.  You're not alone.  Many people are just like you. The one difference is most of them are willing to admit that it wasn't "their cup of tea" after all and they opted out.  I wish you well. -JO