AmeriSciences: a product driven company

I recently came across a review of the AmeriSciences opportunity that listed as a fault that the AmeriSciences website focuses on the product and does not have enough specific information about the opportunity. After all, they reasoned, isn't the point of network marketing to recruit other distributors? Isn't that how you make the real money? This is, of course, the reputation of network marketing and MLM companies. And for many companies it may hold true. I have no personal experience with this, but Jerry shared with us last night that he does. He has participated in an MLM before where the push was to recruit distributors rather than promote a product, and swore he would never join a company like that again. That is one of the things he likes about AmeriSciences.

There's a reason why the AmeriSciences website focuses on the products and the science behind the products: the goal is to market the product. The creators of AmeriSciences saw that the vitamin and wellness industry was growing quickly. Demand was high, and quality was lacking. So they decided to address that gap by creating high quality products, products that people could trust to contain what they claim to, and to use a multi-level network marketing approach to get their product noticed (see my previous post about the public's perception of alternative marketing techniques). Of course the opportunity to be a distributor as well as a consumer can be a big draw for some people, and it is by no means overlooked in AmeriSciences. But distributors are encouraged to sell at least half of their poducts to non-distributors (i.e., people who only consume the product). The following link (which can, incidentally, be found on AmeriSciences website), discusses this point:

A Product-Driven Company, by Lou Gallardo, Chairman: http://www.amerisciences.com/media/library/v108_3.pdf

If a company's sole purpose is to recruit more people into the company, it is a pyramid or Ponzi scheme. A legitimate multilevel network marketing opportunity, such as AmeriSciences, does focus on the product.

As with the review mentioned above, most reviews that I've found have been written by people who have no experience with the company, have gathered minimal information from a cursory review of the website, and are intended to sell you something. They are a form of advertisement targeted at people looking into MLM or network marketing opportunities, and are designed to make you believe that either a) you need their product to succeed in your chosen company, or b) you should join their company, which is superior to whichever other one you are looking into.