random neuron misfires

In my last post, I mentioned that “Tsai” from my local sushi restaurant tried to encourage me to join his “network” to help him push and sell a drink called “Mona Vie”, based on the Açaí (pronounced “assa-yee”) berry extract, which has been claimed to be rich in anti-oxidants and other nutrients.

His strong-arm approach and insults completely ruined a long friendship we’ve had. I will not be patronizing his business for a very long time, if at all. This MLM cost “Tsai” a valued friend and long-time customer to his brick and mortar business.

Now let’s get into the details about Mona Vie… where I will link to specific resources to back up my references and statements below. I did my research on this company and their methods, product and tactics. I would never jump feet-first into a business venture without doing my due diligence, and this one is no different.

(Editor’s note: If you don’t care to read the rest of this blog entry, read the review by Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D. where he gives MonaVie and their dubious claims a strong thumbs-down.)

First and foremost, “Mona Vie” (or “MonaVie” as it is sometimes called) is yet another MLM or “relationship networking” business model. Amway (now known as “Quixtar”) is the most-famous MLM business model to-date, and there have been literally thousands of them over the years. Here are a few you might recognize:

Many of the stock symbols above have been de-listed and are no longer valid.

The whole premise of these MLM “relationship networking” systems is that you need to build up your “network” of people beneath you in order to recoup a percentage of their eventual sales downstream from you. You find two people, who in turn find two more people and so on.

Relationship networking is the art of meeting people and taking advantage of those relationships. Often the benefit of these relationship is to obtain information and leads to further grow your business. Successful relationship networking is all about building those relationships and maintaining long lasting connections with other professionals.

The MonaVie business model (and MLM in general) is somewhat similar to a “Pyramid Scheme” where you’re charged a membership fee which is then used to pool the funds and pay everyone above you. The more people you build “beneath” you (base of the pyramid), the more money the people at the top make from the “membership fees” of those below.

But MonaVie is not a Pyramid Scheme, it is arguably a valid business model, with questionable tactics to reinforce its business practices. With subtle changes by each of the “Distributors” in the system, they could easily morph this into a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.

MonaVie was created by “Dallin Larsen” who claims to have a 17-year history of direct-sell networking experience. If you look him up in Google, you’ll see several companies he’s created or been involved with that he has augered into the ground (Usana Health Sciences, VU1 Corp being the top two). Now he is the Chairman and CEO of “Monarch Health Sciences”.

Instead of just creating a product with the açaí berry, Dallin and his team of scientists identified 19 fruits that were included in the MonaVie product drink (see image above). Since that time, the product has evolved into the “MonaVie Active Formula Drink”.

Like all typical multi level marketing systems your guess is a correct about it’s selling propositions. You are normally encouraged to become Independent Distributors if you purchase MonaVie’s products. You profit by bringing in more distributors and get a percentage of every sale made by your downline.

You continue to work within the context of a “network marketing” based system where “leveraging upon others” is the common mantra and work ethic. The process centers around bringing in a network of people to consume and/or sell MonaVie juices to others; they sell to their friends, and their friends sell to their friends and so on.

The Cost

The first stinging point is the cost of MonaVie; a hefty $30-$45/bottle for 25oz of their engineered juice, depending on whether you get it at wholesale/distributor prices or retail prices. This means a one month supply is about $180 ($5/day or $2,160/year). They claim that you should be consuming 3oz-4oz of the juice every day (2oz in the morning and 1oz at night). This number is advertised (in their literature) to be the right amount to maintain healthy living and the right concentration of anti-oxidants.

The reality is that this 3oz-4oz number is designed exclusively so they can get you to consume 4 bottles a month of their juice, ensuring a solid profit stream. There is absolutely no science behind the juice concentration (which they intentionally do not publish), and nothing stating that 2oz isn’;t enough and 5oz is too much.

They intentionally made the bottle look like a wine bottle so they could justify the price. If they put the same juice in a plastic “sports” bottle, nobody would pay the price they ask for it. The reality is that it costs MORE than a bottle of wine.

There are plenty of other juices on the market that include açaí in them. V8 even has their V8 V-Fusion Açaí Berry juice which is 32oz and costs 1/3 what the MonaVie juice costs ($0.15/oz vs. $1.60/oz).

MonaVie is missing a huge market of sports enthusiasts IMHO, by making their juice in a glass wine bottle looking container. If they put it into “kid-friendly” or sports-friendly bottle, they might be able to push even more of this snake-oil to their distributors/customers.

The Business Model

According to the actual printed marketing material from MonaVie, the 8 primary ways that you make money are:

1. Direct sales: You are expected to purchase 3-12 cases of the juice at wholesale, and sell at a retail price for about a 15% markup, but given the cost of the bottles, if you have some regular customers you can make a bit of money this way.
2. Bulk order bonus: If you have at least 200 PV (Product Volume), each time someone you’ve sponsored orders a bulk order you get paid. Good deal.
3. First Order Bonus: Qualified Distributors with at least 200 PV earn a one-time bonus for bringing new distributors under you.
4. Star Maker Bonus: for Qualified Distributors with at least 200 PV, each time someone you sponsor makes the rank of “star” you earn $40. Again, money for recruiting, not selling juice.
5. Team Commissions: This next part is written in ALL CAPS in their marketing material:

   “TEAM COMMISSIONS ARE THE FUNDAMENTAL BUILDING BLOCK OF THE MONAVIE COMPENSATION PLAN”

   “The team commissions portion of our plan is binary. Binary means that you will be placed in one of two legs (right or left) in your sponsor’s organization. You will then be compensated based on successfully building two legs of your own. Your sponsor (or anyone else in your upline) may also place poeple in your organization. As your group begins to grow, you are entitled to team commissions based on the total volume generated in your lesser leg.”

6. Executive Check Match: If you reach this level, and have earned enough to build something called a “Personal” tree, which is different from the “binary tree”. It takes a LOT of work to get to this level. There is a lot of complicated detail inside the “Executive Check Match” ranking.
7. Leadership Pools: They have reserved 1% of total company GV for the elite group of Monavie Blue Diamonds. You basically split 1% of the gross profits from MonaVie across all executives at this level. Without an earnings disclosure, you never know if you’re really getting the true 1% you’re promised.
8. Multiple Business Centers: This is a point at which you are making lots of money. But like any pyramid scheme, does anyone other than the original company founders make it to this level? Not likely.

Here are 4 other important considerations I found while digging around on the Internet for the details of MonaVie:

1. MonaVie is not purchasing their Açaí berries from Sambazon (purported to be the source of the best berries)
2. The drink is not made up of 100% freeze dried Açaí. They use an undocumented blend of Açaí puree and freeze-dried Açaí
3. Independent distributors can abuse the system and try to recruit endless representatives
4. There are reports of people becoming very sick from the juice which can carry parasites that were present in the original berry material.

Most people get burned by #3 because it really isn’t that easy to recruit people who can work the same system to your liking. Once you exhaust (and burn) your friends and family, you’re stuck with adding strangers to your “weaker leg”. If your downline distributors aren’t as passionate or energetic in recruiting as you are, your own profits will suffer, and there’s nothing you can do to fix that, other than add more people to your downline. It’s an endless and vicious cycle.

Before you jump onto any of these MLM “business models”, make sure you check out MLM Watch to learn more about these techniques and how they’re used and abused.

In other words, avoid doing any sort of business with MonaVie or their Distributors, channel partners, executives and affiliates. Like “Tsai” said (in his own insulting way):

“The system isn’t designed for smart people.”

He’s right, because if you were smart, you’d find all of the obvious loopholes and deceit in the system and avoid throwing your own good money away at supporting it.

Quoting Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D.:

MonaVie is an expensive way to get your antioxidants – it sells for about $40 for a 25.3 ounce bottle. That works out to $4 to $6 per day if you use it as directed. While it is probably safe, I recommend sticking closer to home for your protective phytonutrients. Opt for organically grown blueberries, which are more available, much less expensive, and give you fiber as well as plenty of antioxidant activity. And don’t forget black raspberries and pomegranates, both of which have health benefits for which there is good scientific evidence.”

There is a local sushi place that I’ve frequented an average of 1-2 times a week for over 4 years. The staff there is great and has always treated me well. In exchange, I treat them well.

Friday I went there with my laptop in hand hoping to do a little work over lunch after visiting my daughter at daycare and sharing some story time with her.

When I sat down, I was almost immediately approached by the owner (we’ll call him “Tsai”; not his real name) of the sushi restaurant with an offer to join his “network” of friends and family who are in the process of selling a very specific product from a company called “Mona Vie”. He showed me a website that is the front-face of his “leg” of the network.

Disclaimer: I am not going to mention the sushi owner’s business name, his real name or link to any of the MLM websites involved, because I am not in any way promoting them, nor denigrating the sushi restaurant or their owners.

I still respect Tsai and his family and if they wish to pursue being successful with these business ventures, I’m not going to actively hurt their potential to so do in the process.

For the next hour or more, instead of allowing me to enjoy my lunch in peace (which he has always respected in the past), I was affronted by his pitch to join his MLM program buying and selling cases of this “energy juice” that contains extract of Açaí berries (along with other unlabeled, unknown concentrations of blended fruits and vegetables).

At first, I was patient as I am with everyone who has something to share, and let him talk. Then after several minutes, things went south… fast.

I’m a reasonably smart person, and I started asking questions about the “system”, about the earning potential, about the bonus allocation and so on. Apparently the system was not made for “smart people”, as I was told several times. Then his explanations got more and more confusing, so I started asking questions, and was met with comments like “Shut up and listen.” and “You’re so skeptical, just shut up and stop thinking.”

He showed me some of his earnings, using their online “Distributors Virtual Office” control panel. He said that they have weekly “tasting parties” where they invite people to come by and try the juice, and encourage them to join the network to start consuming and selling the juice themselves (herein likes the crux of the scam; more on this later in this post).

In response, I showed him the revenue I make from my Google and LinkXL banner ads that I run on very specific, targeted websites which more than surpassed his earnings from selling this juice at these “tasting parties”, and I didn’t have to spend a dime or any time on driving to the parties, organizing them or bringing any product or marketing materials to them. My websites stay running, I get paid an ever-increasing amount each month. Simple.

This is where it began to get personal. After his pitch, and my hesitance to join his “network”, he started to insult me, my friends, my family, my intelligence and my background (none of which he knows a single shred about).

“Are you crazy? It’s only $39.00 to join. Don’t you have the money? I can pay for it for you, if you’re low on cash.”

“You’re just afraid. You’ve never taken a risk or a chance in your life. You just sit back and live in fear.”

“Don’t you have any friends? Maybe you need to get some new friends who you can get to join your network.”

“You need to make time to make this work. Just forget your work and your daughter and focus on this.”

At that point, I told him to get up, out of my booth.

I won’t repeat some of the further comments he said, but it got ugly. True to form, I exercised restraint and didn’t stoop to his level. I packed up my things, thanked him for his time and the lunch through gritted teeth, and left.

Never to return again.

Later that night, I received a voicemail from “Tsai” with an apology for his behavior and that I should reconsider his offer to join his “network”.

This morning (Saturday), I recieved two VERY early morning phone calls from a number I didn’t recognize. The calls woke me up, but I ignored them and the caller didn’t leave any voicemail.

Later this morning, I called the number back. It was “Tsai” with another apology, but this time he added that he couldn’t sleep last night and it was bothering him at a very personal level. I listened to his apology, said thank you and hung up.

Later in the afternoon, the same number called again… again I ignored it, again no voicemail.

I’m going to separate the MLM and MonaVie details into a separate blog post, which I will be writing shortly after I publish this one.

I have 6 primary email accounts that I use every day; 5 of these are external and 1 is the one I use internally at work on the corporate LAN. I probably receive anywhere from 200-300 emails a day, about 80% of which require my personal attention and response.

I have GNOME Evolution configured to aggregate these accounts into one “view” in my mail. I also set up a “virtual folder” called “Unread Email” that all of the unread (i.e. new, incoming) email from all 5 external email accounts is visible from. Since I use this virtual folder as my primary “Inbox” folder for reading and responding to email, my “real” Inboxes have grown a bit cluttered over time because I never need to go into them directly.

I like to have my Inbox down to a total of 0 (yes, ZERO) emails at the end of every day in every account. With 5 separate mail accounts (IMAP) and 1 work account (Exchange), this can get challenging on busier days. If I have enough emails in my Inbox that I have to use a scrollbar to see them or they’ve gone “below the fold”, I’ve done something horribly wrong.

(If you’re interested in reading or hearing more about “Inbox Zero”, you might want to see this Google Talk by Merlin Mann for greater detail on the philosophy.)

After months and months of letting the “real” Inboxes for these accounts fill up, and dealing with ONLY the “Unread Email” virtual folder in Evolution, I finally went back and cleaned up the email in the main mail accounts, bringing me back to a total of 9 emails across all 5 accounts. The 9 emails which remain are there because I need to respond to them tomorrow, after doing a bit of research first.

Now my internal work email (Exchange + Outlook) is going to be even more challenging… because a large bulk of that email is research material, useful for referring back to later.

I’ve been slowly picking out the important bits and putting them into Microsoft OneNote, but I have to do that on a physically separate laptop because I do not have OneNote on my work machine (and installing any software is forbidden and locked down by very strict account policies).

Overall stress is dramatically reduced when you can log into your mail and see only THAT day’s emails in your Inbox, and nothing more. Ending the day with zero emails in your mail really does put some “completion” and accomplishment to the day’s tasks. You don’t have to be thinking about unanswered emails or “leftover” tasks from the previous day(s) or weeks ago.

If I can just keep on top of the emails in my main accounts, I’ll be well ahead of the game.

One of THE most-annoying features of Windows is the “Send To” menu that shows up when you right-click on anything on the desktop or in any folder. As with most things created by Microsoft, the idea was sound, but the implementation is absolutely horrible..

The problem with this “feature” is that when you run your mouse past that option to reach options in the right-click menu that are lower down (Delete, Properties and so on), your mouse will pass “Send To”, which then has to enumerate every single application that is registered with it for the various options provided there (Mail Recipient, Clipboard, Desktop, My Documents, 3½ Drive, and so on). This can take mere seconds to almost a full minute every single time you right-click and move past the option!

If you’re like me and are creating and moving around hundreds to thousands files per-day on Windows, this can be downright maddening. In fact, if you right-click an icon in your QuickLaunch menu and let “Send To” do its disk-thrashing dance, and then do it again seconds later, it STILL has to go enumerate all of those same applications again and thrash the disk again. The list of applications and providers registered with the “Send To” menu aren’t cached in any way.

But there is a solution: Get rid of the “Send To” menu completely!

To do that, use the following steps:

1. Launch “regedit” and find the following registry key:
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Send To

2. Double-click the string value named “Default” that you see there. The value you see there ({7BA4C740-9E81-11CF-99D3-00AA004AE837}) is the one that enables the “Send To” menu.
3. Delete the value and save the key. Poof! No more “Send To” menu.

This may seem drastic and brute-force, but I tried several other approaches, including removing all of the applications that were in the C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Send To\ folder.

Now at least the system isn’t hanging for 30-40 seconds every time I right-click something and roll my mouse past that menu option.

I received this in my email this morning, and found that it was legit, from his website. I’m reposting it here (hyperlinks added by me).

Friends,

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan’s finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn’t know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.

Here’s what happened:

The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin’ on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.

The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this “financial crisis” reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of “the people.”

Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I’d seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check — there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation’s trains, too), heck, they would’ve thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could’ve conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That’s what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.

The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank (Wikipedia) and Chris Dodd (Wikipedia) were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur (Wikipedia), Sheila Jackson Lee (Wikipedia), and Dennis Kucinich (Wikipedia). They spoke the truth.

The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn’t get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it’s bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.

And guess what? That’s exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It’s a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!

Of course, sane people know that nobody “lost” anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.

But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won’t last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?

Here’s my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush’s proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

So the ball is in the Democrats’ hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:

1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street’s spending of the $700 billion;

2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people’s money;

3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people’s mortgages to avoid foreclosures — this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;

4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like “suggested” when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;

5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the “financial crisis” and cause even MORE of a meltdown.

Put a fork in this slab of pork. It’s over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We’ve bought ourselves less than 72 hours.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com

I was asked this question from one of the conductors on the departing train home late this afternoon… the same conductor who was on my arriving train early this morning;

“So how was YOUR day”?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s how my day went:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks skidded Monday, with the Dow slumping nearly 778 points, in the biggest single-day point loss ever, after the House rejected the government’s $700 billion bank bailout plan.

The day’s loss knocked out approximately $1.2 trillion in market value, the first post-$1 trillion day ever, according to a drop in the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the broadest measure of the stock market.

Actually, I spent the majority of my day in back-to-back meetings with only 1 hour of my day free to schedule with my own work (which included inhaling a lunch in that 60 minutes somewhere), and then back to another 1-hour meeting with another project team.

If you haven’t already guessed, I work in Manhattan for one of the largest (remaining) financial services institutions downtown.

Tomorrow should be fun. Sigh.

“One often meets his destiny
on the road he takes to avoid it.”

Here was how my Saturday morning started when I was cooking us breakfast and some lunch for our picnic.

“Daddy?”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“You cook the best food in the whole world!”

“You like the way I cook for you?”

“Daddy. You’re not a cook, you’re a chef!”

Sigh. Her words could have melted titanium on that day. Seryn rocks my world.

It’s not too hard to see you left this inside me.
This new emotion that I didn’t know I needed.
Thank you for teaching me that I could never trust you.
The day will come when I can ask you why.

— “Heal In Time”, Dark New Day

For some reason, I’m wide awake at 2:30am, after getting up at 7am Sunday morning. I’ve been exhaustingly-busy all day today running around doing errands and exercise and cleaning up my living space… but I’m still wide awake.

19 hours awake and still going… and I have to be out the door by 7am to catch a train to NYC in just over 4 hours.

I just noticed the new WordPress v2.6.2 is out. I guess I’ll upgrade all of my blog sites to that version and kill some time before I have to begin another Monday morning in the office.

2:48am, and all 14 blog sites are now updated with the latest core version of WordPress.

Maybe my body will finally call it quits and I can get a little bit of sleep on the train.