By Dan Mitchell, MLM Blog Correspondent
From The Salt Lake Tribune:
Lasting 25 years in a business where you must convince hundreds of thousands of people to distribute pricey vitamins and personal-care products for you with no guaranteed salary is no little thing.
But that's what Nu Skin Enterprises has done, despite some bumps and criticisms along the way.
From its 10-story headquarters along Main Street in Provo, Nu Skin this month is celebrating its 25th anniversary of selling nutritional supplements and other goods through independent distributors.
From its origins in the living room of a Utah County home in 1984 as an upstart personal-care products company, Nu Skin said that last year it had $1.2 billion in sales to more than 755,000 distributors and customers in 48 countries.
In the world of direct sellers — also known as network, or multilevel, marketers — where new businesses come and go with rapidity, Nu Skin appears to have found a formula for longevity and financial success. Though some critics question whether that success is centered in the hands of just a few, the company's leadership says Nu Skin's resilience is no mistake.
"It's funny because even here in our community, if you go back 20, 25 years, the stars of the local business environment would have been WordPerfect, would have been Novell, would have been Geneva Steel," CEO Truman Hunt said in an interview from his office in the striking building that seems to want to define downtown Provo. "And where are they today? Pretty much gone from the landscape. I think the fact here we are 25 years later is a testament that something's going right here."
Scott Van Winkle, who follows Nu Skin as managing director of equity research at the Canadian-based financial services firm Canaccord Adams, said the company's longevity can be traced to the quality of its products and sales materials, which he called "the best in the industry."
"Nu Skin sells a product that's very endearing," he said, while also noting that the company faces its share of challenges in the year ahead. "They sell quality nutritional supplements, vitamins, minerals. There's nothing questionable. There's no hot new trend they jump on. There isn't some fly-by-night, hot new ingredient that only lasts a few years in the consumer's mind."
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