Former Quixtar Executive Diamond and TEAM founder Orrin Woodward has announced his next venture – he’s joining MonaVie. MonaVie is a multi-level marketing company that promotes a drink based on a blend of 19 different fruits, the primary one being the açaí berry. The berry, and the drink, reportedly have health benefits.

Interestingly, MonaVie’s top distributor is reportedly Brig Hart. Hart is a former Quixtar Double Diamond who was involved in various "tools" related lawsuits against Amway and other IBO organisations. The most important of these was dismissed by a Federal Judge last week.

It will be interesting to see how former Quixtar IBOs associated with TEAM react to this news. Woodward and other TEAM leaders were highly critical of Quixtar’s pricing structure, and reportedly cast a vision to their group of being "the Wal-Mart of the internet", based on generating high volumes at lower prices.

One week’s supply of MonaVie, a 75ml bottle, retails for $45. A 28 day supply is $18.

For comparison, Amway/Quixtar’s "elite" Nutrilite Double X nutritional supplement, a blend of 2 different plant concentrates, retails for $78.5 for a 31 day supply.

Marketing a $45 bottle of fruit juice, no matter what it’s quality, isn’t exactly a "Wal-Mart" type model.

One thing I do like about MonaVie, and have mentioned before, is their Income Disclosure Statement. Unlike Quixtar’s poorly defined "Average Incomes", MonaVie’s averages explicitly exclude folk who are primarily "distributors" to take advantage of better pricing. From the disclosure statement –

A “Distributor” is defined as any person who: (1) executed a MonaVie Distributor Application and Agreement; (2) has sponsored at least one person; (3) has received at least one non-retail commission check; and (4) has been active in any of the eight weeks preceding the commissions period (“active” is defined in the MonaVie Compensation Plan as having generated 1 PV (Personal Volume) in a four-week period). Note that this excludes retail customers, preferred customers, retailers (those who have received a retail bonus only), pre-enrollees, distributors who did not renew, and customers, retailers, or distributors whose relationships with MonaVie were revoked. An individual who has executed a MonaVie Independent Distributor Application and Agreement, but has not fulfilled the four criteria enumerated above is not a Distributor. That person is simply a customer. If, and only when, all four criteria are satisfied does that person become a distributor. Accordingly, the status of an individual can, and sometimes does, change throughout the course of a year.

Amway and Quixtar has suffered numerous public attacks over the years, , including by government authories such as BERR in the UK, with regard to the supposed  "average income" of distributors/IBOs and low "retail sales". It’s my view that Amway could address this by simply doing the obvious and sensible – don’t consider someone a business owner unless they’re actually building a business, and consider a "retail sale" to be exactly the same as laws around the world define it, a sale to an end user.

Introducing something similar to MonaVie’s sensible definitions would be a good place to start.

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