What do you get when you mix Forbes magazine, a 40yr old preconceived notion, and bad journalism research?
The February issue expose' of XanGo LLC. in Forbes magazine. Here's one XanGo distributor's response to the high quality researched article (tongue in cheek).
Enjoy!
Corrisa
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Dear Editor:
As a longtime reader and respecter of Forbes, I was astonished, then appalled, and finally ashamed to see a blatant "hatchet job" such as that done on XanGo LLC and, by extension, the entire multilevel marketing industry, in your Feb. 25 issue.
And yes, I do have MLM experience, among others, with XanGo. However, I have also owned and managed mainstream businesses, including a marketing services/advertising agency with which I have been associated since 1986.
And, besides holding a degree from a print-oriented Journalism department at a notably liberal arts-oriented university (Ohio Wesleyan), I have hands-on experience with public and press relations, bylined media articles and corporate reportage in general. So I believe I have something to say.
First, where is the story? Helen Coster's article is a predictable "exposé" of pyramids and multilevel markets which says nothing new, except to target the most successful recent example of this type of company. It's unfortunate, because there is much that's new in this arena today.
Had your Senior Reporter been truly reporting, she might have asked how XanGo (and for that matter many recent MLM startups) differ from the "Amway" model, a brush with which she conveniently tars her subject, with no apparent effort to understand how multilevel marketing has evolved in the last 20 years. (And by the way, were I XanGo, I would consider bringing action for calling it a "pyramid marketing company.
" We all know that pyramids are illegal... multilevel marketing, on the other hand, is simply a distribution system which differs from the "traditional" model in how and whom it chooses to compensate for the movement of the products it promulgates. That the shape of the compensation matrix in such a program happens to look like a Pharaoh's tomb should be no more surprising than the fact that ANY organizational chart also resembles this "triangle in three dimensions." )
Secondly, did Ms. Coster even attempt to learn about the diverse business backgrounds of XanGo's corporate officers? The article does not even mention the company's Chairman, Gary Hollister, whose resume includes a stint at Merle Norman Cosmetics, for whom he oversaw a sales increase in the neighborhood of 400 percent, maybe more... nor does it point out the estimable success enjoyed by Aaron Garrity in the mainstream marketing arena, choosing instead to imply that his credentials for becoming CEO rested solely on his being "a colleague at Enrich."
(And while I'm nitpicking, I should be point out that Aaron was not "asked " to be chief executive; as a matter of fact, he was named to that position by the company's Board, only several years later, succeeding Mr. Hollister who was in fact the company's first CEO.
Finally, and most egregiously, either Forbes or Ms. Coster herself has set up your publication as an expert in judging medical science.
Yet nowhere on your Website or in your magazine have I ever seen a mission statement averring your raison d'etre as including a commitment to exposing fraudulent science, nor do I see on your masthead any editorial positions listed which would predispose me to believe that anyone on staff has the education or skill to independently judge medical evidence as reported by independent, peer-reviewed journals - such as those that were first relied on by the founders of XanGo at the time when they decided that their product was an idea whose time had come.
As a matter of fact, Ms. Coster, or her copy editor, has the chronology out of line again when she states that the Tohoku University paper was one of the many that was consulted at that time, when actually this important study on the abilities of certain xanthones to selectively inhibit the action of the cox-2 enzyme was not even published until September of 2004.
It's obvious that the article was conceived, "researched," written and edited with its direction already determined, to wit, that the MLM industry is peopled by shysters leading the naïve, and as a corollary, that no "natural" health and wellness product can be expected to ground its development and, thereby, its marketing, in anything remotely resembling objective fact.
Unfortunately, while both these biases may have taken root in historic behavior that is a matter of record, the truth is no longer so one-sided or clear cut.
Sadly, you missed the opportunity to tell a fascinating story from a balanced point of view (i.e., journalistically as I learned the meaning of the word). Unforgivably, you did it from the perspective that there is no story, only more of the same. And that just isn't so!
Robert A. ShawSylvania, Ohio
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