Mandura Review

Posted in MLM Reviews

The Company

If you like a company with a specific focus, Mandura may be a good fit for you. This network marketing company out of Middleburg, Florida sells only two products – a fruit juice and a weight-loss supplement in pill form.

That’s it. And yet the company, which was founded in 2008, has expanded well beyond the United States into at least 12 other countries including Vietnam.

But will Mandura last? That will probably depend on the company’s willingness to expand its product line a bit as well as how well the parent company markets itself. Right now Mandura doesn’t have what seems to be the one required feature of network marketing firms that sell nutritional supplements – some kind of scientific board of advisors to show that the company is serious about its research.

One thing Mandura does seem to have is a fairly solid religious, specifically Christian, bent. Company co-founder Casey Yarbrough reportedly does Bible-related conference calls on Monday mornings, and the bios of several of the company’s corporate team members mention their involvement with religious institutions. Depending on one’s own religious affiliation, this could be a decided turn-on or turn-off.

Mandura’s Products

As stated above, Mandura sells 2 and only 2 products as of the time of this August 2010 review. One is a fruit juice that is formulated from a blend of durian, mangosteen, acai berries, and blueberries, and the other is a weight loss supplement for which Mandura hasn’t published the exact ingredient list.

The company claims that its signature juice will go a long way to restoring nutritional balance for people who don’t take the time to eat a proper diet. Each 32-serving bottle costs $30 and lasts for approximately two weeks; however, there are hefty discounts for ordering in bulk. Mandura sells its weight-loss formula, Mandura Trim, for the same amount as its juice.

On the plus side, Mandura stresses that Mandura Trim is only one aspect to a successful weight-loss program, which must also include proper diet and exercise. To the company’s credit, Mandura offers women’s and men’s exercise plans on the page of its website devoted to Mandura Trim.

The Opportunity and Compensation

Mandura is unique among network marketing companies in that its compensation plan doesn’t rely totally on getting distributors to recruit new distributors, though (of course) there are bonuses for doing so. Instead, Mandura has created something it calls a Straight Line Forced Matrix. While the name is science-fictional, the concept is pretty simple. Anyone who joins after you is automatically a part of your single-leg downline.

Of course, that’s the only factor of the plan that reads as simple to this reviewer. There are group bonuses, “Builder Bonuses” (though the term “Builder” isn’t defined), and Team Volume bonuses. The majority of these bonuses seem to be based on actual product sales.

In addition, as with most network marketing firms, you earn a commission on your retail sales.

One possible caution is that it isn’t clear just how much leeway Mandura distributors, called Independent Business Operators (IBOs), have in using Internet marketing strategies to build their businesses. The company was announcing two new “Replicating Websites,” which appear to be basically carbon copy sites with little opportunity for self-branding.

Recommendations For Mandura

Right now, the main thing recommending Mandura as a good business opportunity is that the company is so new. Only 2 years old, Mandura hasn’t had anywhere nearly enough time to saturate its market yet.

At least, that’s the best guess to be made from the available information. Mandura doesn’t publish the number of distributors it has, its yearly sales as a company, or the average sales of its IBOs. This is a bit troubling, but it may just be due to the fact that the company seems only to have been really active – as evidenced by posts on its blog – for less than a year as of the time of this review.

Another potentially troubling aspect of the Mandura business opportunity is what seems to be an Internet-marketing policy that takes the primary Internet-marketing tool – self-branding – and makes it unavailable to IBOs. This apparent lack of flexibility could make it more difficult for new people joining the company, particularly as Mandura ages and takes up more of its potential niche market.

The price of Mandura products could also be a concern. Even with the discounted price of $55 for a month’s worth of either the juice or the weight-loss supplements, that’s a fairly high price for just one product. It’s going to take some careful marketing to persuade customers to invest that much for just one product during the recession.

However, there is evidence that people are at least excited about the Mandura opportunity. When the company announced roughly 24 weeks before the date of this review that it would be expanding into several international markets, would-be distributors from as far away as the Ivory Coast in Africa wrote in asking Mandura to come to their countries.

The bottom line here is that Mandura seems to have enough going on to become a very solid business opportunity for the right person. And it’s compensation plan makes it easier to do well even if you’re not an ace recruiter but instead want to concentrate on building a solid base of customers while doing recruiting as more of a sideline. Just make sure you completely understand all of Mandura’s policies – including the specifics of its Internet-marketing policies – before signing on, and you could very well do very well with Mandura.