Founded | 1992
Headquarters | Salt Lake City, UT
Top Executives:
Kevin Guest, Chairman and CEO
Jim Brown, President
Product Category | Health and Wellness
For more than 30 years, CEO Kevin Guest has had a front row seat for USANA’s steady growth and commitment to innovation. As he and the company celebrate three decades in business, the team is more excited about what lies ahead for USANA, the possibilities on the horizon and a growing global presence.
Discipline and Direction
Exceedingly few companies have the privilege of celebrating 30 years in business, as average company lifespans have been consistently shrinking. With sexy startups and technology darlings dominating the headlines, it’s easy to forget that consistency is often the most important factor in the success or failure of a business. And it’s anything but boring.
“I think one of the hallmarks to our success for the past 30 years is discipline,” Kevin Guest, Chairman and CEO shared. “What I’m most excited about is that the base that we have to jump off from for the next 30 years is extremely solid. We have a great balance sheet. We have no debt. We have all the things in place along with a great product offering.”
The company’s consistency also shines in their commitment to the same core values for three decades.
“In our 30-year history, our core values have never changed,” said President Jim Brown. “Excellence, community, health and integrity have always been the guiding principles for our company. We have also seen our USANA family grow significantly around the world the past 30 years, but the family feel has always stayed the same.”
USANA currently operates in 24 international markets with over 900 corporate employees in the United States and 1,952 employees abroad. The company serves over 560,000 active customers, comprised of USANA Associates and Preferred Customers.
Transparency and Trust
As USANA rounds the corner on three decades in the industry, the company is focused on three key areas: product innovation, strategic relationships and international expansion.
While the company has launched well over a hundred products and product updates in their three decades in business, USANA’s dedication to impeccably high standards has never wavered. Dr. Myron Wentz, microbiologist and USANA’s founder, chose to set standards he hoped the rest of the direct sales industry would follow when he laid the groundwork for the science company.
“Because of Dr. Wentz’s background, he was used to creating products that were in the pharmaceutical realm and had to be accepted by hospitals and doctors,” Kevin explained. “Thirty years ago, he set out to make sure that our vitamins were produced under the same standards, which back then was unheard of. Even today, it’s not widely done. We’re an FDA-registered facility, which we’re not required to be creating nutritional supplements. That has filtered its way through all three decades. We’ve really, really tried to hold our reputation up like that as we go through the years.”
Though no new products are scheduled to launch in the immediate future, USANA’s Research and Development team is hard at work developing new ways to maintain health through enhancements to the existing product lines and new innovations outside of traditional oral supplements.
“My hope is that we’ll find new ways to deliver nutrition outside of a pill,” Kevin shared. “That’s something we’re talking a lot about, something that we would love to work on. We’re seeing other innovations happen. We have yet to see a different delivery system that can offer the same amount of dosage that we want to deliver as it relates to nutritional supplements. That’s just the hope of mine that we’ll see coming in the future. The other thing that really has our attention are wearables to help monitor our fitness outside of what we’re consuming, so we can keep track and use technology to help us be healthier by being more aware.”
Innovations outside the company’s product offerings are also in development, including new opportunities for USANA’s Associates in the field.
“The next few months to close out 2022 will feature some big changes but will also be a time of development and getting things ready for 2023,” Jim shared.
“First off, we are launching a new business opportunity later this year that will be huge for the company and will give Associates and customers alike a new way of selling.”
As USANA pursues new and innovative ways of maintaining healthy lives and healthy businesses, the team is actively pursuing relationships that will help the company achieve its long-term goals.
“We’re going to continue to pursue strategic relationships,” Kevin explained. “Whether that’s through business acquisition or through relationships where we can be part owners in companies that could help us increase our core competencies; help us enter a different marketplace; or help us bring some innovation. Those are probably the key areas that we’re looking for in a strategic relationship. But we’re aggressively moving forward in those areas as well as the company.”
Expectations and Expansion
While so much has remained constant throughout USANA’s history, one important shift for the company has been to make the consumer the starting point for decisions regarding Associate incentives and promotions. As in every direct sales company, the success of USANA’s field team is paramount to the success of the company. But by focusing on the consumer, understanding their expectations and the value the product represents to them, USANA is more powerfully equipping their Associates.
“Thinking about the consumer first and working backwards is a completely different approach than we’ve done in 30 years in our business,” Kevin said. “It all comes down to, what is your value proposition to the person that’s consuming your product? You have to meet their expectations, or you lose them and they’re no longer your customer. If we could start there, I think it increases the value proposition, and we’re more likely to fulfill our product promise and beat their expectation from a value proposition so that they will continue to reorder from us.”
As USANA works backwards from consumer motivations to Associate business support, incentives and promotions, the team has noticed how differently those expectations are amongst the 24 global markets they serve. And they’re planning to notice even more differences as USANA enters new markets in the coming years. Following their tried-and-true, disciplined approach to expansion, Kevin and the team are confident in their next steps abroad.
“You’ll see many companies that are 30 years old that are in four times the countries that we’re in,” he explained. “We’ve decided that we’re going to move to new countries as we become profitable in the countries we’re in without spreading our resources too thin. Then we can give our all to the areas we’ve committed to. Something you’ll see in the future is that we’re going to continue to expand internationally and grow internationally. We haven’t opened a new market in quite some time, but we believe as a company we’re ready to move in that direction. International expansion will be something we can look forward to in the future.”
With as much to look forward to as they have to celebrate, USANA is ready to pursue the next three decades with the same discipline, integrity and innovation that has served them well all these years.
From the October 2022 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.
