We at AdvoCare are disappointed with the tone, angle, and depth of reporting in Mina Kimes’ article. AdvoCare fully cooperated with ESPN throughout the interview process, providing critical information about AdvoCare that ESPN and Ms. Kimes failed to report. They ignored the breadth of our industry-leading Policies and Procedures, ignored our robust compliance requirements and Business Ethics team, and told their story through untrustworthy sources who are currently embroiled in lawsuits with AdvoCare.
AdvoCare is a company of integrity. We have a strong sense of business ethics and are guided by a core set of principles, enforced through strict policies. The bedrock of our Policies is transparency. Potential Distributors receive complete and accurate information about AdvoCare’s compensation plan and about the historical compensation received by all other AdvoCare Distributors. AdvoCare Distributors are also prohibited from speculating about their future income.
AdvoCare uses multiple tools to enforce these Policies and protect its Distributors and consumers. For example, AdvoCare employs an experienced Business Ethics Team that continuously monitors Distributors’ accounts, flags suspicious activity, enforces the Policies, and terminates Distributors who violate the Policies. AdvoCare also requires that Distributors sell products to five retail customers per pay period in order to receive compensation from the company, and certify that they have done so. We also regularly audit distributor accounts to ensure these retails sales are verifiable. Furthermore, unsatisfied Distributors can sell unsold products back to AdvoCare at the full purchase price if they choose to resign. Ms. Kimes ignored all of these policies and more.
Ms. Kimes also presented AdvoCare as a static business – one that resists change and refuses to improve. Nothing could be further from the truth. AdvoCare continually reevaluates its policies and their enforcement in light of current legal requirements, criticisms, and best practices. In the last year, in the service of strengthening our commitment to our customers and Distributors, we have:
- expanded our satisfaction guarantee and buyback policies for Distributors,
- produced new in-person and online training, with compliance training videos for Distributors,
- reformatted our income-disclosure statements, and
- created a Preferred Customer Program that will even further distinguish our customer base from our Distributors.
Finally, Ms. Kimes relies on several untrustworthy sources. AdvoCare is currently in pending litigation with one of the sources that pre-dates Ms. Kimes’ article, a fact about his motives and objectivity that should have been disclosed. Another source prominently featured in the article had regularly praised AdvoCare, admitted lying about the success of his AdvoCare business to potential customers, and failed to succeed in 12 prior businesses he formed before joining AdvoCare. Neither his praise nor prior business failures were disclosed.
AdvoCare provides excellent health and nutritional products to its customers and Distributors and maintains the highest level of integrity in its business. The article fails to capture who we truly are and fails to give you, the reader, all of the information you are entitled to know before deciding the truth for yourself.