Rhonda Favano, our guest writer for today, is a Diamond Leader and Educator at Young Living Essential Oils who studied Accounting/Business at Northeastern State University, and studied Doctor of Naturopathy at Trinity School of Natural Health. She currently lives in Arkansas with her family. She is an author of two books, Conquering Toxic Emotions and Frugal: Clean Living on a Budget as well as the founder of Anointing Nations.
Below she writes about companies who compare themselves to YL and why YL is a good fit for her.
Companies Comparing Themselves to Young Living
There has been a lot of chatter & numerous FaceBook ads lately for oil companies comparing themselves to YL.
Friends, we have to stop and ask ourselves where are these companies getting their oils. Where are their farms? or are the oils synthetic, lab created? Are chemicals introduced to the plants at any time? If they are distilling raw material, what type of machinery is being used, is it surgical grade stainless steel so no metals are leached during the distillation process?
Gary Young worked for over 30 years, learning about the plants & their constituents, how to distill raw plant material to extract the highest yield of essential oils while preserving the vital constituents that are so important to us, the end user.
Did you know Gary actually climbed into a distiller while it was on so he could watch the process, based on his intuition that the distillation process could be improved? In case you aren’t aware, those distilleries hold 5000 pounds of raw plant material and use pressure & heat during this vital process.
I am 100% confident no one from these other companies has done that. Do you know that Gary has patented the distilleries used by YL? Are you aware that he has traveled the world, many times risking his own life, to study plants, distillation processes & people so he could glean knowledge to provide the highest quality essential oils to you & me? How many of the folks in these other companies do you think are doing that?
Young Living is the only company in the world with the transparency of Seed to Seal & they’ve done it for over 25 years.
We are encouraged & welcomed to visit farms, participate in planting & harvesting, to visit the labs, and talk to the scientists that work in them. [Members] ..can actually schedule a farm visit through [their] Virtual Office!
[Note from Pam: You can read more about Seed to Seal here at the website, http://seedtoseal.com/en/3-pillars ]
Are you aware that YL has set the world-wide standard for essential oils? Gary Young, once the student, became the teacher & is truly the father of modern-day distillation.
A marketing angle for some of these companies is that YL is an MLM so you and I are paying more for our products. Let’s explore this concept, because I bet you are like me and desire the most value for your money. First, why did Gary & Mary choose the Network Marketing model instead of retailing their products out of a store front? Well, they knew their oils were unlike any others on the market (remember only about 2% of oils sold are actually therapeutic & unadulterated) so who would explain the price difference for YL Frankincense at say $85 to other brands at $20. As a consumer, we wouldn’t know that YL Frank[insence] is harvested in Somalia, Yemen or Oman; that it is a resin and has to cure for several months before it can be hydrodistilled; that the YL species offers therapeutic value vs just having a pleasant aroma. Who would educate us on the most beneficial ways to utilize our essential oils, especially in the middle of the night when our kiddos need immediate attention … certainly not the clerks in the retail store.
Imagine for a minute that you don’t know what an heirloom seed is or why our food shouldn’t be exposed to harmful chemicals & you are shopping at the grocery store [when] you have the option to buy produce grown from heirloom seeds in a truly organic environment for a higher price than the produce that is grown commercially. Which would you choose? Most of us would buy the commercially grown produce at the lower price because we aren’t educated on the value of the heirloom, organic produce. We don’t know what we don’t know, right!
Someone has to educate, support, & provide customer service to the end consumer. In the NWM model, this is done by the person who introduces the product to you. I compare it to buying local, supporting your community, your friends, and people you know. The YL MLM structure is about community, it’s about a lifestyle, people caring about people. These folks are vested in you & your family, the clerk at the store isn’t. In traditional retail models, there are expenses for advertising, marketing, payroll, shelf space. The money spent on these standard expenses are simply distributed to the people supporting, educating & providing customer service in the MLM model. So, when someone says you are paying more for your product with this biz model, that simply isn’t factual.
Friends, we have to ask the important questions & not get caught up in the hype these companies are selling. They use the right terminology, they compare themselves to YL (if they have a great product, why not allow it to speak for itself), they make unsubstantiated claims, hoping that you & I are not savvy, educated consumers. They are banking on us buying into their deceptive marketing. YL has a tried & true track record over the past 25 years, they are expanding globally, and continue to bring us new & innovative products which make it simple to live a healthy, happy lifestyle. Plus, they send us a thank you check for helping our friends, family & those we care about do the same. I see that as the most biblically based biz model in the world!
