Editorial by Juan Carlos Lopez

The season is in the middle of the year and only 2 Nationals have passed. It is more clear what judges want in the bikini division and figure as always can be difficult to understand but it also seems to have its logic.

A Curtain of Smoke

For most competitors its a great idea to get a sponsor specially a supplement company. They drive so much money into the promoter's hands and the federations that it always seems like they have a lot of money. Well reality is that some business don't require much overhead in generating income. Others require much more and will need investors in order to startup. Here is when things get tricky, in order to really sell you will need to spend a lot of money on marketing and promotion. Most supplement companies are in negative numbers the first 2 years or more. Many of them now are loosing to the giants in the industry who actually serve normal everyday people's needs. Retailers for sure do very well too, all they pay is a wholesale price and wait for sales to come along. They can buy a small amount of supplements and not spend too much until they all sell.

Now a new supplement just came out in the last 2 years and has been spending a lot of money on promoting show, products, etc.. They have made a lot of noise and been able to promote themselves in a great manner. But the sales, how are the sales? The reality is that they are in huge negative numbers, owe money and perhaps they assets are frozen. They have tried to sponsor competitors and have only left it as a promises as nothing was done in writing but verbally. Huge mistake, verbal agreements are worth nothing, get something in writing. I predict the company to fold maybe after 1 or 2 more years or at least sell all its assets.

Another supplement company which is considered one of the biggest ones in the industry is in huge debt, has declared bankruptcy twice and one of their main products has been recalled. They are also dealing with huge amounts of lawsuits and are not doing well at all. But guess what they still spend a lot of money and will have a booth at many shows and sponsor the big ones. If they don't they are having apparently more problems than we thought.

So if you do get to receive money from these companies go ahead and take it but realize that there may not be more coming in later. And make sure you do get something in writing, if you don't its probably not worth doing business. Make sure you understand their business model first and then realize how stable it is. And also unfortunately these companies are run by people that are not qualified to run a business and are unprofessional since they tend not to do anything in writing.

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