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Nu Skin announced that they have formed a new management team to focus on growth and marketing efforts in Asia. The new team, comprised of Nu Skin veterans, will primarily focus on Japan and South Korea

NuSkin is focused on rebuilding its business in the Asian region after recent numbers show that the company is struggling in those markets. NuSkin announced that in the second quarter, there was a 13 percent drop in sales in Japan, which is the country’s largest market. NuSkin said that the “tough regulatory environment” is partially to blame for the drop.

International sales account for almost 85% percent of NuSkin’s total sales, with Japan and South Korea making up almost 70% percent alone. Nu Skin says that the regrowth of those regions will be a top priority for the company for the next quarter.

Heading up the team will be Brett Nelson, an 18 year veteran of NuSkin. Nelson will relocate to Japan to oversee the new strategic initiatives that they hope will reinvigorate sales. Nelson has formerly served as the company’s VP of Global Distributor Support and President of the Southeast Asia region.

“We are pleased to have a leader of Brett’s caliber and expertise in developing business and distributor strategies heading up our North Asia region,” said Dan Chard, executive vice president. “Brett has great insight into what drives distributors and makes them successful. He has proven to be an extremely capable and dynamic manager throughout his career and we are confident in his ability to successfully lead the North Asia region.”

Gary Sumihiro will continue in his role as president of Nu Skin Japan. Sumihiro has served as president of the market since April 2007 and has nearly two decades of experience in the direct selling industry.

As most of the top network marketing companies have come to realize, Asia represents some of the greatest growth opportunities for the future. With China have over a billion people and growing, the market is ripe.

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While the summer has been settling down a bit since the Weekenders carnage, there still seem to be some hot topics that just seem to re-shape themselves. USANA started off the summer with a push by its Chairman and then CEO, Dr. Myron Wentz and his holdings Co, Gull Holdings, to the company private. After two and half attempts a “low-ball bids”, Wentz and Co appeared to put their tail between their legs and move on. Not so fast. As we reported this week, USANA’s stock (USNA) had a truly amazing run up 38% giving Wentz and Co a $160m gain on paper. The strategy of low-balling an offer only to have an independent counsel say it was way too low was brilliant. It also helped that USANA settled its difference with Barry Minkow who seems to have agreed to just disappear and leave USANA alone - although terms of the “settlement” were never released.

We had the chance to sit down with legendary network marketer, Dwayne Dyer of XanGo. His story of success is truly one of mythical proportions having a network of over 1 million people around the world! He gave us some pretty good insight into how he built his organization and the power of XanGo which has put Mangosteen on the map.

There were also some interesting deals announced this week. Nu Skin announced a research partnership with Toyo Bio-Pharma. On paper, this is a very strong deal for both companies given Nu Skin’s distribution breadth and Toyo’s global dominance of the process of fermentation and culturing all natural ingredients into cosmetics products.

Another deal was announced which partnered EcoQuest with the American Lung Association. The new relationship stems from Eqcoquest’s unveiling of its new air purification system called “Gemini” - which is the company’s first indoor filtration product that has gotten some pretty rave reviews. If you have any issues with allergies in your home, this is one product yous hould seriously consider.

In keeping with this weeks deals, Pureworks merged with Youngevity which while it was a bit of a surprise to us, does seem to make sense. The value to Pureworks is the expansion of their health and wellness products to now include a complete line of hand, body and home sanitizers. The deal definitely makes sense and can only be good news for the distributors of both companies which now have more products to sell with a larger number of people selling them.

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Nu Skin announced that they have signed a research partnership agreement with Toyo Bio-Pharma, a manufacturer of all natural products in the United States and Japan. In an effort to facilitate the partnership, the two companies have set up a new joint venture in the U.S. called NU Toyo Research, Inc.

Toyo has never before partnered with a direct sales company. As part of the agreement, the two companies will work together to develop proprietary nutraceutical and cosmetics projects for Nu Skin to sell through their independent distributors. Toyo and Nu Skin will share scientific information as well as regulatory insights in an effort to create the new products.

Both companies are excited about the partnership and eager to get started on the creation of new products. “We expect this relationship with Nu Skin Enterprises to nicely complement our current expertise in natural health supplements,” said Yoshi Shiraishi, president and chief operating officer of Toyo Bio-Pharma. “We highly respect the industry-leading research and development capabilities of Nu Skin Enterprises. We believe there is a synergy between the two research teams that both companies can benefit from.”

Joseph Chang, Ph.D, Chief Scientific Officer and President of Product Development at Nu Skin, agrees, “We look forward to developing a robust relationship with joint development opportunities. “We are eager to leverage their knowledge of navigating regulatory requirements for skin care and supplements in Japan.”

The partnership between the two companies should prove to be beneficial to both companies. Toyo is a global pioneer in the use of fermentation and culturing of all natural ingredients to create effective nutraceutical and cosmetic products. That technology, partnered with Nu Skin’s products and enormous worldwide distribution force will no doubt prove to be very profitable for both companies.

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Nu Skin has put the negative press about lead in their lipstick aside for now and is celebrating two successful conventions in their Asian Region. Nearly 20,000 people attended recent conventions in Tokyo and Hong Kong where the health and skin care company announced the addition of new products to the market and celebrated the company’s 15th anniversary. The conventions also served as an opportunity to give back to the region and its people, and raise funds for victims of the devastating Sichuan earthquake.

Along with the addition of the new products, including the Lifepak Nano, Galvanic Spa and Tru Face Skin Care products, Nu Skin used the opportunity to introduce new business initiatives as well as refreshed its corporate identity.

Speaking on the success of the Tokyo convention, Nu Skin President and CEO Truman Hunt said, “The Japan management team hosted an impressive convention for distributors. The new products and brand initiatives provide good ammunition for Japanese distributors to further develop their business and successfully differentiate Nu Skin’s people, product, culture and opportunity in the market.”

The convention also served as a chance to recognize the recent tragedy in the Sichuan region of China and gave the company and its distributors a chance to participate in an aid relief campaign. Distributors and employees raised more the half a million in cash and NuSkin Force for Good Foundation contributed cash and food valued at almost a million dollars. The total for one day contributions was $1.43 million dollars.

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