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A chance meeting with a health food industry pioneer led LifeMax Founders Jim and Sherri Wear to build their new company around an ancient seed once prized by the Aztecs. With the Spanish conquest of Mexico that led to the end of the Aztec empire, the seed called Salvia Hispanica L., or “chia” as it is commonly known, all but disappeared. Chia survived only in very small cultivated patches in scattered mountain areas of southern Mexico and Guatemala until a 1991 research project shed new light on the nutritional punch packed by the tiny chia seed.
Today, just weeks after its late-May pre-launch, LifeMax and its flagship product, The Signature Grain™, have attracted more than 2,000 distributors and are on track to post $1 million in sales in its first month of shipping product. As the company readies for its formal launch in early fall, Direct Selling News caught up with CEO Paul Rogers to talk about the benefits of The Signature Grain, the company’s rapidly growing salesforce, and it’s commitment to servant leadership.
DSN: What is the origin of The Signature Grain?
PR: A doctor of agriculture, Dr. Wayne Coates, rediscovered Salvia Hispanica L. in 1991 while studying ancient grains. He immediately started researching ways to dramatically increase its potency, effectiveness and bioavailability. He played with different harvesting techniques, planting it and growing it in different climes and when it should be cut, when to plant it. At each stage he improved the grain until we got to where we are today.
The founders of the company, Jim and Sherri Wear, were introduced to Dr. Coates and acquired his company. In doing so, we made significant investments in farms around the world—either buying farms outright or entering into long-term contracts with farms. This product contains Omega-3, the world’s healthiest food product. The Signature Grain delivers Omega-3 fatty acids as well as fiber, protein and lignans. There are some other grains out there that are called chia or the Salvia Hispanica L., but nothing comes close to the amounts of Omega-3 or the proteins, the fiber, and lignans that ours has.
DSN: What made you choose direct selling as the channel for distribution for The Signature Grain?
PR: I love the industry. I’ve been personally involved in direct selling since the early ’90s and have seen the impact that it’s had on myself, friends, family and the average person—one really can achieve uncommon results. I love the relationship element of network marketing, and I have always believed that the perfect product for network marketing is one that requires about two minutes of explanation.
In a retail environment, companies either spend money on advertising or the product has to sell itself from the shelf. But in the network marketing environment, you get the relationship side of it, which gives that little bit of explanation of why this product is so incredible, and then it creates the loyalty because of the relationship.
Nothing creates a loyal customer like direct selling because it’s mom, dad, brother, sister, aunts or uncles who are the business associates. To create long-term viability for the company and the distributors, we felt the greatest way to share the wealth is to go with direct selling and network marketing because of the factor of loyal customers.
DSN: What is unique about your distributors?
PR: We’ve got a few top leaders who have experience in the industry. Over the course of the last six months we’ve been acquiring the farms and the grain and acquiring Dr. Coates’ company, laying the ground work to the pre-launch. Word of mouth was very strong, especially through Florida and the south, where founders Jim and Sherri are from. At our pre-launch, we asked who had never been a part of direct selling. Half the room raised their hands, which was amazing. We’ve got a strong core of leaders who have been in the industry before, and they’re working incredibly hard. But we also have others who have never been in the industry before—they’re excited about the grain. Now they’re starting to get excited about the business aspect as well.
DSN: How involved are you with the salesforce?
PR: Very involved. We work for the distributors; the distributors don’t work for us. It’s important for us to know what they’re dealing with, what their challenges are. We give them the support and the tools and the love that they need to go forward and be successful. We make sure the compensation plan is working properly, make sure the back office is working properly, and obtain the right tools for our distributors so they can go out there and share the message.
We have to give our distributors the tools they need so that they can give a clear, consistent and approved message whether they’re sponsoring people or talking to customers. We’re blessed with a couple of really top-level leaders who have been around a long time and have great reputations in the industry. They’re the ones who are really leading the charge with the salesforce.
DSN: Have you already developed distributor training materials?
PR: Some of them we’ve developed, but for others, it’s definitely trial and error. We want to find out which methods really resonate with people; we try one thing, and if that doesn’t work, we figure out how to make it better. We will eventually come out with something that’s really clean, consistent, and powerful and that tells our story. This is the time when you have the freedom to try different things.
DSN: How involved are you with the Direct Selling Association?
PR: We’re applying for membership to the DSA. We definitely want to be a full-fledged member. I’ve been a member of the DSA for a long time, and I think membership is critical, not just for what we want to do here in the United States, but also for our international expansion plan. We anticipate opening in Canada in the next six to eight weeks and within the next 10 to12 months we plan on opening in Asia and Europe.
DSN: To what do you attribute LifeMax’s early successes?
PR: Teams win championships. It’s never about one person. It’s about a whole lot of people going above and beyond and being team oriented and team focused, and we’ve got a great team. I think that is the bedrock of this company.
On the corporate side, we’ve got an amazing team led by Jim and Sherri, the founders, and Dr. Coates. Internally, we’ve already built a good staff from the marketing and support standpoint. The biggest reason for our success up to this point—and long-term—is that we’re very much team-focused. This is about the team; it’s about the distributors, it’s about getting the product out there, getting the story out there. With our team operating from a servant-leadership standpoint, I think we’re going to be in great shape as a company—it starts on the executive level and goes out to the field.
Take a servant-leadership perspective, add a great product and an amazing compensation plan, and then give everybody the right tools: The rest of it is just spending money. It’s the emotion—the relationship side of this business—that is critical. It’s what I think we’ve done a pretty good job at so far, and we look forward to doing it for years to come.
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