A time to reflect, a time to evaluate and a time to celebrate! This month will be a very special one for us as we announce the results of our research—identifying the top 100 direct selling companies in the world—at our inaugural DSN Global 100 Celebration on April 7. We contracted experienced researchers for this project, and their findings will provide us with, to the best of our knowledge, the first such recognition ever published. We embraced this project to respond to questions that often arise from within the academic and private investment communities who watch our industry and our companies for potential involvement. Every other recognized industry ranks its companies, so we felt it was our responsibility to do the same for direct selling.
Throughout the varying stages of our careers, as practicing dermatologists, product developers, entrepreneurs and businesswomen, time and again, we have experienced our greatest successes when we allowed ourselves to be guided by our passion, particularly when that meant “doing it better by thinking outside the box.”
The annual Edelman Trust Barometer is always a compelling read for me. This international survey assesses the level of trust in business and government by “informed publics” around the world. Given various high-profile financial scandals and the fragility of global markets over the past few years, there has been a lot to assess in the area of trust—or lack thereof. What I find interesting, though, is the unspoken affirmation of the direct selling business model that the results of the survey seem to indicate each year.