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As unique as direct selling companies can be in the products and services they provide, they are, in reality, very similar. They all have offerings. They all have compensation plans. They all have management structures.
For many direct selling companies, the “X factor” in the success equation is the development of its people—its field representatives—who are the true products of direct sales. Implementing a culture of personal development where distributors can grow in confidence and nurture critical skills is the best product-development strategy a company can employ.
Personal development in America has its origins in the new thought movement of the late 19th century. Orison Swett Marden, founder of SUCCESS magazine, was among the first to offer inspiration and encouragement to those looking to develop their potential and grow into extraordinary achievers. Over the next century, writers and speakers such as Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, W. Clement Stone, Norman Vincent Peale and Jim Rohn shared their insights on what was needed for success.
Their teachings have inspired many of the top direct selling executives over the years, including Mary C. Crowley, Founder of Home Interiors and Gifts. “We believe a woman comes into this business to develop some part of her life, either financial, emotional, or educational,” she told the Saturday Evening Post in 1983. “We offer training and help the girls set and meet their goals. It’s our responsibility to assist them in becoming achievers and feeling like winners.”
By empowering her consultants, Crowley built Home Interiors into a multimillion-dollar corporation. “If you grow the people,” she once said, “they’ll grow your business.”
Another great entrepreneur in American business, Mary Kay Inc. Founder Mary Kay Ash, motivated and empowered generations of women through Napoleon Hill’s core message in Think and Grow Rich. “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you
can achieve.”
That type of encouragement helped Mary Kay build her company into one of the largest direct sellers of skincare products and cosmetics in the world. And her company is a perfect example of what personal development does: It inspires. It helps people see the possibilities, the potential, and it helps build confidence.
“Success is not determined by what you know or what you do—it’s who you are,” says Darren Hardy, Publisher and Editorial Director of SUCCESS magazine. “Direct sales is a business of inspiring hope and belief in others. In order to offer and convincingly communicate this sense of hope and belief to others, one has to have it themselves. Personal development helps build that belief of self.” And that is why a focus on helping people grow produces a multiplier of improved results in field recruiting and revenue growth for the company.
Nikken, one of the first wellness companies, understands this. The company is committed not only to providing people around the world an improved way of living, but also to helping its own people see their goals and dreams to fruition.
“We believe that a person’s potential is only as good as they know how to be and they want to be,” says Doug Braun, President of Nikken. “A critical factor in determining how good they want to be is how they see themselves. Personal growth, or personal development, is very important in the process of understanding what their potential is. If they know where they want to be and they understand where they are now, they have a chance of achieving their goals.”
“Direct selling helps affirm people’s worth and potential,” says Stephen Covey, best-selling author of the self-help classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. “It can open up a whole-new alternative income stream that can make a huge difference in their life.”
Jim Rohn, considered by many to be today’s foremost business philosopher, once said, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” According to Rohn, the most important question to ask on the job is not, ‘What am I getting?’ it is, ‘What am I becoming?’
Direct selling companies are helping people become more than they ever thought possible.
In the direct selling industry, it has long been said that one joins for the product and opportunity, but stays for the people and personal development. That statement has never been more true than today. With an economic recession reaching global proportions, unemployment rates skyrocketing and millions of Americans losing their financial security, many people are now seeking the opportunities offered in direct selling to start their own businesses.
What they are finding is that direct selling companies are more than wealth-creation opportunities; they are cultures rich in personal development, where critical skills such as leadership, relationship building, time management and goal-setting can help them become better in all areas of their lives.
Helping field representatives grow and develop the potential within is a matter of paramount importance for direct selling companies. ACN, the world’s largest direct selling telecommunications company, has long recognized the benefits of personal-development training.
“Personal development is, and always has been, a crucial building block in our business,” says Greg Provenzano, President of ACN. “I’m a firm believer that if you aren’t growing, your business will not grow either. The two are absolutely interrelated. In fact, the only difference in a future built on rock and a future built on sand are their foundations. By getting serious about your personal and professional growth, you can lay a solid foundation for a future built upon rock.”
Many direct selling companies, including Amway and Arbonne International, have long considered themselves personal-development companies. John Addison, Co-CEO of Primerica, which last year placed in force more than $90 billion in life insurance through its 100,000 licensed representatives, has called his company “a self-improvement system with a compensation plan.”
Oxyfresh Worldwide Inc., now in its 25th year as a provider of premium health and wellness products, has, according to CEO Richard Brooke, been described by insiders as a personal-development movement disguised as an MLM toothpaste company.
“Our extraordinary consumer products are specifically designed for MLM residual income,” Brooke says. “But our real products are our people, our leaders. As a result of this personal-development culture, Oxyfresh has enjoyed a loyalty factor rarely seen in direct sales.”
GNLD, a global multimillion-dollar company offering nutritional supplements, echoes similar sentiments. The company is committed to being a place where personal-development practices are taught in order to help its people change their lives for the better.
“We have always viewed GNLD as, essentially, a personal-development company that provides a wonderful range of effective products,” says Roget Uys, CEO and President of GNLD. “We offer the opportunity for people from any social station or walk of life to develop into a successful independent business owner, and a fully empowered and active member of society. We understand that focused personal development is an essential part of the opportunity that we provide. It takes belief in oneself to succeed in our business, and that belief needs to be built through both training and achievement. Our commitment is to change the lives of those who work with us, and we do this through a program of training and development that has been developed and refined over our 51-year history.”
Developing effective leaders is of paramount importance to the success of a direct selling company. Direct sales, after all, involves a system of duplication, and having people skilled in teaching the system is key to success. However, finding the hidden potential within people and then developing them into strong leaders who can influence the field is critical for a company to reach its long-term goals.
“I look for the hidden talents in people,” says Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate developer and best-selling author who has publicly endorsed direct selling in his book, Why We Want You to Be Rich, with Robert Kiyosaki. “People very often have abilities beyond their positions, and a good leader will recognize that and give them a chance. It serves everyone well.”
Herbalife, a premier nutrition and weight-management company with more than 1.9 million distributors, recognizes the need for its people to fully develop their leadership skills.
“Some people naturally develop on their own; others benefit from inspirational speakers and learning materials,” says Rob Levy, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing. ”When representatives start their business, they’re often presenting in their homes or to friends. As they advance, they often speak to growing audiences, and it’s important that they develop their skills to a commensurate level. As they move up the marketing plan and build their businesses, they must become leaders, so they need the tools to become strong leaders.”
John C. Maxwell, today’s foremost authority on leadership and the best-selling author of 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and Failing Forward, says leading others involves knowing where people are in their lives and understanding what drives them. “You can’t lead people anywhere until you know where they are,” Maxwell says. “And a person can’t go anywhere until they know where they are.”
According to Maxwell, the key is helping them with their personal growth. “In my book The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, Law No. 1 is ‘One Is Too Small of a Number to Achieve Greatness.’ I believe that. I think in the history of mankind, no one has ever achieved greatness by themselves. They’ve always had someone help them.”
And successful people, Maxwell says, look for mentors to teach and guide them, and for personal-development tools to help them gain the valuable knowledge they lack.
Robert Kiyosaki, successful businessman and best-selling author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book series, has been recommending the direct selling industry for years. While he notes that the industry offers numerous values to those going into business for themselves—such as financial security, freedom and a strong support system—there is one in particular that stands out above all others: a strong foundation of education and training.
“The No. 1 reason I recommend a network marketing business is for its system of education,” Kiyosaki says. “Many companies in the industry are really business schools for people. The direct selling industry teaches real-life training you can use—not the theoretical business stuff you learn in school.”
So how are direct selling companies implementing personal-development training? Companies like GNLD are empowering people with world-class training materials, person-to-person support and multimedia tools that allow them to train on their own time. The company has a structured training and personal-development program, which is implemented on a regular schedule in each of the more than 50 countries it operates.
“The proprietary program is segmented into modules that focus on category and product knowledge, the industry, business and selling skills, personal discovery, building belief, and others… all designed to work cohesively to build a confident, knowledgeable, functional and empowered businessperson,” Uys says. “This is a critical part of our business foundation, and I cannot overemphasize this importance and value that we at GNLD place upon it.”
For Team National, a direct sales company that provides membership savings to products and services in more than 20 industries, training is a fundamental element that starts with company executives and trickles down to the field leaders and new representatives.
“We have several personal-development avenues, including a weekly program that has SUCCESS magazine in it, monthly and weekly conference calls and monthly electronic newsletters that share personal development topics,” says Angela Loehr Chrysler, CEO of Team National. “We also teach personal development at our conventions, and we are reviewing a new program that offers CDs, books, downloads and DVDs.”
For Oxyfresh, its training is based on the understanding that approximately 97 percent of people do not grow up in an environment that fosters ambition, confidence, self-esteem and self-motivation when it comes to wealth building.
“By the time our opportunity finds the 3 percent who [did grow up in this type of environment], they are usually well on their way in some other chosen profession,” Brooke says. “Our opportunity lies in the 97 percent that have just enough vision to change their outcomes. We offer them the opportunity to not only build wealth through residual income, but, more important, to discover their own personal peace and power through the process of discovering their authenticity. The process is one of discovering one’s core values, gift and life theme through reading, listening, asking questions, one-on-one coaching and a series of workshops.”
Greg Provenzano says that because ACN believes so profoundly in the effect of personal development on long-term success, the company has developed a system to ensure its representatives have access to the expert advice and motivation they need.
“As part of this commitment, we provide our representatives with a state-of-the-art business-building and management package, and an essential component of this package is centered on personal development,” Provenzano says. “Subscribers receive a monthly training DVD, including the latest in personal-development audios and videos from ACN’s co-founders and our top leaders, as well as a subscription to SUCCESS magazine, featuring articles and advice from the industry’s premier experts on personal development. ACN also puts the best-of-the-best books directly into the hands of our representatives as part of our ACN Bookstore, Read to Succeed, where our representatives can purchase the latest titles directly from our Web site at discounted ACN prices.”
Nikken created a personal-development program that has proved to be critical in the company’s success. “From our very beginning, Nikken has viewed personal growth as a core product,” Braun says. “This founding philosophy is executed in our renowned, two-day Humans Being More program. Personal growth, and, specifically, our Humans Being More program, is a key ‘Velcro’ that gives many a reason to stay even when times get tough. When they have a philosophy they can believe in and they can see their own personal growth, then they have a reason for staying.”
“Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. A ‘you can do it’ when things are tough,” Amway Co-Founder Rich DeVos once said. “The riches of life, the love and joy and exhilaration of life can be found only with an upward look. This is an exciting world. It’s cram-packed with opportunity. Great moments wait around every corner.”
Sometimes the key to success is the positive push one receives. It’s the basic teaching of personal development—helping people to believe in their possibilities. The ability to inspire others, to lift them up and help them believe in their own potential, is the X factor of the success equation in direct selling.
“We all have a greatness inside us,” says Jeff Olson, Senior Marketing Associate at Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc. and the author of the personal-development book The Slight Edge. “Sometimes, all we need is someone to help us find it, develop it and multiply it. The secret to a successful life, the secret ingredient to accomplishing all the things you want in life, is personal development.”
Direct Selling News asked several executives of leading companies for their thoughts on the importance of personal development in their overall strategies. Here are some of their responses.
“Personal development will help your representatives stay positive and fight the negatives that cause them fear and hurt their belief. A company that focuses on personal development will increase retention and help recruiting. It is a must!” —Angela Loehr Chrysler, CEO, Team National
“What a gift to be able to help someone develop their personal skills. It’s a truly unique industry where you have people who can go from cleaning homes to buying homes; working on a farm to earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. As one develops personally, their world expands and what may have seemed out of reach suddenly becomes a possibility. If you want to be in good physical shape, you need to exercise your body—it’s no different if you want your emotional and intellectual capacity enriched.” —Rob Levy, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Herbalife
“At Ignite, we firmly believe that our associates’ business success can never exceed their level of personal development. Accordingly, we provide a copy of SUCCESS magazine and our own training CD to our associates every month.” —Doug Witt, Senior Director of Marketing Operations, Ignite
“One of the chief ways that Nu Skin demonstrates its difference is through our high-caliber people. This includes our global family of nearly 800,000 active distributors. We encourage our distributors to not only strive for continued growth in their business pursuits, but also in every aspect of their lives. When we encourage our distributors to constantly look for ways to grow and develop, they become the kind of leaders who can overcome hurdles, inspire others and enjoy success. That’s why, from the moment Nu Skin began 25 years ago, our central mission has been to improve people’s lives. Everything we do—from our scientifically substantiated products to our unique corporate culture and dynamic business opportunity—is meant to empower people to improve life for themselves and those around them. This focus on personal development has always been, and will always be, vital to our growth as a company.” —Dan Chard, Executive Vice President, Distributor Success, Nu Skin Enterprises
“There is nothing that will help a new or existing member experience greater success than personal development. A person can only succeed to the level of their belief, and nothing will do more to expand belief faster than a steady diet of positive inspiration. Typically, we wouldn’t go a day without feeding the body, yet months and years can go by before we feed the mind. The biggest reason we implemented the SUCCESS Club at Vemma was to offer easy monthly access to the top, most effective personal development resources by the leaders at SUCCESS magazine. We then made it fully commissionable to incentivize the importance of getting this information into the hands of the newest leaders.” —BK Boreyko, CEO & President, Vemma
“For many years now, our slogan has been ‘People Empowering People,’ a credo that we follow throughout our global organization. We focus on both our corporate staff, to ensure that they are fully equipped, motivated, and personally empowered to support our distributor force, and, most important, our individual distributors, for whom we understand that personal development drives confidence, which drives belief in what is achievable, making the sky the limit.” —Roget Uys, CEO & President, GNLD
“There is a strong spirit of excellence ingrained in the corporate culture at MonaVie. We strive to be exceptional in every facet of our business model, and personal development has and continues to play a crucial role in MonaVie’s success. MonaVie provides training opportunities and business materials to help distributors every step of the way, and we encourage experienced distributors to mentor new enrollees.” —Wayne Moorehead, Vice President of Marketing, MonaVie
