Innovation—Make Thinking Differently the New Status Quo

“IMAGINATION—THE CAPACITY to create, evolve, and exploit mental models of things or situations that don’t yet exist—is the crucial factor in seizing and creating new opportunities, and finding new paths to growth,” say innovation experts and scholars Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller, in a recent Harvard Business Review column. Direct selling as an industry is innovative. I hope this Innovation issue challenges you to see the importance of capturing your creative spirit, harnessing your creative energy and making thinking differently your status quo.

Our cover story by Heather Martin and Sarah Paulk tackles the topic of innovation. It takes a look at the visionary game changers, Jason Camper and Paul Gravette from Le-Vel, who forecasted a need for a virtual workplace almost a decade before anyone else, and long before the pandemic. It delves into what we can learn from the disruptors and how COVID-19 has caused an innovation marathon.

Michele Gay, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of LimeLife by Alcone, shares her journey and what she has discovered about female empowerment and the way women feel about money. Her feature article on page 40, “Face Your Finances,” will change the way women understand their thoughts toward money and how they handle it. Her four steps strategy outlined in the article was developed to help lead women to financial empowerment and be a foundation for success.

I had the privilege to connect with Dr. Fred Cooper and Brent Willis regarding the partnership and merger that has combined their two companies into a powerful global enterprise. They shared their success factors, their approach geared to set NewAge apart, their views on disruptive innovation and their goals for 2021 and beyond. I know fabulous things are instore for the new blended family at NewAge, Inc., and you can read about them on page 58.

Our company spotlight this month showcases New U Life and how the American dream transformed a flagship product into whole-body wellness for consumers worldwide. “To have come from a single storefront to a wholehealth movement of nearly 400,000 distributors and counting, and with expansion in markets throughout the world just three years into our direct selling journey, is nothing short of amazing,” said Alexy Goldstein, Founder and CEO. Get inspired by the New U Life story found on page 62.

There are many exciting things happening at Direct Selling News. Last month we launched the DSN Customer Centric Recognition Program. We feel it is important to be a customer-centric industry where we build strong retail bases, and opportunity seekers will follow. This issue contains the first listing of the Customer Centric Recognized companies on pages 30 and 31. To apply visit DirectSellingNews.com/ccr/ or reach out to me at editor@directsellingnews.com with any questions. We also have our annual Best Places to Work in Direct Selling nominations going on until October 23. There is still time to nominate your company. The Best Places to Work will be featured in a special publication in April 2021, and you receive invaluable insights from Quantum Workplace. Please visit DirectSellingNews.com/bestplacestowork for more information.

All the Best,

Patricia White