Jul 10
28
While many of us are familiar with traditional business models in manufacturing, retail and technology, network marketing often gets a bad rap as being something less legitimate, less formal, less professional.
And yet.. the networking business model represents an accessible and attractive means for the average person to get into business for themselves and change their life for the better. And it is precisely because this is a business model that anyone, anywhere with any background can get get started and launch their entrepreneurial career, which gives this industry its greatest power and its greatest detractors.
Afterall, what are single moms and college kids and burned out middle managers doing in business? They can’t be serious? Their business can’t be serious? Someone is just taking advantage of them. Right? Or maybe they’re on to something? And ridicule and dream stealing and class action suits is just a way for ‘traditional’ business owners to cast doubt in the minds of the masses and keep them out of the ‘rich persons club.’
Throughout history, extraordinary people of limited means have searched for ways to improve their life and lifestyle and to provide a better future for their family and heirs. It’s nothing new. And with that will and desire to achieve and be compensated based on performance, network marketing was born. A brief history of how the industry came to be may enlighten and inform and perhaps shake off some of the negative stereotyping many of us grew up with.
1860 – Traveling salesmen were known as canvassers, peddlers, hawkers and drummers. Some of these former peddlers created trained sales organizations.
1890 – David McConnel started the California Perfume Company. In 1906 he had 10,000 sales representatives selling 117 different products. In 1937 the California Perfume Company changed its name to Avon Products.
1905 – Alfred C. Fuller was a former peddler who started the Fuller Brush Company and hired 270 dealers throughout the U.S. to follow his business plan on commission only.
1931 – Frank Stanley Beveridge, former vp of sales for Fuller Brush Company partnered with Catherine L. O’Brien and founded Stanley Home Products. Influenced by the economic hardships of the Great Depression, Frank and Catherine envisioned an opportunity for people to start their own businesses with minimal investment, selling products that people use everyday.
1934 – Carl Rehnborg started the California Vitamin Corporation selling what today are known as vitamin supplements. In 1939 the company changed its name to Nutrilite Products Company, Inc.
1945 – Nutrilite contracted with Mytinger & Casselberry to become the exclusive American distributor of Nutrilite products. Mytinger & Casselberry created the first documented MLM compensation plan.
1945 – Earl Tupper created a line of flexible, lightweight plastic containers with tight-sealing lids. When Tupper realized the products needed demonstration, he launched the Tupperware Party Plan which brought the product, and it’s sales force, into living rooms and kitchens throughout America.
1949 – Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel became distributors for Nutrilite vitamin supplements. After a brief dilemma with Nutrilite in 1959, the two abandoned ship and formed the Amway Corporation. In 1972 Amway Corporation acquired Nutrilite.
1956 – Dr. Forrest Shaklee developed a method of extracting minerals from vegetables and used MLM (Network Marketing) to distribute his products.
In 1959 Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel founded the company Amway which was an abbreviation for the term “the American way”. Amway from day one was based on the same network marketing concept..
1963 – Mary Kay Ash creates Mary Kay Cosmetics. By 1996, company sales were in excess of 2 billion dollars.
1975 – The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) filed suit against Amway corporation for operating a pyramid scheme.
1979 – An administrative law judge ruled that Amway’s multi-level-marketing program was a legitimate business opportunity, as opposed to a pyramid scheme.
Given the history of network marketing and it’s rapidly growing popularity, the network marketing industry is recognized as one of the fastest growing industries in the world today and is predicted to have significant growth well into the future as more and more companies are choosing to capitalize on this networking trend and distribute their products direct to consumers.
This emerging trend is also being driven by a wave of entrepreneurs who continue to define and develop the concept of improving quality of life and working from home. Network marketing has now grown to the point where it is creating more millionaires today than the dot com boom industry did before the bubble burst.
It is not surprising that network marketing is now one of the fastest growing industries of all time with an estimated 150 000 people joining the industry every single week. Given the proven history of the network marketing business model and the transcendence of its image from ‘hokey’ to legitimate, the timing could not be better to capitalize on this trend and I encourage all entrepreneurs looking for a home-based business opportunity to seriously consider a network marketing business.
Currently it is estimated that there are more than 50 million people worldwide involved in network marketing with almost 100 billion in annual wholesale revenue.
Bob Hebert
The Internet Marketing ‘Dude’
