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Network Marketing Lifestyles Magazine article about Rita Davenport When Rita Davenport was first invited to speak at a convention for Arbonne, a Swiss personal care and cosmetics company with its US home office in California, she was a professional trainer, delivering over 125 speeches a year. She had produced an infomercial broadcast to more than 35 million people and had addressed audiences from AT&T to the National Security Agency. But something was missing. "All of these years that I'd been speaking to people, telling them they could improve their lives, showing them how to set goals I never had a vehicle for them. I thought, 'Aha, maybe this is the answer. Maybe this is what I've been looking for.'" After watching her sister's success with Arbonne, Rita joined in. Her business took off like a rocket. Petter Morck, Arbonne's founder, was watching his field carefully. He was looking for a president. He wanted someone who knew how to build the business from the ground up. He wanted an American-and he wanted a woman. Rita was named president in 1991. For the past decade, Rita has run her presidency out of her home office-in Arizona. "I don't know," says Rita, "I can't say 'I run Arbonne from this office.' I have an excellent management team that runs Arbonne from the corporate office. If you have to be there every day, you don't have the right people in place. I travel a lot, doing opportunity meetings, training sessions, and recognition programs. I go to California about two days a week; otherwise, I'm home. "I'm very down to earth," says Rita. "I was raised in poverty, in Flat Rock, Tennessee; we didn't even have indoor plumbing. I always talked about how someday I would have a nice house. And that's what I still do best-teach people how to raise their expectations. "I lead with my heart-which is not the best way to run a company. But I always sleep well." Carol Fitzgerald started out as anchor for a small television station in upstate New York, then took a job as a consultant with a New York-based as agency, working from home. "One day I was doing a presentation for Fisher Price for a new toy line. I had no sifter, so I just took the baby, thinking I'd give the storyboards to my boss and let him do the presentation. He had car trouble. I sat in the lobby of Fisher Price with my baby and my storyboards while two other agencies pitched the deal. Finally Fisher came down and said, 'Either come and do the presentation now, or lose the account.' I said, 'But, but-I've got the baby!' They said, 'Bring him, too.' I did the presentation with my baby crawling around on the conference table. The look on my boss's face when he finally arrived was one I never want to see again. "We got the account but the pressure of trying to give my best to both my job and my baby became unmanageable. I started network marketing." After some years in the field, Carol met up with Steven Cantor, co-founder and CEO of One Family. Steven was looking for a distribution company for his product line. "We spent an afternoon fantasizing about the perfect company, and he said, 'Let's do it. I have the corporate infra-structure, the CFO, the accountants, I just need you to bring together the marketing team; we'll work together on the products.' In November of '997, they launched One Family. Like Rita Davenport, Carol runs the company at a distance. The corporate office is in Littleton, Colorado; Carol lives in upstate New York, where she also home-schools her children Dawn, age 8 and Bobby, 11. "The whole point of getting into network marketing was to be able to spend time at home with my family--and help others do the same." Terri Frey had a problem. She had built a good-sized network for a software-based network marketing company, they had pre-launched the product-and it didn't work. Scrambling to secure a product she could dovetail with her network, she found Flash-Net Marketing Inc. FMI is a wholly-owned subsidiary of FlashNet, a national Internet service provider. The company started its network marketing division to answer customers' demands for a way to market the service themselves. By the time Tern found them, they had tried a dealer program, a franchise plan (both unsuccessful), and were in their first year of trying network marketing. Opening with about 2000 distributors, their first year's total growth was a discouraging two percent. "There were no brochures, no presentation materials, nothing. My team of distributors went into the field and started growing." Within a few months her meetings were standing-room-only. "I was having a blast. I was in heaven. I love network marketing." The company's founders were astonished, and asked her, "What on earth are you doing?" She said, "It's pretty simple. You guys have created a gold mine, you just have to know how to mine it." "I joined them as a consultant, just to put the tools in place," Tern laughs. "I told them up front, 'I have no intention of working for you.' Within a few months they convinced me to take over the division." In July of 1998, Tern became the president of FMI. In her first year on the job, the company enjoyed a 216 percent increase in sales-at 30 percent less cost to the company. Says Tern, "That's a pretty good story." "When we first created Cell Tech, says Marta Kollman, "I didn't even know how to spell MLM. Once I heard the concept, it took about a nanosecond to see the potential-not just to move product, but also to create a network of people, taking responsibility for improving the world around them. Being part of the solution, instead of part of the problem." Cell Tech, the Oregon-based nutritional company, started on Marta's kitchen table, where she and her family were freeze-drying wild, blue-green algae. "Right from the start, when we first started doing nutritional research about algae, I was dreaming about how big we were going to be, about the fleet of i8-wheelers that would be taking our product across the country. I never doubted it for a moment.' Marta has been involved in every aspect of the business, from typing the first lefters to potential backers, to running the genealogies. "In the early years, I knew every distributor by name, I knew their ID numbers. That history is far more helpful than any degree in accounting, economics, or biochemistry-it has given me a grip on exactly where we are and how we got here, and it allows me to clearly see where we want to go. "Early on, nearly ten years ago. I was at dinner with [Oxyfresh president] Richard Brooke. I was explaining what our product was and how we harvest it. He suddenly stopped, looked me in the eye, and said, 'Marta, you've got a billion-dollar company. I thought, Yes, I've been saying that, but how did you know?" Marta adds, "I used to kid with an attorney I've known for years. He'd call every once in a while and say, 'So how's that algae business, Marta? Am I still going to see you in Time magazine?' And I'd say, 'Yes, you are-just hang on to that subscription."' Longevity Network was born out of an afternoon's what-if wish list for the perfect company. Adi and Jim Song's first venture in network marketing had been a difficult one. They had been brought in to help manage a company. One year and $6o million in sales later, they watched it dissolve before their eyes. A serious technical problem with the product proved disastrous. Jim and Adi were out of a job. "Jim came in one day and said, 'Let's say we try network marketing again-what if it were our own company arid we designed the products?' I said, 'I don't even want to have this conversation.' "So I wrote an outline. He said, 'Okay, you can have that."' In March of 1994 they launched Adi's dream company, Longevity Network. Jim is CEO; Adi is president. "I divide my time between staying in contact with distributors and working on product development. I like to have my finger on the pulse. I look at sales reports; I can see who's new, who's making an impact in their first or second week, who needs a call. I may go through hundreds of names and leave a short message for each one. I personally like to spend time with new distributors, listening to their experiences with the products and the business. These are some of the most inspiring, uplifting times I've ever had. I personally like to spend time with new distributors, listening to their experiences with the products and the business. These are some of the most inspiring, uplifting times I've ever had. "If you spend too much time in product research and development, you're living in a vacuum. Network marketing is about people." Diane Wakat has been on a quest: how to bring the best of science to the people. "That's how I ended up in network marketing," says Diane. During a 20-year stint on the University of Virginia faculty, Diane served as nutritionist for the women's basketball team (which was then in the top '0 nationally). "One of the girls on the team was an Echols Scholar, which essentially meant, 'You're so smart you can create your own major."' The girl was getting her degree in economics. and wanted to do an internship with Diane. Diane saw an opportunity. "I'd always wanted to extend my knowledge from consulting with individuals to product development. That would allow me to help far more people. I always had an entrepreneurial bent," admits Diane. "I said, 'Why don't you come and help me, and let's make your project be starting a business? I think it should be network marketing.' "I didn't know much about network marketing-but it was the closest I could get to the 'barefoot doctor' of China, which taught people how to take basic information, go out into the field, and help people." Intelligent Nutrition Systems, or InSinc, was launched in 1993 in Charlottesville, Va. The company spent its first years principally in product development. In 1999, it rolled out an extensive, Web-based training and information system, and prepared for serious growth. For Diane, being president of InSinc means being accountable for every single distributor and every single product. It is a business she takes personally. "Every one of our product labels has my signature. That says, 'I am responsible.' I want people to know that our products are safe, that there is a real honest-to-goodness person who made them."

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