I started asking questions about why everyone used the same model and mathematical structure of horizontal marketing. I started to ask questions about the compensation plan, structure and dynamics of the business and marketing model. Why do we have to pay on levels? Why can’t we search infinitely to find volume so that a participant will qualify? Why do there have to be monthly cut-offs where values reset to zero? Why can’t sales volume accumulate until someone hits a pay threshold? Why can’t we give participants longer to qualify and pay more frequently when they do qualify (like weekly rather than monthly)? There were many variations of plans and direct sales or network sales programs, but they all had the same fundamental short-comings. Why do we need to build width horizontally, which puts everyone in competition with each other and spreads them thin? In a horizontal marketing structure, the more the people you bring in do, the less money you make, requiring you to recruit more. Why does direct sales have to work that way? The answer is that there is no reason that we can’t create and utilize a better system. No one had ever asked the right questions or spent the time to figure out how to do it. The answer to “why” was simply that no one had ever done it.

If the real heart of the business opportunity is the opportunity to be entrepreneurial and develop an ongoing income, why base it on one product? In the information world there are new products and markets emerging and disappearing over night. Why be tied to one market or product, especially when there are constant new opportunities and there is a chance that you could be obsolete and have to start over? Why not capitalize on new opportunities and markets rather than lose distributors when they leave to seek these new opportunities? Why just focus on one market or product company? Why not be a product brokerage company and seek out whatever is market driven and offer it to the customer base? The only answer is that it simply had not been attempted.

Why not be a product brokerage company and, instead of selling a product we selected, have the distributors and customers decide what we sell based on demand? That leads to the concept of One-to-One Marketing, which is a system that allows us to track what customers want and match products to people based on their preferences, problems and needs. So we built a database of what people wanted while surveying the customer base. It became apparent that if we had a loyal or locked in customer base and found one new product that a customer needed, it was easier to find a new product for that customer than a new customer for a new product.Those concepts were the original cornerstones that the company was founded upon; a better marketing plan through the MPCP and a product brokerage company focused on One-to-One Marketing.

I expounded upon these solutions to people I knew or was in business with. Needless to say, I was very vocal. Loren and Marc listened with fascination. Many other people agreed. The question was who was going to do it. Loren challenged me by saying “if you are so sure you are right and really believe it, why don’t you do it rather than repeatedly working with companies that will not do it and that do not do it right or the way you envision?” It was her belief in me that caused that one billionth of a volt to spark across my cerebral cortex, allowing me to realize that I had to do it. It was an idea that’s time had come and it would work because I would make it work. That was the magic moment when I made up my mind and made a decision that would determine the future.

The rest is mostly history. I had the right people come together in a Corporate Team. These people also embraced the vision and believe in the concept. There were many magic moments along the road that molded the shape of the company. I saw the need for systemization and standardization in a training and support system, which gave birth to the NMTSS (National Meeting, Training and Seminar System) and the UnFranchise® System, which became another cornerstone of what Market America is today. As we started to grow we saw the proliferation of the Internet and it became obvious that everything we were trying to do could be accelerated and enhanced by integrating the Internet. Ultimately that led to Market America becoming a true, transparent One-to-One Marketing company (consistent with our mission), that is able to offer customers anything they want by aggregating vendors and merchants on the Internet into a shopping portal. Thus we became an Internet marketing company. There was a huge opportunity to change the way people shop and offer a more powerful entrepreneurial opportunity for the average person to earn an ongoing income and establish financial independence.  Market America is a product brokerage and Internet marketing company that specializes in One-to-One Marketing. Keep Growing ~JR