Judy discovered network marketing in the mid-nineties, when she was a full-time licensed counselor specializing in women’s issues. For over fifteen years, she had been helping her 90-percent-female clientele with relationship problems, poor self-esteem and general unhappiness with themselves and their lives.

While she loved her career, she also knew she didn’t want to do this into her old age and was looking for a way to diversify her income. When a friend offered her a network marketing opportunity, Judy jumped on it and started building a business part-time. Over the years she achieved moderate success, slowly learning the ropes of the profession, but eight years into it, she lost her business because her company went bankrupt.

Little did she know that everything on her journey had prepared her for the next opportunity: she found a product that allowed her to touch lives much in the way she did in her counseling practice, and her passion for this new product made her unstoppable. She blossomed into a natural networker and attracted like-minded people on her team who were committed to offering women and baby-boomers a “license to retire.”

Slow Beginnings

Judy was thinking about her future and looking to make a change when a girlfriend introduced her to the idea of network marketing.

“I thought it was ingenious,” says Judy. “I’d never heard of the concept of building a network and getting paid a percentage of the business each associate did. I loved the idea of being rewarded for helping others to be successful. It seemed a win-win, instead of the traditional business model where everyone’s competing and when someone wins, someone else loses.

“I thought, ‘What a great idea! If I just start doing this now, very part-time, around my counseling business, maybe in about ten years I’ll be able to retire.’”

Judy did no research and jumped right in with the first company she was introduced to, which was a telecommunications company that sold phone and Internet services. She started listening to some training tapes that came with the kit she purchased and made some phone calls to friends who lived in the next state over from her, simply asking if they might be interested in trying a different phone service.

“This was back in the days when there was a lot of competition for phone services,” says Judy. “Telemarketers were calling homes, offering great deals, so it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but I was able to achieve my customer requirement based on my personal relationships.”

Judy was a...

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