Inclusion in this list required annual revenue of more than $2 billion and status as a privately held company. Amway’s revenue in the previous fiscal year reached $8.1 billion, putting it above household names like Staples and Chick-fil-A. 

In late 2023, Amway announced a new corporate strategy that is expected to take advantage of the unlimited growth potential found in China and help the company continue to expand its global footprint and market share.

The post Amway Named to Forbes 2023 List of America’s Largest Private Companies  first appeared on Direct Selling News.

To determine the honorees, Forbes partnered with Statista to survey 50,000 Americans at companies with 1,000 or more employees to select organizations who are leaders in the effort to support women. Survey questions focused on working conditions, diversity, parental leave, discrimination and pay equity. 

“This award is particularly important to us because it highlights Scentsy’s family-focused culture and our position as a leader in the direct selling industry,” said Scentsy Chief Executive Officer Dan Orchard. “We are proud that 58% of our employees are women, as well as 42% of our employee leadership team. This award also highlights the success of this business model for our network of independent consultants, which is 94% women. This is a tremendous honor for Scentsy, and we are very grateful to be recognized by Forbes.”

The post Scentsy Named to Forbes’ List of America’s Best Employers for Women  first appeared on Direct Selling News.

“At Nu Skin, we’ve been committed to empowering women for the past 37 years, and we’re honored to be acknowledged by Forbes for these efforts,” said Ryan Napierski, Nu Skin President and Chief Executive Officer. “The past two years have been difficult, but we’ve seen how they have taken an especially hard toll on women around the world. We’re committed to doing even more to create a supportive work environment and drive gender equity in the workplace.” 

Forbes worked with Statista to survey 85,000 women in 40 countries as it compiled this list, asking participants to rate their employers’ performance on gender-related criteria.  

The post Nu Skin Included in Forbes List of World’s Top Female Friendly Companies first appeared on Direct Selling News.

In its sixth annual list, Forbes shone a spotlight on the richest self-made entrepreneurs, executives and entertainers is, which is up to 97 from 80 last year. The women on this year’s list are worth a collective $90 billion and have started or helped expand companies that do everything from build rockets to create snowboards to make Covid-19 tests.

Although the pandemic has hurt the sales of beauty brands, Fields and Rodan landed at No. 22 in the ranking with $800 million each. (Fortunes were calculated using stock prices from September 11, 2020.)

In the article, Forbes offered the following insight on the two women and their company:

• Rodan and Fields co-created the acne treatment Proactiv and launched skin-care company Rodan+Fields. In 2016, the two dermatologists sold their Proactiv royalties to a joint venture between Guthy Renker and Nestle, which markets the product.
• In May 2018, private equity firm TPG spent $1 billion to buy a 25% stake in Rodan+Fields.
• Revenues of Rodan+Fields, a multilevel marketing firm with 300,000 consultants, fell from $1.6 billion in 2018 to around $1.3 billion in 2019.
• The drop in Rodan + Fields’ revenue and lower market values for direct selling firms in skin care led Forbes to cut the estimated firm value by 50%.

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The awards, which range from Forbes “Best Midsize Employers for 2019” to “Best in Show” at Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Film Festival, highlight Mary Kay’s business values and its dedication to the principles defined by the brand’s legendary founder, Mary Kay Ash.

Awards in 2019 include:

Excellence in Business

• Best Employers for Diversity, 2019 – Forbes
• Best Midsize Employer, 2019 – Forbes
• Gold Ranking in Educational Category – Spring 2019 OMNI Awards
• Top 50 U.S.-based Companies in Household and Personal Products Industry – HAPPI Magazine
• DSA Empowerment Award, 2019 – Direct Selling Association
• Most Reputable Global Employers in 2019 Global Workplace 100 Study – Reputation Institute
• 2019 Compliance Award – EXPANSION
• Top Brand, 2019 – VIP Magazine
• Women Entrepreneurship Award – Woman Who Matters Forum
• Best Magazine for Clients, Mary Kay Russia Applause^® – Media Leader
• Best Client Media: Web Media, Mary Kay Russia MirrorMe App – Corporate Media Awards

Excellence in Corporate Citizenship

• Fan Favorite, video: Mary Kay’s Commitment to Ending Domestic Violence – Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship International Corporate Citizenship Film Festival
• Best in Show – Small Company Category, video: Mary Kay’s Commitment to Ending Domestic Violence – Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship International Corporate Citizenship Film Festival
• 2019 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification – Mary Kay Richard R. Rogers Manufacturing and R&D Center
• Best CSR Brand and Best CSR Strategy Award, Mary Kay China – CSR China Education Awards

Excellence in Leadership

• 10 Most Reputable CEOS in the World, David Hall, Mary Kay CEO, RepTrak 2019 Study – Reputation Institute
• 2019 Most Powerful Women in Corporate America, Sheryl Adkins-Green, Chief Marketing Officer – BLACK ENTERPRISE Magazine
• 2019 Most Powerful Women in Corporate America, Julia Simon, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary – BLACK ENTERPRISE Magazine
• 500 Most Influential Women in Spain, Gema Aznar, Mary Kay Spain General Manager – Yo Dona Magazine
• Most Powerful Female Business Leaders, Claudia Maria Cardona, Marketing Manager, Mary Kay Colombia – ALO Magazine
• Manager of the Year, Alla Sokolova, Mary Kay Russia General Manager – Russian Business Guide
• Top 250 Best Top Managers, Alla Sokolova, Mary Kay Russia General Manager – The Association Managers of Russia and Kommersant Publishing House

The post Mary Kay Inc. Earns More Than 20 Prestigious Awards Throughout 2019 first appeared on Direct Selling News.

The concept of working with celebrities to promote brands is evolving into highly targeted campaigns with online influencers. Influencer marketing is now big business, and according to the experts, it is only going to grow.

What’s Happening:

While consumer buying habits continue to evolve along with brand trust and engagement, money spent on influencer marketing is projected to reach $6.5 billion in 2019. That would more than double the numbers from just two years ago. According to InfluencerMarketingHub.com, Google searches for “Influencer Marketing” grew by 1,500 percent over the last three years. The site also shows that businesses earned an average of $18 in media value for every dollar spent on influencer marketing in 2018.

of marketers chose
Instagram as the most
important social platform for influencer marketing.

For now, Instagram is the ultimate social platform for this type of promotion. A Linqia study found that 92 percent of marketers chose Instagram as the most important social platform for influencer marketing. The content is quickly consumed while still allowing time for the right message to get across in the form of compelling images or short videos. Users can follow tags and specific topics of interests, allowing them to quickly connect with others and follow specific influencers they’re interested in.

Defining and identifying the right influencer for your brand and business can fall within a wide range. An online influencer doesn’t have to be someone with hundreds of thousands of followers. In fact, working with someone with a smaller, targeted following seems to be the sweet spot.

Why It’s Working:

“Micro-influencers” can be defined as those with roughly 10,000-100,000 followers with a dedicated niche audience specifically interested in the content the influencer provides. A study by Keller Fay Group showed that micro-influencers have 22.2 times more weekly conversations about things to buy than the average consumer, and 82 percent of survey respondents said they were likely to follow those recommendations.

“For real engagement, you need a micro-influencer,” an article on JeffBullas.com claims. “These are people with specialist interests and smaller audiences who often deliver higher engagement rates than the celebrity influencers… Their audiences not only share their specific interests and values— they trust what micro-influencers have to say about products and services.”

Choosing The Right Influencers:

Authenticity is the secret sauce when working with influencers. Being authentic is what likely built their following and personal brand in the first place. “Fans of an influencer want to believe that there is a genuine connection between the influencer and the ad,” says a Forbes.com article.

When choosing someone to work with, pay attention to their engagement and relationship with the followers. Higher engagement rates (likes, comments, shares, etc.) is a good indicator of a real, organic following of people who trust and listen to the influencer. Look for original, creative content that matches the influencer’s personal brand. They are effective because they understand their audience, know the proper hashtags to target, regularly create engaging content, and know how to attract others to grow their audience.

Most influencers promoting brands want a longer-term partnership in line with their own interests as well as the interests and needs of their followers. Communicate what value you can bring the influencer, such as product samples, early access, or exclusive experiences. It doesn’t have to be just money. Also, be willing to let the influencer get creative with the message or ad.

“Brands should give influencers sufficient creative freedom to keep posts authentic, as it makes posts less likely to be dismissed by users,” says an article on BusinessInsider.com. “Other best practices include repurposing influencer content for multiple platforms, evaluating the audience and following of an influencer, and leveraging data to optimize future campaigns.”

Why It Matters To Direct Selling:

A shift toward word-of-mouth, experience-based online promotion should be welcomed news for direct selling. Genuine, authentic relationships and brand experiences are at the core of the direct sales industry, and that’s exactly what’s working with online influencers.

A study by Influence Central revealed that 86 percent of women are going online for shopping advice. Taking advice from influencers can be a nearly identical experience to direct sellers communicating with and influencing their customers. The connection and relationships are built on trust.

So, would partnering with an influencer in your industry replace an independent distributor? Not at all.

A direct selling company could use an influencer to help build the overall brand, generate buzz for a product launch, or document their experience going through a program. Some influencers may cross several social platforms with multiple audiences. Focusing on the right special platforms can greatly depend on your product or service. The beauty and makeup category is a natural fit for Instagram, while health and fitness might match better with a YouTube influencer.

An Expert Sums It Up:

“I think influencer marketing is going to have an incredible global era for the next decade, and we’re just at the beginning of it. Every day there are brands that go from $0 to $15 million in sales with no overhead or infrastructure on the back of influencers on Instagram. If you’re not working with influencers, you need to be,” says Gary Vaynerchuk.

The post Under the Influence first appeared on Direct Selling News.

Mary Kay is ranked number 42 among the top 100 global companies on the list.

“Our reputation among employees and customers is based on the foundation Mary Kay Ash established when she began her dream company in 1963,” said Melinda Foster Sellers, chief people officer at Mary Kay Inc. “She envisioned a company based on the Golden Rule that made the world a better place through corporate responsibility, innovation, ethical business practices and people-first management—all factors that contributed to our success in this year’s Reputation Institute study. We’re honored to be named among the most reputable employers from around the world in 2019.”

In the study, researchers at Reputation Institute—a leading provider of reputation measurement and management services—surveyed more than 230,000 individuals in 15 countries. Reputation Institute measured companies based on professional development, total rewards, work environment, market leadership, products and responsibility.

According to the research, over the last year, willingness to work for Mary Kay increased by 6.2 percent, the largest improvement among all the companies measured in the Global RepTrak^® 100 study. Mary Kay outranks other global powerhouse brands in a variety of industries across the globe.

“Mary Kay is a rising star in the reputation study—showing the biggest improvement in the ‘willingness to work for’ category of all companies measured,” said Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, chief reputation officer at Ri. “Companies like Mary Kay are reaping the benefits of building workplace cultures that foster inclusion while demonstrating concern for the health and well-being of its employees.”

This is the latest in the series of accolades Mary Kay has received highlighting its position as a global employer of choice. Other recent awards include:

• Top 10 Global CEOs: Reputation Institute named Chairman and CEO David Holl among the top 10 most reputable chief executives in the world according to its CEO RepTrak^® 2019.
• Best Midsize Employer 2019: Recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Midsize Employers 2019. Mary Kay is ranked number 97 of the 500 companies on the list.
• Best Employer for Diversity 2019: Recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Employers for Diversity 2019. Mary Kay is ranked number 150 of the 500 companies on the list.
• Global Excellence in the Workplace: Mary Kay Spain and Mary Kay Poland earned the 2018 AON Best Employers Award, recognizing organizations demonstrating excellence in the workplace. Mary Kay China and Mary Kay Mexico picked up the honor in 2017.
• Family-Friendly Employer 2018: Mary Kay Hong Kong was recognized by Home Affairs Bureau as a top family-friendly employer.
• Chinese Enterprise Health Management Top 10 Employers 2018: China International Intellectech Corporation honored Mary Kay China.

The post Mary Kay Inc. Named Among Most Reputable Global Employers first appeared on Direct Selling News.

We can shrink from these challenges, or we can evolve. We can be resilient, innovative and bold. This will require new thinking and tough decisions, but it will position us to be even stronger. As the 2019 Global 100 list celebrates its tenth birthday, Direct Selling News examines how the industry has changed and what the landscape looks like as we head into the third decade of the 21st century as independent distributors.

First, the numbers

Collectively, the companies in the DSN Global 100 achieved $75.6 billion for 2018. Aggregate sales for the top 10 global companies on DSN’s Global 100 list were $40.8 billion in 2018. Twenty of the Global 100 grew by $100 million or more in the past year—including list toppers Infinitus, Natura, Herbalife Nutrition, Coway and Nu Skin. Newcomers O’Boticario and Atomy debuted at $1.22 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively. There are 23 mid-market companies—those between $300 million and $1 billion on this year’s ranking. Five companies are above $700 million, and another five above the half-billion-dollar mark.

“There are 23 mid-market companies—those between $300 million and $1 billion on this year’s ranking. Five companies are above $700 million, and another five above the half-billion-dollar mark.”

Eighteen companies are making their first appearance on the Global 100 list, including companies from Brazil, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Malaysia, Japan and Sweden. The biggest gaps on the 2019 list, though, come from the absence of 25 of the 26 China-based companies that made the list last year and some U.S.-based companies—such as Mary Kay, Isagenix, AdvoCare and Juice Plus—that chose not to report their financials.

In response to some unsubstantiated product claims, the Chinese government in January launched a 100-day review of all health and wellness direct selling companies operating in China, the industry’s second-largest market. Because of the increased scrutiny, most Chinese companies were unwilling to disclose their financial information to the magazine. This left room for 18 newcomers to the list and seven companies returning to the list after an absence.

“Direct selling companies are spending millions to improve their online shopping portals, partly in response to the Amazon effect and partly because of regulatory pressure to distinguish more clearly between customers and distributors.”

The economic and regulatory conditions in a global marketplace always fluctuate, and sometimes companies will decide to keep a lower profile, which is why it’s noteworthy that this year’s list includes 13 private companies that have reported their numbers to the Global 100 every year since it began in 2009. Public companies don’t have a choice about whether to share financials, but closely held companies do, and their transparency allows the Global 100 to present as clear a picture of the industry as possible.

Times, they are a changin’

The direct selling business and consumer habits have changed significantly over the last decade.

From a broad, cultural perspective, people now consider their involvement in a direct selling company in much the same way they consider any job. “The direct selling space is evolving from the days when it was sort of a niche way to do business,” says securities analyst Doug Lane. “Given advancements in technology and social selling, direct selling  is becoming more mainstream.”

But nothing has changed in our industry more than the prevalence of technology. In the last 10 years ecommerce and social media—mainly Amazon and Facebook—have transformed the way people learn about and purchase products.

In 2009, there were 360 million active Facebook users worldwide. Now there are 2.38 billion—and a huge number of them turn to social media for brand guidance. And Forbes reports that 70 percent of Americans with annual incomes of $150,000 or more have Amazon Prime memberships, which give people unlimited free shipping (now in one day) of more than 100 million items.

Overall e-commerce sales in the United States reached $517 billion last year, 14 percent of all U.S. retail sales, according to analysis of U.S. Commerce Department data. Amazon sales alone were $141 billion of that total—accounting for nearly one-third of ecommerce revenue.

Direct selling companies are spending millions to improve their online shopping portals, partly in response to the Amazon effect and partly because of regulatory pressure to distinguish more clearly between customers and distributors. Direct sellers have to offer customers a way to buy product without signing up to become a distributor, and creating direct online ordering systems is the easiest way to do that. Such changes come more quickly for smaller, newer companies, Lane says. But the larger the business, the more legacy systems and mindsets there are to move. “That makes it a big challenge,” he says. “But that’s what leadership has to do.”

Some direct selling companies are meeting this challenge head-on, responding with complete digital transformations of customer and distributor experiences, says Bob Bass, Lead Strategic Insights Analyst for Amway, which tops the Global 100 list for the seventh consecutive year, with $8.8 billion in revenue. “Changes I’m seeing are monumental, from the way companies support distributors to the emerging use of augmented reality.”

Augmented reality is fueling a trend called “experiential retail,” which is, ironically, drawing customers back to brick-and-mortar stores. For example, Pottery Barn allows in-store customers to place virtual furniture in digital versions of their homes. Nordstrom shoppers can select clothing via a mobile app and the store will have the items waiting for them in a dressing room when they arrive. French beauty products retailer L’Occitane lets customers take a cyber hot air balloon ride through the French countryside while they get a hand massage with real hand cream.

“Customers and distributors want to be reached in ways that are most meaningful to them. Everything from attracting, developing and retaining more young leaders to honing in on what is marketed to different segments, so that your approaches are much more personal and relevant.” – Bob Bass, Lead Strategic Insights Analyst for Amway

If some of these experiences feel familiar, they should—they’re a next-gen version of what network marketing has been doing through the party plan model for decades: letting people try and build a connection with a brand before they buy. This trend reinforces the core of our model while showing us how to enhance that model at the same time.

Beauty and wellness products are prime for augmented reality, says a recent market study—so as the direct selling channel’s largest category, these products give the industry an opportunity to use the tool on a broad scale. Amway’s already on board. Last spring, it partnered with a Silicon Valley company to implement the YouCam Makeup app, which makes personalized skin care commendations and lets customers put virtual Artistry brand makeup on their selfies.

With YouCam, Amway seems to be proving that even massive companies can be technologically agile, if they’re committed. Amway Chief Sales Officer John Parker says it’s all about a forward-thinking mindset. “We encourage our employees to stay hungry and focused on what is still possible rather than what we have already achieved,” he says. “As an industry we embrace what’s great about our channel—the combination of digital and social relationships with the delivery of live interactions and experiences distributors and customers will never forget.”

Getting personal

As consumers become more sophisticated about how and where they buy, they’ve also become more particular about how they want companies to market to them. “Customers and distributors want to be reached in ways that are most meaningful to them,” Bass says. “This means everything from attracting, developing and retaining more young leaders to honing in on what is marketed to different segments, so that your approaches are much more personal and relevant.”

Noah Westerlund, Senior Vice President of Business Development for SUCCESS Partners, says this personal approach starts with making sure the audience you want and the audience you have are the same. “Be realistic about what your company provides, and do some audience research to find out if it’s what your intended targets really want,” he says. “Maybe you have a product that has always appealed to Baby Boomers but you keep pushing your teams to recruit and sell to Millennials.” If you’re losing or can’t gain momentum, a misalignment between your message and target customers may be partly why.

Parker says Amway’s strategy for keeping its momentum for so many years is to keep its ear close to the field. “We continually focus on listening to our Amway Business Owners, who are out there every day working with customers and new people in the business,” he says. “Like them, we know the importance of hard work, trying new approaches, studying others’ successes and failures and planning our next move, even when business is at its strongest.”

New frontiers

One ingredient and one concept that have burst into the marketplace in the last few years are putting our industry in an interesting juxtaposition: One is opening doors to astronomical sales, while the other is reminding us not to take our position for granted.

Let’s talk about hemp first. Products with cannabidiol (CBD)—a non-THC product derived from the cannabis plant—are becoming wildly popular for direct selling. DSN estimates that direct selling’s CBD revenue reached $300 million in 2018, will hit $600 million this year and will generate $1 billion next year.

At least 40 companies on this year’s Global 100 list sell products with CBD, and they’re seeing huge numbers. Four of them alone—including Las Vegas-base My Daily Choice/Hempworx and San Diego-based Kannaway accounted for $400 million of overall CBD sales last year. Sales at My Daily Choice/Hempworx increased from $10 million in 2017 to $100 million in 2018, a 900 percent growth rate.

While CBD has become the hot new category inside the industry, income opportunities with ride-share providers, on-demand errand services and private home rental companies are changing the game outside our industry, which used to have a lock on the “gig” idea.

According to a recent McKinsey Global report, more than 160 million people in Europe and the United States are earning money using cars, houses and time they already own. This is more than three times the 18.6 million U.S. direct sellers—4.1 million of whom are discount buyers or have no plans to sell the products and nine million of whom have gone inactive.

The lure of gigs is strong because they usually require little capital or training. You don’t need sales skills to be an Uber driver. You wake up, turn on your phone and customers fall out of the sky.

“If you’re losing or can’t gain momentum, a misalignment between your message and target customers may be partly why.” – Noah Westerlund, Senior Vice President of Business Development for SUCCESS Partners

Direct selling experts say that the industry can be competitive by appealing to people’s desire to work for more than just a paycheck. People want to be part of something with a greater purpose—they also will gravitate toward opportunities that provide support and ongoing training so that they can improve personally and professionally.

But we can’t keep doing everything the way we’ve always done it. For example, gig work pays on the spot and that’s a huge deal to its workforce. Direct sellers have to find ways of paying more quickly.

NuSkin, number seven on this year’s list with $2.68 billion in sales, introduced a new compensation strategy in late 2017 to allow for quicker payouts. Through NuSkin’s “Velocity” pay plan distributors can earn retail sharing bonuses daily when someone buys a product via their mobile app. “We found there was a fairly large group of people building a Nu Skin business because they needed income today, not six weeks, or even a week from now,” NuSkin President Ryan Napierski said at the 2019 Companies in Focus.

And about those customers “falling out of the sky?” Direct selling also needs to refine its process of distributing leads to field teams, Westerlund says. “That’s how we become an end-to-end solution that’s competitive with gig economy opportunities.”

Being better

How do we maintain traction where we have it and regain it where we might have slipped?

We always need to recognize and build on what makes us unique—our high-quality research-based products, the opportunity we give people to change their lives in small and big ways and our deep commitment to the communities in which we do business.

It’s also critical for companies to acknowledge and correct for their blind spots and missteps, and that means doing a better job on compliance, income claims and product claims. Bass agrees. Transparency is everything in this industry, he says.

In January, the U.S. Direct Selling Association launched the Direct Selling Self-Regulatory Council to hold the industry even more accountable to ethical business practices. Administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the SRC will monitor the marketplace for questionable activity, investigate consumer complaints and report potentially noncompliant companies to the appropriate government agencies.

“We know that direct selling has sometimes suffered from perceived problems, occasional bad actors and others who pretend to be legitimate,” said DSA President and CEO Joseph Mariano. “We have decided to address these issues directly, by holding companies to the highest standards with an effective third-party regimen.”

Says Bass, “It’s in our collective interest to call each other out and hold each other accountable for deceptive and dishonest speech.”

In addition to staying mindful of industry-specific changes, it’s important to note that the economy is likely nearing the end of a decades-long expansion cycle. It’s too soon to know how much of a slowdown we’ll experience, but slowdowns are inevitable. And maybe a more moderate pace is exactly what everyone needs to catch their breath and make plans for the next race.

$100 million+ non-reporting companies

In addition to the Chinese companies not reporting this year, several $100 million plus companies previously represented on our Global 100 list chose not to report their 2018 data.

The post A Lifetime Of Change In One Decade first appeared on Direct Selling News.

The Reputation Institute, the world’s leading provider of reputation measurement, measured the reputation of more than 140 global CEOs and canvassed more than 230,000 individual ratings among the informed public. The study was conducted in January and February of this year.

“David’s leadership and operational expertise since being named CEO in 2006 has contributed significantly to Mary Kay’s success,” said Richard R. Rogers, son of Mary Kay Ash, co-founder and executive chairman of the Board. “Mary Kay is a brand born of purpose, and David’s steadfast commitment to our founding values has made him a truly extraordinary chief executive officer and people leader.”

According to Kylie Wright-Ford, CEO at Reputation Institute, acting responsibly, behaving ethically and caring about social issues are the most important drivers of CEO reputation. In fact, according to Reputation Institute’s findings, CEOs are more likely to be judged on ethics versus profit margins. In this way, the perception of CEOs and the companies they lead are directly correlated.

The top 10 global CEOs recognized in Reputation Institute’s 2019 CEO RepTrak study (in alphabetical order) are:

• Ben van Beurden, Shell (OTCMKTS: RYDAF)
• Niels B. Christiansen, LEGO Group
• Michael Dell, Dell
• Emmanuel Faber, Danone S.A. (OTCMKTS: DANOY)
• Fabrizio Freda, ​The Estée Lauder Companies (NYSE: EL)
• Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo Co., Ltd. (OTCMKTS: NTDOY)
• Ralph Hamers, ING Group (NYSE: ING)
• David Holl, Mary Kay, Inc.
• Christopher J. Nassetta, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT)
• Carsten Spohr, Deutsche Lufthansa AG (OTCMARKETS: DLAKF)

Recently, Forbes named Mary Kay to its lists of America’s Best Employers for Diversity and America’s Best Midsize Employers.

The post Mary Kay Inc.’s David Holl Among Top Ten Most Reputable CEOs in World first appeared on Direct Selling News.

VanderSloot and his wife, Belinda, announced a $500,000 legal defense fund last week to help east Idahoans with medical debt who also have been slapped with “excessive attorney fees.”

“Medical rates and medical expenses continue to skyrocket, going up and up,” said VanderSloot. “I just said let’s start up this fund. I’ve got the resources and have been looking for good ways to use them to help folks.”

With a net worth estimated at $4.5 billion, VanderSloot is considered Idaho’s wealthiest individual, according to Forbes. In announcing the fund, he indicated it would defend against “tactics used by overly aggressive medical debt collectors.”

The billionaire said his interest in the medical debt issue follows the case of a Melaleuca employee with a bill of nearly $6,000 from an original medical expense of $294. The original medical bill has since been paid by the employee.

VanderSloot claims a local medical-debt collection company, Medical Recovery Services, or MRS, tried to garnish the wages of the Melaleuca employee. The matter ended with Melaleuca and the collection company locking horns in court.

“How they were behaving with us, the employer, seemed really odd,” said VanderSloot. He alleges MRS used “bullying kind of tactics” and engaged in “patterns that appear to be unethical at the least.”

MRS strongly rejects allegations that it has done anything wrong.

The post Melaleuca’s VanderSloot Unveils Fund to Defend People from Medical-Debt Collectors first appeared on Direct Selling News.