Founded | 2009

Headquarters | Lehi, UT

Top Executives:
Curtis Call, Chief Sales Officer
Josh Gagon, Chief Financial Officer

Products | Health and Wellness

As the industry adapts to change from every angle, health-and-wellness-focused Xyngular is no exception. But whether navigating market changes, supply chain challenges or pandemic-era uncertainties, Xyngular has kept culture at the heart of every decision.

A Culture that Adapts

Like so many companies launched in the last two decades, weight-loss leader Xyngular found hard-fought success in the face of adversity. The company was born in December 2009, on the heels of the global financial crisis. Just after its tenth year in business, the world screeched to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic. But as Xyngular approaches its 14th birthday, the company has emerged from these challenges with both financial success and an even stronger sense of purpose. And that purpose is all about people, as Founders Rudy Revak and Marc Walker intended when they launched the company.

“Rudy Revak spent a significant portion of his career in this industry as a distributor, building a business, and he understands really well what they’re going through,” explains Curtis Call, Chief Sales Officer. “He understands what it takes to be successful on that side, and he has helped set that tone for us, pouring everything we have into helping people be successful. I know a lot of companies do these things, but we’ve made it our mission and an art form to really do it the right way, to treat people the right way. We’re not perfect. What we pride ourselves on is getting it right—figuring it out for the individual, what’s right for the company and right for them. And I think that’s one of the contributors to having a great culture.”

Xyngular’s culture of people pouring into people doesn’t just apply to the field; corporate employees have the same growth opportunities as distributors. And it’s clearly making an impact. Within the last five years, Xyngular has been named one of DSN’s Best Places to Work four times.

“We place a large emphasis on self-development and offer what we call a ‘League of Leaders’ program,” said Josh Gagon, Chief Financial Officer. “The League of Leaders program helps employees at Xyngular have a common vocabulary when discussing business and employee issues. The program also helps employees continue in their development. We want to help empower change not only in the lives of our field organization but also in the lives of our employees. We understand that for most employees, Xyngular will not be the last stop in their career. So, our hope is that while they’re at Xyngular, they will be given opportunities to grow in their respective fields and in leadership so that when the time comes that they move on in their careers, they can feel like Xyngular invested in helping them become more.”

When people are empowered and appreciated, they’re better prepared to adapt and respond when things change—which has been essential for most companies in recent years, including Xyngular.

“Since 2018, I believe the main theme for Xyngular has been our ability to adapt to rapidly changing environments,” Josh added. “In 2020, we went from planning for potential major slowdowns in sales to not being able to order product fast enough due to a very rapid sales increase. Since that time in April 2020 until present, we have had to adapt to major changes to our operating and sales environment. We have had to figure out how to scale up with the rapid increase in revenues and then how to reverse some of that scaling as revenues have softened.”

A Culture that Celebrates

Xyngular’s field of nearly 15,000 distributors isn’t just empowered—they’re celebrated. While the company’s compensation plan is simple and straightforward, Xyngular’s Passport Program offers distributors a unique “extra” that celebrates their achievements through a series of incredible international travel experiences.

“Our Partners can earn trips for two starting at just $10,000 in sales volume and other awards and trips that go up from there,” Josh explained. “We have around 10 total trips and awards in the Passport Program where our Partners can go places they may have never thought they would visit.”

“The Passport Program has been really unique,” Curtis added. “I’ve had a lot of colleagues in the industry ask me about it. It really keeps people motivated and moving towards something in their business because, while most people are building for income, people love to travel. Rudy has said that we want to give our partners the opportunity to live a life of adventure, and this is our way of delivering on some of those adventures that they might not otherwise create and book for themselves. It’s one of those things that continues to grow the culture. When you’re together and you’re meeting other people from all over the country or around the world and you’ve all come together and see all the things that we have in common, it really binds us together as part of the Xyngular community.”

During the pandemic, travel wasn’t the only celebration put on hold for Xyngular. State and local restrictions on large group gatherings relegated field achievement celebrations to Zoom—which just wasn’t good enough for the Xyngular family.

“We had many experiences during the pandemic where people had earned rewards, bonuses and awards,” Curtis shared. “We weren’t having in-person events, so we went out ‘Publishers’ Clearinghouse’ style and dispatched 17 teams. We went out around the country. We knocked on doors and handed them the bonuses that they had earned. It was just one of those things that show who we are as a company. We will go the extra mile. We will do those things for our partners to ensure that they’re having a great experience being a part of our company and being part of our culture.”

A Culture that’s Ready

Strengthened by a culture that has proven how well it can navigate change, Xyngular is preparing to adapt its portfolio to meet an evolving weight-loss marketplace. Prescription weight-loss possibilities have exploded onto the scene in the last year, presenting a new and urgent opportunity for Xyngular to adapt.

“Xyngular has primarily been a weight-loss company since its inception,” Josh said. “However, with the surge in medical weight-loss options, such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, we have been working on re-imagining what weight loss may look like as we move into the future. We have introduced a digestion line as well. However, as we look to continue to innovate and deal with the new medically assisted weight-loss options, I am excited for what other product lines we can introduce that may assist in reaching new geographics and demographics. We have learned it is very difficult to forecast the future in rapidly changing environments, but in the face of all this change, it’s so important to be agile and adapt to the best of your abilities.”

While this newest challenge isn’t without uncertainty, the Xyngular leadership team believes in the strength of their people and is excited to navigate this next season together.

“We’re in a place right now in our industry where we’re trying to solve challenges and innovate,” Curtis shared. “We’re innovating within our product space; we’re creating a number of new training programs for our distributors. Once we get these things launched and deployed into the field, really good things are coming for us. People are choosing Xyngular because they see a values-based company who lives up to their word and truly goes out of their way to get to know and to take good care of their people. I’m excited that with all these changes, we can bring more and more people into an opportunity that gives them the ability to build something that can be life-changing for them.”

From the November 2023 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.

The post Xyngular: Where Culture Comes First first appeared on Direct Selling News.

After clearing a plethora of challenges in the past few years, the direct selling industry emerges asking even more questions about what inspires people to interact with their brands. There’s a retooling underway that bends direct selling business models further and further toward a more customer-centric focus, and direct selling companies find themselves adapting to a new kind of customer. But it’s not just the customer who has changed.

The pandemic spurred an accelerated evolution within direct selling field organizations too. While plenty of traditional industry business builders are selling products and recruiting others to do the same, more companies have now expanded to include affiliate, tiered affiliate and brand partner programs. And the number of social media influencers in the mix could be endless.

The “field” simply isn’t what it used to be. No longer a generalized group of business builders, the direct selling field is more like a collective of wildly diverse motivations, intentions, needs and expectations. Figuring out how to effectively incentivize behavior and reward successful performance is a complicated challenge because this eclectic direct selling field is coming at it from multiple directions all at once.

Effective motivation depends a great deal on a direct selling company’s ability to suss out what people desire most, then adopt incentive and recognition strategies that reflect their differing goals for business builders, affiliates/brand partners and social media influencers, who all want different things. In essence, you need to make it personal. That requires a creative, tiered strategy unlike anything that’s come before.

“I really think as an industry and as a company, we’re still figuring this out. It’s new. We’re trying new things. It’s going to evolve as we go forward, as we have a better understanding of how these different distributor types, influencer types and affiliate types fit together within your program, within your compensation structure as well as the ways that you might recognize them,” Curtis Call, Xyngular’s Chief Sales Officer said.

Acknowledgment is a powerful recognition tool, and it’s one facet of an incentive and rewards strategy that doesn’t have to be complicated or a sweeping campaign to make people feel seen. Some of the things that have worked for decades in the direct selling industry continue to be powerful forms of recognition.

Personalized birthday wishes and thank you notes, free product and swag all have their place—especially when budgets aren’t plump. They go a long way in giving younger people, for instance, the frequent feedback they want. These short-term kudos don’t necessarily tie to a big red-carpet moment, rank advance or top-tier travel reward. Experiences like accepting a plaque on stage and earning that glamourous trip still hold sway with business builders, and cash bonuses certainly never go out of style.

“But at the same time, I think we need to continue to evolve and allow ourselves to be creative and ideate on new forms of recognition that are equally powerful, especially as we get into the younger generations joining the industry,” Call said.

Significant Circles of Influence

Direct selling companies have always sought to recruit people who possess significant circles of influence. With the rise of social media influencers, direct sellers would love to bring them into their teams or at least get them into their organizations to leverage that influence to help promote and move products.

But often, there’s a rub. Social media influencers don’t necessarily want to be viewed as network marketers or distributors. Sure, hybrid individuals exist and sometimes get involved in business-building opportunities, but most simply want to remain influencers. As Call said, they are happy to “plug in” and use their influence. They may love a company’s products, but also want to simultaneously promote another company’s products.

Expectations like these are shifting incentives and recognition strategies within the direct selling industry. Multi-level compensation plans—attractive to business builders—don’t fit the social media influencer, who may prefer a single-level, built-in monetary reward for sales they influence. Company swag, free products or exclusive offers for their peer or influence group can also work.

“You have to understand who’s building it as a business and who’s merely a great promoter of your products. I think today’s companies need both. I think you still need the builders. I think you still need to have a strategy to go after the influencers. But the influencers aren’t necessarily looking for the opportunity to come to your event and walk across your stage, hold a title and a rank with the company,” Call said.

Getting Personal

The industry norm—a tiered, business-builder inspired incentive and recognition strategy—is evolving and getting increasingly complex with the introduction of these new players. But running parallel and growing more powerful in the post-pandemic era is the notion that the reward itself needs to really mean something to the recipient.

“The future of incentives for any consumer brand is how to get more personal with the behavior you’re trying to drive. Why would they care about doing this or care about the reward itself?” explained Kevin Yip, President and Co-Founder of Blueboard, a San Francisco-based experiential rewards and incentive platform.

Nearly ten years ago, Yip was an accountant at a Fortune 500 firm. He’d just wrapped a two-month-long project requiring 400+ hours of unpaid overtime. Grueling—and it took its toll: 20 pounds overweight, stressed and anxious, Yip was labeled a “top performer.” That’s when a well-meaning manager dropped a $200 gift card on his desk, and Yip’s world changed. It was easy math. His reward: roughly 50 cents per hour.

“You know when you put that much energy into something and you’re that burned out, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I felt it was incredibly impersonal. It felt like a slap in the face. I felt really undervalued. I was really frustrated,” Yip remembered.

That company spends millions of dollars annually on recognitions, but in the moment, Yip said, “All that hard work and good intention fell flat in that final mile.”

What if, instead, that manager offered up a short-term membership to the gym around the corner? Yip loved boxing and would relish getting back in shape. Perhaps a classy, Michelin-star dinner date since he’d been unable to spend quality time with his girlfriend as the hours piled on?

“Same cost—but imagine how much more personal and thoughtful that would’ve been for me as an employee,” Yip said.

Together, Yip and his longtime friend and fellow “top performer” Taylor Smith recalled the countless Starbucks and AmEx gift cards tossed on their desks as rewards. Were they a magical motivating factor? Not in the least. So, they set about helping companies figure out a better way and co-founded Blueboard in 2014.

Blueboard’s client base runs the gamut from direct selling organizations to some of the world’s largest tech companies, elevator manufacturers, The Shake Shack and Chick-fil-A. After a company does the introspective work necessary to identify the behaviors they want to incentivize and recognize, Blueboard shows up with a portfolio of experiences aimed at personally rewarding recipients. Then they partner with the client to launch a campaign that drives the desired outcome.

Often, they work to elevate sales and reward top performers. But campaigns can be behavioral driven too—incentivizing people to adopt a new way of doing something. For instance, one organization discovered through a deep data dive that they won 50 percent of face-to-face customer meetings, but only 10 percent when no one showed up in person. “So, we incentivized them getting an in-person meeting because that tilts the advantage,” Yip said.

Nearly $100 billion is spent on non-cash incentives and rewards in the United States, Yip said. While there’s a travel component to that figure, much of that money goes toward gift cards, plaques, swag, electronics and merchandise. And today, a recognition strategy centered this way feels more than a little antiquated and out of touch.

“Folks aren’t going to say no to another iPad or Apple Watch, but it’s probably the fifth or sixth one they’ve received. You spend $500,000. Are they working harder because of it? Are they more loyal because of it? Are they talking about it?” Yip asked. “Probably not.”

Direct selling, as an industry, has engineered that top-rank reward—leasing an entire cruise ship or jetting people off to a private island—to a tee. But what Yip hears over and over from those ultra-top performers is that these trips still feel like work. “It’s less personally valuable. It’s more socially valuable…But it doesn’t feel like a chance to unplug,” he said.

Blueboard helps direct selling companies figure out how to reward their top people with something they want to do with their families and their friends, not a trip they take to inspire the top five people in their downline or network with other top performers. While those events are essential to business success, a real reward for top field leaders would be true downtime doing something that creates memories to last a lifetime.

That could be anything from an Italian cooking class with your team to a three-month, once-a-week Spanish language course; hiking Machu Picchu; or beach time on a white sand beach in the Bahamas with the family.

“One of the things we believe is experiences are universal, but preferences are different. So, we want to help deliver this idea of quality time to these people getting rewards,” Yip said.

Sometimes people want the ability to decide for themselves what their recognition is, Call said. And that’s why monetary rewards work.

It’s also why Blueboard’s concept is so appealing. Companies set the parameters for the reward experience and recipients get to choose. Sending someone on a trip is far different than helping them recreate their honeymoon. That’s the personal touch, and that’s something direct selling companies can deliver.

From the April 2023 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.

The post Make It Personal first appeared on Direct Selling News.

Russ Fletcher

But the numbers are adding up for the nine-year-old direct selling business in Lehi, Utah. In the last three years, its revenue has tripled to $100 million, landing it at No. 99 on the 2018 Direct Selling News Global 100 list. It has been recognized by this magazine and by Inc. 500 for its strong company culture, and CEO Russ Fletcher was an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist this year. In the crowded health and wellness network marketing segment, Xyngular is distinguishing itself by positioning weight loss as the way to gain a sense of higher purpose and by focusing on the value of generating moderate extra income.

“You’re always in the act of becoming. Weight loss is just the front door to that story.”

— Russ Fletcher, Xyngular CEO

Fletcher says the company’s message is that Xyngular products and opportunities are not just about becoming wealthier or healthier or fitter. “They’re about finding more meaning in your life,” he says. “You’re always in the act of becoming. Weight loss is just the front door to that story.”

Origin Story

Xyngular’s tale began when founders Rudy Revak and Marc Walker came together in 2009 after decades as executives at other companies in the direct selling industry. They wanted Xyngular to be a values-rich organization that gave customers and distributors a chance to start changing their lives on day one.

Xyngular is distinguishing itself by positioning weight loss as the way to gain a sense of higher purpose and by focusing on the value of generating moderate extra income.

Their ideas took hold quickly, and growth in the early days was rapid. Revenue reached $39 million by year five. Sales did take a hit in 2013 after some key executive changes, but company leadership reset and in 2014 Fletcher transitioned from board member to CEO, a position that has allowed him to build on the founders’ vision and create a strategy for continued growth. Since then the company has attracted over 15,000 distributors and close to 300,000 customers and has generated year over year sales increases.

While managing high-percentage growth can be challenging, Jeff Wasden says Xyngular is comfortable with it because it’s coming from so many meaningful transformations. “We’re okay growing this quickly because of the stories we hear,” says Xyngular’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. “I met a customer a few months ago who lost 227 pounds in 14 months. She had a very active two-year-old son but was confined to a chair. After loosing the weight, she was able to be the mom she always wanted to be. When you see those types of things you think, ‘How can we scale the business up to reach more people?’”

Success Within Reach

Wasden has been in the supplements business for almost 20 years and says he’s never seen a weight loss system like Xyngular’s. Bodies hold on to pounds for many reasons, but most diet products and plans target only a few of them, he says. In contrast, Xyngular’s Ultimate System combats 15 common diet derailers—from slow metabolism to high stress to poor sleep. It also provides tools to build a mental and emotional support network that customers need to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Strengths & Challenges

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It’s that maintenance that can be the hardest part for many people, Fletcher says. So Xyngular helps people change their mindset about weight. “Your health is a journey, not an event,” he says. “And everyone’s journey is different.” Xyngular’s products allow a customer to design an ongoing nutritional support plan tailored to his or her body’s unique needs.

Sustaining a healthy weight shouldn’t be the end goal. “The real goal is what you can do with your health,” Fletcher continues. “Carrying around even 20 pounds of extra weight can keep you from doing whatever that is for you, whether that’s getting on the floor and playing with grandkids or a mom getting home at the end of the day and having the energy to do things with her family.”

Another differentiator for Xyngular, executives say, is its compensation philosophy, which is about helping distributors quickly start to make “life-changing money”—and they’re not talking about lottery-sized money. They’re talking about $500 a month. “It’s not the big paycheck,” Fletcher says. “It’s money to pay a bill this month that you couldn’t pay last month.”

“Just because you’re the CEO doesn’t mean you can trump somebody if your idea isn’t better.”

— Jeff Wasden, Xyngular Senior Vice President of Marketing

A distributor can reach that level of income with sales of about five Ultimate Systems a month, Curtis Call, Xyngular Chief Sales Officer says, and the volume requirement to be eligible for a share of the global sales bonus pools is not much higher. “A lot of companies will have bonus pools at only top ranks,” he says. “We have them starting at the first rank.”

New distributors also get to rub elbows with higher-rank distributors during their initial training period, giving them the advantage of learning from Xyngular’s most successful. While sponsors and upline leaders bring beginners up to speed, the company supports those efforts with online training tools and regional training events throughout the United States and Canada. All distributors have access to other tech-based training throughout the year. “We leverage multiple social media channels for training in sales and compliance,” Call says. “As the shift toward on-demand content accelerates, we are pivoting to identify the best ways of engaging our customers and distributors on their schedule. We try to meet them where they are.”

Like many direct selling companies, Xyngular also has a mobile app that allows distributors to access business reports, place orders and enroll new members, the majority of whom (75 or 80 percent) don’t make the choice to become distributors, Call says.

Xyngular does not disclose how much of its budget it allocates for operational segments such as technology, but both Fletcher and Call say the company has “invested heavily” in business intelligence to help it develop data-driven strategies. For example, Fletcher says, the company might combine demographic, product and distributor data to help determine what domestic region to target next and then use that region as a point of comparison when looking at expansion to a certain international market.

Can’t Help Falling in Love

Xyngular executives say they love what this company does for distributors and customers who want to change their health to change their lives. They also just plain love the company, saying that the values and walk-the-talk culture drew them here and keep them here.

“I’ve been in companies where they have values they hang on the wall but they never live by them,” Wasden says. “Here, I hear a value referred to almost on a daily basis. ‘No ego-ness’ is one of those values. Just because you’re the CEO doesn’t mean you can trump somebody if your idea isn’t better.”

Call says he was attracted to Xyngular for the same reasons. “I grew up in a family where we were encouraged to serve others. The mission and purpose and values of this company spoke to me. They put family values and a supportive community and culture in place to help people improve their lives.”

Xyngular’s values are rooted in the founders’ intention to build a company that is “ethical, valuable and successful,” Fletcher says. Company leaders measure every decision and action against those standards. “We say all the time, ‘What’s the right thing to do? Not, ‘What’s the most cost-effective or the thing that looks the best?’”

“If we looked back 50 years from now on what the company’s value has been to the world, we would want it to be a company that improved lives in every community that it touched.”

— Russ Fletcher, Xyngular CEO

Pick up your print copy of the September 2018 issue in which this article appeared.

As Xyngular expands to more regions in North America, it has had the opportunity to do the right thing in many of the communities where its distributors live. The company doesn’t have an official philanthropic program, but it has contributed to several natural disaster relief efforts in the last few years in communities where it has distributors—including after last year’s hurricane in Puerto Rico as well as floods in West Virginia, and wildfires in Oklahoma and Kansas.

“If we looked back 50 years from now on what the company’s value has been to the world,” Fletcher says, “we would want it to be a company that improved lives in every community that it touched.”

The post Ethical, Valuable & Successful – It’s the Values and Walk-the-Talk Culture That Draws Employees and Distributors To Xyngular first appeared on Direct Selling News.