Absorption: Within a Sales Reps team there can be multiple sales channels (A sales channel is where a Sales Rep recruits another Sales Rep who recruits another, and so on…).  From time-to-time some of the Sales Reps in the middle of the sales channel may not produce the personal sales needed to qualify for royalties or bonuses or commissions. Those bonuses and commissions are then absorbed and paid to the first qualifying Sales Rep above in the channel.

Blue Hawk Sales Reps – Certified Reps (IRS 1099 status) are Independent Contractors, with their own business and the associated responsibilities.  They can be contracted for sales, delivery or other areas of expertise. Certified Sales Reps are similar to insurance or real estate agents, and are responsible to comply with laws of the land.

Company Leads: Blue Hawk pays one half normal commissions if the company provides a lead from the company database of prospects, trade shows, advertising, appointments, etc.

Down Payments: Most orders are paid in full by clients.  Some are authorized to be delivered with a substantial down payment and monthly financing for secondary payments made to cover the full price.

In Touch:  “In Touch” means someone is actively engaged with an active or prospective client.  They are speaking, visiting, mailing, texting, etc. on a regular basis with no more than a 90 day gap.

IRS 1099 Status: The IRS tax form 1099 is utilized for Independent Contractors.  All Sales Reps are Independent Contractors with their own business and receive a yearly IRS form 1099 from Blue Hawk to report their earnings.  Sales Reps are responsible to stay compliant with the IRS and other laws of the land.

Price Lists: The service providers will from time to time provide price lists.  As needed they will be approved and authorized as needed on a regular basis by the Executive Council & Board of Directors.  And Blue Hawk will provide price list information on a “need to know” basis.

Personal Sale:  A “Personal Sale” is defined as an order generated from a prospect that is personally created, followed up with and closed by the person making the sale.

Personal Prospect or Lead: A “Personal Prospect / Lead” is a potential customer that someone creates from scratch. It can also be former customer or prospect in the various Blue Hawk databases that has not been on a Blue Hawk Service Provider service or in contact with another Sales Rep during past 6 months, it is considered an open lead for further follow up.

Qualified Orders: A “Qualified Order” is an order placed with a prospect or client that is in alignment with the entire product or service specifications, features, benefits, process, expectations, price, length of contract, terms of agreement, etc. as outlined within company policy and websites.

Referral Rep Sales:  Also known as “Bird Dog Sales”, they are sales that are created from a lead generated by a qualified Blue Hawk Referral Reps.

Residual Payment Commission Qualification:  Some services have monthly fees or secondary payments (after the orders down payment).  We call these Residual Payments or Secondary Payments. To continue to receive commissions from customer Residual Payments, a Sales Rep must have produced at least 2 new personal sales orders in the previous calendar quarter.   

Sales Channel: A separate line of sales production emanating from Sales Rep “A” that recruits, trains and manages Sales Rep “B”, and so on…

Sales Team: Sales Reps that complete the basic training can personally recruit and train other Sales Reps.  And, when qualified, a Sales Rep will earn a bonus commission on their Sales Teams sales.

Service Providers: Service Providers are qualified, approved and contracted with Blue Hawk.  They are trusted companies that provide various high quality services or products with their business. Blue Hawk coordinates all lead and financial flows directly with contracted Service Providers.  It would be a major terms of agreement violation for a Sales Rep to bypass Blue Hawk and establish a direct relationship with any of her Service Providers.

Tag Sales:  If a Sales Rep refers a prospect or requires inordinate assistance, training or a “tag” from a corporate Sales Manager or another Rep to close an order, they split the normal commissions in half, unless they mutually agree otherwise.

Terms of Agreement: It is the Sales Rep and their client’s sole responsibility to review and understand and comply with the Blue Hawk terms of agreement and other related policies and procedures on a regular basis. 

UPV (Unique Project Value) The UPV is the gross sales of a service less agreed upon costs of goods sold with our service providers.  Each service will have a unique UPV.  All sales rep commissions and bonuses are paid on the UPV of each service or product sold.   

Direct Sales: The Direct Sales industry is comprised of personalized relationship marketing versus standard retail store front or online selling.  The industry evolved from traditional open markets and trade facilities and is now multi billion dollars annually and has expanded across all free markets in the world.

Direct Selling Company Examples:  There are now thousands of direct selling companies across the world.   

Network Marketing or MLM (Multi Level Marketing):  This concept evolved from direct sales as people valued their personal connections.  The industry as we know it today emanated from Dr. Carl Rehnborg, the founder of Nutrilite vitamins.  Nutrilite was saved by the Amway co-founders while it was under attack from heavy government oppression.  Other examples of direct selling companies include insurance agencies like Allstate or State Farm, real estate brokerages like Century 21 or Keller WIlliams, etc. Other prominent direct selling companies Herbalife, NuSkin, A.L. Williams, Primeria, Fuller Brush, Avon, Tupperwear, ADT Alarms, Pre Paid Legal, etc.

Pyramid or Ponzi Schemes:  These are illegal schemes where the product or service has no true value and typically they also depend on new people joining and paying fees to pay the members that have previously joined.   

Below is a brief history of how the network marketing or multi level marketing industry evolved.  

1934: Carl Rehnborg starts selling a vitamin and mineral supplement. He names his new company, California Vitamins, Inc. 

1939. At a cost of $69.56, Rehnborg renames California Vitamins, Inc. to Nutrilite Products, Inc. At this point, it was still a direct sales company.

1943-1944: Having too many customers to personally service, Rehnborg asks people in key areas to buy a little extra product and service a customer base. He agrees to pay a commission and later, overrides, to these key people, loosely creating the business model that becomes network marketing.

1945: Sensing the huge opportunity of the supplement business, two men named Lee S. Mytinger and William S. Casselberry make a deal with Rehnborg to become Nutrilite National Master Distributors.

Here’s where things get COOL.

1948: Rich Schnackenberg joins Nutrilite and develops the core foundations that finish out the business model started by Rehnborg while building the largest known team in the company.

1949: Neil Maaskant joins the Schnackenberg organization in Nutrilite. Knowing his cousin, Jay Van Andel, was always looking for a good opportunity, he tells Jay, and his partner, Richard DeVos, about the opportunity. Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (future founders of Amway) join the Schnackenberg organization in Nutrilite, but after only selling a single order of product, they completely lose interest in the business.

A few weeks later, Maaskant talks Van Andel and DeVos into attending a Nutrilite company event in Chicago where they hear Rehnborg, Schnackenberg, and other leaders speak. The event rekindles their interest and the two men go to work. Over the next decade, they build a thriving organization of over 2,000 distributors. About this time, the FDA really goes after Mytinger and Casselberry for many infractions including false advertising and bogus product claims. Rich Schnackenberg tries to warn the two men and advises against their strategies to no avail. Frustrated by all of this, Schnackenberg tries to buy controlling interest in Nutrilite but Rehnborg would not sell. Rich maintains his distributorship but stops actively building.

1953: Dr. J. B. Jones, a direct student of Napoleon Hill, tours the country giving lectures on Hill’s Laws of Success. Seeing the promise of food supplements, he starts a company that couples the philosophy of abundance with vitamins and christens his new company Abundavita.

Dr. Jones, having watched and admired Rich Schnackenberg from a distance, and knowing of his current frustrations with Nutrilite, recruits him as Executive Vice President of Training for Abundavita. Reluctantly, Schnackenberg resigns his position with Nutrilite. Excited about joining a success philosophy with selling food supplements, he throws himself into this new enterprise. Within months, the new company is thriving. While giving a lecture on Napoleon Hill’s success philosophy in Long Beach, California, Dr. Jones recruits a pants presser named J. Earl Shoaff.  Shoaff and Schnackenberg become best friends and, under Schnackenberg’s watchful eye, Shoaff works his way up to Executive Vice President of Sales in less than a year.  Dr. Jones promises the two men lucrative stock options once the company hits $1 Million per month in sales so they throw their heart and soul into it.

1955: The two men cross the country building Abundavita until, one night, in October, they find themselves in Pensacola, Florida. There, a 25-year-old Sears stock clerk, Jim Rohn, blown away by what he had heard the two men share, joins the company. He borrows $200 from his parents to get started. About this time, Shoaff and Schnackenberg are left in charge of the company as Dr. Jones begins an around-the-world vacation spanning a year and a half. The company explodes under the two men and they quickly hit their $1 Million per month sales goal and sales kept climbing.

1957: Upon his return, Dr. Jones’ ego could not handle the fact that Shoaff and Schnackenberg had tripled the company without him. Jones not only reneges on the stock deal he made with the two men, he cuts their pay. They resign on the spot. Frustrated beyond belief, they ponder on everything that has happened to them while considering their next move. After much discussion, Schnackenberg convinced Shoaff that they should try to buy controlling interest in Nutrilite. They made their proposal, but, again, they could not get Rehnborg to sell.

The men meet in Schnackenberg’s living room and decide to start their own food supplement company from scratch. In July, the Nutri-Bio Corporation is born. They flip a coin to decide who would become President and Shoaff won the toss. Schnackenberg would be Executive Vice President. Jim Rohn, along with a huge chunk of Abundavita distributors, leave to join Nutri-Bio. It was here that Shoaff and Schnackenberg absolutely thrived. Jim Rohn, under the direct mentorship of the two men also thrived.

So many legends and icons of the profession got their start in Nutri-Bio, such as:

• Jim Rohn (who had come on in Abundavita)
• William E (Bill) Bailey
• Robert “Bobby” DePew
• William Penn Patrick
• Zig Ziglar

Both Shoaff and Schnackenberg become multi-millionaires while helping create unheard of fortunes for their distributor base. Nutri-Bio begins outselling Abundavita, Nutrilite, and every other food supplement company in business at the time.

1959: Van Andel and DeVos, also frustrated, leave Nutrilite, and with many of their top earners, begin their own company originally called JayRi then evolving into the American Way (Amway) selling liquid soap called Frisk, later LOC (Liquid Organic Cleanser).

1961: When Shoaff and Schnackenberg decide to expand Nutri-Bio into Canada, they hand pick Jim Rohn to be Executive Vice President of the Canadian Division. At 31 years old, the huge bump in pay along with lucrative stock options make Jim a multimillionaire with a net worth of $2.3 Million.

1963: Nutri-Bio folds. Schnackenberg and Rohn decide to launch a new supplement company called Bio-Lite but are shut down before they can launch. Rohn, realizing the value of all he had learned, gives his first public speech at the Beverly Hills Hotel which starts a speaking career on the side.

1964: Shoaff wants completely out of the food supplement business and starts Ovation Cosmetics, Schnackenberg comes on as Executive Vice President. The company is still in business today.

1964: William Penn Patrick starts Holiday Magic Cosmetics. Bill Bailey and Bobby DePew come on as executives with Bailey becoming the first president of the company.  Zig Ziglar joins and quickly becomes one of the top earners in the company. It was at this time that a sewing machine salesman named Glenn W. Turner joins and becomes a top earner.

1966: After a disagreement with Penn Patrick, Bill Bailey resigns from Holiday Magic and starts Bestline Products selling a biodegradable soap called Zif. Bobby DePew joins as Vice President of the new venture. Larry Huff joins.

1967: Glenn Turner leaves Holiday Magic and starts his own company called Koscot Cosmetics. He also later starts a motivation company called Dare to Be Great!

1968: Bobby DePew invites Jim Rohn to a Bestline meeting in San Jose, California. Mike Fuller invites a co-worker named Larry Thompson to that same meeting where both men join the company that night.

1969: John Fleming (future president of Avon West and gig economy expert) joins Bestline Products and is introduced to the network marketing business model.

1972: Les Brown joins Bestline Products. He’s at the Neil House Hotel in Columbus, Ohio. There for another meeting, he hears Bill Bailey’s voice through the walls and decides to check it out. Bill introduces Jim Rohn and Les is blown away and joins the company. All of this is filtering down into that fateful day of The Millionaire Training. Here’s where it really starts to tighten up.

1978: A suit salesman named Mark Hughes joins a supplement company called Slender Now. It is in this company where Mark attends his first Jim Rohn seminar.

1979: A pivotal year. Slender Now goes out of business. Larry Huff starts a new company called Golden Youth that markets supplements and a piece of exercise equipment called a Slim Gym. Huff invites Larry Thompson to take a look. Mark Hughes is there, too. Mark and Larry Thompson meet and both men join the company that night. Mark quickly becomes a top earner and Thompson becomes Vice President, so the two men form a solid friendship. Within a few months, Golden Youth folds and Mark decides to start his own company. Thompson, needing a break, and missing his family, moves back to Texas to be closer to them. Mark is serious about starting this new company and wants Larry to be a part of it. Larry is hesitant to jump back in but gladly consults with Mark about products, marketing, compensation plan, etc. Jim Rohn was also consulting with Mark offering his guidance from the beginning, too.

1980: Mark launches Herbalife International. Selling products from the trunk of his car, the company does $24,000 in sales their first month. $48,000 the second month. By May, Mark and Larry shake hands on a deal for Larry to officially become part of Herbalife, but it’s not until October 7th that he actually does so. Mark wanted to make him vice president of the company right away, and just like Jim Rohn had done in Bestline, Larry said, “No, they’re not going to accept me unless I build a team.” So, he went to work building a team.  On January 4, 1981, Larry became the official Executive Vice President of Herbalife International. Six weeks later, on February 21, 1981, Larry hits the stage and delivers The Millionaire Training. It was a culmination of all Larry had learned over the previous 13 years.

Since then, NuSkin, ADT Alarms, A.L. Williams, etc.

Here’s a simplified view:

Rich Schnackenberg started it ALL and is the man this entire profession can be directly traced back to and he was an avid student of Napoleon Hill, Orison Swett Marden, Wallace Wattles, Dale Carnegie, George S. Clason, James Allen, and more. Rich Schnackenberg poured into Earl Shoaff. Both men poured into Jim Rohn, Bill Bailey, Bobby DePew, William Penn Patrick, Zig Ziglar. Jim Rohn, Bill Bailey, and Bobby DePew poured into Larry Thompson. Jim Rohn and Larry Thompson poured into Mark Hughes.  The same ideology that created the legends and icons of this profession, the same ideology that had been poured into Larry Thompson is what he shared that day in The Millionaire Training.

We are all part California Vitamin Company. We are all part Nutrilite. We are all part Abundavita. We are all part Nutri-Bio. We are all part Amway. We are all part Ovation. We are all part Mary Kay. We are all part Bestline. We are all part Holiday Magic. We are all part Koscot. We are all part Dare To Be Great. We are all part Slender Now. dWe are all part Golden Youth. We are all part Herbalife. And so many more.

Past. Present. FUTURE. Just as much as we are all part of the companies that came before us.  Just as much as we are all part of the founders of this profession.  So are we ALL a part of The Millionaire Training! The DNA from the very beginning. The DNA from The Millionaire Training. Is in our blood. In our hearts. In our minds. A treasured few like Larry Thompson are still around. Most have gone away. But the lessons they taught. The skills they sharpened.The attitudes they forged. The hope they brought. The lives they forever changed. The legends and icons they created. Are within us ALL! The failures taught us what not to do. The successes taught us what to do. We carry all of that force with us. To invest in today. To invest in our better future. As individuals. As leaders. As companies. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Together, we can pay it forward.