“Arriving at one goal is the starting point of another.”

– Fyodor Dostoevsky

For twenty-one years I have been a student and writer of American history. It is how I have made my living. It is what has consumed my time. But in between this Spartan business of researching and writing about people who are long dead and events that are mostly forgotten, I have had to do other things to make a living.

Since 1974 I have also written and studied network marketing. For four years, I actually built my own Amway business, reaching the diamond level. And for many years thereafter I have traveled the world, learning from networking leaders and sharing that knowledge with audiences at their great conventions.

By 1979 my philanthropic work, starting the charity awards, and my political work for the Reagans and Bushes, began dominating my calendar. But I had never forgotten the idea of a residual, ongoing income for retirement and how it might possibly fund my dreams of even more reading and writing of history.

Recently, when it became known that I had formally retired from Amway, I was contacted by eight other networking companies. The owners of five of the enterprises called or met with me personally, extolling the virtues of their companies. One owner-distributor offered me a million dollars to join him.

But I chose my steps carefully.

I was looking for a business that would be the easiest, for the average person, to make the most money with the least amount of time. I had learned well the lesson, that if an opportunity doesn’t work for the average person, like myself, it will eventually stop working for the exceptional person.

The first thing was a fair plan. A binary was out. They were devastating to the average person. I struggled with that. One of my best friends was in a binary. But I did not want in a business that hurt masses of people and left them feeling guilty about their failure, even when it was the expectation, indeed – even a necessity for the company’s survival – that they fail.

But I was also warned not to get into a business that front loaded the payout. One very chastised and humble networking leader told me that his company was failing because they had moved the bonuses all to the front. His people could easily make $500 a month, he said sadly, but they could only double that with great difficulty. As one of my friends commented last night, a networking business needs a vast middle class, like the United States, with many who quickly earn enough to justify doing it fulltime, a strong base from which to launch higher. Again and again I was told of the one company that had the perfect plan. And twice this information came to me from the mouths of the very owners of the other companies, men and women who were trying to get me to join their enterprise. Twice I was told that they had copied this plan.

And secondly, the company had to have a product with a compelling reason for people to buy. There are several companies with good products that make it easy to build a network. Distributors who get into those companies are astonished at the amount of money they can make in a short period of time without breaking a sweat. “Yes, but how much do you make off the product?” Someone will invariably ask. “This IS off of the product,” comes back the answer.

Well, it so happens that my wife, Myriam, used the product of this particular company, insisting that it was making a difference for our youngest daughter.

“It’s a placebo,” I said, chuckling at her naiveté. No one wants their wife looking the fool.

“Well, so what?” she would glower back, “It works.”

And then one night after an hour on the internet I told her that she could get the same benefits from buying pomegranate juice at the grocery store and save us some inconvenience and money to boot.

Well, my wife did just that. We bought juices at the grocery store. But within weeks all the symptoms came back.

“Look,” she said. “Our daughter has been to doctors in Arizona, Texas, Virginia and Maryland. We have driven her to holistic clinics in Pennsylvania, arriving home exhausted at midnight. She has had MRI’s and CAT scans and more blood tests than we can count. She has taken endless bottles of medicines or vitamins and mineral combinations or nothing at all. In ten years this is the first thing that has given her any relief.”

“Okay,” I pouted, “Back on the placebo.”

When you combine a fair marketing plan with a compelling product narrative it does not take long to build a network. And you can stand in front of people and look them in the eyes and know that you are sharing an idea that can be replicated.

The process of networking has long left a distasteful feeling in my mouth. I am too private a person. And there can be no recruitment without rejection. A part of me would rather live with less money, on a college campus, reading and writing than taking an emotional risk. I have a low threshold of pain.

But this company soared to $500 million, even without an educational, tool based system. They did it on three things, a fair marketing plan, an easy to sell product, and credible branding. (There is a nice story in a recent issue of Nutrition Business, featuring the style of their bottle, of all things.) For me, this company takes the embarrassment out of networking.

And finally, the future of this company’s founders is directly related to the success of the field. They are young and their success in life depends on the success of their distributors. This is not a cow that they milk. They aren’t manipulating the numbers or starving markets of product in order to keep down costs and control growth. They want and need their company to grow and that bodes well for those of us who are taking this adventurous ride with them. If they have succeeded without systems it is not because they are afraid of them. Indeed, they have openly embraced systems that will help the field, saying to professional networkers, “come on, do your thing.” They are not afraid of the prosperity of their distributors. They are counting on it.

And so I chose the Lamborghini of network marketing. Other enterprises have risen and fallen around them. Many others will do the same in the years ahead. This one proved to me that it is the easiest for the average person to make the most money with the least amount of time. It has a sure and steady trajectory. I chose XanGo.