Direct selling profits exceeded $32 billion in 2006 from over 15.2 million representatives in the U.S. alone! Entrepreneurs and companies alike created an estimated 400 new direct selling businesses last year. However, while many companies create record setting growth, others barely make it out of the gate!

The Symposium Group was founded to provide executive teams of startup MLM and Party Plan companies with the training and strategies needed to succeed in the MLM industry. The Symposium Group is a consortium of MLM and Party Plan experts including: InfoTrax Systems; Moriah Marketing Group; ByDesign Technologies; MLM.com; Dream Builders; Direct Selling Women’s Alliance; Eaglecap Consulting; ServiceQuest; and Grimes & Reese, P.L.L.C.

The Symposium is a bi-annual, two-day MLM conference offering lots of hands-on experience. The curriculum features: twelve training sessions, a networking reception, and one-on-one meetings with Symposium Group faculty members. The training sessions include presentations by The Symposium Group faculty members as well as MLM company executives, such as “Designing Your Company for Today’s Distributors” by Nicki Keohohou, CEO and Co-founder of the Direct Selling Women’s Alliance.

Some of The Symposium’s past MLM guest speakers have included:

• Orville Thompson, President and CEO of Scentsy, a Party Plan company based in Idaho that markets wickless, scented candle bars as an alternative to traditional candles. Scentsy has experience dramatic growth since it was founded in Spring, 2004—a 400% increase in each of its first three years of operation. This year sales are expected to exceed $10 million.


• Kent Wood, President of Operations for XanGo, who is responsible for handling the company’s operations, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, quality assurance, facilities, accounting, finance, and tax departments. Kent and his team have thrived on managing XanGo’s record-setting growth.


• Connie Kittson, National Sales Director of Mary Kay. She personally has 22 offspring Directors and is a member of the Millionaire's Club, which means that she has earned more than $1 million in commissions during her Mary Kay career.

The target audiences for the Symposium include:

• Startup MLM and Party Plan Companies

The symposium experience is a must attend for executive teams of new startup companies that plan to use network marketing as their primary form of sales and distribution. Attendees gather a broad range of specific information from industry experts-- information that is vital to the success of their business venture. Many of the attendees are planning to launch their business in the near future or have launched within the last two or three years.

• Established MLM and Party Plan Companies

Established companies have found it extremely useful to send their new employees because it is such an efficient way to quickly educate them on the unique nuances of direct selling. In addition, seasoned executives attend to learn about the latest information in key areas, to network with Symposium faculty members, and to compare what they're doing in their companies with current industry best practices. Just picking up a couple of new ideas can pay big dividends for these attendees.

In the past three years, over 500 executives, managers, and owners of party plan, direct selling, and network marketing companies have participated in the Symposium Group's MLM training programs. Sue Wiggins, who attended a past Symposium commented, “The value was phenomenal. I hate to sound like a raving fan...I think the value was unbelievable, for the amount of knowledge that we got. I felt the whole approach was very classy. I felt it was very elegant. The speakers were phenomenal, but they had humility. They weren't there to push their products. They weren't there to sell us what they had. They were there to deliver a message and I think everybody picked up on that message.”

The next Symposium sponsored by the Symposium Group will be held November 10-11 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Further information may be found at: http://www.thesymposiumgroup.com/ .