Her Ticket: Direct Sales

A Step to Financial Freedom

by JACK SHOLL For The York Dispatch

Friday, March 18, 2005 - Eight years ago, Janet Wakeland was an emergency room nurse working 12-hour night shifts. She was, as she tells it, tired of the daily struggle and always exhausted during the day at home with two young children to raise.

Today, she's working out of her Spring Grove home, supervising a $13-million-a-year business involving 3,000 independent team members around the country and making more than she did as a registered nurse.

Welcome to the world of direct selling, the business of selling products face-to-face to customers in their homes.

Wakeland's company is RemARKable Stampers, LLC, a limited partnership formed under the larger umbrella of , of Kanab, Utah. The company sells rubber stamps and related materials that let people produce their own greeting cards, gift-wrapping, scrapbooks and a variety of other items at a fraction of retail cost.

All in the company of their friends, neighbors, work associates or others they know.

That's what drives the success of direct selling, Wakeland said -- peoples' innate need for sociability and desire to slow down their participation in a technologically driven, fast-paced economy.

"We're not a 1-800 number, a phone message, or not a different salesperson every time you visit the same store. As a direct customer, for example, you're always going to get me. We add the personal touch," Wakeland said.

Direct selling, or pyramid marketing, has come a long way from those who will remember the Fuller Brush, Hoover Vacuum or encyclopedia salesmen who called door-to-door in the 1950s. Today, according to the Direct Selling Association of Washington, D.C., direct sales in the United States accounted for almost $30 billion in 2003. More than 13 million salespeople work as independent contractors, and 80 percent of them are women.

In Wakeland's case, she has built an organization of 3,000 team demonstrators in 49 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, which, she estimates, serve approximately 720,000 customers a year. Stampin' UP! itself, she says, has about 40,000 active demonstrators nationally.

A leader in the field, Wakeland is a co-author of a new book, "Build It Big: 101 Insider Secrets from Top Direct Selling Experts," published by Dearborn Trade Publishing. She's also started a Direct Selling Women's Alliance, open to all direct sellers in the York area, for networking and idea-sharing.

The prospects for the field continue to be encouraging, Wakeland says, with billionaire investor Warren Buffett's recent interest in Pampered Chef and Time-Warner's ownership of Southern Living at Home, which sells home dicor.

"There are no experience or educational requirements that will help anyone be better at this than anyone else," she said.

Hosts invite friends or neighbors over for coffee or tea, and demonstrate how to make cards, wrapping paper or scrapbooks.

"The in-home demonstrations are a wonderful social event. In this day and age, people need an excuse to slow down and be with friends they don't often see and spend a little time with them," she said. "At the same time, everyone gets to acquire skills and shop for quality products from the convenience of their homes."

Wakeland says the hostess always gets free company products for the demonstration and the opportunity to establish an income-based business from home. Those who recruit other team members also get a percentage of the new team member's sales and they can earn perquisites, such as cruises, for reaching sales milestones. Wakeland says she's earned nine company-paid ocean cruises since she's been involved in the business.

About direct sales
Janet Wakeland, 42, is one of a dozen top national sales members with various direct selling companies in south central Pennsylvania.

In addition to offering home parties for her stamping company, Wakeland co-authored "Build It Big: 101 Insider Secrets from Top Direct Selling Experts."

Other direct sales companies in the area include The Pampered Chef, which sells cookware; Tastefully Simple Inc., mixes and dips; PartyLite, candles; Silpada Designs, sterling silver jewelry, and The Longaberger Co., baskets.