Great article from CNBC-Jan. 31, 2011!

Beachbody Grows Exponentially Thanks To Network Marketing



Posted By: Darren Rovell
CNBC Sports Business Reporter

cnbc.com
31 Jan 2011
05:07 PM ET

There are not many companies these days that can do $400 million in sales and remain relatively anonymous.  Yet Beachbody, a private company, grossed nearly as much as Groupon did last year and very few people talk about the robust engine that is behind exercise workout programs like P90X, INSANITY and Turbo Jam.
Under the leadership of co-founder Jon Congdon and Carl Daikeler, the company has developed a business model that seems to be Teflon, turning successful converts of its programs into network marketers who ensure that the brands flourish.
Many multi-level marketing companies are based on building a network of sellers and distributors getting rewarded based on the size of their network.
Most often, the people who have gotten in on the ground floor reap the greatest benefits while those late to the game struggle to make money.

What makes Beachbody’s network of distributors, called coaches, so successful is that these people have done the programs and are often in incredible shape. Their testimonial and therefore their business relies on how good they look, not whether they tell friends that a certain superfruit drink helps them have more energy or cures their stomach problems.
It seems like, more often than not, network marketing thrives on results which can't be verified, but if my fat friend shows up with a six-pack, I'll be more likely to believe he was doing an intense workout program.
Since starting the network marketing program three and half years ago, Beachbody now has 51,000 coaches who take a cut of videos and nutritional products they sell. Beachbody coaches sell $1 million worth of nutritional shakes under the brand’s Shakeology name a week. And it’s not cheap at around $120 for a month worth of servings.
“We could have built this company’s sales a lot faster at retail by selling at Walmart and Target,” Daikeler said. “But selling it through direct television (infomercials) and through our network works better for us.”
Daikeler says that his coaches serve as walking billboards and salespeople who want to help their family and friends by helping them lose weight through the company’s exercise programs. This is unlike many other multi-level marketing companies that solely rely on building a network to make more money.

And Daikeler doesn’t have to pay for testimonials, a common practice in the infomercial business space he plays in. “The standard network marketing doesn’t work with our model,” Daikeler said. “This is not a ponzi scheme where if you’re the last one in, you don’t have a chance to do well.”

While the average lifespan of a multi-level marketer is three months, Daikeler says his coaches remain in the system an average of 18 months. It’s why he’s confident that by the end of 2011, there will be 150,000 coaches.

“We don’t promise it will replace your every day job,” Daikeler said. “That has been the case with about 1,000 of our coaches. But what it does for others is it keeps them in shape. In order to continue to have credibility selling, you need to continue to keep up. And so, it allows the people who want to fight obesity, to be motivated by the fact that they have skin in the game.”

By continuing to have more and more videos – P90X led to a harder workout, INSANITY, and that program is leading to The Asylum, which will come out in a few weeks – I don’t see Beachbody slowing down any time soon. And the non-traditional, more patient route of using those converted to the brand by really using it is a smart approach that I think will pay off nicely down the road.

© 2011 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Gyms, Bootcamps & other Fitness Facilities!

Something came up in conversation last night that I decided to write about. It's relating to the attitudes some fitness facilities seem to have towards Beachbody Coaches and our fitness programs...in my personal experience, not speaking for anyone else.


A couple of months ago I walked into a local fitness facility (going to keep names out for respect) and asked if I could post a flyer for the October event in Lincoln with Tony Horton. They said "No, that's really not what were about here" and asked me to leave. My thoughts: *Really? You're not about helping people get fit and live healthier lives?* WTH?
It seems that many "facilities" are really against Beachbody, I suppose they must be afraid that our fitness programs will cause their clientelle to cancel their memberships and workout at home, leaving their facility empty and broke. REALLY? I guess if the people that run these places only want to look on the surface, then perhaps that's how they might think, but let's take a closer look and hopefully open some eyes to the POTENTIAL and GROWTH it could also bring to their facility!


When a fitness facility signs up to be a Independent Beachbody Coach (distributor), this is an EXCELLENT opportunity for them to add another stream of income to their business! Many people believe they will not stick with a workout unless they GO to some workout facility. So, those people are NEVER going to leave and they will be very good customers. Now, if you're facility is a "Coach", you have the ability to market or retail Beachbody's high-end supplements at your facility...hmmm, income stream. Now, considering Shakeology is the healthiest, most nutrient dense health shake on the market, why not offer it to your clientelle? If you're truely in business to HELP people with their health and fitness, then give them the BEST nutrition out there!


Online tools....does your facility offer ways for your clientelle to track their fitness progress, goals and teach them how and what to eat to maximize their results? If you do, how much time and $ do you spend on this? Is it individualized for each client? Beachbody has a free online supergym and fitness/nutrition tracking tools that YOU as the facility can offer to your clientelle as one more tool to help them with their health and fitness. They don't have to be using Beachbody fitness programs, it can be whatever they do at YOUR gym or bootcamp! You set them up, then they can use it whenever they want from their own computer! If they buy programs or supplements, YOU earn the commission!


Our common goal should simply be to help people live healthier lives...period. So it makes no sense to me why some facilities turn up their nose to Beachbody. To me that just makes you seem like selfish, money-hungry people who really don't care about the problem of obesity in our country. Quit looking at us as "competition" and take advantage of what we have to offer by implementing it into YOUR facility! I promise, your clientelle will keep coming to you, they like the social aspect, they may not keep up with a workout if it's left up to them and not based on a specific time they have to be at your facility! Why not keep your clientelle and build it by offering more options for them?


If you own or manage a fitness facility or boot camp, we would love to have 1 hour of your time to sit down and discuss the options and how implementing Beachbody programs and nutrition to your facility could BUILD your business! If you still don't see the potential after one hour, that's ok! We don't want to be working against you! Afterall, this is not about you, or me, or the $$, right? It's about the health and fitness of our country. It's about the 1/5 of children in the U.S. who are currently obese or overweight. It's about the 2/3 of adults in the U.S. who are currently obese or overweight. It's about the startling prediction that by the year 2030, 80% of adults in the U.S. will be obese or overweight!!! RIGHT? As people in the health and fitness industry, we should all be banning together to reverse the trend of obesity in our country, not putting up walls and fences to keep others out. I figure, if someone is working out and eating healthy, I don't care HOW or WHERE they're doing it, as long as they're doing it!
SO, is this still "not what you're all about???"

Jack LaLanne at Age 95

R.I.P. Jack LaLanne!!!!

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru who inspired television viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became a national obsession, died Sunday. He was 96.

LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast, his longtime agent Rick Hersh said.  Lalanne ate healthy and exercised every day of his life up until the end, Hersh said.  "I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for," Elaine LaLanne, Lalanne's wife of 51 years and a frequent partner in his television appearances, said in a written statement.  Just before he had heart valve surgery in 2009 at age 95, Jack Lalanne told his family that dying would wreck his image, his publicist Ariel Hankin said at the time.  "He was amazing," said 87-year-old former "Price is Right" host Bob Barker, who credited LaLanne's encouragement with helping him to start exercising often.  "He never lost enthusiasm for life and physical fitness," Barker told The Associated Press on Sunday. "I saw him in about 2007 and he still looked remarkably good. He still looked like the same enthusiastic guy that he always was."

LaLanne (pronounced lah-LAYN') credited a sudden interest in fitness with transforming his life as a teen, and he worked tirelessly over the next eight decades to transform others' lives, too.
"The only way you can hurt the body is not use it," LaLanne said. "Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late."  His workout show was a television staple from the 1950s to the '70s. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids to wake their mothers and drag them in front of the television set. He developed exercises that used no special equipment, just a chair and a towel.

He also founded a chain of fitness studios that bore his name and in recent years touted the value of raw fruit and vegetables as he helped market a machine called Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer.  When he turned 43 in 1957, he performed more than 1,000 push-ups in 23 minutes on the "You Asked For It" television show. At 60, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco — handcuffed, shackled and towing a boat. Ten years later, he performed a similar feat in Long Beach harbor.  He maintained a youthful physique and joked in 2006 that "I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image."
"I never think of my age, never," LaLanne said in 1990. "I could be 20 or 100. I never think about it, I'm just me. Look at Bob Hope, George Burns. They're more productive than they've ever been in their whole lives right now."  Fellow bodybuilder and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger credited LaLanne with taking exercise out of the gymnasium and into living rooms.  "He laid the groundwork for others to have exercise programs, and now it has bloomed from that black and white program into a very colorful enterprise," Schwarzenegger said in 1990.
In 1936 in his native Oakland, LaLanne opened a health studio that included weight-training for women and athletes. Those were revolutionary notions at the time, because of the theory that weight training made an athlete slow and "muscle bound" and made a woman look masculine.
"You have to understand that it was absolutely forbidden in those days for athletes to use weights," he once said. "It just wasn't done. We had athletes who used to sneak into the studio to work out.
"It was the same with women. Back then, women weren't supposed to use weights. I guess I was a pioneer," LaLanne said.

The son of poor French immigrants, he was born in 1914 and grew up to become a sugar addict, he said.
The turning point occurred one night when he heard a lecture by pioneering nutritionist Paul Bragg, who advocated the benefits of brown rice, whole wheat and a vegetarian diet.
"He got me so enthused," LaLanne said. "After the lecture I went to his dressing room and spent an hour and a half with him. He said, 'Jack, you're a walking garbage can.'"  Soon after, LaLanne constructed a makeshift gym in his back yard. "I had all these firemen and police working out there and I kind of used them as guinea pigs," he said.
He said his own daily routine usually consisted of two hours of weightlifting and an hour in the swimming pool.  "It's a lifestyle, it's something you do the rest of your life," LaLanne said. "How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it."
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Dan and Jon, and a daughter, Yvonne.
Associated Press writer Polly Anderson contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

What is this Beachbody thing anyway?

I'm going to just say it right off the bat and get it over with...MLM, Network marketing.  AAAACK, such dirty words which many people run from the moment they hear them.  Hey, I do, why shouldn't you?  But, if you'll take a minute to read on I'd like to share the other side of those nasty, pushy, not well-liked terms...read on.

Yes, Beachbody does offer a network marketing business.  But WAIT.  Before you quit reading, please give me a minute.  Like many I personally HATE so called mlm's and network marketers. They always seem to be pushy people who don't give a crap about me and just want to force me into buying something I don't need so they can meet your quota.  News flash:  BEACHBODY IS NOT LIKE THAT!  And, that's the only reason I got involved.  I saw that they work very hard NOT to be those icky, pushy people.  They actually care about people and have a simple mission to help people reach their goals and enjoy a healthy, fulfilling life.  Hmmmm....

So, we're in the middle of this obesity epidemic in the U.S. and that is a terrible thing.  People are sick and dying way earlier than they should and most of that can be prevented and even reversed.  But how?  Beachbody doesn't believe in wacky diets, gimmick machines or magic pills.  We simply provide the tools to teach people how to exercise and eat properly, that's it.  We strive to get healthy in our own personal lives and then help others do the same by sharing our experience.  What's so icky about that?  Well, nothing!

Here's an example of how it works:  Let's say you have a favorite restaraunt and you tell you friend to go eat there.  Your friend does and enjoys a great meal and they tell their friend, who then go there also.  Do you get a check in the mail from the restaraunt thanking you for the referral and giving you a cut of the tab?  NO.  But, that's exactly what Beachbody does do.  There are tons, well actually, thousands of people out there using Beachbody products such as P90X and talking about it.  If you're not a Coach but have used their products, have you ever told someone about it?  Most likely you have!  Did that person go and buy it?  Perhaps!  If you're doing this already, then you are a Coach but you're just not getting paid for it.

Basically, we share our experience, help others select a program that will work for them, and earn commission off those sales.  We do not force anyone to do anything.  So, is Beachbody an MLM or Network Marketing company? Yes, but we like to think of ourselves as a "Hybrid Network Marketing Company".  We do things differently and want to keep it that way.  Getting past the MLM stigma is probably the hardest thing I do as a Coach although I do understand why people have that idea in their mind.  Personally, I still hate other MLM's and still view them as pushy, insensitive people who I want to run from.  Until they change their approach I will continue to feel that way.  BUT, I encourage you to open your mind to the fact that not every company is like that and I'm proud to say that I am a part of Beachbody.  It's about building relationships with people...not destroying them.  It's about helping people...not just helping myself.  The income is just a bonus but it's not the heart of the company.

If you would like to learn more about what makes Beachbody different, I'd love to talk to you.  This may be something that is right for you....or maybe it's not.  Either way, it's OK!   We have a huge problem in our country and want to simply do what we can to help reverse that and get people living healthier so our kids and grandkids can enjoy long, healthy lives too.  It's not all about us and shouldn't be!

Over 50,000 strong!

Carl announces the 50k mark from his hotel room. At 10am this morning hr will be in Lincoln, NE for our Super Saturday event. Join is at One80 Church on 'O' Street from 10-Noon!

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