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Breaking Away Sandy and Keith Moreland are escapees from corporate America. After building successful, but extremely stressful careers in government and business, they were ready for a change. Sandy worked for 23 years as a highly paid mid-level manager for the IRS in charge of field collection and about 100 employees. Keith was with TRW in network communications and decided to start a new business in network marketing when he faced a layoff at age 40. They had only 30 days from the start of their new business to when he faced termination with TRW. After their first year in the business with no prior MLM experience, they achieved their goal of replacing his salary and getting her out of her IRS job and were both full-time in their business. In 1997 Sandy and Keith faced an even bigger challenge - dealing with the death of her mother after a lengthy battle with cancer and the tragic death of their daughter, Heather, the victim of a drunk driver. They found their network marketing business offered them the time to deal with their grief and still provided a regular income - something most jobs could never have given them. How did they do it? In the following interview, Sandy shares her story and the details of how she and her husband, Keith, built their networking business from scratch and reached the top level of their company and how they dealt with their life challenges. Linda: Why did you choose an MLM business over other types of home-based businesses or franchises? Sandy: My husband Keith started our networking business. He wanted to work from home, change his career and do something that was centered around team building. When our friend presented Keith with the business, his first response was that he didn't want to sell, but he liked helping people and training. And the more he talked to our friend, the more he liked what he saw. I only agreed to use the products and support him. He felt that he could get into MLM with a minimal investment and earn more than in a conventional business without having to deal with employees, office space and all the other trappings. I was attracted to the idea of using non-toxic products, especially since my mother had just been diagnosed with cancer. Keith didn't want to go through another layoff, he really wanted a career change. I was very skeptical about this "network marketing" thing and told him I didn't want to do meetings or sell anything. I agreed to use the products and help him get his business started. Since I was out on sick leave due to stress I had the extra time. I also decided to research his new business and make sure it wasn't the fly by night business I was sure it was! Linda: You started with no previous experience in MLM, yet you became a success with your first company. What did you do differently from most people starting out? Sandy: Keith had 30 days from the start of his network business to when he terminated with TRW. Our network company offered an incentive program if you did $6,000 volume in one month. We didn't realize that this special program was intended for experienced networkers. We just decided to go for it! We practiced what to say to our friends on each other. We had a limited circle of influence because just about everyone I knew worked for me and Keith would lose his severance pay if he talked to his co-workers. We approached who we could, friends and family. They are still with us today, using the products. We were never told how to make a list or even do presentations. We read everything we could, listened to a lot of tapes, gave up extraneous social activities, including skiing and television. I read somewhere that you needed to keep bringing in new people and teaching people how to do that so that's what we did. I decided that I could make about 15 to 25 contacts a day. We bought lists and I started cold calling. That will make or break you real quick. But believe me, cold calls are easy compared with doing collections for the IRS. We were determined to replace a huge income and worked hard to do it. We read John Kalench's book, Being the Best You Can Be in MLM. We each did our goals, dream sheets and followed his advice the best we could. We just tried to create a team atmosphere and put other people's success ahead of ours. By helping them advance, we grew a solid business. We were the first people with no prior MLM experience to reach the top of our compensation plan. Linda: In 1997 you went through a tough period - losing two loved ones in a short span of time - how did this affect your networking business? Sandy: Last year we suffered the loss of our daughter, Heather and my mother. It was devastating. Without our home-based network marketing business we could not have survived. Working in an office would have been impossible. We live in Colorado and my mother and daughter lived in Texas, so we took two months off and then worked part-time for the next month to deal with everything. Our income stayed the same then even went up, thanks to the devotion of some of our group. Throughout last year, we worked our business when we could and took time off as we needed too. Sometimes we just turn the phone off, read, take walks, work around the house, go to the mountains, and travel. We spend time with special understanding friends having fun, going to movies and attending special seminars for people who lost children. This has been a real healing thing that allows us to cope with our grief and proceed with our business and our lives. We work long hours, but we play when we want to. Without this type of business we could not be advancing in our grief as quickly. We can focus on business, but also stop and cry when we need to. One of the biggest effects the deaths had on our business was that many people stopped calling us because they couldn't deal with our losses. Other people that had just been in the background of our lives stepped forward and literally saved our lives. Our upline, Keith and Pam McEachern really earned their stripes - we could not have done it without them. We got into networking because of relationships and making new friends. That is so important to us. And we realized how vital our downtime was and is. We are lucky to have few good friends to help us through. Linda: You work your business with your husband. How does that work to your advantage? What are the challenges of working at home together? Sandy: Working at home as a couple is fun and a challenge. Keith and I are very different people. He's technical, I'm not. I'm outgoing, he's not. He gives a lot of detail, I don't. He's very patient, I'm not. We have remedied that by having separate offices in the house. We have also each found our niche in our business. He is the technical backup for our downline, teaching them voice mail, computer, doing flyers, post cards, etc. He also patiently works through shipping, personality or any other business problems. I am very good on the phone, at enrolling, marketing and training. I ad-lib well on calls and do more of the initial contacts and Keith helps with followup and getting people started. We have been married 20 years and have been through some very hard times together. We do make each other crazy at times, but we compliment each other in business practices and have been very successful together. I read somewhere about 90% of all couples who network together succeed big time! I think we're on our way. Sandy and Keith Moreland are one of the top producers with their networking company and their business is centered on health and wellness. They can be reached at 800-850-0537 or by e-mail at kmorelnd@concentric.net. Linda Locke is the Webmaster and Editor of the MLM Woman Newsletter. Visit her site for over 100 articles of interest to network marketers at: http://www.mlmwoman.com
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