Direct and to the point

By CHRIS FREEMAN - cfreeman@nwherald.com

Lauren M. Anderson – landerson@nwherald.com Tracey Masbaum a sales agent for The BodyMagic shows off a body shaper which is one of several garments that customers wear under their clothes to help shape a women's body. (Lauren M. Anderson ())

They come to the industry for different reasons. They might have been drawn in by a product, by a friend or neighbor, by necessity or by desire.

Last year, the Direct Selling Association reported that 15.1 million men and women sold products directly to customers. A quarter of them sold products through parties, while an overwhelming majority sold person-to-person.

Tracey Masbaum sells her line of reshaping garments one person at a time. Diana Wilson helps conduct parties to sell her line of lia sophia jewelry. Sharon Tuzik and Melanie Ward also coordinate parties to get their line of Tastefully Simple foods out to customers.

Each has their own story, as most direct sales agents do.

• • •

Tracey Masbaum worked in corporate services for three years with Yellow Book before being laid off last November. With four children at home, she said she was interested in finding a new line of work that would allow her to better balance her home and work life.

That’s when she found Body Magic, a line of undergarments that help reshape a woman’s body. The products provide support as well as enhance a woman’s look, with Masbaum saying women could look two to three sizes smaller instantly.

“Whatever I was going into next, I wanted to make sure it was a good fit for me personally and for my family and children,” the McHenry resident said.

“I found out about this, and the vision came in my head. That’s how I came about the position I have now.”

Masbaum does individual consultants with clients to find the right products to fit their size and shape.

She said the smiles on her client’s faces were the favorite parts of her job.

“That to me is what it’s about,” she said. “When I put it on and I got into jeans that were two sizes smaller, I was smiling from ear to ear. I thought I looked good, and it made me feel good. I’m more confident, and that’s what it’s about.

“The way women feel afterwards, that’s what it is. The reshaper changes their body, but really, what’s behind it is what I love the most.”

• • •

For Diana Wilson of Crystal Lake, hosting a lia sophia jewelry show was entertaining. She enjoyed inviting friends and family over for some fun and to look at the jewelry line the company offered.

But doing it as a job? That seemed out of the question.

“After about the fifth show I had, the company changed some of the things they included when you joined, and one of those was you could get medical benefits,” she said. “That interested me. I had nothing really to lose by trying it, and that’s when I got involved.”

After a year of hosting parties and being asked to join the company, Wilson made the move in 2003, drawn by her love of the product and the benefits that it offered.

“It was a very low buy-in to become involved, I liked the product, I liked the backing of the product, and I liked what I saw as far as how the company really seemed to put integrity first,” Wilson said.

Six months of part-time work later, Wilson hosted a party that made her as much money as she made working two weeks at her primary job.

“That’s when my husband said I needed to think about this in a more serious manner,” she said.

Since then, the work has been her full-time job. She schedules between 10 and 14 shows a month, and has become a fan of helping to host the parties.

“The parties are what I enjoy most,” she said. “Part of that is meeting a lot of people that I would have no opportunity to meet otherwise. It’s having fun, having a girls night out, fellowship, whatever you want to call it. People don’t socialize the way they used to, and this gives women the chance to get together, enjoy each other’s company, and have something to talk about.”

• • •

Sharon Tuzik was living in a new town in Ohio eight years ago with her husband and two small daughters when she was invited to a neighbors’ Tastefully Simple party.

“I had been thinking about going back to work – I’d been a secretary for 15 years but I stopped after our second child was born,” she said. “I didn’t want full-time work. I wanted to do something that was priced right, that was demographically well-placed, that was usable and consumable.”

She found it at the party, she said.

“I left that party thinking, ‘I could do that,’” she said.

And so she did. She talked with the consultant, signed her agreement, and immediately set about organizing her own party for the food products offered by the company.

“I had only been about six months in the area; I was semifriendly with a mom at preschool and I invited her,” Tuzik recalled. “I invited several neighbors I was on a smile-and-nod basis with, and I met another mom who was similar to my situation and invited her. Several people brought friends, and I think we ended up with about eight people.”

Tuzik eventually worked her way up to being a team lead mentor, the second-highest ranking among consultants, and the Algonquin resident said she enjoyed the freedom her work allowed.

“What most people find really rewarding about direct sales is you know exactly what you’re doing,” she said. “It doesn’t take a whole day to do it, you decide what day you want to do it. The flexibility of direct sales draws in such a wide variety of people. There’s women who work full time and women who don’t work at all. It’s a full gamut of people.

“It’s an income opportunity that fits into their life instead of molding their life around an income opportunity.”

Most importantly, Tuzik said, the job remains fun for her.

“I am still in this business business of the parties,” she said. “If all the other aspects of the business were taken away, I would still do it because of the party experience. You meet tremendously interesting and fun people. It’s always a challenge, it’s always fresh, and you have no idea what you’re walking into each time.”

• • •

When Melanie Ward attended her first Tastefully Simple party 10 years ago, she was instantly hooked.

“I bought a few things to bring home, and a gift box for my mom,” she said. “My family love everything I bought, my mom loved everything I sent her. I called the woman who did the party that I was at and told her I wanted to become a consultant.”

At that time, the company’s catalog included about 10 items, Ward said, meaning the parties included samples of every food available. With a list of more than 100 items now available, she said the menu has changed a bit.

“Nobody wants to sit around and taste 100 different things at the party,” she joked.

Ward said she had been in the industry for 10 years, but that parties had begun to dry up, leaving her looking for something new.

“The product wasn’t consumable,” she said of her previous job. “When I saw how excited people were about the products, I said, ‘This is it.’”

Over the years she’s done as many as 16 to 20 parties in a month, but whether it’s one or 20 parties a month, Ward said she enjoys watching someone else go through her experiences from 10 years earlier.

“The parties are so much fun because you see how excited people are to taste those,” she said. “I’ll never forget that first party that I went to, they had black bean and corn salsa. And I went ‘Ew.’ We were told don’t make icky faces because then somebody might not want to try it, so I tried it. I love it. I still have it three times a week.

“It’s great when people try something and say, ‘I don’t usually like this, but this is good!’ I like to see other people have that same experience that I did.”

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