Jay Van Andel, Chairman of the Board, Amway Corporation, Ada, Michigan

OWNERS SPOTLIGHT:

mway Corporation, to quote its own self-description, is involved with "a world of people, products, places, principles, a world of progress and potential."
   Note, please, which comes first. PEOPLE.
   That's why you should read on. That's what makes a difference between Amway and so many of the industrial giants on the famous FORTUNE "500" list. (It is not there because Amway is privately owned.) But with current sales indicating a peak of one billion dollars for this fiscal year (up a whopping $300 million from last year), Amway's right up there with many of the more famous corporate names as to income.
   The two men who are behind this phenomenal company are Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos, chairman and president, respectively, of the corporation. Today, as you meet them, you sense how they complement each other. Rich, "Mr. Outside," concerns himself mostly with sales and motivation. Jay, "Mr. Inside," is the master marketer.
   This is over simplification, of course. As the founders of the business who built it from the ground up, they can switch roles into any area, and have even switched titles from time to time, finally leaving Jay as permanent chairman, in part because he is the senior of the two.
   Jay and Rich are men of faith and patriotism; you better believe it. They were both born to Grand Rapids families in modest circumstances who lived by the ancient virtues of piety, frugality, hard work and patriotism, beliefs embedded in the children.
   Rich and Jay met in 1940 and after WWII, they started their own air service in Michigan, with adventurous but varying results. They even went into ventures in bread making and toy manufacturing. But soon the direct selling path opened, and Amway was born.
   A distant relative of Jay's from Chicago, Neal Maaskant, erstwhile immigrant from Holland, had just started a new business, selling a line of food sup-

plements  called  "Nutrilite Products," and needed a few distributors. Rich and Jay signed a contract with him with all the rights, honors and privileges appertaining thereto. The product they were selling was a box of Nutrilite food supplement capsules, a month's supply costing $19.50, and the next day they sold to their first customer. After they made that one sale, they didn't do another thing in that business for two weeks.
   In late 1959, Jay and Rich organized Amway Sales Corporation, which they later merged with three other companies to form Amway Corporation. Boiled down to its essence, Amway is in the business of direct selling in the home or office.
   Van Andel explains:
   "In the direct-sales business, one must decide whether he wants an organization of highly specialized, professional salesmen, or a situation in which almost anyone can develop the business and make a profit. We opted for the latter approach. We wanted to provide an opportunity that virtually any hardworking person could take advantage of. With household products, the new distributor doesn't have the task of creating a demand for the product, of convincing the customer that he needs it. The demand is already there. All the distributor must do is say, 'Look, you're buying this product at the supermarket already. I want to offer you a product as good or better at a com- parable price, and I'll bring it to your door, give individual service, and guarantee your money back if you're not satisfied.' Now that's not a bad deal. That is the kind of sales that anyone can do. Household products fit into our concept of a sort of 'Everyman' business, as opposed to a business for big-ticket, supersalesman types."
   To maintain high quality and the ability to meet delivery requirements, Amway manufactures the vast majority of its products in its own plant at Ada, Michigan, or in the plant of Nutrilite Products, Inc., at Buena Park and Lakeview, California. Yes, they purchased Nutrilite Products, Inc. only 13 years

   after leaving Nutrilite to start Amway. Amway provides its distributors with sophisticated know-how in the arts of selling. Today, Amway has a sophisticated sales education manual which would be a prize exhibit in any course of business administration, and conducts a continuous program of distributor education and seminars, bringing together product, sales and business specialists to exchange proven information on how best to serve customer needs. Amway suports its sales techniques program with a manual describing how to increase a direct sales income by sponsoring Amway distributors: Professional Sponsoring Step by Step.
   Rich and Jay point out in an introduction what this can mean:
   "When we built our own personally sponsored sales organization, we secured prospect names, interviewed, accepted applications and sold the initial sales material. Jay was responsible for recruiting, while Rich held local sales meetings and trained the new people to be successful sales people.
   "Based on our experience, the procedure described herein developed over 1,000 prospect leads, all of which were qualified and interviewed by Jay. We started approximately 200 of them as distributors, and held weekly sales meetings with them for some years.
   "The groups of distributors resulting from these original 200, in one 10- month period a few years later, ac- counted for over eleven million dollars' worth of Amway Business Volume.
   "If you apply the principles outlined in this manual, you too, can develop a successful business venture."
   And then they lay down the principle which has brought Amway to its present sales peak, and which apparently is not going to cease causing growth in the foreseeable future:
   "Through sponsoring, you are able to turn that great key to success duplication of your own efforts. Selling Amway products at retail to homes and small   industries   is   a   lucrative   and