At Convention 2019, Canadian Marketing Executives were recognized onstage as part of the 25th anniversary celebration.
is why Canadians built so quickly,” Ed says. “They had finally found something everybody could do.” Lives changed, many from extreme distress to a future they never imagined possible. Corporate Director 9 Jeff Miller didn’t have enough gasoline money to meet Ed in Mon- treal when the province of Quebec opened to Melaleuca. “I met him in Toronto instead and gave him the gas money,” Ed says. “Then he and I traveled everywhere for Melaleuca, back and forth across the country.” Today, Jeff Miller has no trouble paying for gasoline. Ed met National Directors Rita and Wayne Crosby at an event where the Crosbys sat in the front row, busily taking notes. “After the meeting,” Ed says, “they invited me to come with them to another meeting, and I discov- ered that the floorboard on the passenger side of their VWRabbit had a hole in it! Not only that, the heat didn’t work in their car! We were freezing!” There are no holes in the cars the Crosbys drive today. TAKING MELALEUCA TO THE WORLD Our success in international growth is based on our purposeful approach to expansion. There are industries that “burn the fields” until it is necessary for them to take an ill- considered leap to another country in order to remain in business. When the foreign fields are also burned, their business is doomed. In contrast, when we consider opening our doors in another market, we invest the time necessary to do it properly. We are patiently methodical in our expansion philosophy, completing the groundwork, negotiations, and preparations so when we go to another
With her infectious smile, her great coaching ability, and her burning desire to help people reach their goals, she was pivotal to Mela- leuca’s growth in Canada. Her influence and efforts are still being seen in Canada today.” Ed still remembers that first Canadian in- home vividly. “I brought products, an easel, and a flip chart.” Before PowerPoint, before Melaleuca Overview videos, in the days when the occasional dinosaur ambled by during an in-home, poked its head through the door and roared (well, perhaps not quite that long ago), there was the flip chart. Mark Atha recalls, “We used to have flip chart parties where we would draw a flip-chart by hand for the Melaleuca Overview. At larger events, we used overhead transparency slides—Ed Bestoso’s slides always had a food stain or two!” Ed found that Canadians were in sync with the green movement and were even more con- cerned than the US about the environment. “It was a challenge then,” he admits, “with no internet, no online enrollments, no official Overviews, no Loyalty Shopping Dollars. But they were open to safer products, and they welcomed the business model.” He also met many disillusioned former MLM participants. “I just fell into a melting pot of people disap- pointed in the MLM industry,” he recalls. “So when Melaleuca came to town, it gave everybody hope. “I traveled back and forth fromHalifax, which is east of Boston, to Vancouver, which is west of San Francisco, more often than you could count. Every city, every town—crazi- ness!” Although Ed met many people who had business experience, he was able to share the wonderful fact that the Melaleuca business was for everyone, experienced or not. “That
“Canada was actually way ahead of the US on the green message,” Myrna says. “Ab- solutely everyone in Canada recycled on the weekend so they were open to our safety mes- sage. Once that message caught on, it really caught on! It drove our success.” “We return to Canada often so we’re strong- ly connected to our customer base,” Mark says. “As Corporate Directors, we still have a huge connection to our Canadian leadership, and we talk with them nearly every day. Our average Canadian product order is still the highest of any country we have customers in, and it’s about two Product Points higher per month, per customer than our US customer base. That shows how consistently our leaders continue to stress product education.” One memory of Canada’s winter weather still makes the Athas smile. “Today, product delivery is fast, but back then it took a bit lon- ger,” Mark says, “so in the Canadian winters, the shipped products spent time in a freezing truck or warehouse and many of themwere frozen solid when they arrived. Customers had to thaw out their MelaPower before they could use it!” “I had been in business a year and a half when Canada opened,” Ed says. “I only knew one person there. She invited seven people to an in-home.” All seven enrolled, four became Executive Directors, and Ed’s experience with the great country of Canada began. “I can’t think about Canada’s success with- out thinking about Corporate Director 3 Kim Hall,” Ed says. “To know her was to love her. CORPORATE DIRECTOR 9 ED BESTOSO
34 JUNE 2019 | MELALEUCA.COM
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