Weber State University

University of Utah

Marketing & Technology Execution Specialist

Corona, California, United States

GanoLife International is a network marketing company based out of the Ontario California area and produces a variety of beverages and supplements enriched with the Ganoderma lucidum mushroom. The company launched into the North American markets in 2013 and has a presence in North & South America and soon to be launching into Korea and Nigeria. As the Executive Vice President of Sales, my responsibilities include sales strategy development, market analysis, global infrastructure expansion and maintenance, training, creative direction, and tight coordination of all initiatives with the field leadership body. Noteworthy Achievements:▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ DEVELOPMENT OF A UNIFIED SALES PROCESS – Commonly known as “the system” within the industry, I worked closely with the field leadership to consolidate and unify the various duplicatable systems being used into one centralized “bible” for how the business should be built. Titled “Sprint To Platinum”, the 36+ page guide provides a unified roadmap for new sales recruits and veterans to use for maximum duplication in their networks.★ TACTICAL TRAINING CURRICULUM – As the company is still young, the ever-evolving nature of the product offerings and marketing plan left many of the senior leaders focusing their training on mindset and motivation. In close association with the leadership body, we were able to redirect training back to the “tactical know-how” that was missing from the new recruit development training regimens.★ SOCIAL MEDIA INNOVATIONS – My team worked in close association with our Social Media consultants to create a unique social media sharing platform that allows the sales force to easily and efficiently promote their business through social media. ★ ENHANCED WEB PRESENSE – A considerable amount of personal effort and time was spent crafting the corporate and marketing web sites the distributors use to promote and build their business.

GanoLife International

Executive Vice President of Sales

In 2010, the formidable Mexico market joined the North American branch of the rapidly growing Gano Excel enterprise. At the turn of 2011, I was promoted into the position of Senior Vice President over the North American operations which included the United States, Canada, and Mexico.The previous two years was marked with explosive sales and network growth and the company saw positive cash flow, but suffered from growth pains manifesting themselves in the form of a disjoined field leadership body. At the onset of 2012, my team and I prepared a strategic unification plan to align the English and Spanish leadership teams within the North American market as well as launched lucrative additions to the marketing plan. By the end of Q1-2012, the unification efforts increased the market’s monthly sales by over 50% with recruitment numbers skyrocketing and attrition rates at the lowest ever seen.Noteworthy Achievements:▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ FULL ALIGNMENT OF LEADERSHIP & NETWORK – The creation of a “Core Council” leadership body which included corporate and field stakeholders allowed the market to align everything from the company’s marketing message, team building strategies, event support, and conduct, creating a synergy that catapulted sales to record heights.★ PAY STRUCTURE INNOVATIONS – After working closely with the field leadership and analyzing the historic compensation data over the previous two years, a revision to the pay structure was unanimously adopted by the field leadership. The improved compensation structure allowed for a greater number of people earning compensations and bonuses being better directed to the sources of the sales production.★ DUAL-HEMISPHERE COHESIVENESS – After observing the rabid success in the Western Hemisphere, the operations based in the Eastern Hemisphere sought to adopt the same systems and marketing structures we were using in the West. I served as the primary liaison to coordinate this worldwide adoption.

Gano Excel North America

Senior Vice President

By the end of 2008 we had reinvented the company so many critics had pronounced as “done for”. The strategic introduction of key retention programs coupled with the launch of a progressive binary marketing plan began attracting new field leadership, such as the world renowned mentor Robert Hollis.  With the company on the rise, I was invited to serve as the Senior Vice President of the US.After accepting the new role, I worked diligently to staff the corporate team with fresh and innovative talent from both in and outside the network marketing industry. With the new talent aboard, we made significant strides in furthering the rebranding of the company, developed improved marketing tools for the distributors and grew in new US Latin Market segments.Noteworthy Achievements:▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ CORPORATE IDENTITY – I directed the new marketing team as we refined the company’s identity around our “Evolution of Coffee” campaign and the “4 Pillars” concept that had grown from just Energize, Revitalize, Socialize to also include the 4th pillar of Harmonize, which encompassed the humanitarian aspects of our corporate vision. The new identity was so contagious and effective that the other countries in the global empire adopted it as well.★ US LATIN MARKET EXPANSION – Prior to the company’s reinvention in 2009, Gano Excel USA had virtually no penetration into the US Latin Markets. The Smart Start and Loyalty programs became a huge attractant and retention factor as we attracted more Latin business leaders. By the end of 2010, the sales originating from our US Latin Market was double the size of the English market, which led to co-development of all tools and communications as well as event planning and hosting in a dual-language environment.★ PUBLIC SPOKESMAN – My duties as SVP continuously evolved and I was forced to overcome my biggest fear… public speaking. At the end of 2010, I was blessed to speak before 8,000 guests at an arena in Lima, Peru.

After a major exodus of key corporate executives and network leadership, Gano Excel saw a tremendous downturn in sales and recruitment. I was offered the VP of Marketing position to help stabilize the fallout and introduce initiatives to mitigate the attrition and bolster growth. Distributor retention became the focal point of my efforts as I deep-dived into the determinants affecting the dynamics of attrition and growth (a roadmap my team and I devised in this area can be found below). With attention to both the Organizational Characteristics and the Distributor Characteristics affecting retention, a number of programs were rolled-out that set the stage for an unbelievable rebound and remarkable growth in the years that followed.Addressing Distributor Retention▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ INNOVATIVE SIGNUP OPTIONS – Mandatory signup fees and hefty enrollment packages were observed as deterrents to the growth at the time. We introduced what we called our “Smart Start” enrollment option that only required an enrollee to commit to a recurring order in exchange for the signup fees to be waived. Additionally the requirement for a Tax ID # at signup was made optional and only requested if/when a distributor had earned $300 in commissions. ★ LOYALTY PROGRAM – To further incentivize the network to promote and maintain the recurring orders that stabilize the company’s monthly bottom line, we introduced a loyalty program where buyers with recurring orders accumulated points towards free products and marketing materials. ★ REBRANDING – Unsubstantiated product claims in the field along with tighter compliance regulations being enforced prompted the proactive move to redirect how distributors promoted and shared the company’s “healthier coffee”.  This is when we introduced the “enriched coffee” concept with more focus put towards the nutritive constituents in the products versus the perceived results.

Vice President Marketing

Gano Excel is a major cultivator of the Ganoderma lucidum mushroom and leverages the network marketing model for distribution. Gano Excel was among the first to introduce a “healthier coffee” product to the world. Originating out of Asia, the company had recently expanded into the western hemisphere in 2003 and found itself growing from North America into regions of Latin America.As the VP of Operations, I was responsible for implementing inter-departmental cohesiveness, introducing automation, improving the overall efficiency of the organization and managing the ongoing information technology initiatives of the global enterprise.Noteworthy Achievements:▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ DEPARTMENTAL ALIGNMENT – Through the use of various Lean Management methodologies I was able to identify and greatly improve upon the company’s areas of weakness and boost the collaboration, communications, and effectiveness of the management unit.★ AUTOMATED KEY BUSINESS PROCESSES – I served as the project lead on a host of projects aimed at further automating the business workflows from customer service through logistics and into sales force compensations. I was responsible for co-developing the middleware used to interface the company’s POS, logistics, and distributor commissions with Microsoft’s Great Plains accounting system. Additionally, my team also implemented a CRM into the sales management systems as well as connected these systems to the Fonality VOIP communications we had recently adopted.

Gano Excel USA

Vice President Operations

After years of research, development, and the prototyping of a new distributor-centric sales and logistical platform created for companies in the Direct Sales industry, a new investment partner provided the opportunity to launch Merydion Corporation which grew to 20 employees and eventually acquired.As Chief Technical Officer of Merydion, I had the unique opportunity of taking prototypes that my team and I had conceived over the years and implementing them as full-blown solutions for a rapidly growing network marketing company as it was expanding internationally. These solutions ranged from the automation of logistical processes to the integration with front-end marketing systems used by the distributed sales force. Noteworthy Achievements:▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ PIONEERED NEXT GENERATION BACK OFFICES  – At the time, the quality and features available in typical “Back Offices” provided to distributors was lagging in innovation. With the team’s background in portal technologies, we took a similar approach with our Back Office platform. Everything a distributor would need to succeed was centralized into one place. Furthermore, we pioneered the use of real-time business analytics for distributors, giving them actionable reports and insights into their business like never before. Real-time qualification estimators, missed earnings analytics, and a host of other reports that took other software providers years to incorporate were first introduced by our team.★ INTERNATIONALIZED INFRASTRUCTURE – Upon launching, the core software platform we had developed was based around a legacy system not intended for a multi-country setup. We refactored the system’s architecture creating a more extensible, scalable, and international-ready solution for our client that was rapidly expanding globally. The improved platform provided true multi-country seamlessness in the downlines and compensation with autonomy for each country in sales/payment processing, taxation, and logistics.

Tony J Potter

Tony J Potter