Forever Living is a global organisation selling nutrition, health and beauty products in over 100 countries with more than 7 million distributors worldwide. The UK division is a £34m turnover business with a channel of 10,000 distributors at any one time. Managing Director, Bob Parker, came to Patrick Towell Consulting with the idea that ‘e-learning’ could help their independent distributors be more informed about both how to sell such products as well as the benefits and features of the products themselves. This would also help retain and motivate distributors who were new to Forever Living or to direct selling in general.

Patrick Towell Consulting created a cross-departmental team of all functional heads within the business, including Marketing, Customer Services, IT and Distribution. He led the collaborative design of the brand concept and service offering of what become known as Forever Knowledge – the equivalent of ‘doing the knowledge’ like a London cabbie, but for Forever Living distributors.

Having agreed on the business aims and requirements of the service, and how these interleaved with all the existing communications and support to distributors, we led the procurement of this services as a ‘concession’. Potential providers were to invest their own money in return for revenues from the service.

After attracting a number of experienced skilled online and learning providers to bid, a sound partnership was formed and the service launched. As a result, Forever Living is benefiting from a wealth of well structured and presented information and training being available to its distributors, without having to resource the complex aspects of this service itself. The concession holder has a significant business opportunity under a quality brand without the cost of sale normally associated with selling to such a diverse market.