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Jim and Mary Jo Burke have been in the multi-level marketing business for thirty-four years. Jim was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota and grew up in Pierre, South Dakota and attended school there. He graduated from Northern State College with a degree in Chemistry. He taught school for one year and then moved to Rapid City, South Dakota where he raised four children and worked for the Clinical Laboratories as a histologist and cytologist, specializing in cancer research. He spent one year at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for further education in his field.
In 1975 he married Mary Jo, who had been born and raised in Webster, South Dakota and went to college in Aberdeen and Rapid City to become registered nurse. She had worked as an intensive care nurse and in a clinic for several years and raised three daughters.
Jim was sponsored into network marketing in 1971 and in 1975 were full-time. Mary Jo joined him in 1975 and together they have built one of the largest organizations within their company. In 1977, they were pinned Master Coordinators at the International Convention in London, England. They were one of two teams who had 22 1st level Supervisors with 11 of them being Coordinators in the entire organization. They broke many records and became very successful in their business making over $500,000/year. View our latest bonus check:
They have a home in Rapid City, South Dakota and also in Mesa, Arizona, where they spend the winter months. They enjoy doing their network marketing business, have fun with their thirteen grandchildren, their families and extra curricular activities, such as golf and travel.
How our business began:
When I decided to go into network marketing in 1971, I came from a cancer research background. I knew nothing about nutrition, multi-level marketing or sales. I was introduced to this company and to the two products that changed my life. Since I didn't need to know anything about nutrition I started to introduce people to the simple idea of taking the two products and they would feel better. That's all I knew, but since the products worked people started to reorder and my little business grew in six months to a $10,000 volume base. This simple program was something people could share with other people.
In 1972-73 I began to learn about multi-level marketing and why it worked. Multi-level marketing is very unique because it depends on a person being able to lead another person to an idea and then that person teaches other people that idea and go down 10-20 levels with the same idea. Taking just two products and an idea that can be passed from one person to another, I went from a monthly volume of $26,000 (BGV) to $250,000 a month in two years. This is when nobody was into nutrition or better health. But, we sold one idea through thousands of people with multi-level marketing. That lasted until 1981 and that is when the business changed to direct selling because the management that was taking over our company came from a direct selling background, not a multi-level marketing background. From 1981-1989 our business started a big decline downward. In 1989 I was asked to address the board of directors of our company headed by Al Simon and explain why we were going down hill and not growing. I explained to them why we grew in the 1970 - 1981 era and what multi-level marketing was all about. They could not understand why something so simple worked so well. They proceeded to continue to move deeper into direct selling - The wrong thoughts will always produce the wrong results. Direct selling can never grow the business. We have found that out over the last 20 years, but nobody seems to want to change. If a human being finds something they can do that does not work they will do it again and again until they become obsolete.
Multi-level marketing is the best program ever developed, but we have lost the understanding of it. We need a simple program of four products that will again take us back to multi-level marketing.
Over my years in this organization many great products were developed. They are the best of their kind ever developed and in most cases were ahead of the industry. But when the industry caught up with us and the product was in growing demand we were already off in another direction and all the great research was lost from the field and another generation of Shaklee distributors never learned about this incredible technology. So it was lost and after several generations the product was discontinued. We never got the opportunity to really use this technology.
Several years ago our company developed a fiber plan at Stanford. Dr. Haskel and his team came to our company and we were introduced to this tremendous product. At the time the nation was into cholesterol lowering drugs and the public was not looking for an alternative. Today fifteen billion dollars are spent every year on this problem. Now the market is looking for alternatives to using the drugs and we have the answer. Sixty - eighty million Americans are dealing with cholesterol problems. The market is here. The fiber that our company has developed is unique. It needs to be in our package.
Physique is the most incredible technology we have ever developed. In a package of products we need to appeal to the younger generations. This product addresses the younger generation. Muscle building is a life long problem, losing muscle mass affects every thing we do. Young people are always aware of muscle loss and muscle development. When Dr. Sey began his work on this concept at the University of Texas several great discoveries were made. Complex carbohydrates are essential in all muscle rebuilding. But, we focused on weight lifters and body builders, not all forms of muscle building. So the product died because of the market we focused on and the change in the public demand for muscle and body building products as the public began focusing on recreational sports. This offers a real food base, complex carbs and a concept that is coming into public demand. Nobody has this technology. We need to revisit this whole concept of rebuilding muscle.
In summary, multi-level marketing depends on moving an idea and a simple program through thousands of people. This program is simple and easy and fits today having major appeal. We need help to get the organization to again focus on multi-level marketing.
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