Attached is an article featuring Paul Zane Piltzer, world renowned economist, telling why he believes there has never been a better time to take advantage of merging the wellness and networking industries for a very successful business opportunity.
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A TALE
OF TWO
INDUSTRIES
TWO MAJOR FORCES HAVE
CONVERGED TO CREATE ONE OF
THE GREATEST ENTREPRENEURIAL
OPPORTUNITIES IN THE HISTORY
OF OUR NATION.
BY PAUL ZANE PILZER
72 SUCCESS FROM HOME Volume 1 Issue 5
As we enter the second half of this decade, we are seeing a convergence of economic
forces leading to an enormous opportunity for those engaged in home-based
business. Moreover, this opportunity exists not only for mere thousands but for
literally millions of individual entrepreneurs. This economic opportunity is
represented by two emerging industries: wellness and network marketing.
The wellness industry, which only 15 years ago barely even existed, is on track to become
a trillion-dollar industry just five years from now. Network marketing, which is a prime beneficiary
of the robust home-based business boom, will be a major contributing force in the
creation of 10 million new millionaires over the next 10 years.
Either one of these two emerging industries on its own represents an extraordinary opportunity
for entrepreneurs to create new wealth in the years ahead. Taken together, these two
major forces have converged to create one of the greatest entrepreneurial opportunities in
the history of our nation.
The early pioneers of both wellness and network marketing were motivated by the sense that it
was possible to create a better life than the conventional routes offered—better personal health and
better economic health, respectively. Now the “alternatives” of yesterday have become the economic
powerhouses of today and tomorrow. Let’s explore how this happened, and what it means for your
economic future, first by taking a look at the genesis of the wellness industry.
The Overweight Epidemic
In the past, we have always associated poverty with being terribly thin, mostly due
to starvation. When I was young I wanted to grow up to be a “rich fat man.”
Today, the tables have turned; “poor” and “fat” have become synonymous, and
“rich fat man” has become an oxymoron! Centuries ago, the only corpulent people
were royalty and wealthy landowners. Today, the lower the income, the more we see
obesity, and the higher the income, the more we see men and women who are fit
and trim, defying their age.
Since 1980, we have more than doubled the percentage of overweight and obese
people in the United States. In 1980, 15 percent of the population was obese;
by the year 2000, that number had jumped to 27 percent—that’s 77 million clinically
obese people! Today, 61 percent of the U.S. population is overweight and
headed towards obesity—which has increased 10 percent to almost 30 percent of
the U.S. population. As a result, 18 million Americans have diabetes and another
41 million over age 40 have prediabetes. Most people with prediabetes develop
type 2 diabetes in 10 years. Sixty-five percent of people with diabetes die from
heart disease or stroke, and the medical costs alone to treat diabetes now exceeds
$100 billion a year.
Moreover, overweight and obesity are also symptoms of poor nutrition. Typically someone
who is obese is also vitamin-deficient and suffers from fatigue and arthritis or other ailments
that all stem from poor nutrition. Our food industry, which represents about one trillion
dollars annually, exacerbates the problem by catering to the “lowest common denominator”
of poor nutrition.
What about our health care? The truth is, what we call “health care” is not really the health
business but the sickness business. Our medical industry today has very little to do with health.
The $2 trillion we spend on medical care, which represents one-sixth of the U.S. economy, is
concerned almost exclusively with treating the symptoms of illness. It has very little to do with
preventing illnesses or with making people feel stronger or healthier.
These two trillion-dollar industries—food and “health care”—feed one another in a fairly
Paul Zane Pilzer
P
THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED
IN PART FROM PAUL ZANE
PILZER’S NEW BOOK, THE
NEXT MILLIONAIRES, WHICH
FOCUSES ON THE CENTRAL
ROLE OF DIRECT SELLING
IN THE YEARS AHEAD.
BY PAUL ZANE PILZER
Volume 1 Issue 5 SUCCESS FROM HOME 73
insidious way, working together to support
that horrifying 61 percent overweight number.
The Wellness Revolution
Looking at the numbers, one might think that
soon everyone in the United States will be overweight
or obese—but this is not the case. As
grisly as this situation is, it has
also given rise to an entirely
new and very positive economic
sector. The 39 percent of the
U.S. population who are not
overweight include some 10 to
15 million Americans who are
actually growing stronger,
healthier and more fit as
they age.
These people represent a new
and growing economic sector.
They are primarily wealthy
people who, as their financial
situation improves, start looking
for ways they can be
healthier—and they’re doing
it outside the medical establishment.
They are going to
fitness clubs, watching what
they eat, taking the proper
amounts of vitamins and minerals,
and investigating supplements
and other products
that support their wellness.
They are a growing sector of our
economy who are eating and living
healthier than anyone ever before
in history.
Today, for example, this sector
spends over $70 billion per year on
vitamins and food supplements.
From vitamins and antioxidants to
weight-loss products to health clubs
and fitness coaches, all these expenditures
belong to what I have called
the “wellness” industry. I define
“wellness” as money you spend to
make yourself feel healthier, even
when you’re not “sick” by any standard
medical definition.
Who are these people? Mostly baby
boomers: prosperous people from the ages of
40 to 60. Baby boomers are the first generation
in history that refuses to blindly accept
the aging process. They are also a powerful
economic force; they represent only 28 percent
of our population—yet this group represents
50 percent of our economy.
Until recently, marketing to baby boomers has
been all about how to make them feel younger,
how to help them remember what it was like to
be young. Now it’s gone a step further. Today,
boomers are starting to buy things that actually
make them younger!
And this industry has only just gotten started:
Most people don’t even know such products
exist, and as more boomers learn about wellness,
the more the sector will expand. In 2000, when I
first began to study this trend, I was stunned to
discover that wellness in America was already a
$200 billion industry. Today, only a handful of
years later, it has already doubled to become a
$400 billion business! By the year 2010, just five
years from now, it will have become the next trillion-
dollar industry.
Network Marketing:
Economic Wellness
The real scope and impact of the wellness revolution
goes beyond sheer numbers. It is more
than a shift in our state of health and well-being:
It is a quantum shift in our fundamental expec-
Paul Zane Pilzer
Network Marketing:
the Ideal Wellness
Medium
One reason wellness and network marketing are such
natural sister industries is that wellness is rich in the
kinds of new technology that are best learned person to
person. In fact, in many cases, there is no other way for
people to learn about these new options.
If you go to a conventional weight-loss clinic, they
are focused on marketing their processed food products
to you—they don’t give you lessons in wellness. The
information just isn’t out there; almost all of the research
in the medical business is on sickness. Where does the
consumer turn?
The only way to learn about wellness is through
someone close to you who has had a wellness experience.
You see your college roommate and go, “My God, John, you
look great! You look so healthy—what did you do?” You
bump into a wellness experience and start to find out that
there is a whole wellness industry out there, with all sorts
of new products and services.
Correct information about diet, nutrition, vitamins,
minerals: and supplements is almost all contrary to what
we’ve heard from our medical community; for many, it
runs counter to how we were brought up. There’s so
much inaccurate information out there, people have
become conditioned to it. When they first hear new, good
information, naturally they’re going to be skeptical. The
only way they will actually change their paradigm or start
to learn new information is person to person—because
they’re actively engaged in a conversation.
This doesn’t happen overnight. It may take three, four,
five, or six conversations with different people before you
actually change your mind. That’s why wellness, which is
so clearly paradigm-changing information for so many
people, really works best in a one-to-one interactive
environment—like network marketing.
74 SUCCESS FROM HOME Volume 1 Issue 5
tations. We don’t just expect to live more years—
we expect to live better years.
This same shift in expectations is a strong contributing
factor in network marketing as well. In
the new economy, the sheer quantity of compensation
is no longer enough. People today also
demand a better quality of compensation. We
don’t simply want money, we want lifestyle.
Today’s workers understand that it doesn’t matter
how much money you earn if you never get to see
your spouse or children, or if you sacrifice your
health for your work.
This is a demand that didn’t exist in the past.
During the Industrial Age, the question “Are you
truly happy with your life?” would have been
greeted by most as self-indulgent nonsense.
“Happy?! What a question! I’m making money.”
Today we want more. Our economy and living
standards have grown to the point where we not
only expect to make a living, but also expect to
have the best possible experience living that life.
We don’t want to have to sacrifice family for work,
or vice versa.
Just as baby boomers want to be younger and
healthier, they also want to have the economic
freedom to enjoy their continuing state of health.
We don’t just want more dollars; we want better
dollars. And there is one emerging form of economic
enterprise that perfectly fits this description:
network marketing.
The typical network marketer’s benefit statement—“
You work when you want, how you want,
and with whom you want”—combined with the
very real value of a business based on helping others
succeed, creates a uniquely attractive package
to the 21st century businessperson. And I see a
more seamless weaving together of work and family
in network marketing than in any other sector
of the economy.
It’s no wonder that network marketing has
grown steadily over the last 20 years, increasing
more than 91 percent in just the last ten. With
more than 13 million Americans and 53 million
people worldwide involved, it is today a $100 billion
global industry.
Yet as impressive as this is, it’s not hard to see
that the real growth has barely begun.
Today less than 1 percent of the population is
involved in network marketing, yet 175,000
new people are pouring into the profession
each week in the United States alone.
According to Neil Offen, president of the
Direct Selling Association, at the current rate
of increase, some 200 million people will enter
this industry over the next ten years, effectively
quadrupling its current population.
In other words, network marketing is already a
force to be reckoned with—but there is an even
bigger explosion ahead.
The Big Picture
Let’s put these two trends, wellness and network
marketing, into perspective in the context
of the overall economy.
In 1989, at the beginning of the worst period of
economic decline since the Great Depression of
the 1930s, most experts were predicting decades
of economic gloom. The most popular book in
the United States was titled The Great Depression
of 1990.
That year, at the lowest point of the recession, I
wrote a book titled Unlimited Wealth that predicted
exactly the opposite: that we were headed
into an era of unprecedented
growth and opportunity, with
seemingly impossibly low interest
rates and low inflation, and
that those who embraced this
stood to profit enormously.
Many in the financial and
business community gave the
book little credence—that is,
until the years ticked by and the
forecasts began proving accurate.
But there were those who
were quick to grasp its significance,
including the late Sam Walton and, interestingly,
members of the network marketing
community, who got the message loud and clear
and responded immediately.
From 1991 to 2001, the world economy doubled
in size, enjoying the highest growth rates
ever recorded with the lowest interest rates and
low inflation.
In the United States, household wealth tripled,
growing from $13 trillion in 1991 to more than
$40 trillion in 2001. Over the same 10 years, the
number of U.S. millionaires doubled, jumping
from 3.6 million in 1991 to 7.2 million in 2001.
After the economic crash of 2001, many people
felt they missed their chance to be part of the
boom of the 90s. Yet in the few short years since
the catastrophic events of 9/11, U.S. household
wealth has increased $8 trillion to $48 trillion—
an additional 20 percent!
Today, the U.S. and the world economy look
almost identical to how they looked in 1991,
except that there are more opportunities for
entrepreneurs due to recent changes in taxation
and technology. Based on this history and on current
conditions, I project that household wealth
will roughly double again in the next 10 years,
reaching the $100 trillion mark by 2016.
This is actually a fairly conservative projection;
after all, this is only a doubling of the U.S. household
wealth over the next decade, a figure which
more than tripled during the 1990s. What is
more startling than that sheer growth is the
nature of that growth—because in the course of
adding another $52 trillion in household wealth
we will also see the creation of more than ten million
new millionaires!
Paul Zane Pilzer
P
I SEE A MORE SEAMLESS WEAVING TOGETHER OF WORK
AND FAMILY IN NETWORK MARKETING THAN IN ANY
OTHER SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY.
The Next Millionaires
Who will those new millionaires be? Many of
them will be network marketers.
Small businesses today account for more
than one-half our nation’s economic output
and employ more than half our private-sector
work force—and more than half of these are
home-based businesses.
In the past, it was riskier to go into business
for yourself than to work for someone else. Not
anymore. Recent changes in tax law have leveled
the playing field—if anything, actually tilting it
toward the individual entrepreneur! Congress
has responded to a shift in values: People today
want to work from home. Now they can.
The large corporation is giving way to the
independent contractor and the self-employed
entrepreneur. In effect, we’re breaking down
those huge corporations into their component
parts, namely, the individual entrepreneurs—
and as a result, more and more of those entrepreneurs
are becoming millionaires. In the
past, where we’d see a single company creating
wealth of $1 billion for a few shareholders,
today we’ll more likely see 1,000 individuals
each going to $1 million.
Instead of the rich getting richer, it means there
are more people getting rich: The number of millionaires
is increasing.
In the past, you never had a chance. Because the
big corporation ruled, someone else made that
money… the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the
Rockefellers. But during the 1990s, 3.6 million
people stepped forward and claimed their
own fortunes.
Now let’s go back to that forecast of $100 trillion
in household wealth by 2016. (And
remember, that’s a conservative forecast.)
Where will that new $52 trillion come from?
Of course, the majority of it will go to make
those people who are already wealthy still
wealthier. But at least 20 percent of it—$10
trillion or more—will represent new entrepreneurs
coming to the table. That $10 trillion
represents ten million new millionaires. One
of the greatest thrills I have as a writer is to
know that a good number of those next millionaires
are reading this article right now.
A Holy Mission
Since I first began closely studying the wellness
industry, I’ve grown quite passionate about it. It
has become something of a mission for me—and
I’ve observed that it is a powerful mission for most
network marketers who represent a wellness line
of products or services.
The great religions of the world became great
partly by addressing the secular needs of their
adherents. Indeed, the founding documents of
most religions demonstrate that God wants us to
be well—Deuteronomy contains expansive portions
on diet, and gluttony was one of the original
seven deadly sins. Yet today, the crying secular
need of learning to live a wellness lifestyle of diet
and exercise is ignored by most religions and religious
organizations.
But they are not ignored by the network marketing
community—indeed, recognizing and
serving this global need is at the very heart of the
network marketing model.
Make no mistake: There is a crisis, a trend of
epidemic proportions opposite to wellness—a crisis
of overweight, obesity and the so-called
“lifestyle diseases.” Right now,
network marketing is the
only force I see that has the
potential to effect the huge
change that’s so badly needed.
And when you go out into the
world to help improve people’s
personal and economic
wellness, you are adding
value to society and contributing
to the betterment of
the world. That, to me, is
serving God: doing the best
job you can at serving more of
God’s children.
Given the confluence of
these two trends, wellness
and network marketing, I
cannot think of any other
time in history when the
opportunity to serve this
greater cause has been
more abundantly available, not only to a few,
but to millions.
Paul Zane Pilzer
Professor Paul Zane Pilzer is a world-renowned economist,
multimillionaire entrepreneur, college professor
and author of five best-selling books. To learn more
about Paul Zane Pilzer, please visit his Web site at
www.PaulZanePilzer.com.
Volume 1 Issue 5 SUCCESS FROM HOME 75
The Next
Trillion-Dollar Industry
Ten or 15 years ago, it would have been tough to go into
the wellness industry. Why? Because there was no such
thing as the wellness industry. What happened?
Aging has always been a part of life; it’s not as if there
were a sudden spontaneous “need” for a wellness industry.
The wellness business appeared in the last decade because
of new technology. As my theory of economic alchemy
explains, an advance in technology often creates new
demand, by creating new opportunities and options that
didn’t previously exist. Wellness is a perfect case in point.
Today we spend $24 billion annually in fitness club
memberships. A generation ago, who ever heard of joining
a fitness club? In 1975, jogging was regarded as a “craze,”
a fringe thing, like the hula hoop, that would go away quietly
if we just gave it time. The idea that an entire nation would
consider running as a normal, everyday activity would
have been seen as lunacy.
To this $24 billion you can add another $12 billion paid
to personal trainers. Personal trainers?! Twenty years ago,
nobody would have believed it. A top-paid athlete, sure,
but everyday people actually paying someone to show
them how to step on and off a machine, just to stay fit?
Who would pay for such a thing?
We would: $12 billion worth.
And this is only the beginning. Most people still either
don’t even know that wellness products exist, or don’t
believe such products actually work—until they or
someone close to them has their first wellness experience.
Then they become voracious consumers and new adapters
of wellness products and services. At the rate it’s going,
I project that by the end of this decade, just as the PC
industry did 10 years ago, the wellness industry will exceed
$1 trillion.
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