Shaklee Corporation, named after its founder Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee, a natural curious scientist, made and sold "Shaklee's Vitalized Minerals" way back in 1915 when the idea of vitamins was a little vague. After becoming a popular motivational speaker (personal appearances, radio broadcasts, and four books) on the philosophy on "thoughtsmanship", Shaklee founded the Corporation with his two sons. Their merchandise: Shaklee's very own personally-made products. The first ones were "natural" and "environmentally-friendly" cleaning products. These ideas were not yet in vogue in his time. Drawing on their individual talents, Forrest Jr. handled the accounting and managed the day-to-day operations of the company, while Raleigh took charge of marketing operations. The elder Shaklee directed research and development. At the end of the decade, they had grown quite big in California. Shaklee continued to introduce new products, branching out from dietary supplements to skin care and others. Basic-H, an organic soap-free cleaning solution made its debut when Dr. Shaklee experimented with ways to help the wife of a distributor with sensitive skin. Soon, they had a line of skin care products made from natural ingredients. In 1970, the company grew by leaps and bounds. Annual sales went from $20 million to more than $300 million at the end of the seventies. In 1989, Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals acquired Shaklee to prevent a hostile group from acquiring the company. In 2004, it was acquired, in turn by Activated Holdings LLC. Business model Dr. Shaklee thought that rather than hire permanent sales people, it was better to recruit independent contractors by offering them lucrative incentives. These rewards would be proportional to their sales. It would follow then that they would try to generate more sales to get bigger payouts. It was criticized before as "unstructured" and needing a highly self-motivated individual to make through. It was actually in keeping with Dr. Shaklee's philosophy and belief in self-motivation and the person's own persuasive powers. Today, Shaklee products are developed in-house, and are sold through a multi-level marketing system in the US and all over the world by some of the industry's fiercely loyal independent contractors. These days, Shaklee distributors have their own web sites for customers to buy any Shaklee product online. Also, Shaklee acquired a subsidiary, Bear Creek Corporation (known for the luxury fruit baskets and confections sold via its Harry and David catalogue) and began selling their products there. The future Dr. Shaklee's philosophy still rings true with his fiercely loyal distributors: "Follow the laws of Nature and you'll never go wrong." The good doctor had developed innovative products, some with concepts way ahead of its time, and made his company an industry leader for over 40 years. The concepts are still good for the next 40 years or so.
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