1) Ray met Dr. Newman who had created an anti-aging serum and convinced him to sell it on a larger scale, leading to the founding of Jeunesse Global on September 9, 2009.
2) Jeunesse quickly expanded to over 50,000 distributors in 12 countries with $60 million in annual sales just two years later, due to the science-based anti-aging products, experienced leadership team, and strong support for distributors.
3) Jeunesse has continued to experience rapid growth through expanding their product line, flexible and experienced international leadership, and a compensation plan and company culture that empowers distributors.
2. “While talking to [Newman], he started to tell us about all the wonderful things that can be done
and that one of the things he had done was create a serum that can activate your body’s own stem
cells and regenerate collagen and renewed elasticity and luminescence for the skin,” Ray recalls.
“I asked him how many bottles he sold, and he said about 40 a month. I said: ‘How would you
like to see 40,000 a month?’” Newman was intrigued and soon a relationship was established.
On Sept. 9, 2009 at 9 p.m. (09-09-09 at 9), Jeunesse was born. The numbers are significant. In
Chinese, the number nine means longevity. The name Jeunesse is also significant; it’s a French
word that means youth. Less than two years later, the company runs offices in 12 countries,
counts 50,000 distributors worldwide and has a sales volume near $60 million annually.
Everyone involved seems happy with the results—Jeunesse has paid out millions in distributor
commissions in the last two years. Today, Newman serves as a medical advisor to Jeunesse and
continues to do ground-breaking work in the area of bio-technology.
Jeunesse’s flagship product was Luminesce, the serum Newman created. The product line now
includes the serum, a daily moisturizing complex and a nutritional supplement. Additional antiaging products are being released in September, based on the work of Dr. Vincent Giampapa, a
board-certified plastic reconstructive surgeon and assistant clinical professor of plastic and
reconstructive surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Both Newman
and Giampapa serve on Jeunesse’s medical advisory board, along with Dr. William Amzallag,
who serves as General Manager of the European Union and has decades of medical industry
experience, including a background in anesthesiology and intensive care and a degree in
Chinese medicine.
It might seem obvious to tie the company’s success to its products, and the science behind them.
But, there’s more to it than that. Neither Ray nor Lewis was new to the process of bringing
exceptional products to the masses. In fact, their early success was in providing the back-office
operations and technology to allow other direct sales organizations to streamline their operations.
“Wendy and I had run other companies in the past, and we contracted with several companies
over the years to run their back offices and do the compensation plans and the customer support
and the shipping, so we had lots of experience,” admits Ray.
3. Jeunesse Global
headquarters in Altamonte
Springs, Fla.
They were also able to hit the ground running by bringing staff
that they had worked with for a number of years in other settings.
This solid infrastructure of technology and people combined, of
course, with a science-based youthful aging product and a
population around the world aging at a breakneck pace, virtually
guaranteed their success.
Ray attributes much of the company’s accomplishments to the staff. “Some have been with us
for more than 20 years in other businesses; a lot of them have a lot of seasoning and knowledge
of the industry.” Scott Lewis is one of them.
Bench Strength, Commitment and Support
Scott Lewis is Vice President of Global Operations at Jeunesse and is the corporate General
Manager for the Pacific Rim. He worked with Ray and Lewis in their office support service
company, which gave him contact with a wide variety of companies in the industry, a knowledge
of market trends and distributor relations. His strong background in direct sales and international
operational processes, combined with experience in legal compliance has, he says, helped him
significantly in his current role.
The experience Scott Lewis has and connections he’s made over the years, literally around the
world, have also served him—and Jeunesse—well. “I know a lot of good people in the industry
and, especially in Asia, we have a lot of capable people we can trust, which allows you to get
everything set up more quickly.”
The ability and willingness to be flexible when working with diverse people and cultures has
also been a key benefit driving Jeunesse’s rapid success, says Scott Lewis. “I think flexibility is a
key benefit that a lot of big companies lack,” he says. That flexibility is critical, he says, when
expanding into non-U.S. markets.
Kyle Copeland, Executive Vice President of Business Development at Jeunesse and the
corporate General Manager for the Americas, agrees. “What works here in the U.S. does not
always work internationally. You have to be able to adapt and understand the local customs and
adapt your business to meet local needs. I think we’re extremely good at that.”
In fact, Jeunesse is good at a lot of things and has a solid grasp and years of combined experience
working with the broad range of elements that lead to success in direct selling.
Copeland adds, having a product that is unique and that “has a story to it” are foundational
elements of success. “Having a product that people can be passionate about creates long-term
retention of your team members,” he says. “It allows them to have that interesting story that they
can go out and talk about.” It is, he says, like a good movie that you just can’t wait to share with
others. Having that in a direct sales product has the same viral effect. It’s just icing on the cake to
have a product that is not only interesting but also backed by scientific evidence of its efficacy.
4. Copeland says that Ray and Lewis are really what drove him to join Jeunesse in February of this
year. Their approachability, he says, provides a big benefit for the company. “When they go to
events they immediately walk over and start talking to distributors,” he says. “It’s almost a
family-like atmosphere. They’re so down-to-earth that people like to be around them.”
Offering a Product That People Want to Buy
In addition to having an experienced staff and generous owners, Jeunesse is not only surviving
during a tough economy —it’s thriving. “A huge difference for us, right now, is that we have a
product that people want to buy,” says Copeland. “I think our message is very clear with ‘the
science of youthful aging’,” he says. “When you explain that message it’s simple, it’s clear and
it resonates.”
In fact, he says, he experienced the power of the message himself while attending a
neighborhood gathering not long after moving from Utah to Florida to work with Jeunesse. His
wife was talking to a group of about 10 women and he walked up to introduce himself. “When I
said I work for a company that has anti-aging products every single person in that circle said ‘I
want them! Where can I sign up? How can I buy?’ I’ve never had that response before.”
Distributors are really customers too. While an aging international population, a science-based
product and exceptional people on staff are critical to Jeunesse’s rapid growth, Wendy Lewis
also points to the distributors as a lynchpin for the organization. “We have great distributors—
that’s what makes you or breaks you in this industry,” she acknowledges. “We have the
infrastructure and customer service in place all around the world; we have the servers and the
programmers in-house—all of the things it takes. But, without the distributors we’d
have nothing.”
Scott Lewis agrees, noting that the ability to effectively support the distributor network is critical
and a best practice for Jeunesse. “We have to serve our distributors and we have to be available
to them at any moment,” he says. “We need to make sure they get quick answers if there’s an
idea or a question that comes up. We need to be available and flexible.”
He notes that “everyone in the company really has a servant’s heart. … We are tireless in our
efforts to help make this company successful—to help make our distributors and their
teams successful.”
As an international organization, Scott Lewis notes, Jeunesse runs a 24/7 operation. “Business
never stops for us,” he says. “We respect the fact that Asia is awake when most people in the
U.S. are asleep.”
And, adds Wendy Lewis, a competitive compensation plan doesn’t hurt. “It allows people to
truly become financially independent depending on the amount of time they want to devote to
the business opportunity.” Flexibility, she says, allows people to make a few hundred dollars a
month or, as some Jeunesse distributors have done, hit the million-dollar mark. “You have to
have a compensation plan that’s adaptable to the many goals of the various types of distributors
that join your company,” she says.
5. Then, Ray says, you need to provide materials, training and support and “get out of their way.”
Copeland agrees, saying, “We’ve got science behind us. I moved my family 3,500 miles from
Utah down here because I saw that this is what it is all about, and I really believe in it.
Everybody says we’re going to be the next billion-dollar company and I really believe that, based
on the product, the science and the people involved.”
While Jeunesse is a relatively young company it is taking a long-range view. “We have a 10-year
strategic plan in place,” says Scott Lewis. “We’ve laid out the markets and how they’re going to
be launched and where we’re going to go with our promotions and marketing platform. We
really have a long-term vision of the company and where we want it to be 10 years from now—
not just two years from now.”
He says, “We’ve seen companies come and go very quickly, but we’re focused on having a solid
foundation for many, many years to come.”