"Direct Sales"
Danny had to live in as clean an environment as possible. His white counts were so low due to the chemo, that just the smallest of infections could kill him. We were looking for antibacterial soap to clean with when a friend of Lori’s told her about a direct sales company that manufactured and sold high-end cleaning supplies.
Lori “signed up” and we loved the products. We also started sharing them with others, earning a few extra dollars.
When I got back from Denver, I started doing part time work and took on a project painting a house. The owner of the house had his field cut and baled and he asked me to help out with hauling the hay to the barn for a few hours one day. It wasn’t much hay and I agreed to help. A mistake for me. I injured my back throwing hay bales.
The doctor informed me I had a herniated disk and not to lift anything at all. I went to a chiropractor for a few months trying to get by, but eventually gave in to having surgery that next spring.
On top of that, Lori had ruptured a disc in her back while giving birth, at the exact same spot that I had and needed surgery, too. She let me go first and had hers in October after Danny had passed.
To say the least, we were living really poor but our income from promoting the products was slowly increasing.
Pretty soon we had a network of customers, and others who wanted to build the business, to earn a few extra dollars themselves.
I told a friend of mine in Springfield, Missouri, and my sister Janet, who was still living in Lawrence, along with other friends there, too. Pretty soon we had groups in several states and our residual income was growing to the point it was starting to make a difference.
The groups grew to such an extent that I started taking trips out of state to teach them more about the products and help them grow their groups. This in turn increased our residual income to the point where we could almost completely live off of it.
We knew this had grown from a part-time income to a full-blown career opportunity. This business was a gift from God for us.