Featured Speaker at the US DSA Conference

Below are some remarks from Jason Jennings, a featured speaker at the US DSA Annual Meeting that I attended.
JASON JENNINGS
Best-selling Business Author & Speaker
Jason Jennings has spent twenty years founding and leading successful businesses and teaching other companies how to achieve their full economic potential. He researched the fastest companies in the world for his book It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small–It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow. Next, Jennings and his research team studied more than 4000 companies and he reveals the secrets of the world’s most productive companies in his book Less Is More. In his latest release, Think Big, ACT Small: How America's Best Performing Companies Keep the Start-Up Spirit Alive, Jennings argues that regardless of how big a company becomes, acting big and ignoring the needs of employees, merchants and customers always leads to lost profit. Jennings was the youngest radio station group owner in the world, and his unique and legendary programming, sales and management strategies are credited with revolutionizing many parts of the broadcasting industry. Later, he founded a consulting firm that, within three years, became the largest media consultancy in the world. He speaks internationally and more than 300,000 businesses worldwide have learned his lessons on leadership, sales, management, and customer satisfaction.


DSA's 2008 Annual MeetingJune 8-10 ● Phoenix, AZ


Jason Jennings: Thinking Big, Acting Small
On the first full day of the annual DSA Conference held in Phoenix, AZ, attendees gathered in the McArthur Ballroom and warmly welcomed the meeting’s first keynote speaker, Jason Jennings.


Direct Selling News recently spoke to Jennings about what he shared with the crowd and lessons the entire direct selling industry can learn from the companies he’s studied.


DSN: For our readers who were unable to attend this year’s Annual Meeting, can you recap the four leadership secrets you’ve discovered during your research?


JJ: First, the fastest, most productive and best performing companies and people on the planet have a cause. They don’t have a mission statement. They don’t have a vision statement. They have a cause. The cause is the reason why they do what they do. Point No. 2 is that all these great companies and people that we identified have mastered the art of letting go. One, you’ve got to let go of yesterday’s breadwinners. Two, you’ve got to let go of ego and you’ve got to let go of the same-old same-old. I think that applies to all of us. Third, Charles Koch (of Koch Industries) told me the challenge to any business is to get everybody to think and act like an owner. And I think in the direct selling industry, those 16 million people who are out there for Pampered Chef or Amway or AtHome America are probably thinking and acting like owners. But if you want everyone in the organization to think and act like an owner, you have to teach them how what they do creates economic value for an organization. Finally, truly great leaders see their role as stewards. They see themselves as stewards of people, stewards of customers, stewards of shareholders. They see their role as guiding, mentoring, nurturing, advancing the interests of everyone. Stewardship means making everything around you better.


DSN: How can the direct selling industry apply the leadership secrets you discovered in your research?


JJ: One of my guiding principles has always been that everyone has the obligation to maximize what they do to achieve their full potential in the interest of achieving economic freedom. And I guess that’s probably the reason I had such an affinity with this group, because the members of the Direct Selling Association actually provide the opportunity to achieve full economic potential to more than 16 million people just in America alone, which is pretty extraordinary.


DSN: Does the direct selling industry excel in any of the four discoveries you’ve discussed?


JJ:The direct selling industry comes very close on two of the points. I think that they probably come very close on having a cause. And second, I think the industry does a good job with the 16 million people who sell the different products in terms of getting them to think and act like owners, because each of those 16 million people is in business for themselves. They understand how what they do creates economic value, and they are paid accordingly.

Peter