Seeing Other People Succeed

The Stutz family

While at a crossroad in his life, Jeff Stutz decided to leave his job at Melaleuca’s corporate office to build his own Melaleuca business.

“I was turning 41, and I evaluated where I wanted to be in my career and financially over the next 10 years,” says Jeff. “I wanted to have more financial freedom and time freedom to be with my family. I knew I couldn’t achieve those goals while I was working for someone else.”

After working at the corporate office for more than five years, Jeff knew Melaleuca’s business model very well; as long as he put in the necessary hard work Jeff knew he could build a rewarding business.

“All successful businesses in Melaleuca have thrived due to constant hard work and commitment,” Jeff says. “It didn’t feel like a risk at all. It was just a matter of how long it would take to create the lifestyle I wanted for my family.”

During his first year, Jeff devoted almost 80 hours per week to building his business. His hard work and determination paid off, earning him a total of $261,159 in just his first year. Right from the beginning, Jeff focused on developing leaders, not just Directors, a strategy he knew would lead to long-term business success.

“If you look at my business, I don’t have a lot of personal Directors,” Jeff says. “But I have almost 200 Directors in my organization. The reason is that my team and I focus on helping business builders advance their businesses well beyond the early Director ranks.”

With every new business team member, regardless of what category they circle at the presentation, Jeff sets Senior Director as that business builder’s “step one.”
“The only difference between a category 2 or 3 business builder is how much time they have to build,” Jeff says. “Yes, we work together to get to Director and 20/20, but those are just checkmarks on the way to Senior Director. So step one is Senior Director, step two is Executive Director and step three is Corporate Director.”

Already, there are three Executive Directors and nine Senior Directors alongside the hundreds of Directors in Jeff’s organization, something Jeff finds profoundly satisfying.

“Our favorite thing about Melaleuca is seeing other people succeed and advance, and knowing we have helped to change hundreds of lives,” says Jeff. “We only advance because so many of our personal enrollees advance, and we have some phenomenal leaders on our team, including Senior Director IV Scott Horan and his personally enrolled leaders Director VIII Travis Poole and Director VI Danny Klassen. Our efforts are being duplicated and others are helping change lives as well.”

Where he used to spend at least 40 hours a week at his job in the home office, Jeff now works 30–40 hours each week, and now, he chooses when to spend those hours.

“I love the flexibility I have,” Jeff says. “My kids love that I am around more, and we spend a lot of time together as a family. Our residual income is more than $8,000 a month right now. That feeling of security is great, but I want to keep building until I reach step three.”

(Thank you to Leadership In Action magazine for this story)

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