Direct Sales, Utah, And Q Sciences

In a state synonymous with direct sales, Q Sciences has spent the last four years growing and growing.

Let’s play a quick game of word association. Here are the rules: I’ll say a word, throw out a few descriptive terms, and then we’ll decide which is the closest match. Ready, set, go.

Utah: Milktober. Terrible drivers. Direct sales.

Wow, this is hard. On the one hand, we are the only place I know of that has a milk-based celebration where students pound chocolate milk by the gallon and play mini-golf in a library. On the other hand, science has declared our state home to the worst drivers in America, which is quite believable after a quick rush hour jaunt down I-15. And let us not forget direct sales, an industry that has flourished inside Utah and used the Beehive State as a breeding ground for a substantial list of companies.

This one is too tough to call, so I’m going to call in outside help. Let’s get the thoughts of former All-American BYU quarterback Marc Wilson, who I recently interviewed. Marc?

“If you’re going to be in the direct sales industry, you have this infrastructure here in Utah that makes it a great place to be,” said Wilson. “You have manufacturing, you have design, you have formulation, you have shipping, you have fulfillment, and you have a huge executive pool of people with great experience.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I didn’t speak with Wilson about Milktober or Utah’s driving habits. Yup, just didn’t come up in the conversation. I did talk some football — as is inevitable when I converse with anyone, much less a former Super Bowl champion — but concentrated mostly upon direct sales and the creation of his company, Q Sciences, that has grown rapidly in the last four years.

Wilson entered the direct sales industry after a long, lengthy career in real estate development. Retired and playing golf daily, Wilson had the itch to jump back into the business world. Though real estate was his forte, Wilson had prior experience consulting in the direct sales world and thought this represented a new career path that most excited him.

“As a financial consultant I had a chance to work with a startup direct sales company,” said Wilson. “That was a cool experience because it allowed me to see this model from the inside out, as opposed to outside in…In the direct sales channel, you can get started and own your own business, have great training, have great mentors and support, and have a product line to support for a couple hundred dollars.”

After obtaining licensing rights to a product from Canada that they trusted, Wilson co-founded and launched Q Sciences at the start of 2013. The premise was to offer people products that promote wellness and offer these options through the direct sales model. Post-launch, Q Sciences has continued expanding their product line through a combination of licensing products they desire — products that are already formulated, developed, researched, and created — and creating their own, coming up with a concept and then hiring medical people to formulate it, which is then owned by Q Sciences. It’s what Wilson calls “a blend of approaches.”

“We really see ourselves as a wellness company,” said Wilson. “Wellness from a broad perspective — meaning physical, mental, emotional, financial — and our product line reflects that.”

The most popular seller is EMPowerplus Q96, the original product Q Sciences licensed from Canada. According to the website, Q96 “is specifically formulated to provide essential nutritional support to the brain and central nervous system.” Wilson believes Q Sciences separates itself from other competitors by providing a product that places a huge emphasis on absorption, ensuring your body can actually take in and use the available nutrients.

“The reason it is called Q96 is this product goes through a 96 hour manufacturing process to ensure it is absolutely absorbable by your body and system,” said Wilson “After that 96 hour process, this formula can get into your system, get beyond the blood/brain barrier, get those nutrients to your brain and everywhere else. Because it gets to your brain, you just feel so much better, you just function so much better. To give this a significant comparison, a typical mineral and vitamin you can get on the store shelves goes through about a 3–4 hour process.”

Wilson is enjoying his foray back into the business world, exchanging golf for sales in a move I don’t necessarily agree with but he seems very content making. As the co-founder of a direct sales company, Wilson is also very excited to continue taking advantage of the many resources Utah provides, Milktober and bad drivers not included. He loves the direct sales industry and Q Sciences is proof that many people are reciprocating that love.

“It’s your business, you’re an independent business owner and not an employee of the company,” said Wilson. “I absolutely love this because you determine how much you work, where you work from, who you work with. I love this flexibility…If you have a tremendous amount of ambition, there’s no question that with this model you can do really well.”