Over the hurdles:
The 24-year-long journey of DXN
DXN also had to face difficulties? I mean, just look at the company now! The brand is recognized all over the world with a unique product line and the best product in the history of Multi-level Marketing, coffee with Ganoderma. This sounds very interesting. You must be very curious about the hurdles, the difficulties and challenges DXN has successfully overcome throughout these long years.
DXN does everything by itself from cultivation to distribution and owns all its properties and factories. (photo source: Obtainer magazine)
We are going to learn about 9 hurdles that will shed light on what the company is capable of. Some of the point might help you how to face the challenges in the market as a networker.
Here is short list of the challenges of DXN company and quick summary of their successful solution. You can read on for more details and watch the video (scroll down) DXN International Marketing Director’s presentation about the journey of the company throughout its 24 years of existence:
Challenge number 1: Malaysia
Not a single member joined DXN and there wasn’t any product purchase for a whole year.
Challenge number 2: Indonesian crisis
Huge inflation: a 10-time-deterioration of currency forced all companies to raise prices, but DXN did not. DXN product prices stayed the same and dr. Lim waited until the crisis was over. Until then he did not recieve any money for the products he sent to Indonesia.
Challenge number 3: the Philippines deceit case
An influential top executive left DXN and took many leaders with him. Dr. Lim flew there and stabilized the business operation of DXN himself.
Challenge number 4: Uncertainty in the Gulf region
People and the in the UAE were agains MLM and Direct Selling companies because they were deceived by many other companies who came to their companies and suddenly left with their money. Mr Jijith himself started doing 2-3 home meetings and built up the customer base step by step.
Challenge number 5.: Sudan: MLM banned and currency inflation
The government arrested DXN staff members because MLM was banned in Sudan. After 40 days at court DXN got the permission to continue Direct Selling.
There was also a currency crisis due to which Sudanese banks held back the price of DXN products for 7 months. Dr. Lim still contniued sending DXN products to the Sudanese market without profit because the products meant the healthy and daily livelihood for many people there.
Challenge number 6: Pakistan: Verdict against MLM
In Pakistan MLM was forbidden, but after 5 years of very low sales but continous effort, business started growing. Today DXN is the best brand of Pakistan.
Challenge number 7: India: moving the whole network to another company
There was a big problem with the management of DXN India. Some people thought they were bigger than DXN company so they had to be replaced by some executives of DXN Malaysia and the whole network had to be moved from that company to DXN.
Challenge number 8: Jordan: Slow growth
After 10 years of very low sales volume DXN still persisted on staying in the Jordanian market. The fruit of persistence was born in a form of one single lady under whose leadership sales jumped 100 times bigger.
Challenge number 9: Europe: Stabilisation
This is a new beginning for DXN. In the Direct Selling Industry, in the whole world Europe has a very prominent place and DXN definitely deserves to be at the top in this region too. With all the commited leaders like you there is no doubt we can do it. DXN is a strong company with a strong network.
Watch the presentation of DXN company’s international marketing director, who himself also helped company founder Dato’ dr. Lim Siow Jin in conquering the difficulties:
The nine challenges of DXN company, full version:
All the time we listen to the challenges you face in the market. The same way the company faces challenges as well, but most of the time we do not talk about it, we keep it to ourselves silently. We discuss them among the management. Like a husband and wife, the problem the husband has, the wife should know, and the husband should know about the wife’s problems. Only then they can work together, cooperate, support each other and have healthy, pleasant family. Here in DXN we also have to cooperate with each other. We have to know your problems, and you have to know our problems. Only then we can work in harmony and go to greater heights. So today I am going to tell you about some of the most important challenges DXN has encountered in the past 24 years.
Date of birth: 1993 – DXN
In the year 1993 DXN was born. It all started as a thought in the mind of dr. Lim when he found Ganoderma in the nearby forests of Malaysia. Instead of thinking of how to make money from this medicinal mushroom he thought about the whole world, how he could do something for humanity. Those who know dr. Lim personally know that he is a philanthropist. His values, whatever you see, the growth of DXN all over these years is because of his way of thinking. His values and principles can be seen everywhere. It is not because DXN is such a powerful company with all the features the big companies have, no. I believe it is because of the values, the principles, the passion dr. Lim and the management and you people carry that helped DXN got to this level to be the 24th Direct Selling and the largest Ganoderma MLM company in the world. There are thousands of companies, but DXN is the 24th. It is not a small achievement for a Malaysian company, an Asian company to spread business to all over the world. So it all started with a vision of One World One Market.
What are the challenges DXN had to conquer?
Challenge number 1: Malaysia:
No product sales throughout a year
The first challenge DXN encountered was in Malaysia. The date of birth is 1993 but dr. Lim says the company has already existed in 1992. You know why? In the first year there was no business. There was no sale, nobody joined DXN. Even the Malaysian people themselves did not believe that DXN could do something. So nobody joined. With dr. Lim’s words, it was a very pathetic situation. What could be done then? He thought of closing down DXN or selling it to somebody because he had a very good job. His wife was also working like anybody else in a middle-class family.
One day he got a phone call from a lady who wanted to buy RG. That time only RG existed as a product. Mr. Lim went to her with one bottle of RG because the lady wanted this product for his sick husband. The lady said she wanted to buy it and asked how much it cost. Mr. Lim knew that one bottle of DXN RG Ganoderma medicinal mushroom capsules cost about 75 Malaysian Ringgits that time and he was unable to sell any. Before dr. Lim told the price, the lady took out her wallet. Actually it was a piece of cloth, opened one, two, three pieces of cloth and took out some money. It was 50 Ringgits. So, she asked how much it cost. Dr. Lim was thinking if he said 70 Ringgits, she would not be able to buy it. If he said 50 Ringgits it was bellow the price. Then he followed his heart. He told 50 Ringgits was its price. It was his first sale when he sold the first bottle of RG to that lady. In dr. Lim’s terms it was a message from God to him. From there, the sales really took off. The business started from there.
Challenge number 2: Indonesian crisis
After the first challenge in Malaysia the business started growing slowly. It reached Indonesia. It was growing well, but in 1997-1998 there was a big crisis. The currency deteriorated almost 10 times. All the companies started raising their prices. DXN members thought that DXN is also going to increase product prices.
A leader-meating was called together by dr. Lim, where everyone was looking at his face, thinking that he would raise the prices too. On the contrary, he promised that in the next 3 months he would not increase prices. Everybody felt relieved that they could still do the business for 3 months.
When every company increased prices DXN said no because of the will dr. Lim has shown.
100 000 members joined DXN months by months in Indonesia. People were standing in cue, even 250 of them at the same time and they were talking. This brought back DXN Ganoderma business to Indonesia. That was one of the biggest crises DXN has encountered in Indonesia. Then came the Philippines.
Challenge number 3: the Philippines deceit case
One of the top executives, a very influential person left the company. He took a lot of top management people with him as well. So the Philippines’ operation was in crisis. You know what happens when a bunch of top executives leave the company. Dr. Lim flew to the Philippines and took charge of the operation of DXN himself and brought back stability in the business. These were the markets at that time that were giving the major share of the income of DXN. It was not like now. Today we have operations all over the globe, but then if that market had crumbled, DXN would have been in a great crisis. So dr. Lim flew there and took the responsibility himself to preserve the business.
Challenge number 4: Uncertainty in the Gulf region
When DXN went to the Gulf region to start business, there was no other Direct Selling company there. People were very sceptical about the Multi-level Marketing business model, because a few companies had already enterd their countries, opened markets and then they left without saying good-bye with their pockets full. That is why the government of the United Arab Emirates was very much against Direct Selling companies. We were very afraid. If a local arab passed us, we stopped talking about business. You know, when we were sitting in the office and were giving a presentation and when somebody walked pasted the office, we stopped. The person sitting in front of us does not know why I stopped. We did not know what would happen if someone found out we were giving Network Marketing presentations.
We started very small with home meetings in Dubai. The first meeting was in my apartment on the first floor above the office. The people we invited sat in the living room, 5-6 at a time. We gave them the presentation and 1 or 2 joined. In the first office, me as country manager did not have a place to sit. We could only go to the office in the evening to see how many coffee we sold. If anyone bought five coffees, we were so happy! Hurray, we sold 5 boxes of coffee! In the first months our sale was 2000 Drachmas which is about 500 Euros. Then sales started to grow. Every day we used to do 2-3 house meetings. The people who came to our office and saw our office did not join. They said they cannot trust this company, it is such a small office. No matter how suspicious people in Dubai were, we really started growing, because we were doing the business sincerely and we believed that nothing would happen to the company because we were not doing anything wrong. That belief saved us and today DXN Gulf is one of the top performing branches of the company in the whole world. We have 600 000 members, 45 worldclass offices and monthly sales of 3 million Euros from a few branches all over the Gulf.
The situation of the success of DXN in the Gulf has reached such a level, that Dubai Palace included DXN Ganoderma coffee in its beautiful gift pack. The Palace of Dubai selected DXN coffee as their choice of coffee. So we are producing a special coffee as per the taste of the top people in Dubai. They manufactured this gift box to give it to the heads of the countries and top rank people who visit them.
From being afraid of people you can see how far we have gone. We were afraid of the normal people in Dubai who were wearing a white dress. Today we have access to the Palace. We went there to discuss how to finalize the details. They flew from Dubai all the way to the Malaysian factory.
The country leaders of Dubai called me one day and told me:
’We want this coffee. We want it immediately, today. We want to travel to the Ganoderma factory in Malaysia tonight! Can you arrange it?’
I called dr. Lim and told him about their request and asked him what to do. It was arranged. The Dubai leaders that night flew to Malaysia, they arranged the design, the samples. Sent back the samples with a special flight to Dubai. They verified it. One of them stayed in Malaysia and he was informed from the people in Dubai about the sample. They accepted it.
This is an amazing achievement for a Direct Selling company because there are so many companies selling coffee in Dubai and DXN Ganoderma coffee has been selected as their favourite coffee. So now you can understand the value of the name of DXN and the quality we represent. In Dubai it has become pretty easy for us because everybody shows their photos that they are also drinking DXN mushroom coffee. When we talk to people, especially to our friends, and they reject us saying: ’Oh, okay, you sell coffee, fine.’ But when we show them the pictures of the DXN coffee gift box of the Dubai Palace, they say: ’Woooww!’ They cannot believe this is happening.
Challenge number 5.: Sudan: Fight back
One day I got a call that three of our staff members had been arrested and put to jail. You know why? Because they banned MLM in Sudan. The Sudanese Goverment said it cause harm and it is wrong. It was illegal in that country. So we had to go and release my staff members from jail.
Our office was closed and sealed down. We were prohibited from selling products. We went to the police every day and told them: ’’Please let us sell our products! No MLM, we will sell them in the traditional way.” We had to clear the stock, there was so much of it.
They said: ’’No way, we do not allow you to even sell them! Take back your products with you, you are cheating people!”
”No, we are not cheating, this is genuine business!”
”No!”
For 40 long days every day we went to the court and sit here. They looked at us with such a mean gesture. Our only wish was to let us sell the products to clear our stock. They said no.
On the 41st day they reached a verdict: ”You can start doing Multi-level Marketing business. You are permitted to change everything back to the way it was. Can you imagine? For 40 days they did not even allow us to sell a single product. On day 41 we get a verdict from the court that our business is genuine and we can continue to sell DXN products with the Direct Selling model itself. I believe it was the intervention of the Almighty.
We had a similar challenge in Sudan with the currency. When Sudan was separated into North Sudan and South Sudan, the currency came down from 2 SDG (Sudanese Pound) to 1 USD to 10 SDG to 1 USD. It was a very depressing situation. We had to send DXN products to Sudan from our Malaysian factories but we were unable to send back the money to DXN Malaysia. We kept sending the products but money did not come, because the bank kept the money.
So I asked dr. Lim what to do. For 7 months our money accumulated in the bank of Sudan and we still kept on sending the products. He told me: ”Keep sending the products, do not worry about the money. If somebody is taking DXN products for his health and products provide him livelihood, I do not care about profit now. It is now time to support the market, keep sending the goods!” These are the values we follow. Some people on Sudan sell one Ganozhi toothpaste and on Lingzhi Coffee a day and buy their bread from the money for that day. This is how some of the people live there. DXN protected their interest though the company was in deep trouble. For about 7-8 months we could not get any money, then finally somehow the bank of Sudan started allowing us to send back the money to DXN Malaysia. With patience we could succeed in Sudan.
Challenge number 6: Pakistan
A vedict was made stating no MLM business can be conducted in Pakistan. When DXN wanted to open market there, all the agencies told us not to go. They said we could not operate in Pakistan but we went and started the business. In the first 5 years no or very little DXN business was done, so we were thinking what to do: continue or close?
People slowly started gaining trust in the company and business started growing. Today DXN is doing 3 core business activities on Pakistan with 70 thousand members from which 40 qualifies for TSIP (Travel Seminar Incentive Program – a free luxury travel as a present of DXN).
We never gave up. We continued building the Network Marketing business. Nobody has know so far what challanges we faced in Pakistan. Only the management knows. Today the governor of Pakistan recognized DXN as the Best Brand of the country.
Challenge number 7: India
Sometimes we trust people with the business operation of a certain country. These people are supposed to run the business as if it was run by DXN company itself. But sometimes people think differently. Sometimes they feel they are bigger than the company, which is not healthy.
A similar situation happeny in India, one of the biggest markets of DXN. The whole operation was running but there was a big problem with the management, so DXN had to take over the operation. The whole network had to be moved from one company to another, and anything could have happened. All the strategies of the company were planned.
We made such a plan that we placed few of our executives there without disturbing the business processes. Sales came down half in the first month. From the second month they went back to the same and then even to a higher sales level than before. Today DXN India is thriving compared to the past. I also have to mention dr. Lim’s help here, when he launched a program in a few days’ time and put all the members from one company to another. So we preserved the interest of those people who believed in the company and they could move on with building DXN business.
Challenge number 8: Jordan
Jordan is a case study for us. In the first 10 years sales were 500-700 Euros a year with one small DXN office in the country. Only 500-700 Euros a year. What would any company do in such a case when sales are at such a low level? They would close for sure because there would make no sense to run the business anymore. No, DXN did not do that. We stayed.
Persistence was our winning characteristic that provided quality for DXN Jordan. Then came on lady, who made a miracle. Sales suddenly started growing. After sales under 1000 Euro per year for 10 years, in the 11th year sale rose to 100.000 Euros. 15 people qualified for the TSIP cruise.
This can teach us a lesson. DXN did not change anything about the business model, the products, the structure of the company, not a single thing. Than this on single leader emerged and brough some many similar people with her, who were not networkers – she created networkers from them. Of course we had to open a big office there and now the business is thriving in Jordan.
This can happen in any moment anywhere. Even if your business is not doing well now, you can take this as an example. It may not be the problem of the system and it may not be the problem of you either. It may be other factors that are influencing your business not to grow. If you do any little change or you find somebody who can take your business from zero to hundred, then everything changes. So do not lose hope. That is what we are also doing.
From our past experience in many countries, we have encoutered similar problems. With this experience we have gained and supported by the financial stability of DXN company, we can experiment in different more countries. That is why we are able to persist and continue the operation even when the business is not in profit.
Challenge number 9: Europe:
Stabilisation and challenges
DXN Europe was founded 8 years ago. Entering the European market was a mammoth task for DXN, something which DXN was not able to accomplish for quite a long time. Then 2 people opened DXN Europe single handedly. We are very grateful for them for this. After a while it was necessary to give them some support. We came and together hand in hand we started expanding to more and more countries. DXN Slovakia, DXN Czech Republic, DXN Greece, DXN Bulgaria, DXN Spain, DXN Italy, DXN Poland, DXN Germany, DXN Sweden, DXN UK, DXN Norway are among the offices that followed the establishment of DXN Hungary in Budapest, the country any city where it all started.
DXN has really done something good in Europe from the very beginning till up to now. We have really expanded and covered the whole European continent. We can send products anywhere in Europe now. Some markets grew very fast like DXN Hungary, DXN Slovakia, DXN Czech Republic, DXN Italy, DXN Spain and DXN Greece. DXN Poland has grown very fast without an office as well. There are some leaders emerging who take DXN business to great heights without much support from DXN Malaysian headquarters in the first few years. We hope and wish they will have great sales in the future as well like DXN Sweden and DXN UK. One of the latest and a big coffee lover country whose market was opened by DXN is Turkey.
DXN faces many challenges in Europe, but we look at these challenges as opportunities. In many regions we are not growing because we have not found the right leader yet. Like in the case of DXN Jordan: we found the right leader and we grew. In Europe we are very lucky because we have so many good leaders. We have a good company, good products, full support system. In the European region we have DSP. No other region outside of Europe has DSP (Dynamic Start Program).
IOC (Icing on the Cake) was introduced so that you will get more bonus. 10% back every time you purchase. IOC is not for the sake of the company. It is for you networkers to get more bonus. 50% is the SV (Sales Value) in IOC, and free membership. It is made for you. It is a humble thought from dr. Lim so that the people would be able to make money faster in DXN. He himself designed IOC.
In many markets people can be seen who invest money in a company even though they know it is a scam company. They knowingly burn their money because they know it is like fishing: catching the bigger fish with putting in a smaller one. The fishermen may lose their small fish in the process without catching anything.
In DXN there is no small fish. You never lose anything. You pay money and buy products. In IOC you select your products, pay for them, there is no membership fee and you get higher bonus.
Of course the company shares back a bit more based on the principle that if the whole sale increases, the company is still compensated with the amount of the sales, even though the company’s profit is a bit less due to DSP or IOC. That was the basic thinking of dr. Lim when he designed Icing On The Cake program. Instead of putting money in scam companies, put it in IOC. Purchase DXN products, use them and the company pays you money for using the products. Combine IOC with SIMP (the basic marketing plan of DXN). The best combination would be to register a member with a DSP starter kit, ask him to buy an IOC product package. Do 300 PV every month in SIMP and sponsor 6 people in the first generation. Ask everyone to continue doing that. You will see, that in one year’s time you will achieve whatever you want in your life. You can achieve that in 1 year. Sponsor 6 people, do 300 PV every month. DSP will give you discount, IOC will give you huge income and SIMP maintenance will give you stability and continuous income. Combining IOC with DSP is some of the best options available.
We have to face the challanges together. Never think that the company will do some miracle and the sales will shoot up. That may not happen. We have to work hand in hand.
We have to work hand in hand. Keep aside the differences, ego, complaints. Everybody has problems. No worries. The complaints are there. There is no human being who does not have complaints. The more you complain, the more poison you put in you. Keep aside complaints and dissatisfaction, do not chew on problems. When it comes to business, business comes first. Everything else is secondary. If we have a positive attitude towards business and towards ourselves, everything can be achieved. This is one important thing that helps us grow. The competition should not be among us, it should be outside the company, with the outsiders, the third party, not among us. We have to work hand in hand as a big family, the management and you, the leaders. Love each other, because DXN is a big family.
Challenges can come, but we have to encounter them. Networkers are not normal people. They are different. Not everybody can become a networker, especially a succesful one. It is impossible. An extra chip is needed in our head for you to persist and succeed in DXN Ganoderma business. Normal people cannot become successful in MLM, especially in DXN MLM. You need to have certain values and characteristics that will contribute to you becoming successful.
During my long journey with DXN I have seen people with special skills and special values who could only succeed in this business. All of those who had negative traits perished, even after becoming successful. I have seen it with my own eyes.
If you are just surviving in DXN, if you are thriving in DXN, remember: you are exceptional, you are great. That is why you are still in DXN.
Never give up. Whatever happens, never give up. When someone tells you that you can’t do something, especially in MLM, many people will tell you this, never mind them. Keep on going forward.
Look around. Consider all options. Then go for it. Use all the gifts God has given to you. Be creative. In the end you will succeed and you prove all the non-believers wrong. Always remember: if there is a will, there is a way.
