Josh and Jenna Zwagil of MyDailyChoice/HempWorx feel like 2019 is just the beginning.
It took courage and the willingness to think outside of the box to introduce HempWorx and its uncommon products to the direct selling industry. With a line of health and wellness products that are built on a foundation of hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) oil, entering the market implied a fair amount of risk. Even though hemp still struggles to overcome its taboo status today, when Jenna Zwagil approached her husband Josh Zwagil about the idea of adding a CBD oil line to their existing company (MyDailyChoice) in 2016, the prospect seemed outrageous. “Absolutely not,” Josh told her at the beginning. “It’s crazy to mix marijuana and network marketing.”
However, Jenna saw potential in the long-prohibited plant. After an autoimmune disorder diagnosis in 2014, Jenna sought relief from her symptoms in the holistic space and found it through CBD oil that Josh had procured from their Kentucky farm. Over the next few months, she shared the oils with her family and friends, and all of them reported similar improvements with their own health problems and positive results overall. The results surprised Jenna. She had tried CBD oils before but had always been disappointed with the products’ lackluster results. The difference, she realized, was the purity and potency of the CBD oil, as well as the process through which the hemp plant had been grown. There was a marked difference, and Jenna knew she needed to share their carefully grown ingredients and the unique product that had given her life-changing results with others.
If she couldn’t get the word out about hemp and CBD oil through MyDailyChoice, she decided, she would do it on her own. With a simple Shopify website and Facebook groups, she spent hours every week educating people with Facebook live videos, and online chats and conversations. The orders she amassed quickly outgrew her homespun operation, and the proof that customers were ready for hemp was undeniable.
“Jenna launched HempWorx by herself,” Josh says. “People were getting such great results, and it was growing so fast, we decided to merge it with MyDailyChoice and take on the brand and the product.” Jenna’s intuition about the value of CBD oil and the receptiveness of customers was spot-on. The HempWorx product line launched in May of 2017 and brought in $10 million before the end of the year, then grew 900 percent in 2018, bringing in $100 million in sales. In its first 18 months, HempWorx and its radical products attracted 60,000 affiliates and 200,000 customers.
HempWorx’s massive and rapid growth not only led the company to be presented with its first appearance on Direct Selling News’ Global 100 list but also was one of two Bravo Growth Award winners for achieving the largest percentage of growth in sales of any company for 2018.
Barely two years old, HempWorx has capitalized on an almost untouched niche of the market with its nontraditional CBD-based products and rocketed itself to a No. 86 ranking on the Global 100 list.
Turning Rejection Into Rich Potential
Overcoming that initial rejection has set the tone for HempWorx who would go on to take the industry by storm while at the same time fielding objections, concerns and a regulatory environment that can be tricky. Even though the direct selling industry is becoming more comfortable and acquainted with the idea of hemp and CBD oil, the product still requires education to illustrate to consumers that hemp is not marijuana and that their formulation of CBD oil won’t deliver a high.
The confusion stems from vague nomenclature in previous laws pertaining to marijuana that lumped hemp in as a federally restricted drug like heroin, but all of that ended with the Farm Bill of 2018, which clearly defined hemp as legal and separate from its cannabis cousin marijuana. Shifts in the country’s impression of hemp, as well as third-party affirmations–like being one of only 13 companies who received the high-quality seal from the U.S. Hemp Authority–are giant victories for HempWorx and the Zwagils, who see incredible potential and value not only in their product, but their business opportunity as well.
“HempWorx is very much a productfocused opportunity, not an incomefocused opportunity,” Jenna says. “But now that people have been here a year or so, they are seeing the benefits of both sides of the business.”
Blazing New Trails
HempWorx reflects the culture and origins of its umbrella company, MyDailyChoice, which Josh started as a way to offer a business opportunity and compensation structure that was driven by the needs and preferences of affiliates, rather than the corporate executives. As a career network marketer, he entered the million-dollar earner ring by the age of 21 but left just a few years later to create a company that sought to level the playing field and prioritize the people who worked outside of the walls of the corporate office. MyDailyChoice and HempWorx are the results of that dream.
“The accolades and all that stuff are great; the revenue is great, but I think what fuels my fire more than anything else is seeing people in this business that have never succeeded before start to win and win big,” Josh says. “Even
though we’ve been able to create a massive success as a company, and we’re profitable and debt free and all of these
great things, it still gives me a lot of pride to see the top winners and the brandnew people who have a great product
success story. It’s brought a lot of new people to the business who typically wouldn’t touch network marketing.”
That personal touch and connection have had a magnetic draw for people who might not typically be interested in the direct selling opportunity. Their success is also stretching the borders of the hemp and CBD market within
the direct selling industry as Josh and Jenna blaze new trails into product niches and genres that have yet to be infused with CBD, like their new CBD Bath Bomb, which announced the company’s entrance into the bath and body category.
“We’re excited about what we’re going to be doing in 2019,” Josh says. “We accomplished so much in 18 months, and we’re excited to see how things unfold. We still feel like we haven’t hit critical mass or gone into hypergrowth yet.”
