Though failure and tragedy are no predictors of future success, they do seem essential for a truly innovative enterprise to emerge. The reason for this is simple: loss provides an opening for looking at things with a fresh view. Free from their investment in the status quo (business as usual), survivors of loss often find themselves questioning and reexamining values, habits and basic assumptions and presuppositions of how and why things work. This fresh look enables these individuals to use their natural creativity to solve old problems in new and innovative ways.

UPC fits this victorious profile perfectly. My good friend and mentor, Robert Hollis, had become a legend in the world of Network Marketing. In less than six years, he built a network of over 180,000 distributors in one of the “hottest” telecom networks. His organization was generating over $60 million in gross revenue serving over 1.3 million customers.

At the company’s annual event, Robert crossed the stage eleven times to the standing ovations of over 15,000 ecstatic company leaders. In the previous three months, Robert had helped 20 individuals in his group achieve the company’s highest level of distinction. To achieve that goal literally thousands of would-be entrepreneurs had paid $500 for the privilege of being distributors in this company. This burst of growth was unprecedented in the company’s eight-year history.

Robert had bought into the dream of creating his own business—a business that he believed, after years of dedication and hard work, would take care of him and his family for a lifetime. He’d believed what the owners of his company had told him and followed their instructions diligently. He’d inspired thousands of other people to pursue this dream and he believed that the best way to motivate people was to lead by example. He gave his all; he worked tirelessly and broke every record in the company’s history.

But Robert was about to learn one of the most painful lessons in his network-marketing career. His income from the company suddenly and inexplicably plummeted from $30,000 per month to less than $5000. As he investigated, he realized that, though he had worked feverishly to get members of his group promoted, he would never see any income from those efforts. The company’s pay plan had “blocked” him from profiting from these new and expanding organizations which he had built.

He asked the owners “What about the retirement income you promised? What about the dream of building a legacy by helping others to succeed?”

Their response was a weak apology and a shrug: “That’s just how it is and there’s nothing we can do about it.” When asked about stock ownership, profit sharing and other promises, they told him he would still have to wait for some indefinite time in the future for these things.

One of the most pathetic responses Robert heard was “Your problem is that you were too successful. By helping so many other people to succeed, you blocked yourself out of the income stream.” In other words, this was NOT a win-win game: if you win I lose; for me to win, someone else will have to lose.

Robert later told me “I was running the race—leading the pack—and suddenly I saw a sign in the road that said “Bridge Out Ahead.” I knew that Robert’s sadness and disillusionment was NOT about his personal loss of income. Having led three separate companies into the top 25 of the Inc. 500’s fastest-growing, privately-held companies, Robert knew he could always make a good living at almost anything he put his mind to do. His heartbreak was in realizing that the road he and those those whom he led were traveling would not lead where they had been told it would.

I knew first hand that Robert’s commitment to building an organization went beyond his interest in creating personal wealth. Robert and I had met ten years earlier in another business. I was just finding my way in the networking industry and Robert was already an experienced leader. Though he had no opportunity to profit from my success (we were in different organizations), Robert took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew for me to succeed. He held meetings for me and treated me as he would any member of his team.

Over the years of our friendship, I have observed that Robert’s true passion is inspiring people to believe in their God-given visions and to act courageously and faithfully in the fulfillment of those visions. Until UPC was conceived, the timing was never just right for Robert and me to work in the same business side by side. We remained friends and encouraged one another in our businesses and in our lives.

Since neither of us was in the other’s organization, we were free to be totally open and vulnerable in expressing our concerns, critiques and complaints about the home-based-business and networking industries. For “true believers” like us, one of the harshest realities of our industry was the relative rates of success and failure. In most companies, one or two percent of those who became distributors would ever achieve an income of even a few hundred dollars each month. These statistics, though really no different than for any other type of business, led to jokes such as “What’s the difference between a networker and a pizza? Answer: A pizza can feed a family of four.”

We bemoaned the fact that those people who most needed an opportunity often couldn’t afford the cost of entry to these programs. We shared a common grief over the friends and family members we most wanted to see succeed, but who would never share our vision or take the necessary actions to succeed. We knew that if we could give them a taste of our success they would get inspired to move beyond their fears and find reserves of energy to pursue their dreams. We were mystified by those who would show up and seem to keep going through the motions, but never seemed to break the code or develop the necessary skills to reap the rewards of their efforts. And though the main focus of our efforts was about expressing the dream of having your own business, our particular path to fulfilling that dream required everyone to be in the same line of business and to buy into selling or consuming this particular line of vitamins, soaps, water filters or telephone services. Many people who dreamed of owning a business were turned off by the idea of selling these items to friends and family members.

But we still firmly believed in the industry. We’d seen untold success stories unfold before us and experienced our own successes. The supportive and encouraging culture that developed in most of these companies was powerful. The training and coaching was excellent. The supportive friendships and positive role models undoubtedly improved a person’s chances for success over trying to make it on their own in another kind of business. And we’d seen people grow and develop personally. Though many of these never experienced significant financial rewards from their businesses, they reaped the rewards of more satisfying personal lives and careers. We joked that most network companies were just “personal development programs with a pay plan.”

But there’s the rub. The pay plan was a mirage and this was the third time Robert had reached the “top” of a company’s plan only to discover that things were not as they appeared. Robert needed some time and space to think and to pray and to sort things out. Providentially, a friend invited him to come to Atlanta for a while to work with him and his group. No sooner had Robert arrived in Atlanta when the friend had an emergency that left Robert living in a beautiful home by himself with nothing to do. Robert used part of the time to read a book that so many people were recommending at the time called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. This book opened Robert’s eyes about the nature of business and about what the wealthy know—and teach their children—about money.

Through reading and praying and reflecting, Robert came to a painful realization about the path he had been on for 15 years. He had sincerely believed that with each of these network companies he was building a business that he could own and sell or leave as a legacy for his children. He suddenly realized that his business had no real assets. He didn’t own the distributor base. He was not free to move other products through the distribution pipeline. He didn’t own the customer base. In fact, in the case of his present distributorship, the company he represented didn’t even own their customer base! The phone company who’s service they marketed one day just said “Thanks for helping us build this customer base, but we no longer need your services.” And with that they stopped paying commissions to the distributors.

Each of these three companies had promised that their top distributors would be able to own a part of the company or share in the profits, but none of these promises was ever fulfilled. Robert had sincerely believed he was building his dream. He did all the things he was supposed to do. But in the end, he was no better off than the poor corporate worker who is left without any true security. Robert recalled having heard one of his teachers say “If you’re climbing the ladder to success, be sure to inspect the building on which that ladder is leaning.”

Robert realized that one asset he had was the education of that 15 years. That could never be taken from him. But Robert knew he could never throw his heart and soul into building another network if the dream that attracted each person into that network—the dream of business ownership and of building a legacy—was a lie.

One day, Robert’s son innocently asked “What if you owned the company?” That simple question ignited a spark in Robert. “Out of the mouths of babes” the good book says, "comes wisdom." 

That year Robert had learned a great deal about how businesses were using the Internet to expand markets and operate more efficiently. He’d also been reading a great deal about great companies like Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and SAIC whose employees owned considerable stock in their companies.

One day, Robert called me and shared his vision for UPC with me. The vision centered on the idea of creating the kind of company with which we’d like to work and then sharing ownership with the people who put in the effort and energy to make it grow. The initial “product line” would be the services and tools that entrepreneurs would need to make money on the Internet such as websites.

Robert had conceived of a true win-win compensation plan that I thought was absolutely inspired. Of course, it was. It allowed anyone to participate no matter what their financial status or skill level or experience. It made ownership a truly accessible dream.

What really inspired me about Robert’s vision was the possibility of actually creating that entrepreneurial “personal development program with a pay plan THAT WORKS.” Because our product line was useful to entrepreneurs and visionaries to build their own dreams and visions, we could really attract people who wanted to promote their own thing rather than having to get them to sell soaps and vitamins to reach their dreams. This operation seemed more like a visionaries’ association than just another “distribution method.”

Robert told me that he decided to take the risk to build UPC “in order to fulfill the story that I’ve been sharing with people for fifteen years—the promise of business ownership. Within the first six months of UPC, the company awarded stock to seventy individuals. Within a year that number doubled. We fully expect to have thousands of UPC stockholders within a few years.

Robert said to me, “I’ve always told people that the ultimate key to success was to never stop trying. Successful people only have one single trait in common: they never gave up. Now if you’ve ever failed at something, just stop and ask yourself this question: ‘What is the penalty for trying again?’

He continued, "And I had to ask myself, 'What’s the penalty for not trying again?'"

Speaking personally, I'm so glad Robert tried again. Thanks, Robert.