Who's behind the P90X craze?

Several you you hard working, sweaty people have asked me about the company behind the fitness DVD's.

Here's the scoop!

Beachbody was founded in 1998 by Jon Congden and Carl Daikeler as a direct sales company making fitness infomercials.  Their first product I believe was called Great Body Guaranteed.  It was followed up with Slim in 6, and Power 90 - the precursor of P90X. 

Jon and Carl realized a few things that led them to expanding their business model. 

1. The saw that selling videos is easy, but people push play and get results was tougher.  Even the world's greatest video on the shelf collecting dust didn't work!
2. Their customers getting the best results were the ones actively engaged not only with the products, but also on the Team Beachbody message board community. This was around 2005/2006- pre-facebook ;-)
3. They themselves got the best fitness results when they were financially involved.  When they started the company they had to get fit to show that the products worked.

So they decided to get people involved and give them a financial stake in the business by opening up a network marketing opportunity within Beachbody. 

In 2007, Team Beachbody, the first MLM opportunity focused on holistic fitness and weight loss was born.  "By putting the rewards for living a healthy lifestyle into the hands of the people who have the most to gain by getting healthy, Team Beachbody added the first scalable financial incentive to the obesity problem, which has reached epic proportions."  (200 million Americans obese or overweight)

Now they are the best selling fitness program company in America.  They have 260 employees, and 35,000 independent distributors called 'Coaches' throughout the US.  Beachbody still continues it's own direct sales efforts with over $100 million spent annually on advertising and sales of $319 million in 2009.

Current best selling products include P90X, Shakeology (health shake), Insanity, Turbo Jam, Turbo Fire, Ten-Minute Trainer, and Hip-hop Abs.

Now towel off. If you have any other questions about the company, as always, I can be reached at kevin@thefitdoc.com

Keep Pushing Play,

Kevin