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A Model for Accessible Entrepreneurship
How a decades-old direct selling approach is meeting the needs of the post-pandemic economy.
Read the full story on politico.com
A recent McKinsey study found that a striking 36 percent of Americans polled identified as independent workers. Today, more individuals are self-employed, working from home or freelancing than ever before. The pandemic’s indelible mark on the world of work has revealed an undeniable increase in demand for career autonomy. And this surge of both freelance work and entrepreneurship, are together reshaping the U.S. economy: Roughly 60 million Americans participating in freelance work contributed $1.35 trillion to the economy in annual earnings in 2022 according to Upwork.
Beyond a cursory fad, the movement toward more autonomous work encompasses everyone from lesser-skilled workers to high-paid professionals. A growing body of research tracking these trends finds that they are driven, in part, by the pursuit of work-life balance and the emergence of new career pathways enabling more people than ever to look beyond traditional 9-to-5 work. “Almost 60 percent of people are open to or interested in the idea of pursuing entrepreneurship or small business ownership,” says Andrew Schmidt, North America managing director at Amway, the top direct-selling health and wellbeing company in the world. “That speaks to the demand that exists for these types of opportunities and the fact that the supply in the marketplace is now growing to meet that demand.”
The benefit of Amway’s approach, Schmidt says, is the “low-cost, low-risk, high-impact” model that does not require prospective sellers — or Amway’s Independent Business Owner (IBO) — to attain credentials or have access to capital, which is cited as the largest barrier to traditional entrepreneurship, according to Amway’s 2023 Global Entrepreneurship Report. Of the nearly 300,000 Americans who have signed up as Amway IBOs by the latest tally, Schmidt says no two are alike. “They are an incredibly diverse swath of Americans, united by the desire to own their own business, to support their families and to give back to their communities.”
POLITICO Focus recently connected with Andrew Schmidt to learn more about the freelancer phenomenon and the importance of a modern economy in today’s post-pandemic world.
“Almost 60 percent of people are open to or interested in the idea of pursuing entrepreneurship or small business ownership. That speaks to the demand that exists for these types of opportunities and the fact that the supply in the marketplace is now growing to meet that demand.”
ANDREW SCHMIDT, Managing Director, Amway North America
Read the full interview here.