Charlie Culver – Visionary Ambassador

Mr. Culver is a well rounded entrepreneur with real-world ‘street’ experience owning, operating and building companies in both the distribution and direct selling industries.

At the age of 28, he started his own warehousing and distribution company and within a few short years built a multi-million-dollar company servicing GM, Ford and Chrysler and their many suppliers from around the world.  His company was very instrumental in developing and implementing many of the just-in-time distribution techniques used today.  His strategy was to market, sell and then service international firms desiring to service Detroit’s Big 3 automobile companies.   International OEM clients such as Lucas, Carello,  Bosch became prominent Big 3 suppliers as their parts where inspected, repackaged and delivered for daily just-in-time auto production.

Mr. Culver sold his interests in the company in 1989 and went on to selling and managing global automotive logistics and specialized, time-sensitive operations for DHL Airways.  Here, through an associate he was introduced to the world of Direct Selling.  Enamored with the direct selling industry and the concept leveraging time, money and effort he ventured to become the top independent selling distributor (commercial sales) for Elcombe Systems, Ltd., a network marketing affiliate company of Newbridge Networks.  Elcombe Systems provided specialized high-tech telecommunications emergency monitoring services for long-term care facilities as well as single-family residences in the U.S. and Canada.

In the mid 1990’s he founded Shopping Gate (aka:PrimeBuy) which used a direct selling model to acquire customers at very low cost and then encourage future sales by enabling customers to receive cash-back rebates from their shopping expenditures.  Under his leadership, PrimeBuy went from zero to over 30,000 members in just two years. Direct sales representatives of the company also earned bonuses from the shopping expenditures of customers referred.  The online consumer orientated ‘cash-back’ concept focused on retail distribution, financial services and travel services with over a thousand merchants, including major name-brand retailers such as Wal-Mart, Nordstrom, Lands End, Sharper Image and Office Max.  International markets were opened in Mexico, Australia and Switzerland.

Today, Mr. Culver consults to both direct sales and franchise companies, private and public, in the areas of strategic business development, sales and marketing, sales training, and brand building.