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While many businesses are shutting down or laying off employees, Pre-Paid Legal believes they are well positioned, despite its recent release of membership results and the ongoing problems with Barry Minkow.

Chief Financial Officer of Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc, Steve Williamson had this to say about this year’s growth: “In tough economic times we see increased interest in people wanting to market our Legal Services Plans as Independent Sales Associates. This increased interest will lead to our 16th consecutive year of growing our Membership revenues.”

One Independent Associate, Beth Taylor started her Pre-Paid Legal business 12 years ago. Taylor, a single parent, has a theory as to why people are signing up with Pre-Paid Legal: “People are losing their jobs today, airlines are going bankrupt, and they’re laying off the mortgage industry. People are really in need of finding something they can sink their teeth into. And that’s what I love about this business. I get up every day knowing that I make the difference. If I’m going to work, I’m going to make a difference in the lives of other people. So it’s very rewarding and fulfilling,” said Taylor.

The company, publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: PPD), develops, services, and sells Pre-Paid Legal Plans to its members across the United States and four provinces of Canada. Plan benefits include: unlimited attorney consultation, letters and phones calls made by the attorney on a client’s behalf, document/contract review, assistance with traffic violations, and defense services for automobile-related criminal charges or general trial defense. An Independent Associate can market Pre-Paid Legal Plans from home to individuals, families, small businesses, or groups such as schools and local businesses.

Pre-Paid Legal also offers an Identity Theft Shield plan that can be purchased as a standalone product or in addition to a legal plan membership for a discounted rate. This valuable service provides each member with a credit report, continuous credit monitoring, and identity theft restoration services. “You can’t stop your identity from being stolen, but what you can do is have a very proactive professional company that will go to bat for you and restore it if you should become a victim. We have that product,” said Mark Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Pre-Paid Legal. “And then you couple it with the fact there is no other company that I’m aware of anywhere in the world that has access 24/7 for their clients to great law firms. We do,” said Brown.

Pre-Paid Legal Membership benefits can also be added as employee benefits, by employers. Independent Associate, Rob Vest, top group producer at Pre-Paid Legal, says the legal plans are a benefit employees can use right away, “This is a NOW benefit. That’s the real key. The more economic problems that we are having out there, the worse the economy is, and the more legal problems that come up. If the employees are having those problems, that affects the employer.” Vest believes people want to spend their money on something they can get value from immediately, “So we are in the perfect place right now in the market, and we have a perfect solution to the problem.”

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EcoQuest International, the Greenville based company dedicated to making healthy living products which include among other things, eco friendly air and water purifiers, is the next in a long line of victims to fall prey to the current downturn in the economy.

EcoQuest’s products have been endorsed by consumers all over the world. Their air purifiers have been built using NASA technology and their products have been endorsed by professional athletes like the New York Yankees, and as well as over 4,000 physicians around the world.

The company has just announced what they call a “right-sizing” effort to adjust their operations to meet today’s economic climate. The new effort will include trimming their workforce by around 20 employees.

“The problems on Wall Street are being felt on Main Street,” said EcoQuest President Mike Letts, “and like many companies, EcoQuest is not immune to the present trends in global financial markets.” Letts added, “”We are taking steps now to ensure our long-term economic position by re-structuring for both current conditions and future growth opportunities.”

The 20 employees being let go are both hourly and salaried employees who work in their Greenville corporate facility. The facility employs roughly 273 people. The company did not indicate if these were the only lay-offs that will take place, or if there will be others to come as the company restructures and reorganizes.

EcoQuest will be taking other steps to ensure long term success both in the current market and for their future growth opportunities.  We are big fans of EcoQuest and hope they are able to trudge through the economic crisis.  Their products are really well made and help a lot of people.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Well, it’s almost that time again, time for companies to begin releasing their 3rd quarter results. In the next few weeks we will hear from several of the major companies about what their business has been like the last few months and practically speaking, we aren’t expecting anything great (maybe overseas).

As we all know, the economy has struggled quite a bit lately, and although history shows that direct sales companies generally thrive in times of financial crisis, the current economic landscape is unlike anything we’ve seen since the 1920’s - especially since this is affecting all global economies.

Reliv (NASDAQ: RLV), NuSkin (NYSE: NUS) and USANA (NASDAQ: USNA) are the first of many companies who have set dates to release the news. USANA will be the first of the group to release the results on October 14, 2008. Executives will hold a conference call to discuss the announcement the following morning at 11 am Eastern time.

NuSkin will release their results prior to the market opening on October 29th. Truman Hunt, NuSkin President and CEO will hold a conference call with investors that same day at 11 am. And finally, on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Reliv will hold a conference call to discuss results of the third quarter which will be hosted by President, CEO and Chairman Robert L. Montgomery and VP and CFO Steven D. Albright.

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Pre-Paid Legal Services released their reports on new memberships and new sales associates enrolled for the third quarter 2008. Overall, numbers were down compared to last year. Not surprising given the current state of the economy, but were up slightly over the second quarter.

For third quarter 2008, memberships produced decreased 6% percent while new sales associates enrolled decreased 13.2% percent compared to the same time last year. The one bright spot was the active membership base which increased 0.1% percent from the previous year.

The company also reported that their membership persistency rate was 73.5% for the 12 month period ended September 30, 2008. The membership persistency rate is the percentage of members who still enrolled at the end of the 12 month period who were enrolled at the beginning. This was a slight increase from the 12 month period ending September of 2007.

Pre-Paid Legal has been working hard during the past few years on a share repurchase program. During the 3rd quarter the company returned $9 million to shareholders through the repurchase of over 200,000 shares of common stock. Since the program began in 1999, the company has returned almost $400 million to shareholders.

Earlier in the year, Pre-Paid ran into some problems with Barry Minkow and the Fraud Discovery Institute. Although there has been no word lately, Minkow can be relentless and I’m sure he will cause more problems in the future. For now however, while the company’s numbers weren’t spectacular, given the current economy, they aren’t doing too badly.

Popularity: 4% [?]