
Michael L. Sheffield, CMC
Founder and MLM Consultant
Michael Sheffield is President of The Sheffield Group, an internationally recognized Direct Sales and Multi Level Marketing consulting firm focusing on startup operations, compensation plan design and product line development. His firm has provided marketing and management consulting to over 800 MLM, Party Plan and Direct Sales companies in the U.S. and abroad. He has worked internationally assisting companies in Norway, Russia, England, Germany, Holland, South Africa, China, Philippines, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, India, Thailand and Japan.Background & Early Career
Sheffield began his career as a successful distributor and then later founded two successful Network Marketing companies with combined sales exceeding $30,000,000.As a leading spokesperson for the MLM industry, Mr. Sheffield conducts seminars and lectures worldwide. He has to his credit numerous appearances on television as well as radio including the Business Radio Network as expert MLM business analyst. He has also appeared as guest lecturer at the Schools of Business at Arizona State University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Cincinnati, California Lutheran University, the University of Texas, and Anderson University. In addition, Mr. Sheffield has been a staff instructor on MLM compensation plans and marketing strategies at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1998, he was selected to make a presentation on behalf of Multi Level Marketing at the Harvard Business School Association Symposium. He is one of the few Certified Management Consultants (CMC) with a specific emphasis on the network marketing industry. Certification is granted by the National Bureau of Professional Management Consultants.
In 1998 and again in 1999, he organized and sponsored two important MLM events on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. “Organizing for the Future I and II” were successful academic conferences geared toward an intimate interaction of the university business school faculty and MLM corporate executives to stimulate a better understanding and eventual classroom acceptance of MLM as an alternative method of product distribution.
Sponsored Conference and Lecture
His lecture called “Compensation Plans of the Future – Today” was enthusiastically received by corporate executives at national conferences sponsored by the Direct Sales Association (DSA) as well as the Multi Level Marketing International Association (MLMIA). For over ten years, The Sheffield Group has co-sponsored the conference “Starting and Running the Successful MLM Company” which has been attended by thousands of entrepreneurs.For nearly 30 years, he has directed his attention to serving in one or more areas as chief consultant, compensation plan developer and analyst, new product advisor, and resource agent for many prestigious companies including Alticor/Amway, Nikken, NuSkin, AOL, Home Shopping Network, The Fuller Brush Company, Time Warner and The Service Master Corporation to name a few.
Accredited Publications
His writings have appeared in many national publications including Network Marketing Lifestyles, The Direct Sales Journal, WealthBuilding Magazine, MLM News Magazine, Product Launch Magazine, Powerline Magazine, and Network Marketing Business Journal. His regular column in Network Marketing Business Journal, called “Product of the Month,” has served as an independent review of the product lines of over 100 U.S. and foreign based MLM companies over the past fifteen years. He has been the subject of feature articles in Success Magazine, Network Marketing Lifestyles, Business Start-Ups and Entrepreneur Magazine. He also served as the Direct Sales and MLM expert for Entrepreneur Magazine’s website, Entrepreneur.com.Mr. Sheffield has received numerous honors including MLMIA’s President’s Award for Industry Support as well as the Association’s prestigious Consultant of the Year award. He is a Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Multi Level Marketing International Association. In 2001 he was inducted into the MLMIA Hall of Fame and received the MLMIA’s Best of the Best Award in 2011.