"In Lexington, where Orberson lives and runs his firm, Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, he keeps a fairly low profile. The most recent exception was his January bid of $100,000 in the Hoops for Haiti fund-raiser to have dinner with University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari and actress Ashley Judd ? a gathering he says he might not even attend.
But in Nashville, and in multi-level marketing meetings across the country, he is not just a star, but a legend. He's the high school basketball coach turned multi-millionaire, a man who could see no future, but found one.
Multi-level marketing is sometimes known as using a pyramid sales force because of the triangle shape of the hierarchy of people who are both a recruiting force and a sales force. It usually requires a sign-up fee (in the case of Orberson's company, $299), a lot of energy, and, at least two marketing experts say, a willing suspension of disbelief."
