An iron sculpture of a flying lion with a great mane atop a globe stands in the centre of the square opposite the gate to Tiens Group's Tianjin headquarters. The “Tiens Heavenly Lion” is an effigy of its slogan, “health and wealth”.

Inside headquarters, Li Jinyuan, the 43-year-old founder and president of Tiens, has an entire building for his office. Stepping out of the lift, he leads to a large room adorned with life-sized portraits. Li Jinyuan himself is dressed in a dark suit with white shirt and leather shoes, apparently his uniform for work, as the photos on the wall suggest. Though the surroundings boast of the Tiens Group's – and Li's – successes, an essential part of the enterprise is found on Li's business card: “Chairman of Tiens Meijing International Love and Care Foundation”.

Tiens Meijing International Love and Care Foundation is a charitable foundation established in Hong Kong last year whose capital sources come mainly from donations of Tiens Group and its staff. Over the years, Tiens has donated more than US$35 million, and with his donations last year of US$8 million, Li has found himself ranked third on the Euromoney China China Philanthropy List.

Tiens began conducting direct sales in 1995, the same year that Michigan-based Amway came to China. Li Jinyuan's healthcare production business, founded in 1992, had been floundering because of the difficulty in accessing the end customers. Hearing about the concept of direct sales in a letter from a friend, Li launched into the new venture.

However, it was not an easy start. The Chinese government, concerned with pyramid selling (similar to the US government's concerns with Amway in the seventies), discouraged domestic companies from entering into the market, preferring to leave the market establishment to the multinationals with experience.

After taking time to set up a network in China, in 1999 Tiens looked aboard. Starting with Russia, Tiens expanded quickly into Eastern Europe. Since then, Tiens has spread to Southeast Asia, the US and Africa. Its flagship merchandise, a high-calcium health product, is targeted to families. Tiens offers three categories of prices: US$175, US$100 and US$75. “The quality of our products is the key to direct selling, followed by proper training for our sales force,” says Li. Ten percent of Tiens staff has working experience with Amway. “If Amway does not regard Tiens as its strongest competitor, it will stand to fail – or at least lose its market,” offers a Tiens manager.

Because of the nature of direct sales, it is easily confused with pyramid sales, defined as where the majority of profits are derived from the participants of the scheme itself, and which the Chinese government banned in 1998. Professor Wang Leping, senior consultant of Yuelu Mountain National University Science and Technology Park, explains the difference: “Development of direct selling trade is a necessary trend, which will bring deepening reforms in domestic retailing and promote big changes in relevant fields.”

In the US, direct sales is an established industry selling throughout the world. As such, Li is confident of Tiens' future. A world map with red dots signifying their country and regional sales staff adorns one of the walls in Li's office. To date, there are 90 red dots, and Li's target is to grow this to 120 by the end of this year. According to Amway's website, it has only 80 companies across the world with a sales force of three million. Besides the flagship high-calcium health care product, Tiens now has a range of over a hundred products, selling in 170 countries across the world through a sales force of nine million direct sales people. To keep up with the growth, Tiens has 3200 staff on the payroll and six manufacturing bases including Egypt, Spain, the US, Malaysia, Brazil and Austria.

Tiens understands that recruiting is key to a direct sales business. In addition to being generous with its bonus, at its next annual conference in Kuala Lumpur Tiens will distribute incentives to its best sales people including 260 luxury cars, 71 yachts, 54 private aircraft and 21 villas.

Though he won't reveal the company's annual sales, Li shares the company's target: to enter the world top 500 strongest enterprises sometime between 2008 and 2010 and “not at the bottom of the ranking”, he adds with a smile. According to the annual report from Tiens' Nasdaq-listed company (TBGU), sales in the US hit US$38 million last year, with net profit margins of close to 50%. Three individuals, other than Li, had 1% of stock in company. The last part of the Tiens plan is to list simultaneously in eight countries in the future, allowing more of the sales force to take stock.

And Li has much bigger plans. Using his sales force of nine million people, he aims to produce “Interaction among six networks” with human resources at its core. Growing out of its human resource network, Li hopes to launch international education, logistics, travel and capital networks. Personnel, logistics and cash will flow between these networks.

But there are still problems to face. Since the first half of this year, Tiens' CEO and general manager of Greater China in charge of training, left. There are also regulatory obstacles to overcome, with foreign multinationals still being given preferential treatment. Wang Wannian, author of Direct Selling in China Remarked by the Eight Magnates, explains: “There are many nuances to direct sales, making it a sensitive topic in China since it can easily lead to pyramid sales. Foreign multinationals have plenty of experience in overcoming this, and coupled with efficient management, this reduces the risk of it getting out of line.”