Since I devoted four days of posts to my mom's Japanese 45s, I figured I'd post a label or two from my Dad's record collection. This one is a true oddity from the brief period when he worked for Bestline Products, a pyramid scheme of a company that suckered scores of people into selling crappy cleaning products door-to-door and attending expensive conventions with motivational speakers and lavish award ceremonies. This LP is an artifact of one of those conventions, complete with gatefold and 10-page color booklet. This was probably the last of such conventions, as Bestline's pyramid came crashing down later that year.I'll admit that I've never listened to the record (I'm pretty sure it's just recordings of a weekend's worth of motivational speeches), but I find its label to be surprisingly attractive. I love that the lowercase A is the biggest thing on the entire label.
Illegal perhaps, but certainly not "crappy cleaning products". My wife and I worked for a janitorial service in Anchorage, Alaska in 1970 and they used Bestline's "Zif" by the barrels. It was an excellent product, in our opinion.
ReplyDeleteI agree! "Adigio" hair conditioner was the best conditioner I ever used to this day. I ran across this article looking for some actually.
DeleteAgreed...Bestline Zif and the Bestline Business Model with Generals and Directs with Banking Support is still tops! I wish I still had my Commissions from Zif Sales...Carry on...
DeleteHello,
DeleteI moved to eastern Washington four years ago to by a house that is by the way old, lol! But I have a shed in the back and found some of this cleaner!
Today I got curious and decided to try it! I am 43 and I have never used a cleaner like this! This is awesome and it doesn't smell like chemical's!
This is a very awesome product and I am glad I came across it!! Maybe people say it's a crappy product because they've never actually used it!!
Zif is probably the best cleaner ever invented. The people who complain about it are just people who like to complain.
DeleteZif and the liquid concentrate (LC) were excellent products. I actually found a bottle of the LC in my parents' home a year ago and used it. It still works great.
DeleteMy parents used to sell Bestline products. My mom used Zif & LC all the time. There were some of both left at my parents home. My husband & I use with laundry. Great cleaning products! I wish I could get more of each!!!
DeleteMy parents were stuck with a garage full of products that they couldn't sell, although I my mom liked the products. I think it's all gone, now. As a teenager I got to go around door-to-door and keep the money I got from doing so. I didn't have much luck but I did get a repeat customer on the green hair shampoo. She really loved it!
ReplyDeleteHa! So did my parents, early '70's, in New Hampshire. The Zif was great as was the car wash. Took us several years to use it all as my dad was stuck with boatloads of it. Funny to hear about it again decades later. Too bad it was a scheme as it holds many fond memories.
ReplyDeleteWOW! It happened to my family too, my ant to be precise. Ahe had a room full with many of the products. I remember ZIF, PH-7 Hair Shampoo. There was a pink liquid shampoo that you could use to clean even fruits because it was biodegradable. Actually, I learned that word thanks to the fact that it was a Bestline selling point. I remember there were some bottles you could use to mix the product with water, and it came with the marks printed on to guide you in doing so.
DeleteAs someone said here, the business didn't work, but I have fond memories of that time.
DeleteYes me too. My ex and I tried selling Zif. Fond memories.
DeleteHey does anybody have any info on this company or who started it etc.. personal research.
ReplyDeletemcschneider@comcast.net
My father, William E. Bailey, started the company. He died May 6 of this year.
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DeleteMr.William E Bailey was a great and gifted MAN
DeleteI met Mr. W. E. Bailey at the convention in 1973, and I agree with your comment. I too found that he was an intelligent and gifted man.
DeleteMy parenrs were distributors in the 70s very successful as secondary income. In facrs I am in possession of the LC /liquid consentrate bottle. Whats so azamzing ro me is that this bittle has been continullay used to this day abd not one bit of the raised decorative design has not faded or lifted at all.
DeleteThis is great. My folks also had a garage full of these boxes surrounding the ping pong table. I remember going to the meetings and watching a slide show starring Sabastian Cabot.
DeleteYeah...I'm sure your dad died a rich man. His little trolls worked their asses off for him. Whole experience BULL SH**!!!
DeleteUnknown oct1st your a dick and a sissy. Leave your name. I understand you're upset with the company and the outcome of your experience with whatever the deal was but that doesn't mean you have to be disrespectful and rude
DeleteMy parents sold Bestline products during the 1960s when we lived in Highland Park, IL. Their sales champion was Beverly Werner who's husband was president of Werner Ladder company at the time. If anyone is interested, I have the "sales persons" demo case and a few empty bottles of various Bestline products I found while cleaning out the garage. I have know idea how I ended up with this stuff. LOL.
ReplyDeleteWould love to have your demo case and anything else you have for a museum I'm putting together!
DeleteI am trying to date the time I was involved with Bestline. It was in the late 1970's or possibly 1980 in Ontario. i would appreciate any info to help me with the timeline. I did meet two "executives of the company. One fellow drove a Porche which at the time was very impressive and I also attended a convention in Toronto and met another gentleman. He was youngish and was obviously someone in a high position within the company because he was there with a chauffeur driven classic Rolls Royce which was even more impressive!!! He very kindly gave me a ride to Union Station in the Rolls after the convention! I would love to have help with the exact year of the convention. Thank you
DeleteMy grandfather sold Bestline.
ReplyDeleteYep, my family was involved in this during the 70's as well. Loved the Ziff and the LC liquid soap. We too were stuck with a garage full of cleaning products, which we gradually used up (except for the laundry detergent which finally ended up as a large mass of damp cardboard and laundry granules, which we had to dump. But hey, it was all "biodegradable" right? This was sometime in the mid 80's.
ReplyDeleteThe one remaining souvenir is a 45 of Tom Lehrer's comedy song "Pollution" with the flip side as one of my favorites, "Who's Next" (a song about nuclear proliferation).
Is it true William E Bailey died?
DeleteYes, at age 84.
DeleteToo bad
DeleteI was a Bestline General distributor in Hamilton back in the early 70s so I have some first hand knowledge. First they were excellent products that were all child safe and non polluting. Zif could be used as an industrial degreaser yet a child could drink a quart of the concentrate and not die.
ReplyDeleteOne of our distributors could have had a contract with General Motors to sell them Zif in large quantities but they wanted a two year guarantee of the price and he was not willing to chance a price increase.
Far from being a scam I made money as did anyone who worked at it. The company payed a 2% override for any General distributors that I had recruited and those 2% checks were paying my mortgage and utilities every month. The only people who felt ripped off were the ones who bought in then failed to work at it.
I too was a general distributor in Hamilton if you're talking about Hamilton Ontario I made a little money but poeple I got in were very unhappy I guess so that's why you put yourself as unknown .., later in life I learned that other companies like Amway have a lot better marketing plans and a lot more successful people , .it was a good learning experience for me
DeleteThese products were not crappy, they were amazing!! My parents and myself were in this this company for many years. Their principles and positivity helped me become who I am today. Great people and great memories!!
ReplyDeleteMy aunt and uncle got caught up in the Bestline scheme in the early 70s, after retiring from the military, my uncle was unsuccessful in job hunting, and desperate to make some money and support his family. My grandparents in their charity bought cases and cases of these products, we set up stands at every church function, but no one bought. My Granny still had unopened cases in her storeroom at her death in 1986. Bestline was a Ponzi scheme that took advantage of many people who were struggling to get by, but we did like that Zif!
ReplyDeletemy father was the president of Bestline Argentina in the 70s and 80s
ReplyDeleteThe president in Argentina at that time was Bill Greenwalt
DeleteAfter H. Medrano
My husband and I got into Bestline in our early 20s, about 1971 or 1972, as did some of our friends. The products were fantastic. I especially loved the carpet shamooo that smelled like bananas. It was the best I've ever used. Years after our Bestline adventure I was searching for it. Their motivational approach was ahead of its time. That goes over like gangbusters today. If I remember right the Ziff could be used for just about everything and people loved the product. Amway was the main competitor and as we all know it continued. We actually learned a lot from our experience and had a lot of fun doing it, and it was good products. So many things qualify as "pyramid schemes" really - investing in any business for a return is hardly different. The people who invested were motivated to move the product of course. It should have been a big winner. We were young and needed to move on to jobs with benefits, which I would recommend for anybody! But it is a pleasant memory for us. We do laugh about having $3000 worth of soap in our storage unit. That was equal to at least $10,000 worth today. In the end we didn't lose money, but we worked hard to recoup our investment.
ReplyDeleteMy father and I were distributors at exactly the same time in Adelaide Australia. We had the same experience. People liked the products, but it was hard to service them in those days. Detergents are different to beauty products. The consumers could not wait when their bestline product was finished and ended up going to the supermarket. It was the distribution at that time that made reselling hard. We ended up with products in our garage which my parents were using until recently, We still have the shampoo. All the products were great. We are just sorry that they our stock has finished.
Deletemy father sold this to supplement his income. he was put on permanent disability at around age 45. so the idea was a smart move he thought on his part. due to some life changes and a major move we made, he stopped selling it. we continue to use the products he had on hand. he was a true believer in the use of it. Mother loved it as well, since she was the major cleaner in the house. i do remember using the zif and lc. it seemed there was little it could not clean. now i am in my mid 50's and wish i could still find some. it was user friendly and safe to use. i have so many allergies now and cant use much that is on the market. sure do miss it.
ReplyDeleteThe products are all over eBay. I buy them off of there all the time because they are the best.
DeleteThese products were excellent, especially ZIF and the pink liquid concentrate. The consumers who used them liked them, but they were just no ready for this type of distribution system. I wish these products were still around !
ReplyDeleteMy mom and stepfather were involved w bedtline back in the early 70s I believe . They were great products. Zif, of course was mist known, but I vaguely remember the shampoo and they had a rug cleaner concentrate and I forget the name of the product our family used must since it was always referred to as the pink stuff. I actually looked this up today to see if any of the products were being sold anywhere. I could use some of the " pink stuff" as well as the rug cleaner and of course zif. Not only were they good products they were safe to have in home and safe for the environment as well. The I Center of them had great products, I think it was how they were marketed that made it fail but that could have been poor financial advice from others who wanted to get rich quick on his talent. A shame really
ReplyDeleteI was at that convention in 1973! Actually my parents were but we made a family vacation out of it. So we were at the hotel with all of these Bestline distributors and "area coordinators" or whatever that were higher up in the food chain which meant that they somehow skimmed off more of the cash. I went to a lot of the local meetings too at a Holiday Inn. They used these meetings to suck new people into the scheme. Kind of like what a time share presentation would be today. We had tons of LC and Zif and other stuff in our garage. Some aunts and uncles bought in and in the interest of family harmony, my parents bought back their stock of soap.
ReplyDeleteWe went on another trip where they took us on a tour of their "factory" that was actually an empty wharehouse. They told us that all of the plumbing was right there under the floor and the machinery was on its way! Even as a 16 year old, I knew it was a scam!
My parents were always listening to William E. Baily records and tapes. What a blow hard and con artist! It is amazing how many people he pulled into the scheme.
Another thing that they would do, is occasionally one of the District Managers or whatever they were called, would invite a few of the lower people on the pyramid to his house for dinner. It would be some really nice mansion and they would use this to try to motivate the underlings.
On the rare occasion that we sold some Zif or LC, I would have to deliver it. We ended up using most of it ourselves over the years.
We lived out east on Long Island, and they had passed a law about the ingredients that could be in soap, so Bestline somehow made specially marked boxes of laundry powder marked Suffolk County Soap.
Is this record for sale? I knew Bill Bailey well and have been collecting memorabilia for five decades. I am building a network marketing history museum to house my massive collection and would love to add this record to the collection
ReplyDeleteI had not considered selling this record as it is an interesting artifact of my father's past. If I do decide to sell it, I'll let you know.
DeleteI was 8 years old when my Mom brought the products home. They were amazing, I wish they were still around. In order for my mom to buy it just for our use she had to do some kind of sales program. She didn’t have time for this, she was a very successful realtor. So at 8 years old it became my business. I actually did really well with it. Some guy came to our house from the company and walked around my neighborhood with me to meet all of my accounts. Then he stole them all away from me and kicked me to the curb. My mother was able to find the products for about another 7 years but after that they were hard to find. But my earlier sales training definitely payed of. Today I am a very successful real estate agent in Beverly Hills.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had no idea this thread continued on in such lively fashion over the past decade! I am definitely not an authority on the quality of Bestline products. From the dusty boxes of bottles in our basement, I had the impression that they were subpar products, but I never used them. It sounds like I was wrong! I do know that my parents had a very hard time making ends meet when my dad worked for Bestline.
ReplyDeleteHaha... I was in my attic looking for something yesterday and found 2 unopened cases of the ZIF all purpose cleaner. A flood of memories came back to me as I, as a kid, went door-to-door selling the Bestline products for my parents who got sucked into the pyramid scheme by their friends who also got caught up in it.
DeleteYesh, the people who bought the ZIF and other products from me did in fact rave about them and often called me for more!
Reflecting back on that company now it is sad that they obviously had some great cleaning products that would have been right up there on the supermarket shelves had they not done the pyramid scheme.
I remember giving demos of that stuff in Brampton Canada .We had a board which we would mark up then clean it off with ziff for the audience .What we didn’t mention was we first prepped the board with some oil so the dirt would rub right off. What a scam .Rudy oRevak the then president is still at it only peddling a food supplement now.The cost to enroll was 3440 dollars in 1977 to be a direct distributor which was a lot of money then .Selling us on buying this much product with projections of a group of retailers selling our product was rather unrealistic to say the least and there are all sorts of people who ended up with lots of that crap and who probably still have some.Great way for them to sell a lot of soap at once .There were a few superstars but they made their money recruiting direct distributors not people actually selling the product.A lot of money pissed down the drain by a lot of people.
ReplyDeleteSo what about a the lawsuits and judgements. My mother and father did this in the early 70's and we still have a bunch of ziff concentrated cleaner, spray bottles and carpet cleaner.
ReplyDeleteWas there a settlement where they should have received compensation?
My mom loves the products but said they were suckered in the pyramid scheme.
Anyone know the ingredients of ziff?
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what happened to the formulas? Ingredient lists?
ReplyDeleteMost interested in LC.
You can still get the products on ebay.
DeleteI was introduced to Bestline in 1968 by a friend and became one of their local distributors. I moved up the ranks quickly to a Direct Distributor, General Distributor, then Area Coordinator in Palo Alto, CA, Three months later I was promoted to Regional Director in Louisiana / Mississippi and finally to National Sales for the U.k. in 1973-74. Anyone who complains about BL products is an absolute idiot. These products were great and still are. You do not build a 100 Million dollar a year business on crappy products and the BL training was superb from top to bottom. I am sorry that a few disgruntled losers brought the company down in their pathetic class action suit in Califonia but what can you expect from the worst run state in the USA to the present day. These legislative progressive morons want to protect you all in to poverty and give you a participation trophy if you just show up in your underwear. Sorry success in life doesn't work that way@ What I learned from my early BL days has been invaluable in running my two other businesses. So I was pleased to see that BL are still out there in the market to provide benefit for those who are looking for real value from an outstanding company that was wrongfully put out of business 47 years ago. I know because I was there when it took place.
ReplyDeleteVery cool! I am good friends with Larry Thompson who got his start with BL in 1968 as well. Totally agree with everything you said here!
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