— Smart Circle, a broker of outsourced face-to-face marketing and in-person customer acquisition, is highlighting the role of its people-first business model in the company’s continued growth under Founder and Chairman Larry Tenebaum and CEO Michael Meryash. The company designs face to face marketing campaigns and connects major brands with a nationwide network of independently owned and operated sales companies who deliver customized in-person customer acquisition campaigns across retail, door-to-door, business-to-business, event, and service-based channels in the United States and Canada.
Smart Circle said the model has been shaped over more than four decades around support for clients, employees, and the independent sales businesses in its network. Smart Circle is a broker that gives brands access to local execution through independent sales companies, while maintaining standards around training, compliance, and brand representation.
The company’s leadership is placing renewed attention on that operating model after a period that tested the direct sales industry. In an interview, Tenebaum said Smart Circle’s revenue fell to zero during the COVID-19 pandemic, when face-to-face activity stopped across the industry.
Tenebaum said the company and its shareholders decided not to lay off employees during that period because of the economic disruption caused by COVID, despite the loss of revenue. He also said clients continued to provide revenue support, and that Smart Circle passed that revenue on to the small businesses in its network that were also under pressure at the time.
“Everybody’s going to tighten their belt, but we’re not going to lay off one person because of COVID,” Tenebaum said in the interview, describing the company’s response to the pandemic. He said that decision reflected a belief that the business had a responsibility to the people who had contributed to it over many years.
Smart Circle said that experience reinforced the company’s focus on long-term relationships and practical support across its network. Recent company media describe Tenebaum’s goals of supporting mentorship, entrepreneurship, and maintaining a structure that allows independent sales companies to build their businesses while serving national brands.
Smart Circle saw strong growth in 2025. Tenebaum noted that the company finished the year servicing just under 1,000 independent corporate distributors in North America and is currently on a run rate that will take that figure well beyond the 1,000 milestone.
Smart Circle’s broker model is designed to balance national scale with local market presence. The company said that format allows clients to run customized in-person customer acquisition campaigns without building internal sales teams in each market, while giving independent sales companies access to larger brand relationships and support.
“Smart Circle was built on relationships, accountability, and support for the people doing the work,” said Sandy El-Rayes, Director of Communications at Smart Circle. “That remains central to how the company works with clients and with the independent sales businesses in its network.”
About
Smart Circle is a broker of outsourced face-to-face marketing and in-person customer acquisition services. Based in Newport Beach, California, the company connects major brands with a network of independently owned and operated sales companies that carry out campaigns across the United States and Canada.
Contact Info:
Name: Sandy El-Rayes
Email: Send Email
Organization: Smart Circle
Website: http://www.smartcircle.com/
Release ID: 89191167
If you detect any issues, problems, or errors in this press release content, kindly contact error@releasecontact.com to notify us (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 8 hours.
