Newport Beach, California – March 9, 2026 | 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. The company connects major brands with a nationwide network of independently owned and operated sales companies and manages 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. Public company materials describe Smart Circle as 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 a public interview, Tenebaum said Smart Circle’s revenue fell to zero during the COVID-19 pandemic, when face-to-face activity stopped across the business.
Tenebaum said the company and its shareholders decided not to lay off employees during that period, despite the loss of revenue. He also said clients continued to provide revenue support, and that Smart Circle passed that revenue on to 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,” 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. Public materials and recent company media describe Tenebaum’s role as centered on mentorship, entrepreneurship, and maintaining a structure that allows independent sales companies to build local businesses while serving national brands.
The same interview also described strong growth in 2024. Tenebaum said Smart Circle finished the year servicing just under 800 independent corporate distributors in North America and said the company was on a run rate that could take that figure above 1,000.
Company materials describe Smart Circle’s broker model as one 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 operational support.
“Smart Circle was built on relationships, accountability, and support for the people doing the work,” said Sandy El-Rayes, a representative for the company. “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.
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Contact Name: Sandy El-Rayes
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