Origin Story
The Employee Network was established in 1998 to have an employee discount program that would compliment a company store owned and operated by the founder Steve Kogan. The store operated as a convenience for a client of Kogan’s other business, Corporate Promotional Advertising of Arizona Inc., a full service Promotional Advertising Company est. in 1992. Several employees (about 9,000) from this client expressed the need for a program such as we have now created. The client had a similar program in-house with a volunteer doing the best to keep up with the program along with job responsibilities. The idea of The Employee Network was to bolster that program, take the pressure off the volunteer and to turn the program into a business that would have its own employees that could focus on the employee discount program and nothing else.
This new company would work constantly to improve the program by finding great Advertising Partners that could recognize the power that a large buying group could make on their business. An Employee Network staff member would work with the Advertising Partners to create more and better discounts, programs and specials for the employees. This program would be designed to emulate the original company program whereby the employee only needs to show his/her ID badge – no coupons, books or membership fees.
The next step was creating an informational website where the employees could find their discounts readily from home, work or while traveling. This original program was received wonderfully by the business as well as the employees. Soon after inception, one of the Advertising Partners, Earnhardt’s with 1,800 employees, asked why their employees could not make use of the same program as a part of their employee benefits package. Then came MicroAge, Insight, Super Shuttle, Pinacor, Honeywell, US Airways, Valley Big Brothers/Sisters and several others. The Employee Network started with 9,000 members and over-night became 500,000 members and still growing!
Now, The Employee Network has transformed into the nation’s premier employee discount program with well-over half a million members!
We have truly, in our humble opinion, created the perfect win-win for all.
