In June, I made some observations about the Prefontaine Classic sponsorship we'd just completed in Oregon. Recently our Quixtar team was again on the west coast, with another example of getting our story out to the public. We hosted over 100 of our partner companies at a two-day annual Partner Appreciation event in Buena Park, CA. Participants included representatives from Levi's, Dell, Sara Lee, Circuit City, General Mills, Office Depot, Shop.com, FTD, Bank of America and many others.
These organizations represent one of the benefits Quixtar provides to IBOs, which is Partner Stores. These relationships are commonly referred to as affiliate programs on the internet. IBOs link from Quixtar.com to other e-commerce sites to purchase products and services. In addition to some exclusive promotions, IBOs benefit by earning business volume credit which increases the compensation they earn in the business.
We've hosted this event for about the past eight years to provide our Partner Stores a 'behind the scenes' view of the business. We have had IBOs present the business opportunity. We've had in-depth presentations and tours of our manufacturing, R&D, and distribution operations. And, we typically include our top management to discuss business plans so that everyone's aligned as to where we're going as a company.
This year, we talked about our business transformation efforts that are designed to help IBOs make more money sooner. We shared a presentation by our President, Doug DeVos, about the importance of innovation and collaboration in our efforts going forward. We discussed merchandising materials and training that we're putting together to help IBOs attract new customers. Representatives from participating companies all witnessed our Nutrilite operations first-hand. They took a genetic test for general nutrition. They visited our Lakeview Farms to better understand the Nutrilite Story. They also toured our nutrition manufacturing facilities and heard presentations about the overall health vision of our company via Nutrilite's Center for Optimal Health.
This is all part of building good business relationships. We find that people at the companies we work with often have the same initial reaction to Quixtar as many people in the general public do. First, it's "never heard of them" or "someone approached me about some company like this once." They often don't really know us. But, once they spend some time with us, see how we operate, and see how IBOs build businesses, our partners get excited about Quixtar.
That's not surprising...everyone who gets to know us gets excited about what we offer. And we'll continue to tell the story.