(MONEY Magazine) – It's about 6:30 p.m., and Kathleen Brennan, 38, is warming up a crowd of prospective clients at Reza's, a cavernous Middle Eastern restaurant in downtown Chicago. Tonight's topic: the tax benefits of the new iras. Though the evening is billed as an educational event, the smartly tailored presenter's real agenda is no secret: As an independent sales representative for Primerica Financial Services, a $335 million division of the $3.36 billion Travelers Group, she's there to pitch the company's new Roth and Education IRAs.

As about two dozen prospects--mostly social workers, letter carriers and other clerical employees in their thirties--settle down to plates of baba ganoush and couscous, Brennan launches her IRA sermon. "What is the government encouraging us to do here?" she asks, borrowing the call-and-response techniques favored by evangelical preachers. "Invest!" she shouts. Her audience seems hooked. But after years working crowds of middle-income folks (Primerica's target market has a household income of $50,000), Kathleen knows that nothing reels in converts like a testimonial. So she starts recalling how a similar Primerica seminar six years ago helped her family achieve financial salvation--and launched her on a new career. Her new venture has made her one of the few--the very few--to earn a handsome living in the controversial world of direct sales.

A LIFE-CHANGING EVENT

In December 1992, Kathleen and Matt Brennan were mired in $19,000 worth of credit-card debt. Both had good jobs--Kathleen was a supervising mechanical engineer at a Commonwealth Edison nuclear plant, and Matt was a risk manager with a clearinghouse at the Chicago Board of Trade. But after years of freewheeling spending early in their marriage, they had few reserves to build a college fund for their children or to save for retirement. Despite her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, confesses Kathleen, "Most people knew me as someone who didn't watch her finances very well."

That's when a friend invited the couple to a Primerica seminar. By demystifying sophisticated investment terms and strategies, the presenter introduced the Brennans to the basics of investing. For instance, a discussion of interest rates convinced Kathleen to eliminate her credit-card debt and shift the interest payments into investments. Feeling empowered, the Brennans made a commitment to drastically reduce spending and to begin investing more of their six-figure income for the future. "I even started buying generic toilet paper that felt like sandpaper to save money," admits Kathleen. Within five months of the seminar, the couple were debt-free and building a nest egg that included term life insurance policies and mutual funds--all products sold by Primerica.

And that's not all. Impressed by how Primerica helped her family improve its finances, Kathleen quit her $72,000 position with Commonwealth Edison to join Primerica. "If we can be as educated as we are and not know these concepts," the mother of four remembers thinking, "there must be a huge market" of people who need this financial advice.

Although giving up a steady paycheck and company benefits wasn't easy, Kathleen has managed to more than triple her income peddling Primerica's insurance, retirement plans and debt-consolidation loans person to person, in the same way Amway sells detergent or Mary Kay sells lipstick. This strategy has made Primerica the leading issuer of term life insurance policies in the country, and last year the company sold more of one series of Salomon Smith Barney mutual funds, a brokerage also owned by Travelers, than Salomon itself sold.

INSIDE NETWORK MARKETING

As in all direct-sales organizations, Primerica's reps earn high commissions on products they sell. However, unlike direct sellers such as Avon or Tupperware, Primerica also relies on a network marketing sales structure that some critics compare to a pyramid scheme: The company's 90,000 reps earn commissions on products sold by their "downline"--other salespeople they recruit into the organization. Because reps do not receive compensation primarily for signing up new people, this type of sales system is not considered an illegal pyramid according to Federal Trade Commission rules.

Even though upscale network marketers such as Primerica and Excel Communications (a long-distance phone service provider) are public companies and recruit some professionals like Kathleen, the industry still suffers from a somewhat shady reputation. "A lot of people won't start with our company because they think [network marketing] is a scam," admits Kathleen, whose husband Matt recently joined her full time. "They don't understand that we're as regulated as Charles Schwab or Merrill Lynch."

Despite the debate, the reality is that making a living solely on commissions is tough. In fact, only about half of the 6% of direct sales reps who worked full time in 1992 earned more than $50,000 a year, according to the last earnings survey reported by the Direct Sales Association.

Critics argue that most individuals cannot sustain a customer base or sales organization large enough to produce significant regular revenue. "To succeed, you must have tremendous determination, personality and fierce ambition," adds Robert Fitzpatrick, author of False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes. "How many people have that?"

Still, 70,000 Americans try direct sales every week. And a few like Kathleen Brennan, who had never even sold Girl Scout cookies before joining Primerica, manage to beat the odds.

ON THE ROAD TO PROSPERITY

Within a week of her first Primerica seminar, Kathleen put up $280 in sign-up fees (now $199), which covered the classes, materials and registration she needed to pass the insurance broker's and securities licensing exams. Matt also signed up but went only for the insurance license because of a possible conflict of interest with his job at the time.

After earning her licenses in '93, Kathleen started putting in about 20 hours a week after work and on weekends, convincing family and friends to buy term life insurance, IRA and 401(k) products. "I probably met with 12 to 15 people a week, working out of coffee shops and making house calls," she recalls. "I earned $11,200 my first six months." Relying on her extensive management experience at Commonwealth Edison, Kathleen began building her sales organization (which has grown to about 350 reps) by recruiting family members and colleagues. Among them was Darrell Taylor, who now is a regional Primerica vice president."I always look for hard-working people who are doing well at their jobs but are unhappy with what they are doing,'' Kathleen explains. Despite her efforts, almost a third of her reps leave the business each year. Most, she claims, aren't willing to put in the effort required to build a direct-sales career.

In June 1993, Kathleen quit Edison to become a full-time Primerica personal financial analyst. Renting a small office near her home, she often worked for 12 hours at a stretch, trying to tell at least five new people a day about the products and the career opportunity. She surpassed her salary at the utility in her second year as a full-timer, earning $82,000 in commissions and overrides (downline commissions). Last year she pulled in $205,000, and this summer she was promoted to senior vice president. (Even though all Primerica reps are independent contractors and must pay all of their own business expenses, the company uses corporate titles to mark achievement and set commission rates.)

Now that their family's finances are more secure, the Brennans enjoy the flexibility to knock off whenever they want. In September, Kathleen took a day off to take her daughter, Colleen, 7, to see Sammy Sosa play with the Chicago Cubs during his historic home-run race. The family also splurges on vacations, like a recent cruise to Mexico and New Orleans with Colleen, her three siblings (Maggie, 9, Brian, 4, and Maura, 20 months) and in-laws. And after spending years fixing up their old house, the couple are shopping for a new $500,000 home in the suburbs.

But prosperity hasn't taken the edge off the Brennans' drive to grow their Primerica business. Kathleen still puts in long hours running meetings and managing two offices, one in suburban Oak Brook that she shares with her cousin Kim Poulos, a regional vice president, and a new one in downtown Chicago with Matt. So far, she says smiling, "we're still married and we still like each other."