Leave Nothing To Chance

 

Most successful entrepreneurs know that with success comes personal development. Under it, one key characteristic is consistency. It is the ultimate pill to power productivity, increase sales, and build wealth. In this episode, Simon Chan, the Author of The Consistency Pill: The 7-Step System to Increase Sales and Transform Your Business, dives deep into how consistency makes a difference. He also talks about the importance of mindset to success, no matter the level of skill you have. Plus, Simon shares the secrets that will support your goals and help you become a master of your business and life. No matter how high your ambition is, it won’t carry you through without the ability to remain steadfast. Take The Consistency Pill and tune in to this conversation to learn how to drive your business to success.

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How Consistency Makes All The Difference With Simon Chan

We’ve now done well over 100 episodes on Leaving Nothing to Chance and we get requests sometimes. People here are speakers and they write to me, text me or WhatsApp me or any of the other crazy ways. They send me carrier pigeon messages. Some of the older people like me and Simon, that’s what they do. We use carrier pigeons still. They say, “Can you get this guy or this lady back on again?”

We’ve been going through that. Simon Chan was so popular the first time that I reached out to him and he’s an incredibly busy guy. You’ll hear a little bit about that. He’s the author of a great book The Consistency Pill. The endorsements in this book are a who’s who of network marketing, needless to say. It’s a great book. I use it in my distributorship to help train people and you should, too. Simon speaks all over the world.

I know he was off-training a group of distributors. He’s a busy guy. He’s a great dad and has young sons who are great baseball players with lots of aspirations. He’s busy doing travel ball with them as well as a husband. A father of one dog. He’s a super great leader in our industry and he’s got such great insight. It’s Simon’s idea that we would chat. Rather than me having my standardized questions, we would just chat about things. Simon, I’ll throw the ball to you and let’s get rolling.

Thank you for having me. I’m impressed people want me back. It must be my good looks, my weird accent or my weird voice. Something must be going well.

You’re doing something right. It could be that lack of energy that you have. I’m exaggerating, but Simon, let’s talk about a couple of things. Consistency is something that you teach so well on and you speak so much about. Why is it important that people are consistent? Whether they want to be a great distributor like most of our readers do. They want to be successful in their own business, certainly or a great baseball player or a great accountant, lawyer, doctor or plumber for that matter. Why is consistency so important?

If you look at the way we learn things, everyone who reads this knows consistency is important, but we learn not by doing a lot at one time. Let’s say you want to cook. I can’t cook, but if you want to come over to my house and I was going to cook you dinner and I don’t cook, all of a sudden, I spent all the five hours of studying to prepare this meal. It’s probably not going to turn out that great, but if you’re coming over in a month and I start practicing every single day, practicing cooking a little bit, I’ll get good at it. It’s like a kid learning how to ride a bike. They don’t learn all of a sudden. They don’t practice for six hours and learn to ride a bike.

The kids on the bike for ten minutes a day, within a week or two weeks, the kids are going to learn how to ride a bike. That’s the way we learn and you apply it to your business. You’re never going to be good at whatever strategy or skill you need if you lack that consistency. Most people in our world, we want instant gratification. They say, “I’m going to do a lot at one time.” That’s like trying to learn to ride a bike. “I want to go five hours and master the bike,” then don’t touch the bike for another month. The kids are not going to learn.

If you do a little bit each day, it’s like Darren Hardy with the book The Compound Effect, it compounds. I always have a saying, “Success is invisible.” You do a little bit now, you may not think you got better, but you did get better. Over time, that compounds dramatically. I’ll give you one example beyond the top of the baseball. My first page in the book is about baseball. You play sports. They were based on a swing. It’s always something constantly adjustment. My oldest son is very good for his age. We have big dreams for him. He was pretty good. He got selected to be one of the top kids in eleven years old to play in this tournament in Florida.

We went there and he did okay. He was the youngest kid. Some kids were a year older, but he hung in there. He hit 400. Now I’m shocked because we were working on the swing. If you look back at the videos before, his swing was pretty terrible compared to now, but we never realized it. That came from working every day and we hit seven days a week. Even on vacations, we bring a swinging bat and do twenty swings in the parking lot.

We’re constantly working on that. Why is consistency important? It’s because that’s how we learn. If you want to get good at something, you have to do it a little bit each day, all the time, for seven days a week. You want to discover. You may not see the improvement right away, but months later, looking back, you think, “I got a lot better.”

Let’s stay on sports for a few minutes. Most of our people are sports fans and even if you’re not, for everybody who isn’t, let’s talk about Shohei Ohtani for a minute. Since Babe Ruth roughly 100 years ago, this guy’s done stuff that nobody but Babe Ruth did, in the respect that he is a world-class pitcher and world-class hitter. As the season ends, he had 40-plus home runs and got injured at the end of the year, but 40-plus home runs, 1,995 RBI, 10 and 4 or 10 and 6 pitching-wise. You take a guy like that, when he was a kid and starting, like a starting distributor, what do you think he did on a daily basis in his sport to achieve not 1 but 2 separate distinctions where he is one of, if not the, best in the world?

I don’t know his childhood, but I’ll tell you I’m a fan of Shohei Ohtani, but I’m a huge fan of Ichiro Suzuki, who was a mentor, like an idol. He was the first Japanese positional player who came over and did well. The generations change and this is something that inspires me. Being an Asian-American, I had to deal with a lot of racism growing up. I play college basketball, but just because of my skin and my slanted eyes, I was always the one who picked last. When Ichiro Suzuki came to the league, it was like, “Asians are great pitchers. They can pitch because of Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park, but they’re not strong enough and not durable to play every day.”

Ichiro came over in 2001. He was 27 years old already and he totally destroyed those myths and won the batting title. He has the record for most hits in the season. If you look at them, he is only 5’11” and 160 or 170 pounds. Not a big guy. Shohei is a pretty big guy, but Ichiro is like the mentor of mentors to all these Japanese players coming over now.

I read Ichiro’s biography. He was not a big, strong kid, but since he loved baseball when he was young, his dad will practice with them starting at four years old every single day after school. He talked about the routine. They would do fly balls and grounders and would play catch for an hour and a half or two hours every day after school, even when it was cold.

He talked about those days when he didn’t want to practice because he was young. His dad would drag them there. His dad realized at four, he wanted to be good. He would go home, eat dinner and do schoolwork. After schoolwork, he’ll go to a batting cage. He would go to the local batting cage in Japan and another 300 hits. He did that for 10 or 15 years. He was four years old until he went to high school and boarding school. For 8 to 9-year periods, his dad would work with him every day after school for an hour and a half or two hours, eat dinner, do his homework and then go hit for another 300, which is another hour of hitting every single day.

It’s the inspiration I got to work with my kid. A side note, since your readers are sports fans, all three of my boys are righties, but they bat left because of Ichiro. Mike Trout. When my son got into baseball, my friend said to me, “Mike Trout’s dad made him do 75 swings a day in the basement,” because you live in New Jersey. It was cold. For 75 days, 75 swings every single day since he was a kid. Getting back to your question, if you look at order greats, there’s never one big moment they become great. It’s the process.

To be successful, you have to understand that the process could be boring. How badly do you want it? If you want success, you got to go through that process. The process could be very boring. The process also could be very challenging. It’s not going to be fun. My son is going through that process where we want to play at a higher level. He is 12 and playing on the 14-year-old team. Kids that hit puberty are a lot stronger. He’s also using a much heavier bat because we’re planning ahead.

A few years from now, when all the kids are starting to get used to a BBCOR bat, he’s been using it for a few years already. He is embracing it. He normally hits pretty well, but he doesn’t have the power the bat speed as much now but he’s thinking long-term. We started doing that a few years ago. Even now, he can handle the bat. He’s not awesome with the bat, but some kids are not even close to that, but it’s the process. You got to raise the struggle. Without struggle, there’s no success. The process could be boring.

One of the best books I’ve ever read was, it is a boring book. It’s talking about process. It’s called Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin and he talked about all the greats Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, Mozart, or the Beatles. All the greatest of any industry had to go through the process, which is very boring and miserable. We’d like to say, “Aren’t being an entrepreneur exciting?” It’s exciting when you get the rewards, but when you’re in the grind, it’s not fun. People think that prospecting, doing presentations and doing calls is fun.

I used to think that leaders are different because I’m shy and quiet. I’m an introvert and certain types of people love to talk. I learned. The successful people like you also don’t like to make sales calls and stuff, but you do it anyway because you understand that’s the process. You got to do it every single day. No matter how good you are, you still got to do it a little bit every day because it keeps your skills sharp.

I know I’m going on and you’re going to cut me off whatever, but talent is overrated. Every top performer understood consistency and going through that process. The process is boring. I keep saying the process is boring because in social media now, you see a lot of people, “Being an entrepreneurs great and stuff.” I remember one time Gary Vee said, “Entrepreneurship is hard. It can cause depression. People become suicidal.”

It’s hard. There are a lot of things to help you over gratitude and learn to enjoy that moment. Whatever struggle you are now, enjoy this moment because when you have that success, it is a letdown. The thrill is in the pursuit. I built a seven-figure business in network marketing. It’s not the awards I got. I even took away my awards and put away the trophies. I was the number one fastest-growing. None of that matters. What matters is knowing that back in 2005, at midnight, I was sitting in the business park in Santa Monica and making phone calls to Malaysia because my fiancé couldn’t hear my voice in the tiny one-bedroom apartment. She said, “You got to leave. I cannot hear you making another call again and saying the same thing over again.”

Success is a letdown. The thrill is in the pursuit. Click To Tweet

I was taking prepaid phone cards, hoping they don’t expire, calling Malaysia because of the time zone difference. I was calling at midnight in Malaysia calling prospects. Talking about that gives me enjoyment and fulfillment, going through that. My apartment at that time was so hot. I didn’t have AC and then I couldn’t open the window because I was living in South Bundy Drive where it was a busy intersection. You hear buses. It would be so loud, I couldn’t hear the prospects.

I’ll close the doors, but I’d be hot in there. Thank goodness there’s no Zoom. I’ll be prospecting without a shirt on and just in underwear. I’ll call. It was so hot in the room. Sharing those stories, that’s what makes the journey. Thinking back, that’s my favorite times as an entrepreneur. Not when I got the award or got the money.

Those were the good times. Prospecting was in the heat, sweat over my face calling at midnight. I’m making those calls to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . It’s my first time not doing what the heck to do. I was like a fish out of water and trying to set up meetings. Those are the fun times. It could be boring if you don’t enjoy the moment. Enjoy the moment and be grateful for that moment that you’re in.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point that I read years ago, talks about 10,000 repetitions. I’ve heard track coaches, wrestling coaches and baseball coaches say this. I’m sure every sports coach in the world says this, but applying that to network marketing, to your point. I don’t know how many presentations I’ve done in over 41 years. Probably 10,000 at least or more.

He said 10,000 hours, so that’s more than 10,000 presentations. Not 10,000 swings, but 10,000 hours.

To that point, we’re watching the US Open. We’re watching Djokovic play Medvedev. We’re watching these guys hitting the ball. When they hit the ball back and forth, I know it’s over 100 miles an hour to serve alone because they put that clock up. My wife says to me, “They make it look easy.” I said, “Do you know how long they’ve been doing it?” That’s once again how it applies back to our business.

I’d love your thoughts on that, Simon. Also, to your point, it’s the grind that makes us great. It’s not the moment. The moment is when we shine and everybody applauds. They give us a trophy or a plaque or a big check. That’s the payoff, so to speak. It’s that grind when you’re sitting on the park bench in Santa Monica, calling overseas, hoping people answer the phone and be receptive to what it is that you’re pitching.

It's the grind that makes us great. It's not the moment. The moment is when we shine, and everybody applauds. Click To Tweet

That’s what grew you into Simon Chan, author, speaker, great dad and husband. That was what made you, you. Talk about that a little bit because that’s where people get bogged down in network marketing. That’s where they have a challenge. We talk about the legends in our industry and there’s a lot of them. There are a lot of people who have been super successful, as we both know, but there are a lot more people who failed.

That differential between the guy or the gal or the couple that makes it, we know their name if I say certain names, you go, “I know them from this company or that company,” versus the person who was so close, but they gave up. How do they not give up when they’re on that park bench, having all that self-doubt and saying to themselves, “Why in the world? I could just go get a job. Somebody will pay me to show up and do something,” but they stick it out. They become that legendary distributor. What’s that difference? How do you teach that difference? How do they see that difference in themselves?

I want to add one thing. First of all, getting back to the 10,000 hours, this will put it in a better perspective. If you work the business 8 hours a day and do it for 52 weeks, no vacations, you do 40-hour weeks in the business, which most people are not because you’re part-time, which gives you only 2,000 hours a year. You’re working 40 hours and you’re going to do that for 5 years to hit that 10,000.

In that book, they talked about someone in piano. If you do 1,000, you’re decent in piano. If you practice 1 hour day and for 2,000 hours and 2,000 days, you’re decent in piano. If you practice piano 8 hours a day for 52 straight weeks, you’re good enough to be a piano teacher and teach a little kid. If you want to be the link, a minimum of 10,000 hours. When I was a kid, I hated piano, but my parents forced it on me.

I remember my piano teacher. We had to start with like a normal piano teacher, which is like the 2,000 hours piano teacher for kids. When I got good enough, my parents were like, “You got to get a better teacher.” I remember this guy who’s an immigrant from China, came over. He studied at Juilliard. He practiced ten hours a day and I’m like, “What the heck? Do you practice ten hours a day?” “I’m in school the whole time and I still practice. The only time I’m not practicing is eating and I come down for lessons with you.”

By the way, he’s practicing ten hours a day. He was traveling and doing concerts. People pay to hear him play. At so the network marketing, think about this. I know you exceeded your 10,000. You’re probably about 100,000 hours and I exceeded that, but if you say you want to be the best, you got to put in the time. It’s consistent time. Getting back to your question, why do most people fail? Why can’t they even do the 10,000 hours or 100 hours? It all goes back to success. Ninety-five percent of success is your mindset.

Most people get it wrong. They think they need skills and then they’ll be successful. If you have skills but the wrong mindset, you are never going to be successful. If you have the right mindset but no skills like me and a lot of other people, you will be successful. The mindset is how you see yourself. When I first started, it took me a long time to get it. I didn’t see why you have to talk about mindset training. If you ask most people, “What type of training you need,” what would they say? They’ll say, “I need to know how to sell the product. I need to be a better presenter, communicator and better at social media.”

They will never say, “I need a better attitude and mindset.” The people who’d say they don’t need it are the ones that need it the most, ironically. They would say, “I need skills. I need to learn to sell the product. I need another product.” No, you don’t. You need a better mindset because if you have the right mindset, everything falls into place.

I’ll give an example. The mindset I’m talking about is you got to believe and have 100% certainty that you’re destined for success. You are that leader already. My mentor, Robert Allen, said, “You got to be before you become.” Robert Allen, bestselling author and well-renowned speaker. I didn’t understand that. How can you be a leader before you become a leader? That’s not nonsense. He said, “You’re not lying. Fake it until you make it. You got to start acting like the leader.”

 

Going back Shohei Ohtani. When he first started in MLB, he didn’t say, “I’m going to see if I can fit in. I’m the big dog. I want to crush it. I want to make it happen. I want to be the first two-way player since Babe Ruth.” He doesn’t say, “I’m going to hope to see if I can do this or let me test things out in the minors a little bit and if I do well, then I’d give it a try.” He’s like, “I’m a two-way player.” I’m a Yankee fan. I’m sorry, I know you’re a Red Sox fan.

No, I’m a lifelong Yankee fan. I grew up in New Jersey. I lost a bet to a Red Sox fan who works for our company. That’s what you’re thinking. We were on an incentive trip and I had to wear a Red Sox hat. That was like in the old days when they used to make hats for people. They put lead on the people’s heads and people went crazy. My wife kept saying to me, “You want to take that hat off.” “I know, but I made a deal and I lost.” I’ve been mad at the Steinberg family because I had to wear that hat. Anyway, I need to clear that up because that’s sacrilege.

I got so excited that I finally found on eBay a Yankees road of Ichiro because he was in the Yankees for a few years. I have a home Yankees of Ichiro and a road one of Ichiro. They were not easy to find. It took me a few years to pop up on eBay. Getting back to the Steinberg family, a group of my friends with whom I grew up, all Yankee fans, we’re very angry at Cashman Steinberg because they did not let Ohtani be a dual player. They only wanted him to be a hitter but Ohtani didn’t say, “Let me go and sign up the Yankees. I’m going to be a hitter. I’m going to try out pitching.”

He came out and said, “I’m a pitcher and a hitter in this league. That’s the only way. If you don’t let me do that, I’m not going to sign with your team.” That’s what he did with the Yankees. All my friends were like, “The Yankees are so dumb because they’ll give him a chance. He’ll be a Yankee now instead of the Angels.” That scored certainty. Everyone was successful. They had certainty. Michael Jordan has certainly. Kobe Bryant has certainty. I’m going to be a superstar. Most network marketers don’t have certainty.

They’re like, “I’m going to try it out. I’m going to see.” If I had results, if I was at you, if I made $1,000 a month, it’ll be easy for me to convince people. That’s a lie, because you make $1,000 a month, you’d still be scared because $1,000 a month is nothing. You say, “If I have to make $10,000 a month, it’ll be easy to convince people.” Every leader like me or John when you were starting had no results. Every leader had zero results when they got started, but they know that they’re selling the account, there’s certainty and their confidence. People buy the confidence.

That confidence come from your vision and how you see yourself. You act like a leader. Even leaders will switch companies. When they switch companies, there’s no certainty they will make money. There’s no certainty that the company’s going to last, but they tricked themselves. They have to fake. It’s like Shohei Ohtani. He may have totally failed but he had faith, “I’m going to be the best. I’m going to be the best since Babe Ruth.” The only two-way player in the last 100 years, he had that confidence and faith.

That’s what you need. That’s what the mindset training is. I know it’s difficult. For you, you’re a great wrestler. You say, “If I could do this, I can do that.” When you were born, you didn’t know how to wrestle but you learned. If you learned how to wrestle, you are going to learn how to do network marketing. That was for me. I was a good basketball player, but if I learned to be a basketball player, I can do this.

Some of you maybe didn’t play sports, but you can say, “If I am a good mom, I can do this. If I learned to do my job, I could learn to do this,” because it’s skills. I was able to convince my friend who doesn’t like Japanese food to try to eat raw fish ] sushi, then I can convince someone to do this. You find reasons why you can’t be successful. You can come up with twenty reasons why this is not going to work, but it’s a struggle to come up with even five reasons why this is going to work. You got to lie to yourself.

If you say, “I’m not going to be successful,” is that true? That’s not true. If you say, “These are ten reasons I’m going to be successful,” is that true? That’s also not true, but if you’re going to lie to yourself, you might as well lie thinking positive. People say to me, “You’re so positive. That stuff doesn’t work.” Positively does not guarantee success, but negativity guarantees failure. If you’re going to think, you might as well think positively.

 

The reality is none of us know. Here’s another thing. In every entrepreneur they want to take things to the next level, no one knows what they’re doing. They all have to go outside their comfort zone. Elon Musk, was he doing Twitter? Deep down, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but he’s got to have confidence. Mark Zuckerberg is leading Meta Facebook. He doesn’t know exactly. None of us have a crystal ball, but they have a vision and that confidence.

Even being on this show. Before, I was trying to take a nap, I didn’t know how this is going to work, but I’m going to go out and do it. I didn’t even know what questions you’re going to ask me. You got to have that faith and come up with reasons why you will make it. When you come up with reasons why you will make it and success is your destiny, you will show up. You will stay consistent. If you don’t have that and you say, “I have doubts. I don’t know if this is going to work,” then you start things. If this is not going to work, then why should be going through this process, which is boring? Why should I talk to someone? They’re going to say no anyway. I’m going to fail anyway, then maybe I’m wasting my time. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe I should think of something else.

All the excuses or the reasons why you’re not consistent or not putting that comes back to your vision. How do you see yourself? Be that leader. At midnight, I didn’t want to make those phone calls. I’m tired. I was prospecting the US a lot, then go prospect. I’m like, “I’m a leader. What would a leader do?” I envisioned the top leader at my company, “What will they do? Don’t make that call. Simon, are you the leader? I’m a leader, so I will make that call.”

I don’t want to do that presentation because I’ve never done a sales presentation before. I went out there and did it anyway because what were the leader do? They’ll do that. A takeaway for you all, everyone says copy what leaders do. Don’t just copy what leaders do. More importantly, copy how leaders think. How do they think? When they’re in a situation where they don’t feel like doing something, what’s going on in their mind? Copy those thinking patterns and their mindset.

Don't just copy what leaders do. More importantly, copy how leaders think. Click To Tweet

You said a lot of stuff here. Let me add a couple of things. As you know, my background is all wrestling, Judo, Jujitsu, and Sambo, which is Russian wrestling. My two great senseis passed away a number of years ago. Both of those men taught me so much on the mat, but they taught me how to think off the mat. They prepared me for the other things in my life beyond Judo. I think about tomorrow and it’s something you said struck a nerve.

Sensei Tomoro and I would meet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings in Dallas. I was already an adult. I was in my 30s and I started to play again. I gave up for a number of years when I was running sales for a company in Dallas and got back. We would spend an hour plus two days a week just on where I would put my left hand on the ghee of my opponent for a certain move called a makikomi. If you speak Japanese, you know what a makikomi is. Anyway, most people don’t. It’s basically a shoulder throw.

We would spend that time and be bored and redundant. Boring for him, certainly. Boring for me, but all of a sudden, I had nineteen people in one year that I threw with that technique. It was a differentiation of moving my hand up above the elbow rather than below the elbow so I would get the grip right. What’s the point of that for our readers? How do you apply that to network marketing?

I was weak in that area in terms of where I grip and he corrected it. I love your response to this. What if you’re weak on your product? What if you don’t understand the core product that scientifically validates it and gives you the reason why your customer or new distributor should get on the product and get on auto-ship? What if it’s your week on the compensation plan and you say, “I hate it when somebody says to me, ‘How do I make $1,000 a month part-time?’ I can’t tell them because I don’t study my compensation plan.”

As two examples and there are other things we can be weak on efficient network marketing. To me, those are the two deficiencies I see. I see some people that are great products. They know everything. Our product, for example. Several years of Science and they can tell you where the two key scientists went to high school and that’s great.

Somebody says, “I need to make $1,000 a month because my gas bills and electric bills are up.” Everything else has gone up in the last couple of years financially. How do I need to make $1,000? They can’t answer that. They danced around it, or vice versa. They can show compensation models, fill your blue in the face, but they say, “What about the product? Don’t worry about the product.” The person says, “I got a problem with that because that’s an Integrity issue, especially with nutritional supplements. Most of us sell in this industry some form of.”

I’m putting it in my body, my family and my friends to put it in their body. You need to know about the product. How do you address that? They identify where they’re deficient and they get that consistency that we’ve talked about already, so that they learn where they’re weak so they can become strong.

That’s a big problem. There are two types of personal development. There’s so much great training out there now, such as this show. There’s on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. There are two types of personal development. It’s just in time. I need to go through that now and the other one is like, “That’s awesome, but let me save that for later.” I’ll give an example. If you are weak in product training, if you see training about products that’s just in time, “I need that now. I need to go deep in that,” but you just said you’re weak in product training. You need to work on getting more customers.

You see this other thing about using AI to generate content. That’s great training but let’s say for later training because we have limited time. I made this mistake all the time. I learned it later on. How I got good at prospect, even if I was bad, was the focus, but then I lost focus. A few years, I got back into focus. When I first started, I sucked at selling. Let’s not joke around. You have to sell. You have to sell yourself, the product and the business.

I never learned anything about selling. What I did was when I started to invest in myself. By the way, the first thing I ever invested myself in was Zig Ziglar’s Selling One-on-One and it wasn’t because it’s the best book. It was because it’s the cheapest book. At that time, I would spend $15 or $30 on drinks at a bar or lounge and $100 going out, but I couldn’t spend more than $15 on a book. That was my mindset back then, but that book was like $8.97. It was the cheapest book. I realized that I wanted to get good at something. You got to go intense focus. I love the story about your Sensei. You spend an hour on that throw and on that finger. Most people do everything.

They would be like, “What’s your position? How do you do the toss? How do you work out your legs?” You don’t get good at that. You get good at that intense focus. I think back to basketball. I became a decent basketball player was because I had broken my wrist and a foot that summer. I love basketball. I’ve broken my right wrist. All I do is work on my left hand because I still want to play. I play with one hand and catch it with my left hand. By doing that, I got good on the left hand.

Back then, one-on-one, I’m a righty. I shoot right, but I always love to drive left because I have a good left hand. I also messed up my ankle, so I couldn’t jump off my left. I’ll jump off my right and that makes you go drive left. Most players would just play. They don’t pick up or not good. They don’t realize, “You’re a righty, let them go left.” I was like, “Thank you. Let me go left. I should go left better than going right.”

I was intensely focused on my left hand. Most people don’t have that intense focus. It’s like you need product knowledge and I’ll go. I attend a product training then you’re learning about different things. No, go and listen to every training out there, get a book on how to sell products and get good at it. Go read the scientific study. I’ll share two examples. When I first got started, I suck at selling. After that, I got the Zig Ziglar book, my mindset slowly changed because I started applying it. I’m getting results. I became addicted.

I went to Amazon, but every single book on sales and someone had nothing to do with network marketing, Tom Hopkins’ How to Master the Art of Selling Real Estate, Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale. I put every single book on sale and I read them. I got good at it. I didn’t learn about all the stuff. I just got good. Later on, it was about the online market. I focused on that one at a time. I’ve always been good at leading with the business, but I wasn’t good with the products.

How come I can’t get a customer? My product knowledge sucked. It was terrible. I focused and got good. I read these boring scientific books about cells and why. Once I started doing that, I gave months of studying about products. I got good at selling products. It goes back to that intense focus. The second broad goes deep.

Speaking of training, my son takes lessons. How I can tell whether coach is good is how intense are they. Do they cover everything or do they focus on one thing? My son is pretty fast, but we’re working on even getting faster. This guy recommended this guy. I chase down. His brother is the capture on the Braves. His older brother has played in MLB for six years and is now just speed training. This is why I knew he was good. He stood an hour lesson. He spent 50 minutes on the first three steps and you take launching off the base and getting out of box. Maybe the first five steps.

It is not like, “Go run. Do your arms.” Maybe in the last ten minutes, you talk about arm swing, but the first 45 to 50 minutes were on the first 3 to 5 steps on how to push off. This guy is good. Going back to how you apply that. Find out your weakness and go deep in that area. Don’t go, “I got the train.” Deep means you may have to spend the next 3 to 6 months. All your personal development is focused on that weakness and then you’re going to get good at it.

You mentioned Tom Hopkins. I met Tom years ago. I was a kid. I was in my early twenties. He did a seminar in New Jersey and I went to it. As you say about the money, like $8.97 for the Zig book. It was the same thing. I had a limit on what I would spend and I don’t remember what it was. It was probably $50 bucks back then. I remember, “I could afford that.” This guy’s a legend in real estate sales and I figured I can learn something from.

I was doing network marketing, but I was also doing insurance at the time. I went to see him and ironically, he came walking down the hall. I said, “Mr. Hopkins, it’s an honor to meet you.” This is pre-cell phone day, so I didn’t get a picture, but I’ll never forget what Tom told me. He took out his business card. He flipped it over and wrote on the back, “Do what you fear most.”

What you just said there, not only mentioning Tom, some of us think, “I’m good with compensation. I can teach compensation until the cows come home.” What if the person sitting in front of you has a health issue and they need your product that’s why they’re in front of you? That’s why their receptors are in their ears. That’s what they’re listening for. How is the product going to help me lose weight, gain energy or build my immune system?

Conversely, especially now because of the circumstances we’re living. It will lead to my next question here. The person sitting there saying, “When I look at all of my bills across the board that come in on a monthly basis, with the inflation that’s taken place. I’m probably paying about $1,000 more a month to live than I was.” When you look at the staples, groceries, gasoline and utilities, they say, “How do I make up that difference? I’ve already got a job. They’re not going to give me another $1,000 a month to teach school, drive a truck or be a plumber. They’re not going to give me that at my 40-hour week thing.”

This part-time side hustle, this part-time gig that I have, I need to figure out how to make $1,000 a month. You better understand the compensation plan because they’re going to ask you for their marching orders when that meeting is done. What do I do? How many customers do I need? How many people do I need to get into the business? Give me a model to work off.

With that said, let me ask you this question. As you get to your end, I’d love you to talk about how you plan the future in terms of your business life. How do you plan and create goals for yourself, your team and the people assisting you with all your speaking and everything else that you’re doing? How do you prepare? Conversely, how should our readers prepare for the next year?

Before we think about the next year, you got to finish this year on a great note. Know that the last month of the business is a great time to build your business. I’ll share something I did all the time. You have Black Friday sales and the big buying products as gifts that you should all know. You know that already. Your leaves are telling you that already, but also know that people are in the buying mood. If you are used to buying, then you spend a lot of money on the credit card and go spend a little bit more.

 

January is often a lot harder because, in January, they’re paying for the credit card bills. If they’re in the buying mood, it’s easy to get people to buy a little bit more. It’s almost acceptable. They’re spending money in November and December. Make sure you push for those customer sales. Number two is think like an entrepreneur. For consumers, they think, “We’re buyng gifts and in a holiday mood.” The last quarter is the most important quarter of the year. That’s the holiday sales.

Think like an entrepreneur. Don’t think of, “Holidays and parties.” You’re thinking like a consumer. You think like the masses. You’re not thinking like an entrepreneur. For an entrepreneur, those are the most critical months of the year, so go and work hard. Double down your time and focus on your business. The last thing is, for many countries, America is one of them. Your investment to the business can be a tax write-off.

I used to say, if the prospect is interested but if they go, “I need to think about it, but let me wait to January.” If you wait until January, the person’s ever going to join. We all know everyone has the money, but the perception of the money is always going to be spent on holiday shopping. You have no money to join in January. You have to create that urgency to sign them up. You say, “Would you like the tax written off?” You know your initial investment. If you are a prospect, your initial investment is tax-deductible. Would you like to get a tax rebate in 3 months or would you rather wait for 15 months?

You will probably say three months. Even though you may be busy with the holidays, get started now. Get started in December because then you can claim this for this year. If you get started in January, then this is still write-off, but it doesn’t care for this year. It counts for next year and you won’t get that rebate back until then. Can I get your starter now to save you some money? I use that all the time and I’ve got a lot of people on the fence who were interested but were distracted because of holidays.

That is something you can use. I’m not your Tax Advisor, but that’s something I used to close sales. Now, how to plan for 2024, first of all, you can’t plan until you take a recap of 2023. Think about what are some of the wins you’ve had. What are ten wins you’ve had and things you did well? What are 10 or 20 things you need movements on? When you do that, then you can have a better idea how much you’ve grown and also what areas you need to get better in.

All your dreams and goals are outside your comfort zone. When you think about what you need to better at, you need to do things they probably don’t like to do and you know you should do but you’re not doing it. If you read, you already know what you need to do, but you’re not doing it. You’re reading this for inspiration, nuggets or a-ha moments. You apply this a-ha moment to your business, but you got to think about what things you need to get better, then you can plan ahead.

We all like to set income goals. Before you set the income goal, create an activity and work backwards. Going back to know your composition plan. If you say, “I want to make $50,000.” This is a common one. The person’s earnings zero, “I want to turn $10,000 a month in six months.” The person has no idea what you need to do. What’s the sales volume to earn $10,000 a month? By the end of the year, what’s the sales volume?

For that sales volume, how many is normally coming from customers and new distributors? You probably have no clue about that question and every company is different. I wouldn’t know for your company. Go ask your top leaders who are earning $10,000 a month. If you’re earning $10,000 a month, you may have to sell $100,000 or $50,000 worth of products. How many of this is coming from customers and signups? Maybe of $10,000, I have 100 customers a month and the other 50 are coming from new signups. Every month, to make a $10,000 month, you got 100 customers and 50 new signups in your team.

Now you have a goal, “I’m going to get 100 customers and 500 something out.” You yourself to say you’re new. You’re not going to get a hundred because we have limited time. You’re going to have time to sign up 100 people and get 50 customers. Those people who are earning $10,000, how too big is the team? Every company’s different. You have 300 people. You have 50 distributors. You have 100. You take an average and maybe the average person is they have 100 active downlines building and then you can work backwards.

If I get 100 active downlines and rundown now zero. I need to add a hundred people next year by December. That’s even factor attrition. They’ve decided to go, “If I sign up ten people a month, then that’ll be 120 and 20 will quit, but at the end of the year, I will have a team of 100.” If I set up ten people a month, how many presentations do you need to do to get that? You may have to do a hundred presentations a month.

After 100 presentations, how many people do you talk to get a hundred people a month? A lot of people may not even be interested. You may have to talk to 1 out of 10 because 9 would say no and 1 will be interested. You have to reach out to 1,000 people a month to get 100 presentations and get 10 sign ups. You work that. “That’s incredible. I can’t do that.” If you can’t do that, then that goes as unrealistic. You can reach that goal in 2 years or 3 years. You work the numbers backwards.

Most people set a goal out of emotion and inspiration, but they have no clue what they have to do. Work on baby steps. How about just reach out to 20 people this week and get 10 presentations or reach out to 100 people this week and get 5? Work the numbers back and what’s doable for you. You say, “By the end of the year, I’m going to hit this.” Set activity goes. Not just results goals. Most people set a result goal but have no clue what activity is. When they’re not getting results, they say, “This business doesn’t work.” It does work. You just didn’t know what you needed to do. Be clear on your act, goal, and specific activities you need.

Most people set a goal just out of emotion and inspiration, but they have no clue what they actually have to do. Click To Tweet

It’s amazing that you say that because years ago, my segue out a multi-level part times in the insurance business was 1985, 1986 and 1987. I went back and, in my first year in Sunlife Insurance, I made over $100,000, which was remarkable in 1987. In 1985 or 1986, that was a huge number even in that business. I went back and we’ve been going through boxes in the garage of stuff. Some stuff I’ve been posting on Facebook that you might have seen. A lot of stuff we’re throwing out, but I found my old day timer.

The old days. Before phones, folks, we had these things called daytimers. We had to write down an appointment, Simon at 1:00 and this person at 2:00. Long story short, I went back and looked at how many appointments I had per day to make that money. Over a 12-month period, I averaged 3 live appointments a day and it generated that much income. The results of anything, network marketing wise or any other business, is to your point, activity. Simon, I know you’re up against another appointment. Let me just do some rapid-fire stuff.

I want to have one more thing. You can tell how successful a person is by looking at the calendar. Even if I didn’t know you were successful. Let me look at your day timer and you’re filled with meetings. This guy, John, probably did pretty well. If I don’t know you and I look at your calendar. What do you have tomorrow? What do you have on Friday? Blank. You are probably struggling in the business.

I get to distributors all the time in my own company and others tell me, “What you got tomorrow?” “Nothing.” “How can you run nothing? How can you build a business with nothing? You have nobody to talk to? There’s your next-door neighbor on your product.” Anyway, let me ask you a couple of rapid-fire questions. What was the number one thing Robert Allen taught you?

There are different types of resources. When I was younger, money is a resource. He says, “Your time is a resource. Also, your network and contacts are resources.” If you have no money but you have a good network, you can find ways to make things happen. If you have no network but you have money, you can go join country clubs and build a network. We’ll go find places. If you have no time and have money, you can buy get people to do things for you. Those are the three things for me. That’s the most important thing. I never sought time and my network as a resource.

Is there anything you want to share on MLM Nation?

Go to MLMNation.com or whatever podcast player. Also, we’re on YouTube. Follow us. Search MLM Nation and you’ll see us.

Where do they get Consistency Pill book?

Amazon. You can go to ConsistencyPill.com, which will be going to Amazon. You’ll see it.

Who’s going to win the World Series?

We know the Yankees aren’t going to be there, unfortunately.

I predict the Yankees will finish above 500.

Somehow, I don’t believe the Dodgers will because they always seem to choke. The Braves will win.

I can go for that. I can see that. I’d love to see it be a dark horse. I’d love to see the Cubs or somebody up in there. I’ve been following the Rangers a little bit. It’s an exciting young club, but without Serge, they are going to have a hard time. Anyway, who knows about that? The last thing, Simon, tell these people how to get to work and make a difference not only in their lives but to see the big picture on how they can impact other people’s lives. What’s your number one piece of advice for them?

I say, where do you see yourself in the future? What type of a leader are you? Who are the people you’ve impacted? How much money do you make? Close your eyes and see that. What type of house are you living in? What type of family life do you have? What type of cause you’re driving? Who are you? What type of person are you? Are you afraid of things or you’re bored or you get outside your comfort zone? Where would you like your future self to be? Once you’re clear on that, you write it down, start acting like the future self. You’ll be amazed at what happens.

Simon, I want to thank you as always. Fit me into your schedule. I know your schedule is intense between your business, baseball and the family.

It’s an honor to be here. Thank you, everyone. I look forward on connecting with everyone on social media. Don’t forget, we’re in the profession world to help others. Go out there and have a positive impact on someone’s life. God bless you all.

Thank you.

 

Important Links

• Simon Chan – LinkedIn
• The Consistency Pill
• The Compound Effect
• Talent is Overrated
• The Tipping Point
• Selling One-on-One
• How to Master the Art of Selling Real Estate
• Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale
• MLMNation.com
• YouTube – MLM Nation