Leave Nothing To Chance

 

Loyalty and longevity in one single company is an uncommon thing today, with many choosing the allure or the quick fix. So what are the secrets and reward of staying with one company? John Solleder breaks things down with help from Joe Garcia and Keith Hooper, both veterans of over two decades in their respective fields. Joe and Keith share their experiences, what made them stay the course, and they give insights on planning for the future. Full of great lessons, this episode is not to be missed.

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Joe Garcia And Keith Hooper Show The Secrets Of Longevity With One Company

It is my privilege to introduce two long-term super success stories in network marketing and illustrate people that are in one company for a long time. From time to time we have people here leaving companies. They turn from company A and then go to company B. That happens, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of us that have built careers with one company. You may not know our names because we built careers with one company.

I will illustrate that this way. I was recognized many years ago by Success Magazine’s owner Stuart Johnson. He had an event here in Dallas. I and some of my colleagues were invited to that. I will never forget that at the introduction, I was standing with Jeff Roberti, an industry icon and one of the most successful people in our industry. We’re having a drink and catching up. A bunch of guys came in together. You could tell that they were together. They were from the same company. I said to Jeff, “Who are those guys?” He said, “I don’t know.”

About five minutes later, John Addison came in. I did know him. He was the then CEO of that particular company that those distributors belong to. I said to John, “Do you know who those guys are?” He said, “They are with me. They have been A.L. Williams or Primerica distributors.” They have been there for 25, 30 to 35 years. It illustrated the fact that none of us knew them because they had never left. They were in a company that had established itself well in the marketplace and they were able to achieve with it on a consistent basis, therefore, they chose to stay.

That is not the only company like that. There are a lot of great companies in our industry. I want to introduce two gentlemen that have stayed the course and led in their particular companies for many years. Keith Hooper, we never mention company names, but in the company you are with, you are celebrating your 25th year in 2022. Joe Garcia, you are celebrating your 21st year. That is 46 years. In the company that I am with, I’m going on 25 also.

That is 67 years between three people. We were going to have a third guest. Unfortunately, Arlene Lowy had a little health challenge. She has been with her company for 27 years. You start adding it up and realizing that these are careers that the three of us and others in our industry have built. Joe, let’s start with you. Why have you stayed with the company that you are with? What did they do right where you said, “Even during some challenging times, I’m planting my flag and I’m staying with you.”

I look back at my history. That is a question that I have never been asked. I got started in the industry in ’93. Back then, I didn’t even know what a great compensation plan was or what a great company would be. It lasted three years and the company went bankrupt. I didn’t leave it, the company left me. After a couple of months of looking for a new home, I started with a small little company out of Longmont, Colorado in the fall of ’96.

Three years into it, I kept on telling the company’s management team, “We’ve got to go global. This internet thing is going to change the world. If you are not doing business globally, you are going to miss out on the greatest wealth curve or paradigm shift that this industry has ever seen.” In 2000, the company had a revolutionary online back office system that we all have now.

Back then, it was revolutionary. Instead of doing it under that company’s brand, they decided to start a brand new company. If you look back at my whole history, I have never left the company. We launched a brand new sister company and kept the company separate because that was my vision of going global. I bought into that vision and launched with the new brand.

I’m very loyal when it comes to my business relationships. One of my top five values in life is showing loyalty and committing to the end. I would joke around for years that if I was on the Titanic, I would say, “John, stay with me. We are not drowning. Everything is going to be okay.” It is because of my positive mindset and focus. When I make a commitment, it is for life. That is how I have always been.

That has rewarded you. We have interviewed each other before. I know the success that you have had and the tremendous success that you continue to have around the world because you stayed the course. People and you two will laugh at this. I have shared it with both of you before. It is like Round 14 of Rocky I. If you think about that scene, just to refresh everybody’s memory, that is the scene where Balboa is getting the you-know-what knocked out of him. That was the third time he is on the canvas.

Burgess Meredith is his manager. He looks at him and says, “Stay down.” What does he do? He gets up. Even Apollo is looking across the ring at him like, “You are insane.” That is sometimes what we go through in building a company. It is not easy. Joe has lived it. Keith, you have lived it too. What has kept you around for 25 years? I know your history because I have shared some of it with you. There are the ups and downs, changes, companies sold, CEO of the month, and everything else. What kept you focused on sticking around as long as you have?

Joe talked about that very succinctly to the point that you make a decision. If somebody is looking for the perfect company, let me know if you find one because I don’t know of any. I have seen about 2,500 companies come and go every single year. There is no perfect company out there. When you are looking at the business, it is my business. The company’s job is to make sure the product is shipped on time, and it is what they say it is, and to pay. If it can accomplish those two things, then everything else can be fixed. It is going to be fixed. You may run into rough times.

My background is that of a good old farm boy. Why is somebody called a farmer? Because they are outstanding in their field. We are going to do that and you are going to do that in the business. Most people quit just shy of success. They quit before success arrived and before they were going to hear the interview that you and Joe did, that gave them that little insight or that clicked and caused them to take off with our company. What do they do? They go off and sign up with another company.

If you're not doing business globally, you're going to miss out on the greatest wealth curve or paradigm shift that this industry has ever seen. Click To Tweet

They had maybe 20 people or 1,000 people in the organization. When they moved, they ended up with 3 or 4. All the good people either stayed where they were or said, “I’m not doing this anymore.” You got to remember, when we ask somebody to join us in network marketing, we are asking them for the two most valuable things they have. It is their time and credibility. When somebody says, “You have to do your diligence. I don’t know much about this company,” that tells me that I don’t want to know anything about it either.

The point is we ask people for the two most valuable things they have. It is their time and credibility. The other part of this that is so important is not everybody is looking for a full-time income. There are other things that motivate them. John, you are familiar with my background. I’m a third-generation farmer. My son is a fourth-generation farmer, banker, and cattle dealer. My grandson is involved in our business. We’ve got that and a couple of other businesses as well.

Network marketing is not my full-time income but it is one of my other incomes and businesses. It is a business, not a hobby. Too often, people join network marketing and go, “I’m going to do this part-time,” but what they meant to say is, “I’m going to do it no time,” and then they can’t figure out why they’re not successful. Part of what causes those 25 years is every single week and month, year in and year out, I do the same things over and over again. That has rewarded me quite handsomely financially. It is one of my businesses.

Both of you gentlemen are with great companies that have stayed the course and gone through their baptismal fires as companies, and yet you stayed. Now you are both being rewarded, not only financially but also seeing people in your organizations achieve greatness around the world. Let me ask you both this. What is the secret to picking the right company? Both of you gentlemen represented great companies, but there are other great companies.

When somebody says, “I’m considering network marketing and I’m in a company.” It is one of these things that aren’t going to go the course, but they have already figured that out. What is the secret when they look again and say, “I’m making a business decision here. I want to be like Joe with 21 years in his company. I wanted to be like Keith with 25 years in his company. I want to be like others in the industry that have a career where they are not switching companies every year, calling the same people and telling them the same story again about the Chinese billionaire that is going to build a company and give away money, or some other nonsense that we have all heard.” How do they make that business decision conscientiously for their family to build that financial fortress around themselves and their loved ones? You could only do that if you are in a sustainable company. How do you look and what are the particulars, Joe?

When I got started in the industry, I was thinking about my 28 years. One thing that I was very clear on is I was in love with my dream. Most people need to understand that the secret to life is understanding what you want in life, and you need to fall in love with it. I always tell people, “When you fall in love with it, the universe must make it happen for you.” I don’t know if you remember when you first fell in love with your beautiful Canadian wife, John. She was moving your mind 24/7. You didn’t have to think about, “Set an alarm at 1:00. I got to think about her now.”

She was playing always in the movie in your mind. With me, I had fallen in love with my dream before I knew about network marketing. If I look back on my 28 years, every single step that has happened to me was determined by the universe because I was in love with my dream. Every single decision moved me in the right direction. What happens with most people is they get involved in a business and their vision is not clear in terms of what they want in life.

When you are building a business that way, you are playing Russian roulette. You are not involving the universal principle that what you focus on is what you attract in life. It is the most powerful principle there is. Falling in love with your dream, being very clear of where you want to go in life and what you want to achieve, and falling in love with that process and destination guarantee that the universe would lead you in the right direction 100% of the time, provided you are listening too.

 

I look back at all the incredible defining moments that have happened to me in my business. It was like I was guided and I was because I was in love with my dream. We have all come across people that have joined network marketing. Their sister, brother, family member or friend involved them. They get in and start to see a little bit of success. That process happens all the time in our industry. What I always want people to get to and understand is for life to work for you in all areas of life, you need to have a destination or you are going to be living your life like default. Random and crazy things will continue to happen to you because you are not telling the universe exactly what you want.

How many countries in the world are you represented in?

It is 60-plus countries.

Because you lived and were focused on your dream, and you picked a good company that stayed the course as a company, you have impacted people’s lives in 60-plus other countries. That is huge.

I will go back to 1998, which was another great defining moment for me in terms of longevity. This is previous to the sister company. In ’98, the company was going through some major financial challenges due to poor management decisions. I went on a conference call. We hired a new president. He went on to share this incredible vision that he had. All the major 6- and 7-figure earners in that company were on there. About 30 minutes into the call, I thought to myself, “Am I in the right company here? Am I in the same company as these people?”

All they did was complain. They didn’t let the gentleman talk. They complained about how we were behind in commissions and the back orders that were happening. I thought to myself afterward, “What was the difference between myself and everyone in that call?” Twenty-one years later, every single one of those people that were on that call is no longer in the industry, except for me and my business partner, Dan. Think about that.

I can guarantee that almost all of them did not have a new dream. They had achieved their dream but they didn’t have their new dream. They let their minds get into a space, because that is what happens. When you don’t have a dream or a destination, the weeds will take control as Jim Rohn says. It is guaranteed 100%. You start to see things differently that will hurt you. When you have a vision, you are now empowering yourself to be aligned with what the universe has given you.

Keith, what are your thoughts on picking the right company?

To what Joe was sharing about having the dream, you have to have what it is. Big dreams have magic. Little dreams have no magic. We have all heard it. People think it is cliché. It isn’t. It is true. People say, “What do you want?” After you have been doing something for a long time, what you want gets to be pretty mundane to the point. What I want is simply more. Whatever it is, I want more. People say, “What is it financially? You have got a financial goal.” It is more and a number of things.

When you have a vision, you're empowering yourself to be aligned with what the universe has given you. Click To Tweet

Sandra, my wife, and I have gone out to dinner in some very nice places in San Francisco. If you go to The French Laundry in Napa, you better have $2,000 with you for dinner. That is for two. When you talk about what you want, you want more. Most people get into network marketing. They don’t have a goal and a plan. They want somebody to hold their hand. They are looking for somebody to become a leader, “Who’s the leader that I’m going to follow?” How about you become that leader? How about listening to the podcast? How about listening to what Joe has to say or to other people? How about reading some books and investing in yourself?

Become the leader you are looking to find to lead you and develop those dreams. What are those dreams? Make sure they are visual. No one can describe to me $1 million. You can’t describe it but you can describe what $1 million will buy. If you live where I live in California, it is not much. If you are going down to where I’m building our house in Idaho, it is a little more but not a lot more. You look at that. Once again, visualize those dreams, have those dreams and understand what you can do.

Here is the point. If you can’t walk out of the grocery store where the Girl Scouts are selling cookies or the kids are there selling candies for church, and you can’t walk over and have a little fun with those kids, have them give you the sales pitch on why you want to buy the candy and the cookies, make them go through all of that process, then give them the money and walk away and don’t take the candy or cookies because you don’t need them, neither do I, but you go through that process.

If you can’t do that, you need to look at getting involved in network marketing and developing another source of income. You need to be able to look at what you are dreaming about. You see people walk up and the kids are selling the Girl Scout cookies. They are concerned about the price of the Girl Scout cookies. They are not concerned about the dream of what they are able to do and make life better. Joe talked about it with the dreams. Develop the dream, spend some time in your dream, and live within your dream. Joe talked about it very clearly. Live within that dream and then it becomes a reality.

With dreaming, goal-oriented people or this topic in general, it is important for people to understand why you need to do this. I was sharing a story with a team overseas because they had a question. They are like, “Why do I need to dream?” I responded not because everyone else is doing it or it is the secret to success. I shared with them what the science behind it is all about. If we look at how the universe works, everything that we see with our eyes like our cars, our houses, the internet, the platform Zoom, all started with a thought. That’s quantum science in the last several years

If you go all the way back to Jesus Christ and all the great teachers that we have had on this Earth and pick up any self-help book out there, what is the premise of every self-help book? Thoughts become things. What we focus on is what we attract in life. Most people understand that but at a core center, they don’t believe it because they don’t understand it fully and how the science works or whatever the reason is. When you think a thought now, what happens in that process is we have these quantum byparticles.

Everything that is made in this world is made up of these quantum byparticles or energy pockets. Science has proven that these energy pockets have thinking brains behind them. It is connected to everything that is. When you focus on something that you want, let’s say a 1967 Corvette, you are dying to get one of those cars. You are in love with this dream. Immediately, because of the detail, these quantum byparticles are now listening to what you want.

In a parallel universe, this car starts to form and becomes yours through what we call a gestation period. For example, when a female gets pregnant, nine months later, there is a baby. Gestation periods, when it comes to a dream, vary from person to person and it is all about emotion. When you fall in love with something, that is when these quantum byparticles are listening. They start to form in that parallel universe, which eventually becomes yours through a gestation period and repetition. If you don’t have a specific dream, these quantum byparticles don’t know what that means.

 

For example, financial goals like $1 million, as Keith was sharing. These energy pockets or these quantum byparticles don’t know what this is. They will never be able to form into $1 million because it is very difficult for all of us to visualize money. It is what you are going to do with the money that you have to fall in love with. That is where the magic happens. When you understand that process, then people will understand how things come to us. When we understand how things come to us, then we realize, “I got to get a destination, fall in love with this dream, and find out what I want in life.”

You made a great point there, Joe, and people need to look at this. Oftentimes, when you join network marketing, you start a business. People will say, “All you talk about is money.” I’m not that driven by money. The people you owe it to sure wish you were driven by money because they would like you to pay it to them. When somebody tells me that they are not interested in money, I’m sorry, money makes the world go around.

If you can’t give the money to the charities that you want to give to, you are not impacting this world. You’re not making dreams happen. You are not living your dream and you’re not impacting other people’s dreams because you are not living up to your potential. Joe talks about it. We have God-given talents. Some of you have more talents than I do. Most of you are given other talents.

If you don’t use them, then you are not being responsible. You need to become responsible, read the books, attend the seminars, look at the stuff that is here, sit down, invest in yourself, and become a better person. All this is going to take time. The good news is it will all come to pass. The bad news is it’s going to take some time. It is going to take some work and some things to make that happen.

That doesn’t happen if you don’t know where you are going, you don’t have a destination, and you are not in love with it.

Let me throw something in here. I would love your answer on this. I will tell you a quick story. I was doing some consulting work for a company that was going to be bought by one of my consulting clients. He eventually wound up buying his company. He invited me to the first convention that he was going to in the company. This was in 2004 or 2005. I went out. We got to meet at lunchtime. Tony Robbins had been the last speaker. The owner of the company went off with him. Unfortunately, I didn’t get invited to lunch with Tony but I wish I had.

With all that said, I looked for a place to eat lunch. There were thousands of distributors and I don’t know anybody. The only person I know in the company is the owner. Picture that. I’m like, “He’s not available. I’m going to go sit at a table and eat lunch with whoever.” I sit down at this table. This is where our industry got me. Both of you know I have a financial background in addition to network marketing. This is where I got our business. This is funny. I hope this helps the people who are reading this. I love both of your thoughts on this and the question around it.

Long story short, this couple shared with me that they had been receiving checks from this company since 1959. I was like, “I wasn’t born in 1959.” Joe, you weren’t even thought about it yet. My parents were still talking about maybe having a son. No one even thought about it. Keith, you were about ten years old at that time. We are talking about a long time ago. I left that meeting and had a nice lunch with them. At first, they tried to recruit me the whole time when they realized I wasn’t a distributor at a company. I couldn’t tell them what my role was being there.

You need to read the books, attend the seminars, look at the stuff that's here, sit down and invest in yourself, and become a better person. Click To Tweet

Fast forward, I spent the next week working in that company’s office with some of its executive team. I found that some of the corporate sales leaders were what they called legacy distributors’ kids or grandkids. Mom, dad, grandma or grandpa, having an older company, has started the distributorship and passed away or retired, and the kids now owned it. All of a sudden, there is that generational wealth that we think about in traditional business. Grandpa started the lumberyard in a town you live in. You now own it because grandpa is six feet under. You own it whether you want it or not.

I’m thinking when you do network marketing right in a company, as you two gentlemen did, this business isn’t yours. This business is your family’s. Eventually, your children will inherit your distributorships. Maybe your grandchildren and grandchildren you don’t even know will wind up owning your distributorship, assuming that your companies keep doing the right thing in the marketplace. I’m sure both of your companies will.

Here is my question. People hear all sorts of messaging in network marketing. Some people say, “Don’t go with an older company because they are all dinosaurs. Go with the new company.” There are a lot of problems with new companies. Most of them don’t last statistically for a lot of reasons. Once in a while, they do and you might hit a home run. If you want to take that chance once you start getting into your late 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, take that chance but the company may not last. You might do everything right as a distributor but the company doesn’t last. Therefore, your efforts will not.

How does somebody develop the right philosophy? They have joined a company or they are in a company. How do they establish that philosophy where they start to see this as a generational business where it becomes the family business? I would love for one of you to comment on your thoughts on that. Get that thinking right and confront all the issues that they will have in building a business in such a matter where they are thinking not just for now but for that son, daughter or grandkid that is going to eventually own that distributorship down the road. Joe, let’s start with you on that.

As in life, the great part of our business is our people. The worst part is our people also. If you look at the scope of who we attract in network marketing, these are people from all kinds of backgrounds. About 70% are average working human beings. They have a regular job and are doing quite well in most cases. About 70% of the people are in that category. You then got about 10%, 15% to 20% that are in management roles, vice presidents, presidents of companies possibly, upper management and white-collar areas.

They are in that high 5-figure or early 6-figure income bracket. The remaining are entrepreneurs or go-getters, whether it is 5% to 10% of the population. For the average person that we are going to track in this industry, the biggest category is 70% or 75% out there. The majority of them don’t have the training and never have talked about dreams in their life. Probably very few of them are into personal development and personal growth. They worked for a company for 40 to 45 years and retired, which as we know, have gone by the wayside for the most part over the last 10 to 15 years.

That category of people has so many different philosophies. For me, the biggest part is that you need to have a philosophy from the company and the leadership down on commitment, telling the truth, setting up proper expectations, education and personal development. That has to be built into a long-term plan. However, keep in mind that the majority of those people are in it because we have been trained to go to work and get paid right away. It is a complete paradigm shift.

That is why we or any business out there has a very low retention rate because of that philosophy or the way that we have been taught in society on how we make money. Network marketing is against the grain. It is opposite from what the majority of people have been taught on how to make money, support their families, and develop their lifestyle. The philosophy has to come from the leaders down. I had a friend of mine that started a network marketing company a couple of years ago.

 

Like typical startup companies, they attracted lots of quality people but none of those people has any loyalty because they have been involved in 3, 4 or 5 companies. They are serial entrepreneurs and they are looking for cash. Because he wanted a third-party opinion, I went and looked at their leadership. I said, “You have a big problem here. The majority of your leadership has a poor philosophy. You are never going to build a long-term business with these people because of the philosophy and the types of people that it had attracted.”

He understands now what he needs to do regarding moving the company to the next phase, attracting different types of people, and finding loyalty within that core leadership group. If you look at all the billion-dollar legacy companies, history will always tell us the truth in the future. They had loyalty-driven distributors and leaders from the beginning that allowed them to grow past their 5, 10, 15 years where you see the majority of the challenges in those growth periods.

Keith, what are your thoughts on that? What is the philosophy that gets you there?

The philosophy has to pass to live within you, “I’m committed to whatever it is that I’m doing.” A lot of people are looking for this quick fix. They are adrenaline junkies. They want that adrenaline type of thing. How do you overcome that? You overcome that by having those hard conversations with someone. My background is in farming and agriculture. It is a long-term commitment. You don’t think a year out. You don’t even think two years out. You think five years out. You are planning out, “What are we going to be doing with this particular property five years from now?”

We are making a decision based on how that is going to affect us five years from now. When you are looking at this business, the point is you own the business. The business is yours. The company is the supplier of the product. They do the back office stuff, ship products, and do all kinds of other stuff like legal stuff and credit card stuff. They all do that. That is a great thing but you own your business. You have to have that and look at it as, “I’m going to build this business. From there, I can transfer it to my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren because I have built the foundation.”

You can’t build that foundation unless you have laid it out in the beginning. When you go by a city and you see a skyscraper, the person responsible for that skyscraper is the person that had two people, the person that had the dream, and the architect and the engineer that laid out the building plans. Without the dream and the architect and the plans, that building would not exist. Our business is the same way. You have to come back and look at it when you join it, “I’m not joining something for two weeks. I’m not joining to try to do something in network marketing. I’m not going to see if this works.”

That is one of the phrases that drive me nuts like, “I’m going to join. I will see if it works.” It works. The point is you don’t. You have to spend the time to develop that and invest in yourself in that plan like, “What is my business going to look like 5, 10 years or 6 months from now? What am I doing now to make that come into place?” Once again, part of our farming operation was established by my grandfather in the 1920s. It is the generational past that moves forward. As we are looking at this stuff, that long-term path has to be in your mindset.

You want to look for farmers if you want to look for people with long-term planning. The other thing is the number one hobby in America is gardening. Gardeners understand you have to prepare the soil and plant the seed. It takes time for your business and network marketing to develop as it does in everything else. You have got to lay out those plans and have that planning in place. That is why you need great mentors like what you are doing here, John, with the show, and what Joe is doing for his team and people. That is great information. Develop that plan, become the leader you are looking to find, become Bigfoot and continue to build it for the long-term.

What's challenging with people to develop their wealth is they think it takes a lot of it. A little bit of money applied over a long period of time will create that generational wealth that you can pass on. Click To Tweet

In a previous episode, I gave a great analogy or metaphor on the planting of seeds. Randy Gage calls this critical thinking in your episode with him, John. I was in the city of Trujillo, Peru in 2019. The local leaders took me to the lost city of Chan Chan. They found the city buried in 1982. As I was walking through this massive underground city, they were still excavating all the burial grounds in that city. There was nothing left. There was no gold and silver.

One of the questions I kept on asking myself for a number of years from spending time in Latin America is, “Why is Latin America so much different than Canada and the United States when it comes to prosperity, wealth, and abundance for the average person?” There is a significant difference. If you go to the city of Lima, there are several hundred thousand squatters outside the outskirts of Lima that started 30, 40 years ago.

A couple built a home on a piece of land that they didn’t own. Nobody did anything about it, then the second family did it, and the third family did it. Now they have hundreds of thousands of people in this area that has no running water and no electricity. I went into that place to do a presentation. I had no juice left. I did it old-school because there was no electricity. There’s nothing to plug into. That was an incredible experience.

The people that own the home signed up and said, “Joe, I will be right back. I have got some cash.” They went into their bedroom, under their mattress, and took up the cash to enroll that day. I’m thinking to myself, “Why is there so much difference?” If you look at Canada and the United States, it is not logical. Canada and the United States were founded by the same Western European countries as Latin America.

Latin America is primarily Portuguese and Spanish, a little bit of English and French. Canada and the US are a little bit of Spanish, English and French. From Mexico down to the tip of Argentina, there is so much difference in prosperity and abundance, but they have the same resources as we have all had here in North America, Canada and the United States.

I thought to myself as I was going through Chan Chan, “I got it now. I understand.” When the Spaniards went to Peru, they were looking for a home, wealth, and anything that they could take with them. They went into these burial grounds. They knew they could find all these gold, silver, diamonds or whatever they can get. They had sent it all back home or they took it and built the massive Catholic churches down there. Whereas in Canada and the US, the reason why we celebrate Thanksgiving is because our settlers came looking for a home for the most part.

Generations later, you see the results in Canada and the United States. Whereas in Latin America, they are still trying to catch up. The foundation that was built in Latin America will take several more generations to even catch up halfway to where Canada and the US are now. I believe it is because of the foundation that was set up by the settlers. If Canada and the US were built the same way where the English came here, and all they were doing was looking for wealth, and there were no plans for making long-term colonies, we would be in the same situation as Latin America. It is looking for a home.

You see it a lot in network marketing. If you take that parallel, you come into a company and this is what happens with most people. They have intentions where they are going to be here 10 or 15 years from now. I believe a lot of people do. They start making money. They get to $5,000 and $10,000 a month. As you know, in network marketing, that happens. It is $15,000 to $20,000 a month, and they have this explosion. Everything is going well. What happens in the financial area is that people start to spend what they make.

 

They start to lease or buy cars and get into a lifestyle that they can afford at that time. We all know that in business, momentum does not happen 24/7. There are going to be times when there is no momentum. What happens is in those times, we get addicted to momentum because everything is great. People are ranking and checks and commissions are going up. What happens when it goes the other way, which invariably, it always does? Even Apple, Microsoft, and the biggest corporations in the world have gone through it.

When their income starts to go the other way, they now don’t have the income to support the lifestyle. This is what happens with their thinking. Now their goal is not looking at their dream. Their goal is, “I got to sustain this lifestyle. I love this lifestyle too much.” What are they now doing? They are susceptible to other opportunities where they think, “I can do this all over again because this company has a better compensation plan. I’m a professional startup person. I could build it fast.” What happens after 1 or 2 years is that same cycle starts to happen again.

Their first intention was 100% they wanted to be with the company long-term. Because of that situation, looking for a home does not enter their mindset at that time. It is survival because what we don’t want in life is to have that big house, those cars and the ability to travel. When we can’t do that anymore, what does that say to our neighbors and family members? “John is not as successful. I don’t see him traveling anymore. What is going on, John?” The last thing that we want to see as entrepreneurs is our dreams are fading away because of the struggle.

That is the mindset. That is why it is so important to be looking for a home. As the farmer goes, you are going to have that long-term success where your grandfather created that legacy of farming and look at what has happened over the years. You see the same thing in farming where you get a lot of farmers looking for cash, the GMOs, and all of that money that is going there, then it destroys them. Their initial intentions moved them away from that home building to, “How much money can I make now?”

We have seen it with some of our neighbors who are no longer neighbors. They lost their farms, the ranches, and the legacy because of that adrenaline junkie-type of thing and those initial things that were short-term. Short-term will break you in the farming business. Short-term thinking will break you in your network marketing business.

It is an addiction to momentum. We are not bringing up people. Our generation maybe but the generation before were cuddling our kids. A friend of mine’s son reached out to me. He was wanting to quit his job because it was hurting his mindset and mental health because his boss is being hard on them. I told his father, “You got to him them not to quit and fight through that because that is where he’s going to learn. That is how he’s going to build the foundation for himself moving forward.” He knows he has his dad to back him up and fall back on, there is a plan B there, that his dad is always going to look after him. That is the challenge. It is easy to make that decision.

The point is you have to have a plan to succeed. If you don’t have a plan to succeed and you haven’t gotten it laid out, you have a plan for failure. That is the default. In failing to plan for success, you have defaulted to the plan for failure.

Let me do one thing here because I have one other quick question for you and then we will wrap up. Both of you are busy. I appreciate you here. I got to run a commercial. My wife is giving me a hard time. She says, “You never tell anybody about your book.” Let me tell the audience, Moving Up: 2020 is available on Amazon as is Leave Nothing to Chance. The show is called Leaving Nothing To Chance every Tuesday live. You can hear the show on a lot of different podcasts companies. Let me ask this last question on wealth building because you both have become very successful. We don’t use numbers because we don’t like the FTC to read our show, even though they might learn something about the fact that a lot of us do have legitimate businesses in network marketing.

If they were to read it or anybody else for that matter like the young guy that Joe is talking about, for example, or maybe a guy on the other end of the spectrum who is at the end of his career and he is frustrated, he hasn’t quite made it yet, what is the number one thing that you would tell somebody in terms of wealth-building for generational wealth to build in their network marketing business? What is that one thing if there was only one thing that they were going to remember out of this episode? Keith, let’s start with you.

Never invest in assets that deplete over time. Always invested in assets that grow over time. Click To Tweet

Take your network marketing business, develop a secondary stream of income, do not quit your job, and take that secondary stream of income. Pay off your debt and start to invest. It is awfully nice on the first of the month when the rent checks come in from the rental houses. It is awfully nice to be able to do that. Don’t go out and buy a new car, a new house or get a boat. Invest it. Don’t quit your job and shut down your other business. Develop this network marketing business.

The beauty of network marketing that most people overlook is the fact that you can build a substantial income and business on a few hours a week consistently, not a few minutes a week but a few hours a week. Maybe it is 1 or 2 hours a day that you put into it as a business. Take that money and invest it. First of all, pay off your debts and get out of debt. If you are carrying a balance on your credit card, join the network marketing with that dream of getting out of that debt.

Number two, if you got car payments, figure out how you can get out of them and get that car paid off. If you have got a mortgage, get that mortgage paid off. I don’t care what these financial advisors all tell you. This is no financial advice but it is nice when there is no house payment and car payment. The people paying rent are paying it to me. I’m not paying it to somebody else because we were able to take and invest that money. Often what is challenging with people to develop their wealth is they think it takes a lot of it.

A little bit of money applied over a long period of time will create that generational wealth that you can pass on. Maybe you are not going out and buying a $500,000 house to rent it out. Maybe you are picking up a condominium in a bad part of town that you have done a little work on. Now you have got some income coming in. You are able to do that because you have got your network marketing income. Your income comes in when your money is earning you money. That is what you have to do. What does network marketing do?

Oftentimes, they say, “How much does it cost to start this business?” It is next to nothing. I don’t care if you are looking at $5,000 of costs. There were some network marketing things that cost you $5,000 to start. In the reality of business, that is nothing. The part that matters most is, have you made the financial commitment in your mind to succeed? Are you willing to take the time to get good mentorship like from you, John and Joe, and to sit there and develop that plan for success? If you don’t take the time to do that, you are simply planning to fail.

Joe?

I’m going to answer this in a different way through my journey in network marketing. Unlike Keith, since day one, I have been full-time in this industry and I have not done anything else. I have been 100% focused on my journey here in the network marketing industry. I was able to retire with my wife twenty-plus years ago. One of the things that I did is I had a financial plan. When I started making the big money, I didn’t go and spend it. I had a financial plan. My first plan was I needed to pay for my kids’ college education tuition. I started planning for that when they were born.

Number two, my other plan was I was saving at least 10% of my net income after taxes. I would put it into an investment cup. I never touched it. That is the second thing I did. Number three is I got to a lifestyle that I was comfortable with. I never went crazy in buying umpteen cars and invested in assets that depleted over time. I always invested in assets that grew over time. What I did with my money is I started investing in real estate. I have done well in that area. My son is managing a lot of that now.

 

I have taken my residual income and started making a more residual income by adding properties to my portfolio. Even when times became tough or were going to be tough, for example, in my mindset, I thought, “I could always cash out because that was an investment I was making.” One of the challenges that we have in our industry and any industry is when we start to make great money and you get to 6 figures and then 7 figures, how many people do you know that have made seven figures in this industry are now broke?

There are many.

$1 million a year, for most of us, is incredible money. You and I can spend $1 million within five minutes if we want to. This is one of the things that I have taken responsibility for. A number of years ago, one of my leaders was making $80,000 a month at that time. I’m giving a disclaimer here. Not everyone makes $80,000. She put a lot of work into her business. She is a very sharp business lady and she asked me for a $60,000 loan. I thought to myself, “She is making this kind of money and asking me for $60,000.”

I was in a leadership dilemma. She was Asian and I knew that it took a lot of guts on her part to ask me for the money. She would lose some face regarding it. I thought, “If I told her no, she would move on out of spite even at that level.” The other thing is I wanted to help her and understand her finances because I took personal responsibility that I didn’t teach her that part. When I started looking at her finances, she had a 12,000 square foot home. It was just her and her husband.

They had to use cell phones to reach each other in the home. It wasn’t a home. It was a palace. It was incredible. She had an office that I was helping with her that was $25,000 a month. She had 3 or 4 cell phones and cars in her garage that she never used. She had a Lamborghini and a couple of Porsches. Every year, she was losing money on that even if she wasn’t driving. I thought, “No wonder.” I asked her what her financial plan is. She had no idea because she was making all this money. It was easy for her to send it out.

I was able to create a financial plan, have her save 10% of her income, and start building assets instead of spending money on cars. There are people that love to buy cars like Jay Leno. That is his hobby. He loves it. Randy Gage loves cars. That is their passion. For most of us that don’t have that passion, it is a waste of money. It can burden you financially in a number of ways like so many other things. To make a long story short, that is the financial plan that I have that has allowed me to flourish.

When times got a little tough where I had to fight through and checks dropped by 50%, 60% to 70% at times, I wasn’t desperate. I built a lifestyle of recurring income. I’ve built a strategy for me to withstand some of the tougher times when there was no momentum. That always happens to anyone in this industry. You are going to have Dan McCormick on. He is another gentleman that has been in this industry with one company for many years. We have all gone through it. That financial plan helped me sustain my growth, my lifestyle, my future and my kids’ future.

This has been incredible. This is a living history lesson on what to do because you have done it. I was taking some notes on what you were saying. Take an interest in interest. Here is the difference between poor people versus wealthy people in this world. The poor guy doesn’t pay attention to interest. He just keeps paying it. Keith gave a litany there of what to pay off first. It is your credit card. Probably your highest interest payment is your credit card.

If you buy something that is not going to give you joy, it's going to be a burden to you. It's a bad investment. Click To Tweet

Get rid of that first. After that, you look at the car payment. That is the second-highest interest rate. The third thing is your mortgage rate. If you get there, you get rid of the first two. Joe gave some sage advice. Joe and I had lived parallel lifestyles because we did the same thing when the kids were little. We started packing away money down here. They call it the 529(c)s in the States.

We started putting money away. Fred goes to college. He’s got a few scholarships, which is good, but the remainder we are going to have to pay. I’m not going to have to pay for it. I called MetLife and tell the guy, “Here is who to send the money to at Dallas Baptist University.” They send a check and I don’t even touch the money. There is enough there that he can go and get an MBA if he wants to.

The point is this show isn’t about Keith, Joe or me. It is about you. When you read this, we are three normal guys who said, “We found companies we liked. We stayed the course and went through the ups and the downs.” Joe and Keith both mention there are going to be ups and downs. It is not all up. Contrary to what your sponsor or your company owner tells you, it is never going to be all up.

In any business like Microsoft or Apple, there are things that happen. There are ups and downs in different markets sometimes, but you stay the course. You get to have your kid’s education fund paid for. You get to own the real estate that both of these gentlemen have, and have asset protection. If either one of these gentlemen goes home to be with the Lord, their wives and kids are in great shape. That is why we join these businesses.

Let me share one quick story. Years ago, one of my goals was to get a Porsche 911. It is a red one with a convertible. I reached my goal and said, “I’m going to go buy this car and pay cash.” I got all this cash. I took it up to the bank and had to sign why I wanted all this cash. They said, “You can give them cash or a check.” “I want the cash.” It meant a lot to me to pay in cash. I go into the dealership and see the car there. I said, “Can I buy this one?” The salesman says, “Yes. I can order one for you.” “I want to buy the one that you have on display here. I will give you the cash.”

He says, “Sir, this is a $125,000 car.” I said, “I got the cash. I’m going to get my briefcase. It is in my trunk. I will pay for it.” He didn’t believe me at first. I came in and he went to get the manager and the security. He thought I was going to steal something. I told the manager, “I’m going to buy this car. Here is the cash.” You should have seen the look on this salesman. It was like he won the lottery that day. The manager was excited and everything else. I jumped into the car after signing some papers and got on the highway. It was a beautiful day here in the Toronto area. Something came over me at that moment.

I didn’t like myself. I asked myself the question, “Joe, why did you buy this car? Is it something that you will enjoy? Is it a passion of yours? Will it give you joy? Is it because I wanted to show off to my friends, business partners, and families that I had the money and a story that I could tell the rest of my life on why I was so successful?” I didn’t like the answer, so I put it into third gear, went off the highway, and turned it around. I went back to the dealership and broke the salesman’s heart. I said, “I have changed my mind. I’m sorry.” I told him the truth of what had happened.

He had the best day and the worst day of his life. I said, “I don’t want all my money back. Take a couple of thousand.” I told the manager it was my fault. It was a defining moment in my life at that time because when I invest in things in the future, I ask myself this question, “Will it give me joy? Am I buying it for the right reasons?” I’m all for abundance, prosperity, going out, thinking big, buying whatever you want, and getting on that boat, but if you buy something that is not going to give you joy, and it is going to be a burden to you, it is a bad investment. That is what happened to me.

 

It illustrates good financial stewardship with a good long-term company, with a good business plan. You are going to have that Porsche if you wanted it but I get it. I’m the same way. I’m low-key on everything. My son was like, “Dad, what is the first book I need to read?” I said, “It is The Millionaire Next Door.” To that point, somebody with money doesn’t need to tell you they have money. You know they have money when you talk to them because of the acumen that they have in the way that they talk about different things.

When you got started in the industry in the ’80s and the early ’90s, that is what it was all about. It was flash and dash.

It is a perfect illustration. I will mention the company that I was with because it is a very large one and I’m not with it anymore. You are all familiar with it. Herbalife is where I started my career in 1983. Herbalife was doing extremely well when I joined. It had $140 million in the year that I joined. The next year, it went to $512 million but it had some issues with the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and lots of bad press.

Mark Hughes was a talented human being that has ever existed on the planet, but he made some mistakes and took on the wrong people, the Federal government. They crushed him. The cars in the Saddle Brook Marriott Hotel in New Jersey where we used to do our meetings were Porsches, Jags, and all the high-end cars. Within 90 days, those high-end cars were all gone. The distributors were still there and the same people but all of a sudden, there were Volkswagens and civilized cars.

It taught me a lesson because I was very young at that time. I’m just out of college. It taught me a valuable lesson, which was, “Do not wear or drive your wealth.” Impress your accountant every year. Don’t try to impress your next-door neighbor. That Porsche would have impressed some people for about five minutes and they would have said, “Joe has lost his mind. Who spends $125,000 on a car? Why?”

Lots of people do that and all the power to them. With me, it was total ego. It is because of personal development that I recognize that and I didn’t like the answer.

There is nothing wrong with that. If your dream is the car, that is fine. Let’s clarify that. To Joe’s point, he had better uses of it. He had a young family at the time. He had better uses for that money to put it away, build his financial fortress, and accumulate interest than to be driving it. I use one other simple example. I want to thank both these gentlemen for their time. There are watches. I wear my sports watch because it is practical. It tells me my steps and it costs a couple of hundred bucks. Somebody said to me, “Don’t you have a Rolex?” I said, “I had a Rolex that a company had given me as an incentive.”

I left it in a hotel in Chicago. I cried all the way back to New York when I got on the plane and realized I had lost it. I called the hotel but they never found it. I went to the store the next day and bought a Timex. I realized the Timex and the Rolex tell the same time. If I left a Timex in a hotel room, I wasn’t going to give it a second thought. That is how you guide your thinking so that you wind up accumulating from your business the generational wealth that is available that both Keith and Joe have lived and continue to live.

 

John, the Rolex is a great investment, though.

That one was great because it was free. Nonetheless, I lost it. Some lady’s husband in Chicago has a nice Rolex from this thing.

To Joe’s point, the Rolex that my wife bought for me for my birthday in 1985 is worth a lot more money than that it was made for. What was interesting is two weeks before we got married, she said, “This is how this works. I’m quitting my job. My job is to spend it and your job is to make it.” For many years, that has been the way we roll. I make it. She spends it.

Joe, I have to say, being in Keith’s downline, anytime I have been in California, he picks me up and he doesn’t take me to The French Laundry.

I have been there once before. Let’s do it as a threesome in the future.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks, John and Keith.

Thank you both. God bless.

 

Important links

• Keith Hooper
• Joe Garcia
• Jeff Roberti
• John Addison
• YouTube – Episode
• Why Joe Garcia – Previous Episode
• Randy Gage – Previous Episode
• Moving Up: 2020
• Leave Nothing to Chance
• The Millionaire Next Door

 

About Joe Garcia

Joe started his Network Marketing career in 1993, his Global Organization has entered into more than 60 countries and over 2 billion in accumulated sales . His travels has taken him to more than 60+ countries around the world training hundreds of thousands of people. He has a passion in helping people increase their conscious level and help them believe God really does not make junk!