Leave Nothing To Chance

 

No one becomes successful just by themselves. In one way or another, they have walked in the paths paved by those who are now the people they want to become. So what does it take to become one of the greats? If you want to become a millionaire, then this episode is for you. John Solleder sits down with a living legend and an icon in the industry, Larry Thompson, to talk about his career journey and the story that got him to where he is now. He also shares what it was like meeting Mark Hughes and working with him, and seeing the power his methods bring to marketers out there. With him the wisdom from The Millionaire Training, he provides insights into the difference between marketing and networking and how you can bridge the gap and apply it to the ever-changing world of social media. Timeless in its own right, allow Larry to guide you in this conversation about network marketing, propelling you to make better sales and, ultimately, do better business.

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Larry Thompson Millionaire Training

It is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce not only a living legend, we’ve been introducing a lot of legends on this podcast, but somebody who’s an icon in our industry, one of the most impactful people in the history of network marketing. I could go on and on, but I’d rather have you learn from him directly, he’s my good friend and my mentor. Many of you who’ve read my books or heard me speak, I refer to Larry for many years. It’s my honor to introduce my good friend, a living legend, an icon in the industry, Mr. Larry Thompson. Welcome, Larry.

John, I love it, but I’d rather be a living legend than just a legend. At my age, I want to be a living legend.

You certainly are. The first time we met was in Hartford, Connecticut in June 1983. We were young.

We were up in that old mail truck or something. I can’t remember.

We drove in a station wagon, but I was driving a mail truck building my business. We took a station wagon that had a hole in the floor. As we’re driving to Hartford, about four hours from New Jersey, you can see the ground and we’re dropping pennies out of it and all crazy kid stuff. I would probably still do it, by the way. We’re fortunate that cars have gotten a little better through the years. First of all, thank you on behalf of many distributors like myself and others that you’ve trained and impacted, both directly and indirectly. I know you loved what you’ve done. It’s also been a lot of work, a lot of building, self-development on your part. Thank you for doing that.

It’s an honor and a pleasure. It hasn’t been a lot of work for me. I get asked all the time, when am I going to retire? My answer is standard, from what? I love what I do. I love impacting new people. To me, it’s like becoming a Christian. I know the impact that had when I became a believer. I want everybody I possibly can to be able to have that experience. I know what happened to me as a long-haired, hippie construction worker with no education, no self-confidence and no self-esteem. I never finished high school. You know the story, but I was too shy to give that oral book report that was completed. I couldn’t walk across the stage in front of my classmates. The day I turned sixteen, I quit high school to go into work in construction. I wasn’t going to graduate because I didn’t do that book report.

I went right to work with my family. My dad, brothers, cousins and uncles all did construction work and I loved it. It never occurred to me to do something different until I came to that fateful meeting that’s happened to a lot of us and my life changed at that point. You know Bobby Depew. I had the pleasure and you had the honor of meeting Bobby Depew at my ranch. Bobby Depew was the original strategist and tactician of our space. I joined a company called Bestline Products, my first company. The only reason I went to that meeting was that it was in a high-end hotel. I’ve never been to a hotel before.

At that meeting, Bobby was giving it. I can almost bet my life on it. If someone else was conducting that meeting, especially with the nature of network marketing back in the multilevel, pyramiding the environment that was involved in, I’m almost convinced I wouldn’t have done it. Bobby had that way of communicating. He’s the original strategist and tactician. That was a big boost for me. Also, a guest at that same meeting, Jim Rohn, we both joined the same company the same night.

The first training class I ever attended was Jim’s. It wasn’t Bobby’s. He did a training for his organization and he opened it up to everybody else. I wasn’t in his lineage. That was the first training I did in my life and it was life-changing. For things to change, you’ve got to change things to get better. The mental projector, the seven diseases, and all that stuff hit me. I said, “Maybe I can make some changes in my life.” I wasn’t looking for any of it. I was happy, but I saw a bigger picture for Larry Thompson.

That was 1968. I was there when they gave you that.

You’re in my book. You were one of the contributors to the book.

“For things to get better, you have to get better,” those words were the first thing that ever impacted me about this industry that you said in Hartford.

People don't want to take self-responsibility. They want someone else to be the cause of the problem. Click To Tweet

Many years later, we’re still talking the same thing. This profession or this business that we’re in is not that complicated. There are only half a dozen things you’ve got to know. It became complicated because now people are trying to teach people how to become marketers instead of network marketers. I’m going to tell you, the long-haired hippie, you’d lost him, you’d lost a lady truck driver, you’d lost Jeff Roberti, the broke waiter. We would have lost all the contributors to this book. We want fun, simple, magical, and that’s how this industry and profession have been built and will continue to be built.

Let’s talk about the early years a little bit. Let’s talk about Jim Rohn. I know Jim had an impact on your career. I know he had an impact on you personally.

I love Jim because I consider myself a long-haired hippie construction worker with no education or no self-confidence. Jim never talked at all until he said, “I’m just a farm boy from Idaho.” Jim was a farm boy from Idaho. That’s hard for most people to comprehend because he is eloquent. His depth of wisdom and expression is strong. There’s no ego. There’s no arrogance. There’s only real, legitimate passion and concern for conveying a message. Jim became the Vice President of training within 90 days of Bestline products when he and I both joined the same night. I became the number one distributor. By the way, I didn’t know it. They didn’t tell you back then.

Bobby and Jim put their arms around me as this long-haired hippie because the profile of a distributor back then was 40, 45 years of age, three-piece suits, cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking, white shoes, and Cadillac driving. That was a profile that was there and I was this oddity. Bobby and Jim made sure that I stayed on the simple path. They saw something in me. John, I didn’t know this for years. It took me years after that to figure out how to do it. They saw something extra in me. I can see it in people and I know you can too. You can see it in people, that little bit of extra desire, that little bit of extra willingness to work, that little bit of being teachable and taking self-responsibility.

Now people don’t want to take self-responsibility. They want someone else to be the cause of the problem and the solution, “Send me the check.” It was a different world back then. I’ve got to tell you something, they saw that stuff in me. Quite frankly, they figured, “If we can get this long-haired hippie to do this, what a story right up until all these hardcore guys out here drinking whiskey and smoking cigars and live in that world.” That’s what took place. It was directly because of Bobby and Jim. I don’t think anybody has spent more stage time or personal time with Jim than me.

He talks about that in his Snake River household, where he lived with his parents. I’ve been there. I’ve got to tell you, it was true. The bathroom was the size of a big airline bathroom on an airplane. It was funny. His dad looked like a beanpole. He’s about 6’4”, 6’5” and skinny. I never will forget. We went up there. It was out of nowhere, the Snake River there. We went to the general store in the fourth corner with no stop signs out the middle of nowhere. Mr. Rohn was over there and looking around. We’re having a good time. Our wives were there and we’re taking in this environment.

I remember the salesperson saying, “Do you like that?” Mr. Rohn said, “Yes, I do.” He said, “Would you like to buy it?” He said, “No, I don’t think so.” He said, “How come?” He says, “I already got a shirt.” You’ve got to think about that. That’s how Jim Rohn was raised and that’s how I was raised. I got a new pair of shoes, two new pairs of jeans and two shirts at the start of every school year. Monday was washed on Tuesday. Tuesday was washed on Wednesday. I loved it. My life was great. I didn’t know we were from the other side of the tracks. I didn’t know until I got to junior high school, 7th to 8th grade. It was on the other side of town. I’ve never been on the other side of town. It’s a small city.

When I would get on the bus, that was a big deal. It was scary for me. Driving over there, I realized the houses and everything looked different than in my neighborhood. I had no idea. The kids, the way they dressed and the way they talk was different than us. Most people get intimidated by that and get disturbed by that. I was excited that people had stuff like this, talked like this and acted like this. My first awareness, “Maybe there’s something better out here.” I wasn’t discouraged. I was acting with my life even though we’re broke Texans that moved out to in the dust bowl to California to get rid of all the stuff out there. It’s a long story, but that’s what happened.

We talked about Jim a little bit. Any one of these people, we could talk about for hours because they’ve impacted all of us so much. By the way, Jim is bigger now since he passed away than he’s ever been.

There’s no doubt about it. It’s something I’m proud of because I brought Jim to Herbalife in 1985 as you well know. We went through our first difficulties with Herbalife that almost took us to our knees. I needed some help. I went to Jim and asked him if he would come up the board with us exclusively. With network marketing, he said yes. That was a big part of rebuilding that company. We had to get that feeling in there. I brought him in and we did all the international stuff. There’s no doubt about it, that gave him that international platform to work from. I’m thankful that he got it. I’m thankful that I was in a position to help him get that to take it to many people around the world. He is bigger than he ever was. I miss him every day. I talk about him every day.

People out of our industry have recognized him, finally. We all knew him. The real estate people knew him too. The podcasts that I’m listening to about health food, for example, they’re mentioning Jim Rohn and they’re quoting Jim Rohn. I’m going, “How do these guys know about him?” It’s great that they do. You helped make that happen. Let’s go back one other step though. Bobby Depew, I remember sitting in the back of your home in Hidden Valley.

We were on the deck together for a few hours.

You left us. You said, “John, Bobby, Bobby, John. You guys talk.” We sat out there. Talk about Bobby and the impact that he had on our industry. Unfortunately, most people don’t know Bobby, but they should.

They don’t know him unless they heard it from me. The impact Bobby had on me is the reason that you have your impact, the reason the book was written. The reason that all these top guys are here in our industry was because of Bobby. Bobby had that way of teaching. He used to be a school teacher. I know you know that. He was a school teacher in a little small town in Lindsay, California. It was right in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley with 5,000 people. It’s a small place. He was a school teacher there. He loved teaching. He had the ability to communicate no matter what your level was. If it was a high school student, the long-haired hippie high school dropout, the corporate executive or some kind of minister, he had the ability to communicate with you on your level.

You’ve got to realize how much I was out of place at this meeting. They don’t have live meetings much anymore. I want you to think about when we used to do live meetings in hotels and offices. You have your negative brother-in-law that you finally got to come to your meeting. Not only is he your negative brother-in-law, but he’s also an accountant and a lawyer. You’ve got that picture. To have to think about him sitting in there and you’re nervous about it then some homeless guy comes in with his cart with his tent on it and broom and stuff and sits down next to your negative brother-in-law. That’s what it was like for me when I’m going to these meetings. I learned how to scratch appropriately while I’m watching. I was going to give them a good show.

Bobby always talked. I talked about the 80/15/5 rule. That’s in the book years ago but it was recorded. Bobby knew that if you could talk to that person on that lowest rung of the ladder, if you could get that person, then everybody else would fall into line. At that meeting, I felt like I was the only one in the room. There were a couple of hundred people that night, at least 150. That was a big deal back then. I felt like he was talking to me. What got me to move forward wasn’t that I believed that I could make the money that they were making. It never crossed my mind.

Here’s what he said and I’ve used it in almost every presentation I’ve ever done. He says, “I’d like to promise you that you can make the money that we’re making. It’s obvious that we’re making this money.” Sometimes you can tell it’s obvious that people make money. He says, “I’d like to promise you that you can do what we’ve done, but I can’t.” I want you to think about that in this world, “Lamborghini, bikini, $10,000 a month. Look at all the gold. You can do it. What’s wrong with you? Go big. Go home. Let’s rock on our goal. Let’s get your goals. Let’s get your list.” You know what I’m talking about, everybody does. That distorted view of what the real prospect is all about and what they’re going through.

He says, “I’d like to promise you that you can make the money we’re making but I can’t.” I’ve always used that phrase all my career. He says, “What if this turns out 10% for you the way it’s turned out for us? It could be the greatest thing that ever happened to you.” What got me moving was I defaulted 90%. I gave away 90% of the success. I couldn’t accept that. He said, “Maybe the 10%.” Every bit of his training was around that feeling and that communication. One of the big things that impacted you and the people in the book of how to employ yourself, Larry 1 and Larry 2.

I got that at the Chicago Marriott Hotel because we used to come in every month and meet there for what was called the corporate team. I made the corporate team by that. I got into the coffee shop area and it was around 2:00 or 3:00 so it wasn’t busy. There are about 7 or 8 guys gathered around Bobby and a couple of other guys having a discussion. I was still shocked. I didn’t get around the big boys. I didn’t realize it, but I was making more money than they were at that point and more success, but I didn’t know it, which is probably the best. He was talking about how to be in business for yourself. He said, “You’ve got to learn how to be the boss and the bossy.” That is all he said. Because I was so attuned to him, that’s where how to employ yourself, Larry 1 and Larry 2 came from. I built it into a complete story there.

Most entrepreneurs were good or great employees before they became an entrepreneur. They become an entrepreneur and they don’t succeed the way they did as being the number one employee because they don’t know how to employ themselves. It’s the simplest process. Bobby taught me simplicity in everything I do. Since then, it has been on making it simple. Bobby was an amazing teacher. He had the way to communicate and it’s part of me. Jim and Bobby are a part of me. Jim, the philosophical side. Bobby, the strategical, tactical side. Thank goodness for Herbalife because Mark Hughes gave me the license to the kingdom. He said, “Do what is necessary right now to make this business work.”

John, most people don’t realize the similarities between 1980 and 2020. They don’t recognize the similarities, but they were significant. The two important things that happened between 1979 and 1980 that changed the landscape at that point, number one was when Amway had been fighting for years. The government was constantly coming after the network marketers on multilevel after the so-called pyramid. Once you get up to $4 million or $5 million a month, they would come. It was legitimate that they came because of the programs that people were working and doing back then.

Amway said, “We’re different. We’re going to fight.” All those companies went out of business as soon as the government kept them on their shoulders because they couldn’t fight. They were vulnerable. Amway fought. In 1979, they won and got a consent decree from the Attorney General of Michigan that said and recognized that multilevel marketing was ever used in that agreement. It says, “If you operate like this, you’re going to be okay and we’re considering you legal.” That’s my terminology but that’s exactly what it did. When that happened, it changed the landscape. If this is a legal entity, if you operate like this, there’s a completely different audience that’s available to you than the white shoes, whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking, Cadillac driving. It’s a bigger audience. That audience speaks a different language than this audience does and they have to have a different behavior created in their environment for them to be able to grow with.

Let’s draw some comparisons here. First of all, let me go to the second point that happened. We were coming out of a pandemic-type of environment. Everybody says, “What are you talking about? We’ve never had a pandemic.” We had a pandemic-type of environment. America was shut down because of the Iran-Contra situation taking over our embassy, embargoing all the oil. We had no oil in America. We could only buy gas for your cars on the last digit on your license plate on even or odd days. It’s 25% unemployment. It’s 25% interest rates. All of that changed.

You’ve got to understand, the pandemic-type environment had people that would never listen to the so-called pyramiding conversation wanted a conversation that they could identify with to get themselves out of this economic crisis that they were in. They were now listening to where they wouldn’t even listen before. Mark gave me the creative license to put something together. We created that program, which I got everybody. It’s almost the number one brand. We had a different audience if we would market to it, a different language that they spoke, the long-haired hippie, the lady truck driver, the broke waiter, the school teacher, the surfer. It gave us a bigger audience to talk to. We had to speak their language. We created an environment that wasn’t a sales environment. It was an environment of fun, simple, magical, built around you so everybody could do it. That’s how you got your start. That’s how everybody in that book got that start. That’s how they built the industry.

Being in our sales profession, we look at everything positive. Click To Tweet

Those two things are happening. Because of the pandemic, there are millions of displaced people who would not listen to you in the ‘90s. No one would listen to you at the beginning of the ‘20s. Now they’re looking and they’re not looking for a Lamborghini, bikini, $10,000 a month, and all of the bling. What they’re looking for is an extra $500 to $1,500 a month without disturbing their lifestyle. They want to have the possibility perhaps if they build a little team to make $500 or $1,500 a week or a month. If you will go out there and have your talk with $500 to $1,500 a month, that’s what we learned in Herbalife many years ago. Talk to those people because if they become successful, there are plenty of people around them that say, “If he can do it or she can do it, I can do it.” Uncle Larry who’s a successful accountant says, “If he or she is doing that, maybe I could do that in a different audience, language and behavior.”

What we’re doing is identifying that to our academy to teach everybody. Our business is going to be bigger than ever before, but it’s got to change. It’s got to adapt. Every business that we do business with, be it a restaurant, salon, grocery store, no matter what it is, every business out there is doing business differently than they did a few months ago or years ago. We come around in network marketing and we think we’re immune to that. We don’t think we have to adapt. We don’t have to do that. That’s what happened in 1980. They didn’t think they had to adapt. We adapted audience, language, behavior, and became number one in four years with that from 1981 when this was recorded. In four years, we were number one with everyday people like you and me.

That same thing exists now, but we’re stuck in the social media world. Here’s the thing about social media. I love social media. However, it becomes the goddess and people think because they send a post out that they’re doing their job description. In their video, they’re doing this. If they sell, they’d get ten likes. It’s ridiculous. That’s not how you build a business. The people that do it like that are making more money now than they’ve ever made in our space. We all know that. That’s fewer people and there’s zero.

We talked about duplication. There’s no duplication going on in our space since 2015. We’re in this positive environment of being in our sales profession that we’re in. We’re positive. We look at everything positively. Since 2015, the sales and the direct sales space have declined. It’s gone down while the gig world has gone up because they’re attracting different people with a different audience, language and behavior. I don’t know what got us on this.

Larry Thompson, a young guy. You were married. You had Lea at the time.

I had two daughters when I got started, Larry and Lea.

Bobby says, “Larry, go to El Paso, Texas.” You’ve never been there before. Tell that story because it’s important. Our readers would understand. We’ve all had that moment where nobody is showing up or they’re showing up and they’re not joining or they’re showing up and you’re saying, “You’re crazy.” Larry Thompson, a young guy, sitting in El Paso, Texas, doesn’t know a soul. How many people did you go through? Share that story.

The story has got to go back a little way for that story to make any sense. I did well at the first 90 days off of my center of influence. Things took off well. I went full-time right away. It’s a mistake. I was way ahead of the curve and I shouldn’t have done that. Young, arrogant, sassy, you know the deal and how it goes. You think this money is always going to come in. In my first 90 days, I did well. I was doing my job description. My job description was simple, onboard members and onboard customers. It wasn’t training. It wasn’t mentoring. It wasn’t being a coach. It wasn’t showing them how great I was at recruiting and here’s your script. It was belly-to-belly stuff and people said, “If he can do it, maybe I can do it.”

For the first 90 days, I did my job description and did well. You know what happened like how it happens to almost everybody. Next 90 days, I’m out of my center of influence. What do I do? I go and help my team and go and manage my boat. I’m helping my team, telling them what they should do that I’m not doing anymore. The second 90 days were a little scary for me. Bobby, being the experienced tactician, knew that he had to do something with me or he was going to lose me.

He called me in his office one day and talked about how they were going to do the national expansion program. I used that phrase for 50-plus years. He could have made it up on the spot. I got no idea. He said how we’re going to take a group of guys and we’re going to go across the country and do this national expansion program. He had different pins on the map. He said, “We’re going to go to Chicago. We’re going to get someone in Atlanta. We’re going to get someone in Sanford,” all that stuff.

He had a little pin up there on El Paso, Texas, and Dallas, Texas, and Houston. He says, “We’re going to go out here and expand this. We’re going to develop this corporate team where every guy that helps us do this naturally is going to be tied in above and beyond the organization. This is perfect for you. I would love to see you go out and try this. Choose your spot.” Dallas was scary. Houston was scary. Chicago, no way. I’ve never been more than a couple of 100 miles from my home in my life. I come from a small city. El Paso, Texas seemed safe to me. I chose El Paso. It’s like Mexico, everybody speaks Spanish. The majority are Spanish. You go across the street at the stoplight and you’re in Mexico.

I got there and I was told that you got to have your meetings on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. You’ve got to go and get a hotel or someplace like that. It never occurred to me that I was the only person in the state of Texas. There was nobody else there. Six months earlier, I’m on my hands and knees finishing cement and now I’m in El Paso, Texas. I’ve never been away from my home and I have to have this hotel meeting. To do all the meetings that we were trained to do, the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday meetings, that’s going to cost $500 or $600 as I recall to get this hotel. It wasn’t more than I made in a month as a cement finisher. I did get it.

 

Here’s what got me to make the decision. Before I left outside of training, I overheard these two guys. They’re higher-end salespeople, professional type of people, and they were talking about running ads. I was listening in. Afterward, at the next break, I got one of them that had a rapport with and I said, “Tell me about this ad thing.” He said, “You run these ads. Here’s the script and what to do.” I said, “That’s it, I’m going to El Paso. I’ll never be out of people.”

I went to El Paso. I ran my ad. John, I had no clue how to handle it. The phone ringed and I was excited. Back then, the phones were hard-wired to the wall. They started asking me questions. The first guy asked me questions and I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. I said, “I’m glad he didn’t join.” The next 4 or 5 were the same way. I was hyperventilating talking to these guys. The phone kept ringing. I couldn’t unplug it. There’s no way to turn it off back then. I kept piling pillows on top of the phone so I wouldn’t have to deal with them for five days. I’m stuck. I’m like, “What do I do to go out here and get the center of influence or get something going?” I didn’t know this so I had to do my job description. I did know that every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday morning meeting, I had to have 2 or 3 guests. That was what I was taught.

How do I do it? I locked in on Bobby’s SINALOA concept, which is in the book, of the ten pennies and one pocket and move them to the other. I don’t want to get into the details of that. That was hard, but I finally started getting a few people to show up. Back then, it took about 3 to 4 people to put on a meeting because you had to have a hostess or host. You had to have someone to do the front half. You had to have someone to take care of the display. You had to have someone to do the backup. It was just me. There were no guests there. It was me. There are many times that I wish there were no guests there. I still have to do the meeting with 2 or 3 people sitting there with their eyes crossed and giving me darts coming up.

Long story short, I was told 2 out of 10. If I got ten people to come to the meeting, I’d get two to sign up. If I got ten to sign up, I’d get two to get moving. If I got ten to get moving, I’d have two to be in line first. I got to get my people to the meeting. It’s tough. I got about 7 or 8 people in a row to this meeting and I’m the only one who stayed. Nobody has joined. I can’t wait to get to number ten so I can get someone to sign up so I can get some help. It didn’t happen. Twelve didn’t happen. 15, 17 still hasn’t happened. I’m having a hard time controlling my thinking. I’m having a hard time trying to keep up. I can’t. There’s no one to talk to. The only person I talked to is my wife back in California. You couldn’t talk long distance back then. It was too expensive. I couldn’t get encouragement from her because she wanted money to pay for the house payment. I didn’t have the money to pay for the house payment. I had to stay up. I’m all there by myself.

Twenty-seven, nobody joined. Thirty-six, nobody joined. Long story short, I’m getting at the end of my 90 days. I’m days away from it and I’m at 47, 48. I’m almost giving up. I can’t wait to get to 50 so I have a legitimate reason to say, “I did everything I could and it didn’t work. I’m coming back to California.” I had already made a couple of calls to my family. I said, “If I come back, is there a spot for me? Can I go to work right away on construction?” The answer was, “Of course.” Long story short, 52 in a row, nobody joined. I’m talking at the meeting. I’m not talking about talking. I’m not talking about posting. I’m not talking about answering an ad. They showed up.

Let me tell you, number 53 showed up. That was Mark and Charlotte Parkers. They were regular everyday people. Mark worked in the oil fields and Charlotte was, they didn’t do home school back then but that would be my best description of her. They joined. I had someone that believed in me. The other thing that happened to me was they gave me a spare room in their house and Charlotte cooked for us and did all the laundry. I played with the kids. I’ve got to tell you, the next 90 days, I earned $10,000 back then. I tell that story sometimes. Mark and Charlotte must have been good distributors. They were great distributors, but they weren’t hitters. They were B minus, C-players but they believed in me and they supported me.

I knew that what Bobby had taught me about SINALOA, Safety In Number And Law Of Average, shake every grain of sand from your shoes, all of that stuff that you know by heart, I knew that if I did that, it would always work for me. It has always worked for me for many years. No matter what, over recession, no matter who’s president, what the politics are, and no matter what Katrina storm is coming. No matter about Iran-Contra, no matter if there are wars or no wars, no matter if there’s a pandemic, it’s always worked and it always will work. You’ve got to be able to tie it into circumstances and it will always work for you. It was 52 people in a row that I got there that said no. Fifty-three joined. What did it do for me? It told me that no matter what, I can make this work.

That’s such an amazing story because we’ve all been there. This has become a career for many, unless you start a new company or a new organization, they’re going to show up. They do show up and they still don’t join. I don’t care if it’s over Zoom and all these other things. At the end of the day, if they’re not joining, you start thinking that it’s you after a while, “It’s not the product. It’s not the company. It’s me.” It’s amazing that you went through that and you persevered and stayed. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have met a young guy named Mark Hughes a few years later. You created history as one of the, in my opinion, four iconic companies in the industry that we talked about. Amway, Shaklee, Herbalife, Mary Kay is the four companies that without, I don’t think we’d have a business. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here and having this conversation. Let’s talk about Mark Hughes. How did you guys meet?

The other fascinating story in 1970, I was doing nothing in, at that point, network marketing. I got off a plane in San Diego, California and I was standing out by the curb. I had a new girlfriend that I met and we were getting close to each other. I was going to come out and visit her for a week or so. I’m waiting on the curve and I feel this tap on my shoulder and it was Larry Huff. Larry Huff had started a company called Golden Youth Marketing and Slim Jim was the product. It was on TV. They took it at multilevel.

He was coming down to a meeting and I said, “I’m not going to do anything in network marketing right now.” He said, “Come on down and say hello to me. We’ll go to dinner.” He was a likable, fun guy as you know. He was enjoyable. I came to the meeting that night just to come. Remember, Jim Rohn and I joined the same meeting on the same night. I joined the business that night. There was another guest there, Mark Hughes. He was a young kid. He joined Golden Youth Marketing the same night that I did. I became Vice President within 90 days. He became the number one distributor. We worked closely together with Golden Youth Marketing.

A year and a half later, they went out of business. We never did figure out why but they did. Mark said, “I’m going to start my own company.” I thought it was ridiculous. No matter how old he is, he always looked like a young kid. He was a smart young kid and a hard worker. I never believed that he would put this together. I don’t want to tell him that. He said, “What would be my first 4 or 5 steps?” I laid it out for him, “You need a manufacturer. You need a product with a hook to it. You need this and you need that. You’ve got to set up this and you’ve got to do that.” I said, “The first thing you’ve got to do is get backing.” Within three weeks, he had a backing, a total of $25,000. $25,000 is what started Herbalife. He had an extra $5,000 from Kathryn Whiting’s dad who was his girlfriend at that time which became his first wife.

I said, “You got the money. That’s amazing.” I didn’t think he was going to do it. At this time, I’ve already moved back to Texas and he’s in California. He says, “Show me how to put the compensation plan together.” I knew he had to have a compensation plan that would bring him in money. He needed cashflow. I said, “This is what I would do now under these conditions.” Quite frankly, he had a $1,500 package to it, which was a big deal back then. Today, it wouldn’t work at all but it did back then. He needed cashflow. I said, “You can’t stay with this. If you’re going to go, it’s going to have to be different but you need this to start with.” I got him started with that. He kicked off in February of ‘80. He put me on a plane to come up and talk to him. He had an apartment up there in Wilshire Boulevard. We were both single guys, not Starsky and Hutch but that Miami Vice. Remember that one?

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Yeah.

That’s the kind of people we were. His living up there in Wilshire High Rise. Going around smart, rich and pretty, and that kind of deal. We enjoyed being with each other. Finally, after getting out there almost every other month, in May of 1980, we shook hands. I was going to come and work with him full-time, exclusive, and guide him. We would be partners in what’s going to be a 5H, 3H partnership. We shook hands and that’s what it was. We didn’t have any paperwork. We shook hands and that was enough for us. It worked out to be enough for us.

I told him that I was going to come right away, but I didn’t get there and talk to him. The reason was I got involved in a church out here in Dallas. My spiritual life started coming together and I was excited about it. I didn’t want to leave it. I wanted to stay a bit longer. Long story short, I got there on October 4th, 1980 and he wanted to announce me as the vice president right away and I said no. I had to take a page of Jim Rohn’s book. Bobby wanted Jim Rohn to become vice president of training. Jim said, “No. I’ve got to build an organization for 60 or 90 days so I’ll be accepted.” I told Mark, “No. I understand that it’s a 5H, 3H split but you’re not making me vice president right now. I’m a distributor. People got to see me as a distributor.” I saw I could work with him as a distributor. That’s what I did all through the end of 1980.

We put the real structure of Herbalife as we know it. It’s got a different shirt and tie on it. We put that structure together and we kicked it off on January 2nd of 1981. February 21st of 1981 is when The Millionaire Training was recorded. Mark gave me the keys to the castle to do whatever was necessary. I can identify it as an audience, language, behavior, fun, simple and magical. I can identify that. I knew how to do that but I didn’t know those parts of it. Mark was unbelievable as far as getting people to believe in him and his cause and what he was doing. Mark took it to heart. I said, “If you’re going to do this, the mission is far more important than the commission.” In today’s world, the commission comes first. What’s the mission? What’s the product? You caught something up.

In this world, you could have five different companies, $250 million and above companies, and you can put a blindfold on and not say the name of the product or the company and say, “Tell me your story.” It’s identical. Mr. CEO or Mrs. CEO, Pulitzer Prize winner formulator, master distributor of this. We got this cause and we got that. These leaders are all identical. We had to build a story with his mission, a true story about what this company was all about and what it stood on. We did that. He gave me the keys to go out there and create what I’m calling audience, language, and behavior, the six pillars of a teaching academy. That was the only time in my career, at that point, that I had the freedom to do everything that I thought was going to be necessary. There was no pushback.

Mark and I worked as distributors. There was no company and there were no distributors in the company as today. We were the uplines. There was no company to interfere with us. We didn’t have to ask any decisions. We made the decisions that were right for our downline and build our business. We didn’t have to worry about stockholders. We didn’t have to worry about executives. We didn’t have to worry about all that. We built our organization. We were the uplines. You know well from 1983 how we did that. It was brilliant what we did. I’m not bragging, but it was brilliant. I knew it was right, but I didn’t know how brilliant it was going to be.

The distributor kit that got you started was $29.95. You’d have the full Slim and Trim in it, those four products plus energy tablets, plus The Millionaire Training tapes. A person could get started out there where you were in New Jersey or Podunk, Michigan, or somewhere in West Texas. They were quick with the product that they needed at the price point that worked and they had The Millionaire Training to show them how to go about building their business. That was a huge deal for people to be equipped. They won believing, “If they can do it, maybe I can do it. Is this all I’ve got to do?”

As you well know, we had The Millionaire Training tapes that went into kits, but they needed to be reinforced. We used to go around the country, 20, 22 cities a month. What we would do would be the equivalent of what I’m doing in our academy, the six pillars, teaching those things because they had to be reinforced. How do you do these simple things? What that did was create leadership. I’m not talking about walking on hot coals. I’m not talking about mentoring, coaching, master distributorship and doing all this stuff. I’m talking about leadership. The truck driver, the school teacher, they already had the leadership in them, but how do you bring it out of them? That’s what built it. Mark gave me that license to do that.

As you well know, we were a magical team. It reminds me a lot of Taylor. My wife and I are working together with that magical team. We never worked from notes. You never saw a PowerPoint. We didn’t have PowerPoints. We sat down in front of the room with a bottle of Herbal Aloe. We got sent back here with our legs crossed and say, “Let’s talk.” We would do that for eight hours for 20, 22 cities a month and go back and say, “All you’ve got to do is talk. All you’ve got to do is this. All you’ve got to do is that.” There are half a dozen things that you need to learn about to be a successful distributor. In our space, you learn half a dozen things. You implement those half a dozen things. It’s impossible not to succeed. It’s impossible.

Let’s jump forward, a little tiny bit, to Millionaire Training, February 1981. When I got in, which was April 18th, 1983, I wore those tapes out. On the podcast, we normally don’t talk about companies. Because of Larry’s history, we got to talk about companies a little bit. I wore those tapes out. They kept breaking. Finally, I got smart and I bought two sets for each set because I figured, “I’m going to keep listening to them until I get it.” It was brilliant, but there was a simplicity. At the time, I was 21, 22 years old. I know nothing about nothing. I was like, “I get the message.”

I related to you well because my family was in construction and your family is in construction. We knew what a real day’s work was. We didn’t have soft hands when you shook hands. We had some calluses from some real work. You know what I’m referring to. That resonated with me, but I know it resonated with a lot of other people. Let’s talk about Millionaire Training. How did it happen? Was it something you sat down and planned or you pitched? Tell the story.

It’s the only thing I’ve ever done with that much thoroughness of thought going into it. I’m a pulse beat guy. I knew that we had to put this into distributor kits. I knew it had to be able to get people and find them where they were, no matter what city or state they were, whatever position of confidence or lack of confidence, finances circumstances, I had to equip them. I sat down on a Thursday and this was going to be done on a Saturday. There are ten chapters in this book. I laid it out, what was the real thing? That’s what I did that day.

 

Here’s the real key to this and you know this. At the last minute, we were discussing if we should tape it or not. It was Mark that said, “We need to tape this.” In 1981, how do you tape something? I know that sounds ridiculous. How do you tape something? You can’t Google it. Who do you call? Finally, we found the guy that said he would record it for $150. It took another three hours of discussion before we would commit to the $150.

The guy gets to the hotel and he brings this big equipment. He says, “I’m all set up here, but we need to have a plugin that ties into the house system.” I said, “What’s that?” He explained it to us. I didn’t know. Nobody knew. The house didn’t know how to do it. It was at the Bonaventure Hotel, a big hotel. They didn’t know how to do it. He duct tape a microphone to the center chair in the front row. There’s not one edit in The Millionaire Training. There are no edits. We digitally enhanced it with ahhs and awws but there’s not edit. It went from one to the next that gave you all those things that you’re talking about, how you warm up.

There are about twelve stories in this book. You know this as well as I do. Everybody in that book contributed. I didn’t pay you guys to be in that book. You didn’t pay me to be in that book, which is a standard deal. I don’t have any problems with that. Everyone did this free gratis because of how it impacted their lives. Let’s say there are twelve of you like a clock and a round table. You could start over with Page 78, wherever 78 is and start a story with 78, and quit talking about it in about three minutes and you’re at 1:00 on the table. Whoever’s at 2:00 will pick up, word for word, where you left off. The next guy, after a couple of three things in there, will pick it up word for word.

Everybody in that book can do this and not only that, thousands of people can do that same thing. They know it word for word because it was part of us. This is our profession. This is the mindset. This is what is built this. If there was anything more needed than that, I would have it in there. What I did find out is that we had to go around and say, “You guys got that.” Audience, language and behavior, we had to reinforce that because you’ll always get complicated if not. That’s how that tape came about. It stood up to the test of time. It’s more relevant now than it was even then because it’s timeless. No matter what your methodology is, even if you’re a hardcore marketer, go with what’s in here. Go with what’s in the six pillars. Adapt to those things. Don’t make the rest of the world adapt to your technique of social media marketing. Adapt this to that or adapt that to this is a better way to say it.

Let’s go further though with the impact of that. Without getting into specifics, there have been companies created as a result of that philosophy, one of which I was a part of here in Dallas way back that did pretty well for a while. There have been a lot of distributorships including my own and others that have carried on the messaging of that. It’s important that people understand what the impact of Millionaire Training is. I hear people. I listened to a guy and it was funny because he was speaking at a company’s convention. All I heard was, “Larry Thompson, Mark Hughes and Jim Rohn.” The guy was making it his own, which was fine because the audience didn’t know any better. Much of what we did was our twist that we learned and applied different things from other people, sources, and our own experiences.

The people in that book are all like an extended family. We’ve all gotten to know each other through the years. Some are good friends of mine. They’re all good friends of yours, but they’ve become my good friends. Talk about the impact. Larry Thompson from Bestline, with your other experience, you meet Mark of Herbalife. I know you’ve helped one company in Europe that’s become the largest company in Europe, for example. I know the success of that company. Talk about what’s been created as a result of The Millionaire Training mindset, philosophy and training. What’s happened as a result with some of these people?

The impact of The Millionaire Training by itself, with the tapes, and with the book and everything else. You can’t count the book in what I’m about to say with The Millionaire Training. I never trained for once. You never saw me train Millionaire Training. I didn’t need to train it. It was there. You go and self-teach this stuff. It’s not my responsibility to come around and teach you stuff that’s in a tape that you’re supposed to be listening to. It’s like me going to the gym and saying, “Let’s build your muscles, John. I’m going to lift the weights for you.” You can read all of Arnold’s books and watch all of his videos. I’m going to tell you right now, Mr. Olympian six years in a row or whatever it was, you’re not going to build one muscle. One thing I knew is everybody had to lift their weight.

What happened, as a result of The Millionaire Training, has built and stabilized the profession. I understand what you’re saying about people going and doing trainings and they say, “This guy is up there.” It’s now women up there quoting all of the stuff and everyone’s oohing and aahing and it is Jim Rohn. It is Mark Hughes. It is Larry Thompson. They don’t want to give us credit and that’s fine. Let me tell you something, it’s one thing to copy it and it’s another thing to live it. You have lived it. Everyone in this book has lived these concepts and principles. It’s not about network marketing. It’s about life, problem-solving. The days that turn your life around.

All of that stuff that’s there that you got to do if you’re a truck driver joining our profession or if you’re a truck driver and want to stay a truck driver to raise your family and grandkids, it’s all there. I’ve got to tell you, it’s me that put it into that story for them but that information is Jim Rohn and Bobby. It’s Larry Thompson who put it into my-story form. How about procrastination? You know exactly what procrastination is. It was done in a story form. Every chapter was a story of the gold mine attitude, 2 for 4. All of that was the concepts and principles that I learned from Bobby and Jim and put it together in my own way and then brought it to Herbalife. We’re out there doing even greater and bigger things, in my opinion, than ever before.

I’ll give people reading this an idea because you’re right, Larry. The impact of that surpasses our business. I always say to people, multilevel, our distributorships, our companies, the company owners that we work with is a microcosm of everything else. You might be a great distributor, but you’re still a dad, a granddad, grandma, uncle or aunt. You’re all these other things that we could describe. When my oldest daughter had an issue, as you know, you would tell as friends of ours and supporting our family, which I appreciate a couple of years ago. The second she got out of the situation she was in, through the professional help that she got, she’s doing great. She said to me, “I know exactly what you’re going to say, Dad, ‘A day at a time, a brick at a time, and process by process.’” Where did that come from? The Millionaire Training, 1983.

The stuff I learned when I was younger than she was when she had her issue, but that’s a pillar that whether you’re building a distributorship, a church, a little league field, or God forbid, dealing with a sick family member, those are the philosophies that the people in that book have adopted in our lives. Every one of them had great lives. We’ve all had issues with different things. Life happens. Every one of us went back to that self-development and that’s something that is beyond the money that people have made.

There’s a thing in network marketing that talks about personal growth. Personal growth is a result, not the cause. You’ve got to do half an hour a day of Jim Rohn. Great, God bless America. Everybody needs Jim Rohn no matter what. I am going to tell you, I never had half an hour day of Jim Rohn listening when we’re on stage together. I got Jim Rohn. You guys got Millionaire Training. You listened to it over and over again because you were at a different stage, but your personal growth did not come from that. Your personal growth came from the activity. It’s no different than Arnold with books. You’ve got to lift your own weights. That is essential in this world.

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In the Direct Sales Magazine here, The Legends as they called it, I was included in five of those legends who have done over 50 years of continuous activity within the direct sale space. Jerry Brassfield was one of those guys. 4 of those 6 people came out of one company. That did not include Jim Rohn. It did not include Bobby Depew. It did not include Les Brown. Those legends that are on the cover of this Direct Sales Magazine, 4 of the 5 came out of Bestline. Jerry Brassfield was the Vice President of Bestline, a soft-spoken guy. His words were magical. He said something in his segment in this Direct Sales Magazine of these legends. I suggest everyone gets it because I’m in there but these guys are all special.

Jerry Brassfield, on that soft mannered voice that he always talks in, said, “I don’t believe in these leadership programs. I don’t think it’s possible for you to go out here and buy a 21-step, 7-step, 5-step program to go and develop your leadership. To me, it’s like you watching someone swim in your pool while you’re sitting on the side and saying, ‘I can learn how to do that.’” He said, “The way you develop leadership is how quickly and how many life-changing circumstances you get in and come out the other side, stronger, better and more effective.” That’s how leadership is developed, in action and not in observation and not from the stage. That’s the way I’ve always been.

As you well know, you guys were called to order. It was called do your job description and you said, “What about this? What about that?” How many people did you talk to yesterday? What happened? Where’s the SINALOA? Where is the Safety In Numbers And Law Of Averages? That’s the accountability. Now, you can’t hold people accountable because their feelings would be hurt. You’ve got to be a little bit more sensitive. No. Look at the weakness we have in our country. Look at what’s going around the world. Don’t tell me that’s right.

Don’t you dare tell me what’s going on that built America. Yes, the great America. The greatest country ever in the history of the world. What built it was the principles here and the stuff that we’re talking about isn’t being politically correct. It is about being correct and doing and taking on the responsibility that you need to have as a self-responsible person. Everybody has leadership. It’s self-leadership. To me, it’s self-responsibility, self-determination, self-motivation and self-functioning.

Everybody has that in one or more areas of their life. If you’re a single mom, you have that in that area you have to be. No matter who you are, if you’re a mom of ten, you’ve got to have self-responsibility, self-interest, self-motivation and self-function in one or more areas of your life. If you have it in one area, all you’ve got to do is give yourself the authority to do it in another area if it will be network marketing or no matter what it may be. Leadership is existent in every person. It’s existent in you, me and every member of the book. It even existed in Jim Rohn before it became Jim Rohn. It even existed in Mark Hughes before it became Mark Hughes. It certainly was in Larry Thompson before it became Larry Thompson.

We were all so young. Some of the guys in the book grew up together. We were all kids together. It’s along that philosophy, tell, show, try, do. Not tell, show, watch another guy do it. To your point about Arnold, go do it now. It’s like, “I’ll show you how to do it, but now you’ve got to do it and we’ll critique it. It will work out and we’ll tweak it. We’ll do what we’ve got to do to advance it.” Talk about that a little bit because that concept has trained millions and millions of distributors around the world. It started with you guys. At least in my experience, maybe it started with Bobby and Jim prior.

That one started with me and I’ll tell you how it happened. My youngest daughter at that time, Lea, was sixteen and she came out to visit me in California with one of her girlfriends, Shelly. They were going to drive up the coast of California. I can’t even imagine I let two sixteen-year-old girls do that nowadays, but that was years ago. They were going to take my Cadillac Seville and it had on some custom wheels to it that was prone to flat tires. It’s just different back then. I had to make sure they knew how to change a tire. I wouldn’t let them go until they knew how to change a tire. I said, “Here’s how you do it. Here’s the step. Get a block for the back tire. Do this. Do that.”

That’s when you could change a tire. Nowadays, you can’t change tires on cars anymore. There are bumpers. I can’t change a tire on a car nowadays. I’ve got to get the tow truck. I showed them and they said, “We got it.” I said, “Try it.” They did about 10% of it. I want them to do it. After 3 or 4 times of doing that and staying with it, I told them, showed them, and they tried it until they could do it. I said, “What a great training class.” That’s where that came from. Tell, show, try, do was to say, “This is all I know. This is all I do. I don’t know if it’s going to turn out for you the way it’s turned out for me. I’ve got no idea, but it’s worth trying.”

Today, tell, show, try, do as you go into the gym and lift in their weights. If you go into the gym and arm lifting your weights, you’re taking the responsibility for them. That’s what tell, show, try, do turn in today. “Tell them, encourage them, and keep them encouraged.” Give me a break. Grow up in the world that I grow and you’d encourage yourself. You did leadership yourself. Instead of the stuff that’s going on nowadays like, “I’ve got this problem at my work and I’ve got this problem with my co-worker.” Get off of your knees. Raise your family. Do your job. That’s how America was built. That’s how Herbalife was built.

That’s how the five guys are recognized in the Direct Selling News as 50-year legends here. That’s how we did it. That’s how you did it. That’s how the contributors to the book did it. Tell, show, try, do didn’t mean that you did it. Here’s what I do. Here’s how I did it. You need to try it. If you’ve got it down, fine. If not, get back in touch with me and we’ll go through it again. It may take 4 or 5 or 6 times, but if you’re doing your job description, talking and onboarding members and customers, it’s not that difficult. You’ve got to move your lips.

I asked a guy from the United Kingdom. He’s in our mastermind group and. He was telling me, “What was going on?” I said, “Let’s go backward. Last Wednesday, how many people did you talk to? I’m going to talk about how many people you posted. I’m not talking about how many likes and hearts you get on your Facebook. How many people did you say, ‘If I could show you a way, would you possibly be interested?’” He said, “Seven.” I said, “How about Thursday?” He said, “Three.” I said, “How about Friday?” He said, “Two.”

I said, “If you want to build your business, do your job description. You decide.” Mine was ten a day. New blood to talk to. We always taught you guys to sponsor ten a month. If you tell someone to sponsor ten a month nowadays, they’ll hyperventilate, pass on, and you’ll call 911. We need unbelievable leadership from the company down and leadership from these mentors and coaches are afraid to tell someone they’ve got to go to the gym and lift their own weights.

 

If they want growth and greatness, they’ve got to grow and they’ve got to do, or whatever you want to do. “We want to teach. We want to help.” I said, “The first thing you want to do is go back to the book and read it. Get into the academy, go out there, and figure out what you’ve got to do to employ yourself and get the job done.” Tell, show, try, do is just a simple thing to say. “This is all I do. This is all I know. We didn’t know much.” We know these things and we did these things and it always works no matter what the circumstance is.

As we start to wrap up here, let’s go through a couple of things. Tell our readers where they can get the book.

It’s on Amazon. The best place to do it is to go to TheMillionaireTraining.com. What we’ve got there is I created a book club. It’s free. They can come and join our book club. Every Friday at 12:00 noon, Dallas, Texas time, we have a free book club where people from all over the world, some of your old cohorts, and some of your old guys in Lifestyle are there. These are big-time guys that made money. On Fridays, we have the book club and we have different people talk about how they employed some of the stuff that’s in the book and what’s happened to them.

It’s amazing because they’re stunned by how simple it is. They’re stunned by the fact that they falling in love with their business again. Most people, if you don’t do this and you don’t do that, they don’t feel like they’re young enough or old enough or tall enough or short enough. Their story’s not good enough. They don’t understand they can start where they are now. We’ve got TheMillionaireTraining.com. Join the free book club and get in there with us on Fridays and know what happens. Once they joined the free book club, they don’t even have to buy the book. It didn’t matter. They don’t want to buy the book. I’m not interested in buying the book. I don’t want their money. I want them to learn the stuff.

They get a free chapter. That’s what the free chapter is, How to Employ Yourself, Larry one, Larry two. In the world that we’re living in with this gig economy, there are only six million people in the direct sales space and almost every multilevel company is competing with the next multilevel company. It’s the same who got the biggest shining stars. Let me tell you something. There are six million people over there. There are sixteen million people in this gig economy. The gig economy has 1099 people that are out there working on their own that will listen to you now where they wouldn’t listen before.

If you make a fun, simple magical with audience language or behavior, they will listen to you and they’re going to have a good chance of going with you. They get the free chapter of the book, and then that gives them a reason to say, “I want more of this.” They can become part of our academy. I call it ABC. A) it’s a three-legged stool. If you’ve got a three-legged stool, guess how many legs you’ve got to have balance? Three. The first one is the academy and our academy is $40 a month to be able to get live interactivity training and information from Taylor and me.

We give at least ten hours live interactivity every single month with these guys at different times. The academy, the book, the club are the three-legged stool. Book club is free. They want to buy the book for $24.95 on Amazon. They want to get into the academy for $40 a month. Now, things are moving so quickly that a day is like a week. A week is like a month. A month is like a quarter. You can’t wait because we’re working on ‘22. We’re not working on ‘21, so you’ve got to have a great first quarter of ‘22. If you’re going to have a great first quarter of ‘22, you’ve got to have a great last quarter of ‘21.

Guess what you’re working on in March and April of ‘21? The last quarter of ‘21. You can’t wait. You’ve got to jump. This is how fast this is moving and this is what we’re experiencing around the world. I’m saying the world is changing and the language is changing. You’ve got to get involved with that and it’s impossible. With ABC, if you’re involved with the academy, got the book, and involved in the club, then it’s a natural, logical conclusion to get your team involved in this as quickly as possible.

They’re not going to get sold the mastermind groups. They are not going to get sold this retreat. There’s a $24.95 book on Amazon. There’s a $40 month from the academy. By the way, you can get the Original Millionaire tape that you’ve heard of for $10 right there on the spot and get it on your phone. That’s it. The rest of us is what you know for sure. We’re going around the country teaching everybody. We do it at the academy and we do it at the book club. We’re going around teaching the six pillars of how to apply this stuff.

The ranking up. I hate that phrase because ranking up signifies that you’ve got leadership and your job description changes. You’re the same guy the day before you ranked up and you were the day after. You got the same attitude, weaknesses, and strengths the day before. If your job description is an exact demo play of what it was on Friday and Saturday, would you get recognized as ranked and you think your job description changes because we want it to change? Why? Because we don’t want to do what we’re sharing with our team to do that they have to do. We don’t want to do it.

We want to put our feet on the desk and be the coach or the mentor so that to tell us, “I couldn’t do this without you. You’re so special. You care about me so much.” Do what you’re telling them that you want them to do. You lead the way and you do it yourself. How long do you do that? As long as you’re a distributor. I don’t care how much money you’ve gotten if you’re behind the gates. I’m doing this business actively every single day for many years, except for the five years that I was in bed with chronic fatigue. I loved it.

Larry, first of all, I want to thank you for your mentoring and friendship. Many years together and we’re still going strong. That’s a long time we’ve been doing this stuff, but it’s still fun. I’m in the same place as you are. What else are you going to do when you can impact people and most importantly, impact the last generation? Let me ask you that one last question. Young people who are looking at this industry, that 25-year-old kid that’s sitting on mom and dad’s couch right now, all the skills, ideas, and piss and vinegar that a 25-year-old has. They look at this industry, at you, at me, and the people in the book that have all been doing this a long time. Why should they do network marketing instead of all the other choices that the gig economy or whatever may offer them? Why our industry?

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Network marketing offers something that other things don’t. They’re out there but residual income. Insurance people work off of residual income. Investment people work off of residual income. There are 60 million people out here in the gig world and they’re trading dollars for hours. That’s what they’re doing. Uber driver is trading hours for dollars and that’s it. Amazon affiliates are trading dollars for hours deals. In network marketing, you’re trading hours for dollars, but you have a chance to residual income.

That’s why I would be looking at residual income as a reason to do multilevel network marketing. I will tell you that the companies that are out there are distorted. You cannot compete in this network marketing world doing business the way we’ve always done it because they’ve all changed. The price point is an issue now because no matter how great your product is, I don’t care if it grows hair, muscles, or breast. I don’t care if it happens in a day. There’s another product on the internet that’s going to compete with you and it’s going to compete with you in price point. That’s what’s going to happen.

The way that these companies are structured nowadays coming out of the past before the gig economy was in place and before this whole thing was here, they can’t compete in price point because they’re paying too much money to “the leaders.” I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. I’m telling you there are going to be less multilevel companies in the future doing bigger business. Now, we have distributors in our space that are earning more money than we ever thought possible on a monthly or yearly basis, but it’s isolated.

You’re going to have to compete in bigger markets. You’ve got to know the audience, language and behavior, and then you find a company and the product that you believe in, then get involved with us and let us show you how to get that job done. I had a question asked by a one-year-old cohort. We have an educational product and they do a lot of work with nutritional products. “Will this work the same way with our educational product as that works with the nutritional product?” I said, “Of course.” They said, “How does that happen?” I said, “Because 80/15/5,” which I’m not going to develop here but you understand that completely.

It’s the same no matter if you have an educational product or a nutritional product. Audience language and behavior are the same if you have an educational product or a nutritional product. Being able to PPP a natural logical conclusion, pillar number two is the same. The four stories are the same. It’s the same no matter what your product is, but here’s the other key. These concepts and principles don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re a long-haired hippie that never finished high school or you’re a young kid like Mark Hughes. Neither one of us finished high school. It doesn’t matter. Those things are the same.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a school teacher or an entrepreneur or you’re some guru into a so-called profession. It makes me crazy when someone says, “I have these many years of experience.” In your case, you’ve got all that because like Jerry Brecksville said, you have all of these life experiences that you got into that were some time life or death. You came out the other side. Not necessarily on the top, but better and stronger for the next project. That’s leadership. I don’t care if you’re a school teacher that can’t spell gig or multilevel and network marketing. All of those principles recognize you the same. They never change. It’s how you apply them to your business. I get all crazy and weird.

Larry, I want to thank you once again. You can go to our website and you can see all the archive material after every one of these shows is done. It’s LeavingNothingToChance.com. The name of our book is Leave Nothing to Chance. You’ve got to find Larry Thompson. He wrote some nice stuff about me as the foreword to that book. You’ll read about a lot of people and a lot of principles in that book. Larry, I want to thank you and God bless you.

I’m excited. I dare someone to come along with us. Come on. Put yourself in the middle of this too. You did. Jeff Roberti did. Tish Rochin did. Mark Hughes did. Jim Rohn did. Put yourself in this arena with us and let’s get something done that’s magical. This is not guesswork. This is absolute.

Thank you, Larry.

Thank you.

Important Links: 

• Larry Thompson
• The Millionaire Training
• Amazon – The Millionaire Training
• Book club – The Millionaire Training
• Academy
• Original Millionaire
• Leave Nothing to Chance

About Larry Thompson

When a door closes, another always opens. One company Larry helped launch before he got sick approached him to return, asking that he lead, guide, and mentor their top leaders with strategy and marketing tactics. Which brings Larry to now: A mentor and coach to top performers from around the world. The training concepts he had developed over 40 years ago are being taught in network marketing motivational seminars and in the Wealth Building Masterminds Larry conducts.

At the end of the day, even though Larry is affectionately called the “Mentor to the Millionaires” and the Wall Street Journal deems him the “Architect of Wealth Building”, Larry still sees himself as the long-haired, hippy construction worker at heart who had a strong desire to change, the willingness to work, and the teachability to learn and grow.

Larry’s strongest desire now is to pay back the knowledge and experience he had gleaned over 40 years of ups and downs in the direct sales industry; to pay it forward to the people who look to this industry for change in their lives.