Leave Nothing To Chance

 

Idaho farmer Keith Hooper has been in network marketing for over three decades, with 25 of those years in one company alone. Such longevity in the industry admirably demonstrates the power of network marketing in producing a steady flow of income that can outlive someone’s life. Keith hangs out in the same circles as John Solleder and has been featured in the Leave Nothing to Chance book. He is also one of the co-authors of Moving Up: 2020. Out of the 15 principles, Keith considers leading with integrity as the most important and he has done that time and again over his inspiring career. Join in this conversation and learn why making that crucial decision to start your own network marketing business now will give you a unique opportunity to shape the future for you, your children, and their children after them.

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Longevity Has Clues From Farmer Hooper

It is my pleasure to welcome another long-term friend of mine in the industry, Mr. Keith Hooper, to this episode. Keith, how are you?

Good, John, thank you for having me.

Keith, how long have you been in the network marketing industry?

I was introduced to the network marketing business industry in 1989. I had a brief foray in 1985, 1986. Didn’t have much success with it, so that really isn’t for me. In 1989, I was introduced to another opportunity and it was the fact of the business concept that attracted me. The concept of the ability to harness the time and talents of people who were upline in the network and let them help me succeed. That’s what attracted me and the fact that you didn’t have to have employees.

You knew something about having employees. You had run some pretty big cattle operations and alfalfa operations. What else were you involved within the agriculture world?

At that time, we were the largest exporter of alfalfa in the world to Japan. We had a trucking company, a fertilizer company, irrigation supply company. We were farming about 5,000 acres and had 140 employees. If you want to have a problem, just add another one. I had that concept of what employees meant and the idea that the limiting factor to your success is the people that you can afford to hire. That limits you. If you look at the Walmart family, arguably the wealthiest family in the world, and you look at their success, it’s because they benefit off of the leverage of 1.4 million people that work for them. It’s that leverage. Albert Einstein talked about one of the marvels of the world is compound interest. I would argue that it’s a compound effort. That’s where network marketing got my attention all those years ago in 1989.

The business made sense to you and I know you had a great mentor. Do you want to talk about him a little bit?

The mentor was Bob Schmidt. I went to that first meeting and the product from that particular company intrigued me. A friend of mine dragged me off to a meeting where I met with Bob, who managed for the first time and we went on to become great friends over the years. It was where Bob was talking about leveraging the time and talents of people you could never afford to hire. That was not just the downline, it’s the upline, which is one of the things that happens in network marketing that people fail to use. It’s harnessing the time and talents of the upline.

Bob laid out the scenarios of how you could build that business. How you didn’t have to have the employees, inventory, credit cards and have to have all these things. I had an office staff of five that were nonproductive as far as income, to me, but an expense that I had to have. When I looked at that, I said, “This makes a lot of sense.” That’s what attracted me originally to that concept, but then I went through a number of years running from frustrated to mad in network marketing, which I think most people do. It’s interesting, you’re talking to people and they don’t listen. They hate their job, their boss, where they live. They hate that they can’t afford to take their family on vacation, but they don’t have time to listen to you. That was very frustrating and that was the first five years in network marketing. It was running through that frustration.

I know you were exposed to a lot of great self-development information when you got into the industry. You’ve been part of the book called Leave Nothing to Chance. I know you also were my co-author with Moving Up: 2020. I know you’re familiar with some books that have come out. Let’s talk about that a little bit. In the book, Leave Nothing to Chance, there are fifteen principles. Which of those fifteen grabs you and why?

The only reason why somebody would join you in network marketing is because you can help them achieve something they can’t do on their own. Click To Tweet

As I’m holding the book and looking, all of them apply. That’s the point that I think is so interesting. I think the most important is leading with integrity. Principle number twelve is staying in integrity. That is so important because, in this world that we live in, people are out of integrity all the time. All you have to do is turn on the television, the radio, or go to the internet and you see people that are out of integrity. You know it and they know it. Because of that, you’re not willing to accept it. If you’re out of integrity when you’re sharing your opportunity and your concept of why somebody would join you, you have to be in integrity. One of the things that I learned from Bob is there’s only one reason for somebody to join you in a network marketing opportunity. There’s not a second, there’s only one. That’s because you can help them accomplish something they can’t do on their own. That’s why leading in integrity, principle number twelve, is important.

I know now being in the industry for a long time, you’ve been exposed to a lot of great books and works. I know you’re a voracious reader. What was that first book that you had an a-ha moment when you read it, and when?

Everybody thinks that reading is something that you enjoy. I’m not somebody that enjoys reading, per se. It’s just that I can’t get the authors to come to my house and tell me what they put in the books. I keep inviting them. I was very fortunate when I was about nineteen years old that I went to Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People. Some people that know me well said they’re not sure I ever read that book, but we went through that process.

It’s important for people to understand, read eclectically, not just down one particular path. Every day I’m on the internet, a couple of things pop up. If they’re outside of what I normally read, I say, “Let me check that out.” You’ll find some very interesting things as well as the books that you read. Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, Tracey Jones, our friend that publishes Leave Nothing to Chance, our other book. The point is that Charlie said that you’ll be the same five years from now you are now except for the people that you meet and the books that you read. The good thing is you can get the books, go to Tremendous Leadership, get the books.

Network marketing allows you that opportunity to meet people that you’re not going to meet in the lives of somebody that has a normal job. You’re just not going to be exposed to that kind of thing. Your income is the equivalent of your five best friends. If you take your income, the five people you hang around with, add them all together divided by six, that’ll be about your average income. What I’m going to say that’s most important is if you take your 5 or 6 best friends, add the attitudes together, and divide it by six, that’ll be the attitude of your why. That attitude of your why will determine your actual success. People that have the proper attitude, Zig Ziglar, “Your attitude controls your altitude.”

Once again, back to the point of who you’re hanging around with and who you’re spending time with. That’s one of the beautiful things in network marketing because, in my agribusiness world, I’m pretty limited as to who I’m going to hang around with. You go to the bankers that you deal with, they’re not the most joyful people to deal with. You’re dealing with suppliers, they’re not the most joyful to deal with. You’re dealing with customers and those are never joyful. You have that environment. Network marketing allows you to choose who you spend your time with. That’s not afforded to most people in most of their businesses that they have.

If you’re a dentist, somebody makes a dentist appointment, and that person comes in and sets in that chair, you don’t have much choice. That’s a patient and you got to deal with them. If somebody walks into a hair salon to get their haircut, you don’t have a lot to do with that. If somebody walks into a real estate office, and a real estate agent working for a broker, you don’t have a lot of choices whether or not you work with that person. Network marketing affords you that luxury of choosing who you get to work with and I think that’s oftentimes overlooked.

It’s a good point. Let’s stay on self-development. I know you’ve read a ton of books. If you were stuck on a mountain top, and they said, “Keith, you can go up the mountain top, but you can only bring, in addition to your Holy Bible, three other books with you.” What would they be?

I’ve got to say that if we’re going to go right now because if you’re going to be on that island, you’re probably going to argue with some people. Even if you’re there by yourself. The book by Gerry Spence How to Argue & Win Every Time. It’s a very good book. The other one is, Doesn’t Hurt to Ask by Trey Gowdy. Those are powerful books. Something I haven’t gotten to yet, but is interesting, I got Jim Rohn’s The Passion of Life. I’m sure I read that book, John. This is one of the reasons that I’m an advocate for getting the actual paper books and learning the process of how to read. People say, “What do you mean learn how to read?” Read it with a highlight. Highlight the book as you read it, of the things that are important to you so that you can come back to it.

Here’s what’s most important, my great-grandchildren will be able to pick up these books and look at the notations and the things that I highlighted and knowing what I thought was important. That’s why I’ve got that book and then Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Oftentimes people say, “I’m not a good reader.” I wasn’t a good reader either. It was fascinating when I was about 10 or 12 years old and my parents were somewhat concerned that I was a very slow reader. They sent me to a summer reading program. They taught me how to speed read. I would suggest that people spend a couple of hours a day for some time. In fact, there’s something going on that causes people to spend a lot of time at home right now. There’s something going on.

Invest in that speed reading because it’s interesting how you learn and there’s a couple of different techniques. It allows you to go through the things and read the things that are interesting to you to expand who you are. The other thing that I learned from Bob Schmidt is, you’ll never earn more money than the value you bring to the marketplace. We all hear the story of somebody that got lucky and whatever, but the reality of it is they end up losing it and it goes away. Everybody says, “They never really brought the value to the marketplace.” That’s why it’s so important to invest in yourself. Buy the real books. Buy this book Leave Nothing to Chance. Read it with a highlighter. Read the stuff that’s important, highlight it, make notes in it, and then don’t loan it out. Don’t loan books. Buy books. I buy books which I think is a great deal with Tracey, what she has with Tremendous Leadership, is buy those little books.

 

We were talking about how important the book, Acres of Diamonds is. We were talking about a number of them. Get those books and spend some time, read them. The good news about them is they’re easy to acquire and easy to do. The sad news is most people don’t do it. They won’t spend that 20 minutes, 30 minutes reading the book. That’s why I’m fascinated a few years ago, it occurred to me that I’d never read the Bible. I read the Bible, as most people say they read the Bible, but they didn’t start at the index and go to maps. They didn’t read it all the way through, word for word themselves, but they have a great opinion about it.

A lot of people have a great opinion about what the Bible says, but they never actually read it. I found that fascinating and I said, “I’m not going to be one of those.” If you want something that’s going to take some time. That’s not a fast read, by the way, but it is interesting when you read it. Just a suggestion on the Bible when you read it, it’s an operator’s manual. It’s a human operator’s manual on how to operate your life. Once again, we’re looking at self-improvement. If you don’t have a book in hand, most people have access to one of those, start there.

You’re making a great point. Our mutual friend, Dan McCormack always says, “You don’t read a book, you study a book.” You study the Bible. We always use that terminology growing up, “Going to Bible school.” You study the Bible, so why would you read a book? You study a book the same way. When you highlight it, to your point, you come back and you go, “This book’s 200 pages long but there are eight real earmarks here of stuff that I thought was relevant,” that you can go back to 5, 10, 20, 30 years down the road and see again. The first self-development book I ever read, was by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who I know you’re a big fan of. I was seventeen years old. I still have the book. It’s very aged, but it’s got my notes in it from when I was seventeen and what I thought was important at seventeen.

Let’s talk a little bit about multi-level. Two questions. There are two very specific groups of people. They crisscross each other in a way but there are two very specific groups of people that I think perhaps never would have, under normal circumstances, considered network marketing as at least a Plan B. To go along with whatever Plan A is. Here are the two groups, the first group are the 25 somethings. They’re 25, 28 or 23.

Perhaps they have a college education and a piece of paper that says that they know something. They’re living on mom and dad’s couch right now because not a lot of opportunity out there in bricks and mortar, etc. Companies aren’t hiring because of the pandemic, etc. They have a lot of skills. They know how to work the iPhone and can launch the space shuttle with the iPhone if they needed to. They know what all those apps on the phone do. I don’t know if you know what all yours do, I have no idea what half the ones on my phone are for, I have to ask my seventeen-year-old what they’re for, but there’s that group. They’re a very specific group. Let’s call them young folks.

There’s that second group who are in their late 50s, maybe early 60s, maybe even 70s, for that matter. Everything was going along well. Perhaps they owned a brick-and-mortar business. Perhaps they worked in a brick and mortar business and they did well. Maybe they were senior-level management. They were looking, “I’m getting to the end of the road here workwise.” They were looking forward to retirement a couple of years back and then the pandemic happens. Maybe they’re still even employed, but their income is not going to be anything close to what it once was, in most businesses, in most instances.

They’re saying, “Maybe I’m still going to go with a retirement plan down the road. Right now, I’m going to continue to try to work and eke out a living. Maybe I should get into one of those network marketing businesses and take advantage of the thousands of people that I’ve gotten to know through the years and see if I can find a product or a service that fits my likes and something I’m going to be comfortable marketing.” We’ve got those two groups of people and where they intersect is, we can probably call that same age group 42 or 72, it’s probably about the same, but at the end of the day, those two groups of people walk into your office. Maybe it may be a dad and his son, maybe a grandpa and his son, and they walk in and they say, “Keith, why network marketing now as opposed to a few years ago?”

Let’s take the kids that are graduating out of college. My granddaughter finished at the University of California. She went through with one of the university schools and graduated in three years with over 4.0, I don’t know how you get above a 4.0 because I don’t know how you do that, but that’s what our deal is. She’s been accepted at Boston University Law School. She can’t find a job because she’s only going to be here temporarily until she goes to Boston University Law School, where she’s got a couple of other students as well, but she can’t get a job. You look at that opportunity from there.

You’ll never earn more money than the value you bring to the marketplace. That is why it’s so important to invest in yourself. Click To Tweet

My grandson, graduating from Fresno State with a degree in business and finance and hasn’t found a job yet. Obviously working with a bank within the family business, but we want him outside. We want to cast him out into the real world for at least a few years. If you look at them and you’re looking at network marketing, what does it afford them? One of the key things that it’s going to afford them is that knowledge. Robert Kiyosaki talked about his Rich Dad Poor Dad series. Back to these doggone books, I could never give up. I went to see Robert Kiyosaki speak at a small event and had the opportunity to meet him. You can keep inviting him for dinner and may never show up, so you got to read the books. He talks about the value of network marketing and the skillsets that you develop. Those skillsets are transferable to your other businesses.

My son has never been involved in network marketing, but the skillsets that he picked up hanging around with his father and the people that I introduced him to have allowed him to take those skillsets and become very successful. He’s very successful in a number of businesses that he has that are in the finance world, primarily, and brokerage world, but it allows them to do that. That’s why you want to look at this. The thing I would say to, what I refer to as the Gen Xers and the Gen Zers, is to find the key point language that applies to them so that they’re open to hearing what you have. If you’re going to talk to them about the way we joined network marketing 30 years ago, they’ll go, “I’m not interested in that,” but if you can show them how the technology allows them to leverage the same things that we did, and still do now, but using technology to do that.

Once again, when you’re talking to the Gen Xers or the Gen Zers, and most importantly, to the mom, dad and grandparents that are putting the bill, you want to talk about the transferable skills that they’re going to learn in network marketing that they’re not going to learn anywhere else. They’re not going to learn the art of asking questions. They’re not going to learn the idea of, “Talk to someone as the person asking the question. Asking the questions controls the conversation,” just like what you’re doing here. The person asking the question controls the conversation, if you ask the right questions, the people will give you the details that you need in order to present your opportunity to do that.

With the people that are coming up on retirement, that’s a scary world as I’m looking around to my friends and family that are coming up on that retirement world that had what they thought was a plan. They thought they had a plan. What they’ve seen is that the world has destroyed that plan because one of the things that I recognize, I’d like to say I’m smart, that’s not the case. Because of all the eclectic stuff that I read, that you come across with this, that the only way you’re not going to outlive your money is by having a business that continues. To build a business that continues whether you’re there or not. Whether you’re actively managing it or not. That allows network marketing to take advantage of and to do that.

If they’re coming up on retirement, they know the word Rolodex. They have a Rolodex of great contacts. The idea is to talk to those contacts in a way of, “I don’t want you to buy anything, I don’t want you to sell anything, I just want you to know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. If it’s for you, we can have a great conversation.” Go through that context. The idea that I learned from Bob, I’m looking for the people that are looking for me. I’m not in the selling business, I’m not in the convincing business. We can’t convince people to exercise. We can’t convince people to read good books. We sure as heck can’t talk somebody into starting their own business that’ll set them free financially through network marketing.

You’ve got a very large network in the company that you’re in. You’ve been at it for a quarter of a century with one company, which is admirable, to say the least. Most people skip around a lot in our industry and they’re generally not the people who make the most money. Having said that, you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing for a long time. You’ve been very consistent. You’ve posted a call every Wednesday night for a long time.

You’re a model of consistency, which I think is part of the reason why you’ve been successful. Now, having said that, over those years that you were working with Bob, going back to 1989, you’ve started a lot of people in the industry. What’s the best plan to get them started? In your opinion, is it 24 hours, 48 hours, one week? What goals do you set with them? How do you work with them? How do you lock arms with them to get them moving forward so that they see some results that they stick around long enough to give themselves a chance to succeed?

Going back to my friend Bob Schmidt, he had something that he lived by, “Don’t get one if you’re not going to help them get one. Don’t sponsor somebody if you’re not going to help them sponsor somebody.” The idea is, when you sponsor somebody, before they ever sign up online, before they ever signed the document at the old Denny’s, the coffee shop. Before they do that, who are we going to talk to? Who do you want to be in business with? Who are the 3, 4, or 5 people that we’re going to talk to immediately?

The keyword is we, not you, we. We’re going to have a conversation with. Because going back to that point of network marketing, getting people started right, making sure they know who the uplines are. Making sure that they know who the talent is that’s there. The limiting factor, once again, in any business is the talent that you can afford to hire. In most instances, you’ve got a pretty good group of upline that is successful. Find out who they are. My job as a new distributor when I’m talking to somebody in the business is, let somebody else do the talking. I think that’s one of the things that has happened within network marketing is, too often, people join the business and then go off on their own. They don’t work with their uplines. They don’t work with that person. When you start somebody, the process never fails.

This is what I love about network marketing. If you sponsor somebody, and you help them sponsor somebody, what do you do then? That person that you help them sponsor, you work with that person to help them sponsor something. It’s the old adage, what’s the best way to keep a nut on a boat? Put another nut behind it. By the time you put another nut on, and you put a 3rd, 4th, 5th nut on that boat, you can’t take that top one off.

We have conversations where we laugh when you have an organization, and you’re working on your 3rd, 4th, and 5th level in a support level. At that level, you’re supporting and whatever. No matter what happens to people between you and the people that you’re affecting on your 4th or 5th level, can’t quit. Even if they want to or even if they don’t like you, they can’t quit. They’re locked in because nobody walks away from equity. When you look at people in network marketing that quit, it’s because they’re not making any money.

They don’t have any equity in the situation, the things that have gone on there because that has not been developed. When getting people started, getting them started right and what you’re looking for is people who make up their mind quickly and change it very slowly. Milton Hershey was noted for that. When you’re looking at that, getting people started, that’s on you as the sponsor. Who are we going to talk to? If you wait until you sponsor them and then try to find out who you’re going to talk to, it’s not going to happen.

 

The other thing is, don’t do anything that would cause them not to introduce you to their family and friends. If you’re having difficulty getting somebody to connect you with their people, it’s because you did or said something that made them uncomfortable, and they don’t want you to do that to their family and friends. There’s a lot of nuances in this idea of how you will do this, but you’re looking for people who are looking for you. When you sponsor somebody, the idea is immediately within the next 24 to 48 hours, help them sponsor somebody.

Easy to say, John, but it’s very easy for us as we’ve been in this industry for a long time. The keyword is lazy, we get lazy about it. We go, “They can do it. The technology is there. They can bring them to this so they can do that.” It really doesn’t happen. Network marketing is a self-weeding garden. The three companies that I have been in, what’s interesting is over a period of time, my uplines all quit. I was such a powerful force that my sponsors quit.

That’s one of the things that’s beautiful about network marketing. You’re looking at this as long-term. That’s one of the things about being in agriculture. We plan out five years in advance. Some of the stuff that we’re doing now with some permanent crops, we’re looking out 15, 20 years. Decisions are being made now on how they affect twenty years from now. Network marketing is the same thing. Albert Einstein, one of the wonders of the world said it’s the compounding effect of the networks, in the first year, maybe you’re going to make a couple of $100 a month. There’re always exceptions that everybody wants to lead to, but the reality of it is, it’s going to be a few $100, maybe it’s $1,000 or $1,500. Second year compounds, you got more people joining, maybe you make them $4,000 or $5,000 a month.

Year three is when your business starts to produce. Just like if you plant the almond crop in California, the third year, you’re going to start to get a crop. Same thing in our business here. First 1, 2, 3 years, you’re going to put some effort in, you’re going to say, “I’m not so sure about this, but I know down the road it’s going to be there just like that almond crop.” In three years, you’re going to start production. It’s the same thing here.

The key to it, is to ask yourself, I suggest a weekly basis, “What would you pay someone for what you did last week in your network marketing business?” “Why would you be willing to write a check to somebody?” “If you were hiring somebody to do what you did, what would you pay them for?” Continue through that process. I still do that. I think that keeps us in the deal and understanding it’s not us. It’s a team of people. My job is very simple in my organization. It’s simply to stand in the back of the room and applaud. I recognize those that are doing the things that are driving the business now.

What’s interesting about what you said about agriculture is you have an almost contrarian thought process in your career in network marketing than a lot of other people do. Something’s not happening quick enough, they quit, they move on to the next thing, and they try to take all their people. You haven’t done that. You’ve been at the same company for 25 years. Talk about that a little bit without talking about the specifics of the company, perhaps. Just some of the ups and downs that a lot of other people may have cut and ran and said, “The grass is greener.”

You’ve chosen to stay and now you’ve been well rewarded for it, and you continue to be well rewarded for it now. In all those years, I’m sure there were a lot of times when you said, “Why bother? It’s not going the right way. Management’s not doing what they need to do,” or whatever the circumstances were, but you stuck it out. You continue to build despite the times when others would have chosen to do other things. Let’s talk about that longevity and stick-to-itiveness that you’ve had.

One of the things that you look at in any business is, what is your long-term plan? What is your 1-year, 3-year, 5-year plan, and 10-year plan? What is it? What is the responsibility of the network marketing company? The company that you’re representing. Their job is to ship the product or service and make sure they pay you on time. That’s what they are, they’re simply no different than when we were in our agribusiness and the fertilizer business that we had. Were the rail cars arriving on time with the fertilizer? Do we have the truckers there to pick it up and move it? That was all they could do. After that, it was up to us to do what we needed to do to make it happen.

The only way you can outlive your money is by building a business that continues even after you’re gone. Click To Tweet

It’s the same thing in network marketing. If the company is paying you on time, and they’re shipping the product on time, that’s where they end. If they could do what you do, they wouldn’t need you. If they could connect and build a network, they wouldn’t need you. That’s why they need you. That’s why network marketing is flourishing right now is because it’s a contact capital of the people. The business is yours, it’s not the company.

The company’s job is to produce the product, make sure the checks are on time, all the stuff that they do, and everything else that they do is a benefit. Look at it as an added benefit because if you go back years ago, and anybody that’s been in network marketing for many years, when they started with a company, what was there? There was a product, there was the fact that the company was going to pay, they were going to handle all of that. You had maybe some little marketing stuff that went with it, but the idea was, you were the storyteller. That hasn’t changed in all those years.

Obviously, in all those years you have management that changes, in our case, the company I’m with, the ownership changed, and all the things that were there, and they were they were good. There were periods of time where the company itself was less than spectacular. To your point, people became frustrated and walked away. The idea was they didn’t own their own business. There was a point to call the Me Corp. You own your own corporation. You are the CEO. You are the head of marketing. You are the head of recruiting. You are the head of all these because this is your business. If the product is good, and the checks are on time, as long as the management stays out of the way, that’s a great thing.

That’s one of the things that happened in network marketing, people joined the business and they want somebody else to do it. They want the company, “Where’s that marketing piece from the company?” If those people knew what to say and do, they’d be doing what we do because we make a lot more money than they do. If they knew what to say and do, they wouldn’t have their jobs. They’d be doing what we’re doing. That’s so important and that consistency of time and effort. People are going from deal to deal. That is the part that I think is such a tragedy.

I have a friend that has probably been in 25 deals if you’ve been in one. Every time there’s any little hiccup, he’s off to the next deal. He’s a year younger than I am. He’s still trying to work in an industry that he hates, that’s not going to continue his employment, but he can’t afford to retire because he kept going from deal to deal. He never built that long term residual income that people often look at. When somebody looks at me, they say, “Keith, you’ve been with this company for 25 years.” Why is that important? Because that check will continue to come when I’m not here. The structure of our business, the structure of what we’ve done, the income will continue to flow to my wife. If I go before she does, which is more than likely because she’s a kid compared to me.

It’ll stay here and still be here for my children, and hopefully my grandchildren, because there are stories of that, John. There are people that are still getting checks from companies that the grandparents joined in the 1940s and 1950s and those distributorships continue now. That’s often overlooked, and it’s overlooked the value that you’re building. You’re building equity in the business because you own it. You can will it. You can sell it. You can transfer it. There are all kinds of things you can do. It’s important to look at that when you’re looking at your portfolio of investments that are there along with a lot of other things.

This is a generational business, you build it. When you’re not here anymore, it goes to your heirs. No different than if you owned a franchise, a car dealership, or any kind of traditional business, as long as it was functional, it passes on to your heirs. I think I’ve shared this with you, Keith, I was doing a consulting job for one of the older companies in the industry a few years back. You and I met for lunch a few times when I was doing some work for this company. They had a new owner. I went to their annual convention. I sat at a table, nobody knew me. I was there as the owner’s guest. I just need a place to sit at dinner. I sat down with some lovely folks that were a little bit older than and one couple shared with me that they started to earn a check in that company in 1959. I was born in 1961.

I don’t know if those folks are still living or not, but what’s going to happen to their business, or did happen with their business? Either their kids have it or their grandkids have it. It’s a company that’s gone on for many years. We’re seeing more of that as more companies mature, stay in business long term. There’s this generational income, maybe not wealth, but income that’s passed along to the next generation, so you’re making a great point.

Keith, in closing, we have a mixed audience. We have new people in the industry that reads. We have people like ourselves that have been doing this for a long time. We have everything in between. We have people that are reading from different markets, different countries, even people who speak other languages primarily that are reading and gaining from this. Your last advice to those people, why should they go out and build a network marketing company now? Get themselves active? Why should they do that? Why should they take that immediate action?

It’s a level playing field. Network marketing is one of the few businesses that’s a level playing field. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what your education is, what the zip code is. None of that matters. All it matters is you and it’s the only business that has a true level playing field. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. That just doesn’t care. That’s a unique opportunity that we have and what’s the beautiful thing about this is it’s equal around the world.

 

Doesn’t matter where you’re at, if your company’s doing business there, it offers that same equal opportunity around the world. That’s truly unique. A lot of people are looking for that. Particularly, we’re looking at Gen Z and the Gen X. They’re looking for something that will make a difference. There’re few things that you can do in life, business-wise, that you can impact the lives that you can touch as you do in network marketing. I wouldn’t encourage everybody to take the time. Do your due diligence, do your research, make a decision to join and be very careful about changing.

We’ve certainly seen the benefits, so continued good success, continue on building your new home in Idaho. I can’t wait to see the finished product. That back window you’ll look at, those mountains I’m envious of, so certainly enjoy that. Thank you once again, for your leadership in our industry. Thanks so much. A lot of information and a lot of our questions are based on the book called Leave Nothing to Chance that you can get from Amazon. Our other great book that I co-authored with Keith, Moving Up: 2020, is a book that you’ll want to pick up as well. In the case point, get these books, make them your own, mark them up, get the hard copy. The copy that you actually can get in there and make notes. Kindle too, if you want to do that. At the end of the day, I would always suggest that you get the actual copy of any book, whether it’s ours or anybody else’s, so you can make those notes. It’s very valuable points by Keith Hooper. Keith, once again, thank you so much for your time today and continued good luck.

Thank you for having me, John.

Important Links:

• Keith Hooper
• Leave Nothing to Chance
• Moving Up: 2020
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• Tremendous Leadership
• How to Argue & Win Every Time
• Doesn’t Hurt to Ask
• Thou Shall Prosper
• Acres of Diamonds