Leave Nothing To Chance

 

Back for another must-see episode on how to do network marketing right is the man himself, Tom “Big Al” Schreiter. In today’s show, Tom chats with host John Solleder about the magic words you need to use when prospecting. It’s not just about how you say things, but what you say. Businesses exist to solve people’s problems. Are you offering a solution? If you want to learn how to communicate clearly to attract customers and close deals, this episode is one you can’t miss. Tune in for more golden nuggets on network marketing as Tom shares insights from his book, The Happy Network Marketer: The Wealthy & Fun Way to Build My Business.

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Tom “Big Al” Schreiter Tells All Part 2

Round two with Mr. Tom “Big Al” Schreiter, all the way from beautiful Thailand. Tom, welcome again to the show. How are you?

I’m good. Nice and warmer. Not as warm as Dallas but still warm.

Thanks so much for being here once again. I hope everybody heard our first show. If you didn’t, go back to the archived on LeavingNothingToChance.com. You can always read this stuff 24/7. Tom is such an amazing human being. He’s so insightful. He’s got so much experience in building organizations and that’s one of the things I admire about you. You are a field guy who’s been able to do every other function of the business as well. I admire that about your career.

Let’s get started. We talked a little bit about the body of work of 50 plus books that you have had out for anywhere from a few years to lots of years. One of which influenced me early on Big Al tells all was a wonderful book and helped me understand 201 sponsoring and also the logic of don’t chase your tail after the big prospects. If somebody can fog a mirror, they are a prospect for our business. All of those good little pointers that we talk about that you illustrate so well in your writing.

I would encourage you, people, as you read this stuff to build your library. Mr. Rohn used to say, “When you are gone, your kids aren’t going to worry about your coffee table but your library is they are going to look into.” Tom’s work should be in your library. Many of which are in mind. Tom, tell us about the new book and how can it get it. What’s different maybe than some of the previous books?

The latest book came out on August 1st. It’s called The Happy Network Marketer and it shows people how to do network marketing and a way that’s in their comfort zone, with no rejection. It shows if you are doing it this way and you don’t feel good, it will stop doing it in a way where it’s going to be natural. You won’t have to worry about motivation, goals, or to-do lists. The book Keith and I made is free, if they go to BigAlBooks.com and get on the mailing list, there will be links there to download the book and it’s free. If you have people that can’t afford $4 or $5 for an eBook, they could get it free well within their budget. How’s that?

I read it. It’s an easy read. Once again, so many good pointers for us. Big Al, let’s say that again.

You just learn how to do the business, what to say and that's it. We just communicate with people. Click To Tweet

Go to BigAlBooks.com and you will look for something that says free. Click free and magic happens.

Let’s segue a little bit to the changes that you have seen in these 50 some odd years of being involved in the industry. How has checked technology changed things in a better way or for that matter, in a worse way than when you began?

In the beginning, nobody had anything to compare network marketing to. Remember when you talked about the brain not being able to compare? What about this network marketing? There must be a bunch of these anti-communists, government, hippies, and what’s going on? In the beginning, it was hard to sponsor people because everything was worked 40 years and get your check. Over the last many years of technology, you can sign somebody up right after lunch and they will be in four other programs before dinner.

The challenge went from getting somebody to understand that they could be in their own business to how do you get somebody to focus. Who’s playing the lottery tickets? That’s what changed. Bottom line is that we still are going to end up having to talk to a live human being, autoresponders, the attraction marketing, the ads, and the leads. I hope nobody takes this personally but most people shouldn’t be talking to leads. What they do is say, “I talked to my family and friends and they all said no.” I said, “They didn’t like what you said.” If your family and friends didn’t like what you said, strangers are not going to like it any better.

You might want to learn what to say before investing in a whole bunch of stuff for leads. It’s up to you. It’s probably better to learn what to say and it’s not magical. I have a friend, who calls leads. Which I would find, let’s say on a scale of 1 to 10. I would rank it pretty much next to dental surgery. It’s not me to call people and say, “You fill out a form or your neighbor filled out a form to get even with you, and now, I’m the 54th person to call you to join my business.” I’d say, “Oh, man,” but she says, “I like doing it.” I said, “How do you do it in a way that works for you?”

She says, “I used one of your mind-reading things. If you can mind read somebody, you create instant rapport.” I say, “You see the world the same way I do.” She recalls and says, “I understand you are looking for a business because you are on this list or you probably haven’t found one yet. Is there a reason you haven’t found one yet?” People open up and tell her exactly why. She said, “It’s like mind reading. Telling me exactly what they are looking for. How hard is it?”

If we learn what to say, that’s more important than waking up every morning with triple caffeine, the eye of the tiger, I’m one with the universe, and jumping up and down. Knowing what to say that works in a pleasant way are something we can do forever. We don’t have to pump ourselves up. This is pretty much as excited as I get. You don’t have to be one of these excited, superhuman beings. You learn how to do the business and what to say, and that’s it. We communicate with people.

I love that because we have both seen over the year that person who is so excited that they want to almost throw up on you. It’s like, “If they were recruiting me, I would run away.” I would be like, “I don’t want to work with that person.” You are too high energy because a lot of us are even-keeled. We know it’s a marathon. Not a sprint in the business but also in life. Those people scare me. They come out of some of these seminars and they want to jump up and down and scream and yell. It’s like, “Go to somebody else.”

Remember Joe Friday? You and I remember Joe Friday, “Just the facts. Give me what I need to know. Let me figure out the rest.” I love what you say. We think the same on that. No doubt. How was the worldwide recession that we are in? How do you think that’s changing things in terms of not the businesses in terms of their growth or non-growth for that matter? How do you position it now with people? How do you get that conversation started with somebody about, “Here’s what’s happening in the world.” We know what’s happening in the world. How do you get them over to what you want to talk about which is your business opportunity, whatever it happens to be?

I don’t even go there. I’m probably the last one to know when we hit recession because I don’t watch TV or watch the news. I think in 50 years, there are been a whole lot of recessions or stuff that happens. I haven’t noticed that. I keep doing the same thing. We talk to people. We make an offer to them and say, “Join us for ice cream at the ice cream parlor as we talked about last time. If that works for you then I will give you the details. If it doesn’t work for you, let’s talk about something else.”

In a recession, 10% of the people may lose their job but 90% have them. I’m not going to change my whole strategy for 10% and blow off the 90%. I pretty much do the same thing. For some people, recession means, “We can’t eat out as often as we used to or I have to cut back to only three cable subscriptions.” Get over it. Instead of having an extra trim leather when I buy this new car, “I can’t add that extra trim leather.” Get over it. I don’t even bother with it but I’m sure you could make it a big issue. It could be a fact to create rapport but I don’t see much difference like when we had this virus thing.

People are going to say, “It’s over now. We can’t even meet with people anymore.” They started meeting on Zoom and amazingly. Even I was surprised at this. Most networking companies grew a whole lot because of this. You would expect the opposite. Whether there’s a recession or not, if we say stupid stuff, we get bad results. If we get bad results, then we have to hype ourselves up every morning to be excited about going out and seeing ourselves fail. I think it’s probably a better thing to figure out what to do or say so people will join.

That is the best answer. I can interview you all day. You are the most logical person I have ever interviewed. Let me ask you about magic words because you talked about that in the new book. What are some of the magic words that you can tease them with so they go and get the book, which is what we want them to do?

If they have a pencil and paper, grab one quick. Let’s start with some short ones and you can see how quickly they work. I will do the one that changed my life. I used to ask people, would you be interested in it? Think back, how am I going to react to that? If we go out and ask people, would you be interested in it? Before we finished the rest of the sentence, what decision have they probably made? “A salesman approaching. Run and save yourself. Hide your wallet or purse.”

The human mind has a preexisting program that says, if anybody says, “would it be okay if?” the answer is always yes, unless it's just too unreasonable. Click To Tweet

I would say that and he was enjoying it. When I learned to change it to these five words, “Would it be okay if?” If you say, “Would it be okay if?” The human mind has a preexisting program that says, “If anybody says would it be okay if the answer is always yes unless it’s too unreasonable.” Which set of five words we are going to use? Figure it out. You say, “If I say would it be okay if, you were saying that people normally will say yes?” If you don’t believe it works, think about your kids. “Mom, dad, would it be okay if I got this tie? Would it be okay if we go to Sally’s house? Would it be okay if I borrowed the car and ever bring it back?” That’s my daughter.

What do you say, “Would it be okay if?” Changing those words, everything changes. I said, “Okay.” That’s how people make decisions based upon some preexisting programs. Let’s take a look at when we talk to people. People like security. Our number one program is the survival to stay alive because we die. All bets are off. We have security in our mind, we see two restaurants. One restaurant is empty. The other one has a line starting to form outside the door. Which one do we want to eat at?

Normally, people say, “I want to eat the busy one,” and you ask him why. “I don’t know. The food is better. Maybe the empty one? Everybody ate there died. Nobody should ever come back. We don’t know.” There are social proof things in our brain. Say, “We want to be safe in groups. We don’t want to be a loner. We are a caveman. We are not by ourselves, so it’s better to go out in a group. We have this hardcore programming in our minds. Stay with the group and be safe. Do what other people do because it’s tested.

Don’t try something too new because it may not come back. Understanding that, let’s use some word combinations. You can say things like most people. Simply stating most people, usually say, “Am I part of most people or less people?” Not many people are part of less people. Some are probably part of most people. Most people are a part of most people. “I must be a most people-type person”

“Whatever most people do, I’m going to do.” “That’s how the human brain thinks.” You would say things like, “Most people want an extra income. Most people want to beat the recession. Most people don’t want 100% of their paycheck and security tied up with one company that may go out of business. Most people want to lose weight.”

He said, “That was pretty easy.” Most people know that can’t be the only two-word combination in the universe. Everybody knows there’s got to be another two-word combination. Everybody knows that if we keep demonstrating this, everybody knows that we will probably pick up that everybody knows this the next two-word thing. If you say everybody knows, people are going to say and lean their brains up. “Am I part of everybody or nobody?” Nobody’s part of nobody, so I’m part of everybody. If everybody knows that means I know it. If I know it, it must be true. No further proof is needed.

That’s going to save us a lot of time. Everybody knows it’s stupid to have all our income tied up in one paycheck. It must be stupid. If everybody says, “Let me see. Am I part of everybody? If everybody says, I say it, it must be true because I’m not a liar.” Putting those in front of basic facts changes how people react. What happens when you put these together? Let’s use everybody knows. If you have a pencil and paper, write it down, everybody knows. Right below it, write down most people then would it be okay if. We have written down everybody knows, most people and would it be okay if. Let’s pick a product. What’s a random product that we could talk about?

 

Let’s talk about Snickers bars. We are using the Snickers bar.

Everybody knows we work hard. Most people want to treat at the end of the day. Would it be okay if you had a Snickers treat because it’s going to make you feel awesome? Everybody knows that viruses mess with our immune system, so most people want to build their immune system. Would it be okay if you had a shortcut to building your immune system?

I like that one. I have my reasons to like that one.

Everybody knows the economy’s in trouble. Most people want to have an extra income for safety. Would it be okay if I showed you one more way to have an extra income? You start to start stacking these and you say, “This is too easy. This should almost be illegal.” We haven’t even started. How do you get people to believe things so easily? I said, “Most people do this. Everybody says this.” They say, “I get tired of saying that because it’s so easy. I want to challenge my life.” I say, “How about this one? There is an old saying.”

If you say there’s an old saying, he would say, “It must be true because that’s an old saying.” If you have something ahead of your beliefs, I’m saying it’s an old saying in front of it. We know what all things are. All these old wives’ tales, a stitch in time saves nine but there’s an old saying that having a job guaranteed, you will be broke at 65. That must be true. There’s an old saying, “I could use this anywhere. What are some other things?” This starts to get addictive. I tell people that you can take control of another human being’s mind but the littlest nine words. He looks at me and says, “Nine words? You can take control of another person’s mind?” The evil laugh comes out.

The other people are not using their free will and their reaction to what we say. We know people are 100% reactionary. You go outside and meet somebody, give them $100, and they are going to react. “Great. Do you have any more? I won the lottery.” You go outside and meet the same person and give them a punch in the nose. They will react differently. Texans are very polite, they will probably say something like, “That was rude.”

The question is, is this the same person outside two different reactions? Did their behavior have anything to do with them or everything to do with what we said and did? Their behavior has everything to do with what I said and do. Change what you say and do. Stop blaming the universe. How do I take control of people’s minds? Bring it to a screeching halt. Make them forget whatever they are thinking about.

Give them two choices. Number one, your wonderful offer, or number two, to keep their miserable life the same. Click To Tweet

Like a puppy dog waiting for a treat, can’t wait for your next words, but we can do it with nine words. Let’s try this. I have some good news and some bad news. Dead silence. They can’t stand that. Tell me more. They will stop the trick. You could be at a coffee machine with five people around and say, “I have some good news and some bad news.” Let’s stop right there. You will have 100% attention.

I said, “I have good news and some bad news. The bad news is we only get a pay raise here once a year. The good news is we can get a pay raise every month if we know how.” He said, “How’s that?” “Everybody knows jobs are dead in. Most people know a part-time business is a secret. Would it be okay with you if I showed you how you can have a part-time business on the side that doesn’t affect your business?” He said, “This is interesting.” Simple as that. You say, “If you don’t believe the good news and bad news work, take if your son or daughter calls you late at night and says, “Mom, dad, I have some good news and some bad news.” A hundred percent attention.

I have a nephew. He is more of an outgoing party personality. How’s that? He borrowed his mom and dad’s car one night and rolled it. Crashed it. Picks up the phone to call mom and dad. He said, “Mom, dad, I have some good news and some bad news.” “What happened?” He said, “The bad news is I wrecked the company car. I rolled it but the good news is I lived.” “My son.” You say, “You get away with that.” Instant attention. You think nine words, I can control another person’s mind. It’s nine words. All you say is good news and bad news and you are probably thinking, “I wonder if there are any other nine-word combinations where I can take control of the world?” I’d say, “There are two types of people in the world. That’d be about nine words.” When you say there are two types of people in the world, total attention. They have no choice.

You are thinking, “Nine words. That’s great but I’m part-time. It’s so hard for me to learn. Do you have something shorter with four words?” I just found out. I just found out how we get an extra paycheck. I just found out how we could fire the boss. I just find out how we never have to commute again. I just found out how we can work three weeks out of the month and get paid for four. I just found out how we can earn more money part-time than our boss does full-time. We could go on and on with these and you say, “That’s why they work.” He says, “We can do these for session after session but the point is to learn what to say. Why go to a career and never learn a single skill applied? We should learn the skills of how to talk to people.”

Those are magic words. If you are thinking, “That’s all good but I need to close.” Last episode we mentioned that our job is to give people an option and accept the option. That way we have no rejection. Here’s a little formula using magic words, nine words. The formula starts with, “What is going to be easier for you?” Nine words. If you say so what’s going to be easier for you, people say, “You are giving control to me. You are not trying to force me. No more salesmanship. You don’t have an agenda. You want me to choose. No sales pressure. I can decide what’s going to be best for my life.” Pretty good magic words.

You say, “What’s going to be easier for you?” Wrap up your presentation and give them two choices. Number one, your wonderful offer or choice number two, to keep their miserable life the same. It would sound something like this. “What’s going to be easier for you to worry about the virus and try to hide behind the mask for the rest of your life and live in constant fear or to use our antioxidant super pills to build your immune system so you can go back to enjoying life?” How hard was that? It’s going to be easier for you to go to work every day, buying chapstick by the case because you have a full-time job kissing your bosses behind or start a part-time business tonight so maybe next year you can wave goodbye to the job. Give a choice. That’s how magic works work.

I hope everybody is going to read repeatedly what Tom shared. I got two pages of notes. I have been doing this for many years and I learned some stuff that used to simplify the somewhat difficult process of building a network marketing business everybody wants to confuse you with nineteen different strategies of how you are going to get to do what? You can go knock on your next-door neighbor’s door and say, “Can I have a cup of coffee together? Let me tell you about this. Let me tell you what I’m doing.” Everything you said there. That’s why you have been such an incredible success and leader in our industry. You have influenced so many people.

 

You are still as great now as the first time I met you many years ago. Amazing stuff. How I learned by doing these shows. I have notes from guys from the Og Mandino foundation and a number of different things that I take my notes from here. I put them on those little yellow stickies. I stick them on my computer because all of a sudden they say, “I want to sound smart. I got a great idea right here.” Borrowed or stolen. Whatever you want to call them. Let’s come back and tell them again how to get the new book.

The Happy Network Marketer, it’s not up on Amazon yet. What we did is we gave it to a company called BookFunnel. They can distribute it free everywhere. Amazon won’t let you do that anymore. Go to BigAlBooks.com. Look for something as click free. If you do then they will send you a link and you can get the book. Twice a week, we send out tips on cool things to say. In the tips, they will have the links to the free books and stuff. It doesn’t cost anything to learn except a little bit of time to look the book. It’s not a $5 investment. This book is free. The investment is 90 minutes to read it. I tell people, “I don’t know if that’s too much price for you to pay. You are going to miss 90 minutes on Netflix.”

Unfortunately, a lot of people need to start thinking that way. I have to say our audience is good. They react very well to stuff. Expect to see some stuff coming from our part of the world here. Let’s talk about something else. You have been all over the world. I think I might be wrong about this. There are 162 or 167 countries, something like that now in the United Nations.

You have been over 100 where you have spoken to audiences. Without penalizing any countries that you don’t want to mention. Why don’t you talk about some of the places that you have been? Some of maybe the life experiences that you have had that if you had not 1972 said yes to this industry but you never would have had. You would have been in Chicago. Maybe there was something else now.

I didn’t join for the money. I joined for the travel. Out of school, I got a job and I found out you only get two weeks holiday. I’m thinking, “That’s not going to work.” That’s why network marketing looked so good. I said, “Here’s my chance to travel the world.” All I want to do is travel. It worked. I got a chance to travel, charisma bypass. When people said, “This guy knows if you say these words, they joined.” They started inviting me everywhere. They invite me to Hong Kong, Russia, Africa, and all these places. They say,” Come over.” I went over. I volunteered my time. You are making money in network marketing. You don’t have to take it from these folks.

Volunteered time and I got a chance to go all over the world. In some of the places that you go to, you say, “How are they able to do this?” You go to like Croatia back in the early-‘90s where there are a few motor shells. Hit the main street by people trying to pick up their products. They say, “We got stay on side for a little extra time here before we can go out again,” and they get on with their business.

I do in places like Iran. I go to Siberia. Iran a lot and Ukraine. A couple of years ago, I flew from Ukraine to Crimea. I come to this place and these two guys picked me up. They said, “We got problems here. Inflation is terrible. Their currency is worthless. People can’t get jobs. What are you going to do about it?” I said, “I just landed. Give me a break.”

It doesn't cost anything to learn except a little bit of time. Click To Tweet

We drive down to the coast. The next morning, I get a chance to talk to the group. I said to the group, “The purpose of business is to solve people’s problems.” That’s the only purpose. There’s no other reason for a business to exist except to solve people’s problems. If nobody got hungry having a restaurant is stupid. If nobody got tired of having our hotel, you are out of business. If nobody had cars owning a car repair shop, you’d be bankrupt. The only reason for a business to exist is to solve people’s problems. “Do you think you can find a place in the world where there are a lot of problems? That’s where you want to go if you want to build a business.” They say, “We have problems.”

Nobody has any money. There were no jobs. It’s changing how people look at things. If you think about it, if everybody was rich, it was going to be hard to sell business opportunities to them. People live forever, selling vitamins, pretty tough, people never wrinkled. They skincare. The only reason for people to exist in businesses is to solve people’s problems. If you want the easier way to talk to people, you got to listen because you are not going to know how they live or what their problems are if you are talking to them.

A lot of these are high-powered network marketers who say, “I have the sales presentation. I want to do is try to show them the slides.” We already know that’s a dead end. I said, “No, all you have to do is listen to see if they have a problem. A problem that you can fix then it’s simply a matter of asking, ‘Do you want to fix the problem? Yes or no. When? Now?” “Let’s talk.” How hard is that? When people have a problem, they are more motivated to fix that problem than they are for you all some super benefit.

The human mind concentrates on problems because that messes with our survival. If you say, “All I need to do is be a better listener. Listen to people who have problems. If they have a problem, ask them if they want to fix it. If they don’t, we are done. We talk about something else. If they do, we should talk and show him how to fix their problem.” It’s not rocket science. Let me do an example. There’s a question you can ask that will get people to expose their problems. If anybody here sells health products, this particular question is a license to print money.

First of all, who has health problems? Young people? No. Young people have no money but a lot of health. Old people have a lot of health problems but they have money to fix it. That sounds like a pretty good deal already, doesn’t it? Where are we going to find some old people? Let’s go to an old people’s party. We go to an old people’s party. There are twenty couples there. They are all over 30. We are going to talk to them and all we have to do is listen.

Somewhere in the conversation, we are going to say these magic words, “What are your two biggest health challenges? Your two biggest health problems.” All you have to do is chat with these old folks over 30. Somewhere in the conversation say, “What do you do with these health problems?” Here’s what they are going to do. You are going to say, “Everybody I talked to was tired of listening to me complain about my health. You are going to listen? I love you for joining the hip, Vulcan mind meld, blood brother, blood sister, you ask me. Let me tell you how much I suffer. This is great. My kids don’t even listen to me.”

You say, “What are your typical health problems?” They say, “My ankles, knees, hips, back, and neck hurts. I have migraine headaches and acid reflux. That’s a disease now.” Five known diseases and four unknown diseases. Three diseases they haven’t even discovered yet. When they finally take a breath, we are going to see these magic words, “Would you like to do something about it? Yes or no?”

 

There are twenty old couples there. I’d be surprised if you left with fewer than ten customers. Texas would call it shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so easy. You talk to the people. They have problems. You let them know that we have a solution. Take the volunteers. Would you like to do something about it? That’s it. I can tell you what happened when you talk to people.

I’m talking to my mom. This was many years ago and she had blood sugar problems. I got her some tablets. Some nice healthy tablets that she could take. Thirty days later, I came back and say, “How are you doing, mom?” She says, “I can’t swallow the tablets.” I went out and found a liquid version. I gave it to her. Thirty days later, I call back, “Mom, how are you doing?” “I can’t swallow pills or liquids.” What if your mother can say this to you? What is she saying?

She’s saying, “I enjoy visiting my doctor every two weeks. It’s a social call here in a small rural community. I don’t want to fix it. This is awesome.” That’s okay. You take the volunteers. You say, “Would you like to do something about it?” I should have asked my mom but I didn’t. I’m stupid. I’m trying to push a solution on her instead of asking first. The words are, “Would you like to do something about it?” That’s a yes or no.

Simple. Makes so much sense. You are the master of the language that the linguistics of network marketing. There’s nobody better than you. I have interviewed everybody and I have talked to everybody and I have worked with a lot of people. It’s what you just said there. Especially our young readers. Read what Tom shared there because you want to go out there and have seventeen different google ad word searches that lead you to the right prospect. The right prospect is whoever’s at your gym, whichever at your church, who’s ever at whatever it is that you do and talk to them and ask them those kinds of right questions and let them respond. The rest will take care of itself.

You are going to have to talk to a person anyway if they are right next to you. Pretty convenient. We can create prospects on demand. If we know how to talk, we can create them on demand. We don’t have to go through sixteen different steps to get somebody to talk to. We can talk to somebody right now. You say, “I’d like to talk to better people.” There are ways of talking to better people and stuff but it’s not rocket science. I don’t know if he calls it linguistics. I call it talking clear to people. Most people say, “That makes sense. Let’s go for it.”

What makes so much sense about the way that you do things is it’s duplicatable. It’s why you build big teams because they are not confused in all of the minutiae of how many studies we have on this particular ingredient that we can talk about versus, “These ingredients, here’s what they may or may not do for you.” Buy the product. Try it. It might work. It might not. I don’t know. It doesn’t give your money back. How simple is that? I love it. It’s so simple.

You are right about the information and stuff. I say, “People don’t use information.” When You are at a restaurant and you order chicken. You don’t ask the waiter, “Are the vegetables organically grown? Did the chicken have a happy life before they killed it?” You just order. People get upset about it and say, “Now we have to know these studies and I’m thinking, let’s try this,” because sometimes, I lose my patience. I’m thinking, “I’m not getting through this.”

The only reason for a business to exist is to solve people's problems. Click To Tweet

I said, “Answer this for me. How many people here in this room?” You have a lot of people still in their arms and upset because they paid a lot of money for some slides or something. I said, “How many people are here in this room, entered a relationship, or got married before you had all the information?” At some point, we have to accept the reality. It’s not what we wish things would be. It’s the reality of how they are. Once we accept that, let’s get on with it and learn how to talk.

I got to ask you this last question before we get to our close. I know you are living in Thailand now. When did you move over there? Whys and wheres and all that stuff? How’s the Chicago guy to live in Houston forever living in Thailand? How did that all happen?

It doesn’t matter too much where I live because I’m never home. I’m always traveling. I like traveling. How I got to Thailand is I do a lot of workshops in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and places like this. It was a little closer for some of the community. Also, every three weeks, I fly to the US and do a tour. There are a bunch of workshops there and then fly back. It doesn’t matter much where I am because I’m never here much. Over the last few years, travel has been a little iffy. Thankfully, it’s clearing up. They need more special antioxidants.

The other question I have for you. If they go to Big Al because I know you are on the road. You are the ultimate road warrior. I don’t know anybody who travels in the industry more than you have or you are still doing and you have been doing it forever. How do they get your speaking schedule? If they are in a city that you are going to be in and get a chance to come out, shake hands with you, take a couple of pictures, and ask them questions?

They go to BigAlBooks.com. Twice a week, we sent out some tips. When I’m back on the road, we put the workshops there. I end up going everywhere because that’s what I like to do. I tell people, “Invite me somewhere. Chances are, I might even show up.” I have been invited to some weird places on top of a mountain and in the middle of the jungle in Indonesia, where people took a boat for ten days to get there for the workshop. There are many places.

What’s cool is the people that come to the workshops, I get to meet the best of the best people. People that have a positive mental attitude want to do something with life. I get to meet nice people who want to improve themselves everywhere I go. It’s great. In every country, you’d be surprised. I do a lot of workshops in Iran. People are always different than the government. How’s that? You can say, “In America, people are different from the government because the government changes every 4 or 8 years. One party or the other.”

People are the same. They want something better for their family, a better life and they want an opportunity to do it. What’s nice about network marking is instead of having a lot of money invested and having some political connections, lots of capital, risk, laws, and expertise. We can get into this business with effort and that’s opposite up to everybody where everybody has a chance because when I started, I didn’t have any money but they said, “Here’s your chance to learn and earn.”

 

I know people reading your show because they can learn cool things to make their business rock. Personal development is a big part of it. I said, “As long as you do personal development, you are going to probably work on your attitude, motivation, vision, and goals.” That’s probably 80% but the last 20% is the skills to make it happen. What happens is a lot of people stop at 80%. They walk on coals at a Tony Robbins event and they tear here but they work on their mindset. At some point, you are going to have to say words to people. It’s not the 20% skills are more important. It’s that they are necessary. It’s like wheels on a car. The wheels are only 20% but without them, it doesn’t work.

I want to go back to one thing you said because doing these interviews has been a blessing. Not only you and I but some of the other people I have interviewed. Not only the learning stuff for my own business from interviewing such great people but the stories that you hear. I have seen them myself. I was in Columbia a few years ago when our company opened down there. There was a lady who took a train for 30 hours to come to the meeting. You tell an American to come 30 hours. “I got to meet that American.”

Out of 350 million of us, I don’t know one personally that would get on a train 30 hours to come to a meeting. You do get to some of these markets like you described the Croatians or the Iranians, that the people are hungry. They are hungry for capitalism, free enterprise, knowledge, and opportunity. At the end of the day, we all bleed the same. You cut us, we all bleed red blood. People are the same in that sense.

Somebody’s traveled ten days to come in to hear you speak in Indonesia. Talk about that a little bit. What you see is that maybe because most of our audience, we do have an international audience but also our audience US, Canada, UK, or Mexico that reads the show. Some of those other places in the world where people are so hungry. Talk about that for a minute because you see the best of humanity in terms of their intentions. I’d love you to talk about that a little bit.

This was many years ago. Somebody said, “We are in Indonesia and we want to do network marketing. We need help.” I said, “I will go.” At that time, I was living in Houston, so it was a 30-hour flight to get there. You get there and you find somebody who will trek you up the mountain. We go up this mountain to a place called Malang Batu. All they have is a building there that has one door. No windows.

This is on the equator. It’s a little bit hot. Three hundred people come there to learn. Some come as far away as ten days by boat from Borneo and places like that. They want to learn how to improve their lives so they can build a network marketing business. For them, they were able to learn. Most of the people there spoke Baja Indonesian but I had a Chinese translator who was a Muslim. You could say the translation probably wasn’t too good.

We did that during the day. At night, we got to go out into the jungle because I like the jungle treks at night a lot. It was an overall good experience for three days. I wouldn’t recommend it because let’s say the living quarters were kecil. There’s no WiFi and people don’t care. They want to have a chance to improve their life. Network marketing will do that for people. If you could show them how to talk to people to improve their life, I can’t think of anything more gratifying.

It has been a privilege. I want to thank you on behalf of the industry because folks if you don’t know Tom, you need to know Tom. If you don’t know Tom’s work, you need to know Tom’s work because it’s going to help your business, bottom line. Like these people who traveled ten days to come in here and speak. All you need to do is go to Amazon and press click and give a couple of pennies and you are going to get some great stuff in return. It’s going to be a blessing to you and your business and your family.

I do want to thank you because you have been an inspiration to me over the years. As I get older, you look at it yourself and some of the other folks that I interview. I say, “We have been blessed. We have been given a gift of this industry.” The fact that you are still out teaching, working, leading, and inspiring. I want to thank you. You are an incredible human being and continued good success, continued good health most importantly. I’m going to give you the last word.

Try to learn one new thing every day. In a year, we don’t even recognize ourselves. I knew numbers. Nothing else and I had to learn even basic social interaction. If you’d like to learn, go to BigAlBooks.com and register for free so you can get all the tips and newsletters. If you want to help Amazon with their bottom line, you can probably order a book from them. The point is, it’s easy to learn cool things to say. People will say, “Let’s talk.” That’s it.

Thank you again, Tom.

Thanks for inviting me and I hope people will have terrific success talking to people.

 

Important Links

• Tom “Big Al” Schreiter
• The Happy Network Marketer
• BookFunnel