The Birth of a Renegade
All right, everybody. Welcome in. Super excited to be recording this inaugural episode of MLM Renegade. I’m really excited about the possibilities and the things that we’re going to be doing here with MLM Renegade. MLM is a different place these days, and life has changed for a lot of long-time MLMers. I’m really excited because there are things that are happening within the industry, within the world right now, that are changing, seismic events that are just overpowering entire industries, entire companies.
I am an active network marketer. You won’t hear me talk about my company. I’m not here to recruit you. That’s not my job. What I am here to do is to talk about the things that are happening in this world to figure out how we, as network marketers, can actually use all this technology and the things that are happening with computers these days to make life better for ourselves, to fill our bank accounts and to fill our downlines.
Over the course of the next weeks, months and years, I’m excited to go through this and to help everybody to start to envision what life can really be like without having to bother friends and family. One thing that everybody cringes when they start with network marketing is immediately they want to get a list of friends and family. And I’ll be honest, friends and family can be a great place to find some great followers, some great customers, but let’s be honest, after a while you start to run out of friends and family. You end up in the NFL–that’s the no friends league–and we don’t want, we don’t want that to happen. We want to continue to grow this business in this vehicle. And there are things that can help us with that.
I am one of the middle generation, some people call us Xenial, I was born in the late ’70s. What that means is I grew up with technology. I didn’t have my first cell phone until I was 18. Actually, I think I was 19, but I know how to use a cell phone. I didn’t have social media until it was birthed. My Facebook account… You had to have a .edu email address in order to get a Facebook account back in the day. And so I grew up learning and working through all these things. I remember spending hours and hours and hours on tying up the phone lines at my parents’ house using Prodigy so that I could play some silly maze game. Because it was a computer game, and I was playing online, and it was cool, and that was exciting for me. But, really, what’s exciting for me now is this ability that network marketing gives us to change the way we live forever.
I want to go back, and over the next few episodes here, we’ll be talking a little bit more about me and my journey. I want to set it up for you and give you an idea where I’m coming from. Really, the idea behind this podcast was a creative outlet for me to talk with people to get other ideas to expand my horizons and understand how best I can help my team and your teams. I want you guys all to be MLM Renegades. I want you guys to be excited about the things that we’re doing and using technology to build your downlines and to build your organizations. And I think that over time you guys will get that.
My reason for being, my why if you will… We talk a lot about “why’s.” I’m a big fan of Simon Sinek’s book Find Your Why. My why is my family, right? I’m a dad. I’m a father of four. I’m a husband. I am an avid skier. I love to snowmobile. I love to ride my bicycle in the summertime. I like to be an active guy. I like to be out having fun. And what I’ve done to facilitate that in my past is I’ve been in sales; in fact, I started in sales at the age of 17.
I started selling bicycles and skates at a friend’s sporting good store. This was your run-of-the-mill sporting goods store. In fact, I went there, as a 17-year-old, to a tent sale in the middle of the summer and they said, “Hey, JR, we need some extra help. You want to come out, try and sell some stuff, and we’ll pay you commission and an hourly rate?” And I said, “Sure, sounds great.” So I went to the Northgate Mall just north of Seattle, Washington. That’s where I grew up. I went and I started selling bikes and skates, and over the course of that two-day tent sale event, I outsold everybody at the tent sale. I’d never done it before. I was just excited. I was running from one customer to the next, trying to help people, trying to make sure the skates fit, make sure they had the right size bike. I figured out what a spiff was and figured out how to go and talk with people and engage and find out what they needed and how I could help them and where they were going to be best suited with a product that I had. And I figured out that I love doing that. And, as a 17 year old kid, I loved the paycheck that I got from doing that because there is little like it in this world.
Fast forward a couple of years and I ended up going to college. While I was in college, I worked in the bookstore in the computer department, so I sold some software. I sold a whole lot of copies of Corel WordPerfect, who remembers that? It’s been a long, long time. A lot of Adobe products, as well. I continued to be able to help people and I had a great time with that. Then, I’m a religious person. I spent two years serving as a missionary in South America. And so I’m sure you guys will hear plenty about that as well. Se habla Español? And I enjoy still speaking Spanish as we grow our business internationally.
When things started to get really interesting for me is after I had come home and I went back to school and I got married and realized that I needed to work so that I could support my wife and my young family as it was growing. And so, I actually went to work; I sold cell phones. I had a lot of fun selling cell phones, but what I really learned with the cell phone industry was service. I was able to help people to get things that they needed done. That’s been a common theme throughout my life. I want to be able to help people. I want to be able to help people get better. I want to help people better their lives. And so, a big part of MLM Renegade is service.
A big part of MLM Renegade is actually going to be serving you, the listener, and the members of our Facebook group. If you want to join our Facebook group, send me an email at JR@MLMRengade.com, and I’ll make sure you get added to it. As a group member, we’re going to have lots of free sales trainings. We’ll have masterminds where we can talk with people, top earners from across the industry. Thankfully, I’ve been blessed to be connected with many people within the network marketing industry, and I plan to utilize those connections for the betterment of our group.
I had this history in sales and I was always drawn into the network marketing world because I can see the benefit, I can see the draw of the compensation plan. I can see the draw of the setup of the network itself. I mean, a lot of people poo poo on the idea, if you will, of network marketing. I’m sure you guys have all seen it. We continue to see it, but really the power that the network brings is just immense.
If you think about it, I come from world Corporate America. I work my day job now. I sell software. That’s what I do for a living right now while I’m building this business into something that will allow me a walkaway income. But in sales, I report a Director who reports to a Vice President who reports to a Senior Vice President who reports to a Chief Revenue Officer who reports to the CEO who reports to the board who reports to stockholders. There is always a network, a pyramid. Heaven forbid we use that word, the p-word, pyramid within any business. But with network marketing, we’ve basically planted ourselves at the top of that network. And the deeper we grow it and the stronger the roots take hold, the more capability that we have for making lifelong wealth and a lasting income. An income that can become a walkaway income.
One thing about network marketing is I have failed a lot. I mean, a lot. Now, I got into my first network marketing business, I think I was 23 years old, and was brought in by a friend of mine, a neighbor, and it was all around foreign exchange currency and we were going to trade foreign exchange currency and make this money. I realized as I got into it, trading FOREX can be definitely a risky proposition. I have degree in economics, and I definitely understand some of the mechanics that are involved there. But, let me tell you, that scares me. It’s not nearly as scary to go lay 100 on black at a roulette table in Vegas as it is to go lay 100 bucks on the Swiss, on the pound or something, to try and ride those waves.
Network marketing got into my blood. I wasn’t really taken necessarily with that particular opportunity, and in the end it faded away. Over time I had a number of different opportunities. I’ve been involved with one company that did a gas fuel additive, and another one that made energy drinks. They were the first ones who thought they wanted to tap into Facebook and had an app and a game with it. They were a classic flash in the pan. One thing I’ve learned is it’s getting in early is not nearly as important as getting in with something that’s established and has some longevity built in. Gosh, It’s coming up on eight years ago now. I got involved with one company. I won’t name names. They were fairly new though, but they had a great story to tell. The leadershIp that I was working with had a background in search engine optimization, and, at the time, that was actually what I was doing. I was selling search engine optimization services. I was selling web marketing services.
This group had figured how to use search engine optimization for ecommerce to sell different products, everything from wedding dresses to dog kennels. This guy came, he’s like, “Look, there are 386,000 searches each month for our particular product line.” He was convinced that with SEO that he could use that to build a downline. We had this whole structure built out that was almost going to firewall us. By that point, we would start to receive leads that were being generated from the internet through search engine optimization, and that was going to enable us to maintain a certain level of income and to move forward and grow our businesses.
This didn’t end up being the right time for me. While the products are fantastic–I still have many of them in my home today and I utilize them–I just couldn’t get excited about it. I didn’t have a fire in my belly, and, frankly, I didn’t have the support of my wife. Now, my wife is my best friend on the planet. Her name’s Heather. You guys will get a great opportunity to meet her. I’ll make sure that I interview her. But, throughout all this time, I was trying to figure out something for our family.
As a sales guy, one of the problems of being a sales guy is if you don’t produce, you can get laid off. Now, thankfully, I’ve been very productive in my time, but even in that time you can get laid off. You guys remember 2008? I was in a sales job. I had just recently gotten this sales job, in fact, and I got laid off two weeks before Christmas. Two weeks. Okay. We had three kids, and I got laid off two weeks before Christmas.
And that’s when network marketing comes in to a place where I can have freedom to a place where I can actually help other people avoid the same fate that I’ve endured. I’ve been through the failures and I know that it can be. I’ve been really excited, with what’s happened here over the last year and a half, as my wife and I jump back into network marketing. This time was different. This time, my wife was the one to lead the charge. She was excited about the product lines and became a user of the products, and then decided that she wanted to jump into the business after going to an event.
Now, I’m here to tell you that using online means, using social media and sales funnels and the like, is how we’re going to grow our businesses into the remainder of this 21st century. That’s how we’re going to be able to build lasting wealth. But, there is nothing better than a good event to have it go straight to your heart. If you can get to an event, you will see things and you will feel things that simply put, you can’t get anywhere else.
Now, as you see in the tagline, this is MLM done different. It doesn’t mean we have to do it all the same. It also doesn’t mean we have to abandon what works. That being said, we do MLM different. Over the coming episodes, you’re going to find out just what that means for us as we continue to grow. Now, you’re not always going to agree with me. In fact, I fully plan on you not always agreeing with me. I can be kind of disagreeable sometimes. My wife would tell you that I am sarcastic to a fault. That’s probably one of those rough edges that she’s still working on knocking off on me, but that’s part of who I am. I’m a little bit sarcastic.
I am looking for, and I am making, a fundamental transformation in my life. And I know, that as you come along for the ride with me, you’re going to have that same fundamental transformation made as well. I invite you along for the ride. I’m not saying that I have all the answers. I’m saying that I’m learning the answers, and I want to share those answers with you as we move forward week in and week out over the coming months and years. You guys, this is going to be an awesome ride! This is going to be a rocket ship ride. We’re going to have a lot of fun, and, in the meantime, we’re going to make a lot of money. We’re going to have a lot of opportunity to share this with other people.
Now, if you want to share with friends and family, that’s fine. If you want to find people who aren’t your friends and family and do that, stay tuned. We’re going to do that and we’re going to help people, the world over–and I mean the world over–to actually get to this place of happiness and this place of riches and this utopia that we’re all viewing. I’ve been in many parts of the world, and I’ve had an opportunity to engage and interact with people from all walks of life. I know that this is an opportunity that you cannot pass by, and I’m looking forward to sharing with you.
Hey, thanks for reading. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. If you have any questions that you’d like to have answered on the show. Email me at JR@MLMRengade.com