2: The Day My Upline LIED...

Oh, ho, what's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks radio.   Here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us, who didn't cheat and only bug family members and friends, if we want to grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A players into our downlines and create extra incomes, and still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the glaring question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.   All right, you guys, how you doing? Very excited for this. There's a great quote by Robert Kiyosaki in one of my favorite books for this industry. I'm sure you've read it before, or at least heard of it. It's called Business in the 21st Century. Great, great book, great audio. It's not very long, but it's very, very powerful. I can't remember if it's in that audio series of that book, or if it's in one of his other books. I've read a lot of books from him.   He said that any time we begin down an entrepreneurial journey, any time we start in entrepreneurship, and we take that first step forward, we feel good. It's a really great feeling. But as you move forward, and this is a concept he describes. This is not, obviously, verbatim what he says. As you move forward, and as you start moving down the entrepreneurial path, character flaws are going to explode in your face. You're going to get all these things that start coming up in front of you, going, "You know what? Ah, man, I really don't like talking to people." It's like, well, you might need to get around that before you can move on.   That's what he says. He says as we move down this path, and as we start walking down the path of entrepreneurship, what ends up happening is these character flaws explode in our face, and they actually stop us from progressing over all. They take us, and they say, "Nope. You're stopping at the pass right there. You're not going to move on."  Basically, you don't move on until you somehow address it, or get around it, or fix it. You can't move forward.   I started experiencing, when I first started MLM, I first started experiencing some pretty major character flaws. Now, I realized that I didn't have all the knowledge I needed to actually be successful with it. That was almost reassuring for me, to actually realize that, oh my gosh, I don't know enough. I don't know enough. At least I knew what the problem was. It was four years ago, when I first joined MLM. It was about four years ago now.  At that time, all these character flaws, like I said, started popping up, and I realized A, number one, I don't know enough. B, I'm way too afraid to speak, and C, what do I even say? How do you come up with a message? What is marketing, in general? I'm sure you've probably felt some of those experiences before, or felt some of those feelings in your life and in this business, as you move forward.   I started studying. I hit the books. It was right around the time that I decided to exit MLM. I hadn't exited it yet, but I was getting to that point. I was so fed up with home meetings, and hotel meetings, and going and trying to figure out what's the next way for me to get someone on the phone, and how can I corner the next person? I didn't know how else to do it. It was by sheer, brutal force that I was going and talking to all these people. Like I mentioned in the last podcast episode, people I know, sadly, are still a little bit mad at me for that. I just didn't know any better. That was a character flaw of mine. I had to overcome those things.   So, I hit the books. I hit the books and I started staying up. I was in the middle of college, at the time. We were in this little, tiny apartment, and this little tiny apartment, it was freezing. I couldn't get very warm, sometimes, at night. My wife would go to sleep, and she was pregnant, or she'd be with the newborn, or whatever it was, and I felt this inner desire: I had to provide better. I wanted to give her a better life. So what I would do is I would stay up till like 3:00 AM, every single day, but I had class at 7:45 AM. I would sleep, usually, about anywhere from three, four, five hours every day. I did that for months, and actually even years, because I knew ...   What was funny is that I was going to college for marketing. I was working for a marketing degree, but none of the stuff I was learning in college seemed to be any help at all. I actually wasn't learning how to market in my marketing degree. I was like, "What is going on?" I started taking the books from the best minds out there, and I started going. It was this ferocious pace. I was hungry to go figure it out, because I felt, A, the need to provide and feel like a man, but B, I really, really had to provide, obviously, because we had this kid coming, it was on the way.   So I started studying, started hitting the books. I was up super late. I remember this experience. I'd always sit at the kitchen table, our little kitchen table in our freezing apartment. It was always very dimly lit, at the time. You look back on the crap moments in your life, sometimes it can be almost bittersweet. You're like, "Oh, man. That was such a defining period of my life, when I was going through all that."   I remember I was sitting on the couch, and my wife had gone to bed. I was going to go to sleep, but there was an ebook. I don't even remember what the name of the ebook was. I remember the guy's face, but I don't know his name. I don't know the name of the ebook. I don't know. All I remember was this single concept. I remember that I got fired up, and I sat down, and I started reading. It was just on an iPad. I was reading through this ebook, and I was like, "Whoa. This is a different take on MLM than anyone's ever told me before. What is this? This is amazing." It sucked me in. I think I started reading at about 11:00, and I was just reading ferociously, till three hours later, at 2:00 AM, I remember I put it down, and I couldn't go to sleep. I was like, "Whoa. This is totally different. This is a completely different approach towards MLM, and actually recruiting people without feeling like you're bullying them. Finding people who are good."   What he was talking about was this concept called paid prospecting. Paid prospecting meaning you get paid even while you're prospecting people. Now, for me, at first, I was like, "Man, that sounds like almost too good to be true. That's intense. Holy crap." I remember sitting on the couch, the lights were off, it was totally dark. I didn't want to turn them on. I just sat there and I just thought, "Huh. That dude figured it out."  He was showing all the people he had been recruiting, and he was showing his big fat checks on stage, and showing all this stuff. I was like, "How interesting. I'd like that. That'd be kind of cool."   But what's this paid prospecting thing? How did he actually do that. It changed my mindset. It changed the way I look at the industry. It changed everything about the way that I ... Gosh, you'd think I'd remember the guy's name. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. I am so sorry. I can't remember his name. I still don't remember his name. I don't even know if I can go find the ebook again, but it was the concept of paid prospecting. I was like, "Wow. Interesting. That's fascinating."   I started getting hungry again for the next thing. I was like, "Hey, so now I know this thing about paid prospecting. How do I actually do that?" I thought to myself, "Why don't I go look and see what the top MLM leaders out there are actually doing." Guys, this was the craziest thing. It was the biggest realization I've ever had. Just, oh, it was just nuts. I sat down and I star...