As the seed idea for The 7 Laws of Network Marketing, here is a transcript of the video that Anthony and Chris produced to teach the Seven Laws of Network Marketing. Learn and Enjoy!
Chris Widener: Hi and welcome to the seven laws of network marketing.
Anthony Powell: My name is Anthony Powell.
Chris Widener: And I am Chris Widener. It is fortunate for us to be together because Anthony is one of the all-time income earners in this industry of network marketing and a multiple 7 figure earner.
Anthony Powell: And Chris is Wall Street Journal and New York Times best-selling author, having sold millions of books and spoken to millions of people around the world.
Chris Widener: And one of the things that are unique to Anthony and I is that we were both mentored by the legend Jim Rohn.
Together we’re going to tell you the seven laws of network marketing. Anthony, the first law of network marketing success, is the law of sowing and reaping.
Anthony Powell: Yeah Chris, and you know sowing and reaping, a lot of people don’t understand the power of sowing and reaping. First, you have to plant the seed. So what does that mean? You have to invite enough people to your presentations, and today people do presentations online and offline. But you have to do the numbers if you will. You have to plant enough seeds for you to reap a big enough crop.
Chris Widener: You know our mentor Jim Rohn he used to talk about the law of sowing and reaping as well, and it comes from the Bible. He would talk about how the sower would go out, and he would throw the seed. He threw the seed, and some of the seed landed on dry soil, and the birds ate it, and some of the seed landed on rocky soil, and some of the seed landed in thorns. But there was always the seed that landed on the good soil. Can you help us make that analogy for network marketing?
Anthony Powell: Think of it this way, you know when you invite people, or when you throw enough seeds out in the community, you are going to get somebody to show up to your meeting. But just because someone attends your meeting or goes through your sales funnel does not mean they are going to sign up. So what that means is you have to throw enough seeds out there meaning you’ve got to have enough invitations to have enough presentations.
The bottom line is the law of averages. You know, what you lack in skill you make up in numbers. Chris and I think that is what a lot of network marketers or affiliate marketers don’t get. They want to reap; they want this big check, but they don’t understand that this is a business, and for you to understand the business you have to learn how to sow.
I will tell you my little numbers if you don’t mind. You know, for every three invites I make I will get one person who attends my presentation. For every three people that I present to, I will get one person signed up in my business or as a customer. And then as time progressed I got my numbers fine-tuned to where I could figure out how many people I had to get to sign up to get a leader.
See, the art of this business is not just about signing people up. The art is to get enough customers and get enough people to help you distribute. But you can’t do that if you don’t understand the definition of sowing, which is to invite, present and then the most important thing is launching people’s businesses, ultimately allowing you to reap your crop, get you an opportunity to start to cash in.
It is a process, though, so you have to have that patience that we are going to talk about in a minute. When I started at 19 years old, Larry Thompson, Mark Hughes, and Jim Rohn introduced me to the industry, and they took me under their wing.
If you just do the numbers and you don’t look up, and you do it day in and day out, we will teach you what the numbers are. Sooner or later your day is going to come. By doing just that I got down to signing up ten people a month. Out of ten people, I got two leaders. Those two leaders I drove and taught them what to do, but you see, I didn’t get to the top with only one person signed up, Chris. I sowed, and it allowed me to reap, and after my first year, you’re not going to believe what happened: $7000 a month by doing this sowing and reaping. I fired my boss. I had a firing my boss party, and more importantly by the age of 26 - I still can’t believe it - the day I financially retired, all because someone taught me sowing and the reaping.
Chris Widener: Yeah I have heard that over and over again.
Anthony Powell: And some treat it like a hobby. Do you think Dell computers sells three laptops a month and says “Wahoo.”? That’s not what they do.
Chris Widener: They sell millions and millions and millions. They are getting out there, but they started in a little college dormitory. You know you talked about people that want the reaping without the sowing. Let’s take that in its most literal sense. My dad’s family was all from Nebraska. They are all farmers, right? Imagine if a farmer went out at reaping time and he says “There’s nothing here. There are no crops here.” Well did you sow the seed? Did you put the seed in the ground? You don’t reap without sowing.
So let’s talk about the 2nd law; the law of attraction that we also call the law of likeability and attitude. How important is the law of attraction and being liked and having a positive attitude in this business?
Anthony Powell: It starts with making a decision about where you want to go and who you want to be. You have to search that out within yourself. I thought it was a trick because I thought “What do you mean I haven’t got an attitude? You mean I just have to smile and get rich?” and everyone snickered and looked at me and said “No son, that is not the way it works.”
See, what you have to understand is you have to attract people. One of the things my mentor, Mark Hughes, said, “Son, bring $20,000 a month to the phone even though you don’t have it.” You are going to attract people who want to go where you are going. People are going to feel that you are going with or without them, and if you do that, you are going to attract people who want to go with you. And that, my friends, is going to give you an opportunity to build something. You become likable, and we all want to be likable, but first you have to have the attitude. You have to know where you are going. You have to tell your mind that you are already there. Then you have to get up, day in and day out, and whether you like it or not, well... you are going to love it actually; you are going to attract people.
When I first got going, I essentially threw a dart on the wall; Next thing I know I’m moving to Houston, Texas. Can you believe that? I wanted to change my center of influence. I listened to Jim Rohn audios while I jogged 2 or 3 miles a day, and then I just got on the phone, and I did the sowing and reaping. And I changed. Believe it or not, I drove my check so fast because I was attracting people to go with me[
Chris Widener: Yes success always starts with the attitude and the mindset and you know there are lots of things that you will not be able to control. In the world you can’t control the economy, you can’t control the weather, and there are going to be lots of things that you can’t control in your business. But the number one thing that you do have total control over is your attitude and your mindset. So it doesn’t matter if things are going amazing or you have some hardships, successful people understand the law of attraction that comes from likeability and attitude. You set the course for your life by determining in your mindset, your attitude, what makes you inspirational to other people and attracts people, and people want to do business with people they like.
Chris Widener: Let’s talk about law number three, the law of discipline. The law of discipline is not a very sexy law. I mean, I wish there were magic unicorns. I wish we could blow some magic pixie dust and make you successful, but this is where the rubber hits the road. The law of discipline, of consistency, of persistence; talk to us about how you built your massive business understanding that law of discipline.
Anthony Powell: This is probably the number one thing I have to tell everybody. I have been asked this question so many times, “How did you build your organization as big as you did?” I built one of the largest businesses in this industry of all time - hundreds of thousands of people several times over in my organization - and that just doesn’t happen. But it happened because of discipline, consistency, and definitely persistence.
My mentor, the one that got me involved in my first business and where I built my first big group, he called and said, “Hey Anthony, do you remember when you were 19 and 20 years old? The day you pushed your car to start? Did you know it’s 12 years later, and you’re still doing the same thing, and you don’t need to make money anymore? You see that’s why you are making it so big. If people could just understand you’re doing the same thing day in day out no matter what, you’re doing it every day.
One of the things I learned from Jim Rohn is you have to be consistent at being consistent. We all want money, right? So we’re all trying to make money. But the bottom line is you have to get up early, and you have to make additional calls. On your lunch break, you’ll need to go out in the parking lot and do even more calls, do things to promote and build your business and then when you come home you have got to get focused again on the weekend.
You have to make deals with your family. Schedule time with your family that allows you to be present with them and have your life, but get yourself out of that linear income trap. If you want out of that trap, you’re going to have to stay disciplined. You have to follow through. You have to be consistent. There is no secret to building a fortune. You read about how the rich got rich, and they worked from the bottom to the top.
These are the biggest rules: Discipline, consistency, persistence. Practice them over and over, but make sure you don’t just do it. Learn your numbers. As Jim Rohn said, you might be two millimeters off. So if you are staying disciplined, the same two millimeters might be on the right track, there are your million dollars. Or you are two millimeters off, and you lose the million. I had to establish my work habits, I had to be smart, but I had to stay disciplined, and I have always outworked my team. I mean it is something that is important.
Chris Widener: A top income earner in her company invited me to speak at a big network marketing conference, and during my talk, in front of the entire audience, I asked her, “If your company came to you and said ‘Once you hit the top income earner, we reset you. We take away your business and start you all over again.’ What would you do?” Without even missing a beat - and she is a lady that has made 10 of millions of dollars -she says, “I would fill my calendar.” That is what she said. “Everyday fill my schedule, show presentations, talk to people and put them in the business.”
That is discipline, people who do it day in, day out, week in, week out. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about network marketing or you are talking about becoming a professional athlete, people who succeed are people who day in day out are studying and working hard. Too many people get into network marketing, and they think it is going to be magic potion and they don’t discipline themselves.
So let’s talk about the fourth law, the law of momentum. You love this law because you talk about it all the time. Tell us about the law of momentum.
Anthony Powell: The hardest thing in business to get is momentum. If you are from the city, like me, you probably went to the zoo, and you saw the farm water pump. But if you lived in the country, you had a farm pump, because the water comes from the well. But the city people think it was just a fun little toy. But there was really water that comes out.
I teach my team this, so I think you’re all going to get this. I say, “Business is like a farm pump. First, you take the handle, and you think it is ridiculous because there is no water coming out, and you believe there’s nothing there. Then all of a sudden your arm starts hurting, but you are building pressure or your momentum. The well is building pressure, pressure, pressure. Guess what happens next? Boom, water comes out! When the water finally comes out, now you have what is called momentum. Once you reach this point the pressure in the well is so high, that you don’t have to pump like a maniac anymore. Just a nice slow pump, and as long as you do this you’re going to get all the water you need.
It’s the same thing in business. So many times business people set this 90-day plan or a one-day plan done for 90 days, and they don’t think there is any water in the well. They don’t see enough sales. They don’t see enough people coming in; they don’t see enough, and they quit right before the water comes out. We teach this lesson all the time. The first 90 days you’re building your pressure, or your momentum and the second 90 days you start to see more water. Some people making 20, 30, 40 thousand a month let go of their handle before they hit that peak production, and their business comes down, and they quit.
Chris Widener: It starts to atrophy a little bit and what they don’t realize is that momentum allows your business to grow like what I call a “hockey stick.” Think of it as an analogy from traditional investing; if you start putting $100 away every month when you are 20 years old, and you think to yourself well, I am not making that much money. At the end of the year you have $1200 plus maybe $200 in interest, and then you say, “Oh I only have $1400. I’m going to quit investing.”
Anthony Powell: I think we have all done that.
Chris Widener: Exactly. What the successful people understand is that $100 put away every month from the time you are 20, your income goes like this: Think of this as a line. It is steady, and then you get to be 40, 50 and then you hit 60, and it goes like a hockey stick, slowly moving up and then a major turn up. The same is true in Network marketing. Some people that come right into a business and bam, they make money. I mean we all know people that came in and a year later they make a 30 grand a month.
Anthony Powell: They sign up that one hot person.
Chris Widener: But this is the exception, not the rule. The rule is you have to understand that this is about building momentum and it is kind of slow at first while you are building it. This is what will happen to your business: it stays relatively steady over a long period and if you stick with it, allow momentum to take over and ride the momentum; eventually, the income begins to grow. Your team goes from 1 to 4 to 8 to 16, and that feels slow, but eventually, it goes from 1000 to 2000 to 4000 to 8000 to 16000. That is momentum, and then you have an income that looks like a hockey stick.
Anthony Powell: And right here is where all of a sudden big money starts to come in. You have to go back and make sure you are doing your numbers to create momentum. But if you do the right numbers and create that moment, you are going to cash in. Then you know, the second part of it is to further it, and that means - and this is something my mentor taught me - once you start making 20, 30, 40 thousand a month, start reinvesting in your infrastructure because now you finally have money to build the business.
Most of the people like me start with a 473 credit score and a couple $100 to their name. I had no government hand out, no parent that gave me money, no credit card. I just want to play out momentum. I hope you guys get the hockey stick. It is real powerful. If we can give you anything, the sowing, the reaping, the attraction, the discipline, we would give you those things, the things that set up momentum, but if you don’t understand that, you are going to have a hobby, and eventually you will go to the next hobby because you are just taking a hobby approach to it.
Chris Widener: Okay let’s talk about law number five, the law of multiplication and duplication. Tell us about how important it is to multiply and to duplicate.
Anthony Powell: To understand this law you have to learn is the art of multiplication, and in our industry that means duplication. That means teaching people to do what you do, and when you multiply, you get more people. So you and somebody else have gotten two, and they find someone, you now have four. So what you are doing is you are compounding, you are multiplying your efforts. It is kind of like the penny a day story.
Chris Widener: Yeah, there is this whole thing where you get paid a penny the first day and if you doubled it every day, would you do your work for that? I can’t remember the numbers exactly, but it goes 1 cent, 2 cents, 4 cents, 8 cents, so by the 5th day you looking at 16 cents but you don’t realize it is like $1 million on day 31 or something crazy like that. If you think back to elementary school, the first piece of math you learned was addition, 8 plus 8 equals 16 right? But more powerful is learning multiplication, 8 times 8 is 64. So if you are just adding in your network marketing business, you will make some money, and you can make a nice little residual income. You can make $500 or $1000 a month, and that might pay for a new car or a vacation once a year but the real power, the real leverage, the exciting time, is when you get into multiplication.
Anthony Powell: When I was in my first company. Mark Hughes recognized me on stage, and I was at the position that typically doesn’t earn the money that I was representing, and he says, “How did you make $14,000 last month at this level?” and I say, “Well it is real simple. I am retailing $20,000 a month of product.” That means I had over 5000 customers on the product for retail. So Mark sits and says “Unbelievable.” He recognized me in front of everybody as I was walking off the stage. He taught me something that changed my life, changed my business life. He’s the owner of the company, a billionaire. He said, “I am real proud of you Anthony. Let me teach you how to build wealth right now. You are doing so great; your effort is incredible.”
Chris Widener: You built income, but he wanted to teach you how to build wealth.
Anthony Powell: Right. So he said, “What I want you to do is don’t retail $20,000 a month. I want you to retail about $2500 a month and then go find a lot of other people to retail $2500 a month, and you will make a fortune.”
Chris Widener: You were operating out of addition. He wanted you to use the principle of multiplication, so you are doing a smaller number of personal volume, but you are then teaching other people how to do it and then that $2500 times a thousand or ten thousand people that’s where you get that massive volume. It is multiplication instead of addition.
Anthony Powell: That’s exactly right, and that’s how you get the big checks. It’s a lot of people doing small volume because you are not looking for some big hitter, you are just looking for a lot of people to do small volume or, said differently, multiplication, and that only comes from duplication.
Chris Widener: Some of the courses we are going to be coming out with are going to be talking about how to do multiplication and duplication.
Let’s talk about law number six, the law of leadership and sales. This law was born out of a research project that I did with a bunch of top network marketers who were all making at least $100,000 a month. There was one leader that I asked, “How much time do you spend on your own business versus helping other people in their business?” It was interesting because she said that at the beginning of her career she spent about 90% of her time on her own business and about 10% on other people’s business, but as the business grew, and then exploded, there was a shift. Now this top income earner said about 90% of her time is spent on other people’s business and about 10% on her own business.
There is an interesting lesson here: Most people think they are going to become successful in network marketing by selling and a lot of people say, “I can’t sell. I am not a salesperson,” but the most powerful way of building massive wealth and bigger organizations is something different. The top skill set is not sales; it is leadership. It is not just selling to your group of people; it’s about growing that massive volume, it is about becoming a leader and helping other people. So what are some of the leadership lessons that you learned as you transitioned out of selling and more into running this big organization that you have?
Anthony Powell: This is such a powerful section, and I am glad you brought it up here because when I started to build my business, I began to make a lot of money. Remember I talked about earlier the people that make $20,000 or $30,000 a month? They got a job, right? There are a couple of stages in this industry. The first is building mode and then once you build the foundation you go into what is called leader development mode. That’s when you meet with your top producers, and you develop your skill set with them, so you spend more time with their business, more time critiquing their skill sets, more time developing their mindset, which ultimately develops your organization. Said differently, it gives you residual income.
Chris Widener: Yeah, imagine there are some people where they are the only leader, and everybody looks to the top. What would happen though if you became a leadership producing machine and built an organization of 10,000 people? Instead of just having one leader, you have leaders all the way down through the levels.
I had an interview once with John Kotter. He was the youngest guy ever to be tenured at Harvard Business School. He wrote a book called Leading Change, and I asked him, “What is the new cutting edge lesson on leadership that people need to know?” Not even missing a beat he said, “Leadership at every level of the organization. Successful organizations have leadership at every single level.” So maybe you have a group of 10,000 people, and you are the leader, but you want people further down in your organization that maybe only have 4000 people, you want them to be a leader. You have to train them and take responsibility for raising up leaders. Then you want people who maybe only have 100 people in the organization, but you are teaching them how to become a leader, and it expands that organization and builds that massive kind of wealth people want.
Let’s finish up with law number seven, the law of choice. Both successful and unsuccessful people are people who make choices every day. Every single day when you wake up, you are given choices. Sometimes there are two choices, sometimes there are ten choices, but it is about making the right choices.
Anthony Powell: Choices are about habits. Jim Rohn taught both of us that if you do something 13 days, the 14th day you create a habit, so that is a choice. You choose to do something every single day for 13, 14 days and then, bam; it’s a habit. So if you want to get that, what do you do?
Chris Widener: Ice-cream 13 days in a row!
Anthony Powell: Boom! 13 days you can’t stop, but you know, we are over-exaggerating a little bit, but that does happen to people. You know you are going to choose to sow and reap, you are going to choose to attract or not attract, you are going to attract people that are perhaps not what you want, like if you throw refrigerators in your front yard, you won’t attract successful people. So if you got cars on the blocks in your front yard, you’re not going to attract success. Either way, you have got to pay the price. You have to make sure you do it. Take momentum. You choose to create momentum or you don’t choose to create momentum. You choose to multiply and duplicate, or you don’t choose to multiply and duplicate. You choose to take your time and lead your leaders and develop them. That is a habit that you have to create as a leader in the finishing touches of your network marketing business.
Chris Widener: You know Dwight Eisenhower, the military general and then the President of the United States said, “The history of free men is never written by chance, but by choice: their choice.” You have a choice each and every day; we thank you that you made the choice to read The 7 Laws of Network Marketing. We hope that you have learned some great information. You are going to now take this information because lots of people get information but don’t use it. Then there are the people that are successful and make the choice to apply the information.
Anthony Powell: I would like to say thanks for choosing to be part of what we believe in. I will tell you this, that the next step for you is to either a) reread the book and get some more ownership about what we are teaching. I’ve read some books 13 times. I want the habit of what I have just learned. That is why I like the easy reads, the quick reads so that I can get all the golden nuggets out.
Chris Widener: It is very exciting to work with a guy like Anthony, and I have worked with other leaders as well. You have some people that are just about building their business. They make their money and do their own thing and then you have people, real difference makers like Anthony and some other folks that I have been able to be fortunate to work with, who have made their money and they can sit on a beach somewhere but don’t. They help others.
The thing that I love about what Anthony and I are doing is that Anthony and I want to make a mark in the world. My big dream for my life is when I get to the end of my life is to know that I made a mark on the world. Anthony has done it; he’s not one of those guys that just made something up. He has been in the trenches, built a massive business, and now he wants to help you do the kinds of things you need to do to build your own business. Get that time freedom, get that financial freedom, give your children a better life than you have, get a better lifestyle than you have, and make a mark in the world for yourself.