Begin With The End In Mind, Part 1
Hello, everyone. This is Jerry Clark bringing you another edition of Power Tips, your regular dose of energy and power. Let me tell you, who I have with me right now in Detroit, Michigan, is two networkers who are in the top 1/10 of 1 percent of all networkers in the entire world--Dolleen and Moses Wilson. And we're sitting here in their hometown. We just had a training here. It went real well. They have a bunch of powerful leaders here really building and making things happen in a powerful way. And I just asked if I can get them to share some ideas and insights with all of you that you all can take on and utilize to build your business to another level. Dolleen and Moses, they've been in networking for over 20 years. They've actually been married for 28 years. They have four lovely children and things are really happening for them and their business.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Dolleen and Moses, we want to welcome you to the program.
MOSES WILSON:
Thank you, Jerry.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
Thank you.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
All right. Let me ask you guys. I mean, 20 years you guys have been in network marketing. Was this, like, a goal once you guys got married, you guys sat down and said, you know what? I think we better go in network marketing? How did it happen? How did you guys get in network marketing?
DOLLEEN WILSON:
I think we fell into it by accident. Someone said that there was a product that we wanted to use and we don't pay retail for anything. The best way was to get it at wholesale. We signed up, and it seemed to blossom from there.
MOSES WILSON:
I don't think we ever really planned on building a career with it. That, too, was something that just developed probably naturally as a byproduct of using products and sharing what benefited us with others.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
So you guys basically started because someone gave you the product or they told you story, I guess, about the product and you started using the product and you were smart enough to buy wholesale instead of retail.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
Exactly.
MOSES WILSON:
Actually I think it was that they said you need this product, and we believed them.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Oh, okay. Someone that you respected, you know, had some credibility and so forth. Now what happened after you started taking this product? Obviously you started getting some results and you got excited maybe the business? I mean, how did that work? How did you make the transition?
DOLLEEN WILSON:
With our first venture into network marketing, we were excited about the product and felt a need to be on a mission to share the information we had with others, the benefits of the product. As a matter of fact, I think before we actually took the business seriously we were giving seminars on improving one's state of life through these particular products.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Is that right?
MOSES WILSON:
Yeah, that's true. We would give seminars in general on health issues and then we would point people in the direction that they should go for this practitioner or that practitioner, and then someone said to us, hey, you know, you guys could make some money doing this.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Okay. So how long did it take you before you were able to start making the type of money you felt that you can do this full time, because obviously you were doing something else, you know, while you were working your business part-time, right?
MOSES WILSON:
You know, that first time out when we were actually doing the seminars and pointing people in different directions, I think at that time in our life, that's what we should have been doing. We didn't have the skills. We didn't have the knowledge. We had some knowledge, but other people had to come into play. And then eventually as we developed within ourselves, the timing was right for us to take a look at the business side of it, so with that new opportunity, I think our desire was to build a business but it couldn't be with just any company. It had to be the right product and the right company, and that proved to be the case with us. We found the right company and the right product, and I would say within six months of working with that company and that product, we were full-time in the industry.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
And have you been full-time since then, or did you guys, you know, go through the emotional roller coaster of network marketing. You know, down and up, down and up. I know this is your third company, the one you guys are currently building and you guys have thousands and thousands of people all over the country and you guys are doing some wonderful things in the company you're with now. You're making tons of money and all this stuff. So talk to us about that.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
Actually, when we got involved with this company we were burned out as far as network marketing to be very honest with you. Moses and I are not network junk people, so in other words we weren't just looking for one company after another and herding people from here to there. As Moses said, we truly had to believe in the company, the products, and the integrity of the people that led the company. So when this company came along, it had all of the right elements. We started out with the products, except this time we actually did see the business first and the products were strong enough to support that.
MOSES WILSON:
Actually, we came to this company based on a concept that they had, not the product because it was in a developmental stage. But we liked the concept, took a look at the compensation plan and we thought that, you know, this would really work. The right concept, the right compensation plan, and as I think back to other ventures, we have been on the roller coaster. Not to the same degree as some people, because not being junkies, we're not looking for the latest deal all the time. We're just looking for the right company and the right product. So what happened to us in the past other people have experienced where you're with a good company with a good product, but something doesn't go right and the company disappears on you. And so that happened to us on one occasion.
I personally didn't want to be involved with network marketing ever again because I felt that the highs and lows of what we experienced were too extreme, and from a responsibility factor with my family, I wasn't sure if I wanted to put them through that again. When we were first approached with this company that we're currently with, the concept was something different and the compensation plan just sort of worked. It made us think that the time was right for us to try again.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
And that was 1992, or--?
MOSES WILSON:
Actually, 1990.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
October 1990.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
October 1990. And Dolleen, at this point, because once again you guys did not want to have anything to do with network marketing at all and obviously you were doing whatever you were doing, working a job, getting your career going, you know, supporting the family and all of a sudden, here is another network marketing company that's presented in front of you. What really snapped for you to say, you know what? I think we really should start looking at this? Once again, did you start using the product first or did you guys just go straight inside the business?
DOLLEEN WILSON:
Actually, within a few days we had signed up quite a few people just with the concept. I remember that this was a time I knew we were going to do this. Moses said I think at first no, we weren't. So he went into one room, I went into another, and we both started calling people we knew from the past. We shared with them the concept, and they were saying where's the application? So with that in mind, we went back and we signed our application. We asked the gentleman presenting it to us what was the top level of that company. He told us, and so on the bottom of our application we put Moses and Dolleen Wilson and we added the title that at that time was the highest in the company.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Wow. So you guys began that venture thinking that you guys were already at the top position. Did you guys learn that somewhere else? I mean, what got you guys thinking that way?
MOSES WILSON:
It seemed to be the right thing to do. I mean, everyone has gone through goal setting seminars. We have attended our share, certainly, but you have to start putting these things in application, so we try to see the end from the beginning. So when we saw that compensation plan, we immediately saw ourselves at the top. We ordered our first business cards and underneath our names, we had the title even though we hadn't achieved it. We hadn't been recognized for achieving it. We had achieved it in our minds first, and I think that really set the tone for our success. Our success with this company has been really rather rapid, especially in the beginning stages. We achieved things financially that I don't know if you thought they would ever occur. I know I didn't. She's right. I didn't want to be involved with this company or any company. But I was at a place in my life I didn't want to be.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Tell us about where you were.
MOSES WILSON:
Well, I was working a 9 to 5, and I had a difficult time with people telling me what to do, how to do it, especially if I could figure out a better way but it didn't fit the mould. It wasn't part of the protocol, you couldn't do it that way. No, it's not done that way, or be here at this time, and it drove me crazy. So in spite of the fact that I didn't want to be involved with network marketing, when the opportunity came the timing was right because I certainly didn't want to be in a 9 to 5 and this just worked out perfectly.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
Right. With his 9 to 5, or actually while we're saying 9 to 5 I think you worked nights. I don't even know when the time it was. But they told us when we could take vacations and we could be ready to go and they would change his vacation days, so that didn't work. We remember that from previous experience with network marketing, we were beginning to take our family all over the world. We went back to the traditional way of doing things. We began the traditional way of not going places all over the world.
MOSES WILSON:
And with this company, as with most companies, the product line was something that everybody we knew not only needed, but wanted. And I think that's kind of key, too, because if you've got what people need and they wanted, then it certainly becomes a much easier presentation and easier sell. Everyone we approached initially, I think without exception, either got involved with the company from the opportunity standpoint or wanted to try the product.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
And how did you approach these people when you got started in 1990 and the company you guys are with now? How did you actually approach these people? Was it more geared towards try the product out or was it more geared towards hey, we got an opportunity, we've got a concept.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
That was it, with the concept. We had a little slogan with that particular product and we just said how would you like to do this to do this, and they said, yes, how? And we went from there. Also, I'd like to add, though, by that time in 1990, the network marketing industry had changed. It had gained a different level of respect, and so it was easier. People weren't so much saying, oh, you're going to be broke fast or why don't you get a real job? There was now a new respect for the industry, which made it a lot easier for us.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Right. So it was like the timing.
MOSES WILSON:
The timing was, and prior to that, we had a lot of people--family members--and, you know, you really ought to get a job. Why don't you just get a job? And so, I mean, and I did that, and I just really was not happy. The opportunity here when we approached people with it--this was kind of different, too, though, because in the past, it was always, well, here's an opportunity, here's a great product, why don't you join us? This time, because we saw ourselves at the top of this program, we saw other people there, too.
Our presentation of the opportunity was what was different for us from previous ventures was we selected people that we wanted to be part of a successful team. And we laid out to them initially what our level of commitment was to them and asked them to demonstrate their level of commitment to the program by achieving certain things. We had this idea of doing whatever it takes, and we told them that. If they made that commitment to us, then we would do whatever it takes to help them become successful. And so many people actually achieve that. I can say probably within the first six days we were with the company, we probably broke five or six people at the beginning management position with our company at that time. In six days.
DOLLEEN WILSON:
Yes, we knew were putting together a success team and we gave them or actually allowed them, you might say, to be on our board. And that might sound that we were being smug. We weren't. We knew we had places to go, we knew that this company was going to take a lot of people to new heights, and so we were going to allow them to share in the success. We were honest with them. We told them that it was going to take a lot of work, but we were willing to be there right with them. So they could be secure in the fact that we were going to work together as a team to be successful.
MOSES WILSON:
And there's a certain measure of passion I think we developed for recruiting at that time. We were really recruiting to the opportunity, not the product, and that was an altogether different approach for us because now it meant that we had to help people achieve success not losing weight or not feeling better, but actually from the business side of it. We found that the more people we help achieve that, the easier it was to get other people in a short period of time. We had, oh, I think our first 90 days with the company we did about three quarters of a million dollars in volume.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Is that right?
MOSES WILSON:
Mmm hmm. And what's interesting about that is we still didn't have a product.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Is that right?
MOSES WILSON:
Because we still just had this concept. And I know this is an unusual situation, and I know our presentation here is generic, so I know that's not true in every case, but I think what was different was we were actually recruiting to the opportunity, not the product, and because everything just fell in place--timing, compensation plan, and the concept was right--that it just worked all together. It just worked fine.
JERRY DRHINO CLARK:
Now do you guys think that that is pretty much the same now that we're in the 21st century? Do you feel that as far as leading with the opportunity, because you hear people talking about this debate of leading with the opportunity or leading with the product. What do you do? Do you lead with the opportunity or do you lead with the product? I know you guys have a line of nutritional programs--products--that you guys are working with, and a lot of people are. I mean, they have nutritional, most of the members have nutritional products and so forth so they can relate to what we're talking about, leading with the product or leading with the opportunity. And of course people have all different types of products out there nowadays, but the same debate. Should I lead with the product or lead with the opportunity? Now that we're in the 21st century, has anything changed or do you feel that people can lead with both--the product or the opportunity? Does it matter? I mean, what's your comment on that?
THIS IS THE END OF PART 1... THIS INTERVIEW IS CONTINUED IN PART 2...