Andrea Waltz & Richard Fenton, Hot Seat Training!
Posted by Deb BixlerMillion Dollar Year, MLM Book
Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton, authors of The Million Dollar Year book were guests on the CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio last fall.
This is the 2nd in the series of transcribed audios of the interview. If you did not read part 1 then you should start here: Part 1 The Million Dollar Year Book
The Million Dollar Year book was inspired by the real life MLM Cruise sponsored each year by Art Jonak and Big Al Schreiter.
Everyone who purchases a book also gets the hot MLM seat training series.
My hot seat interview is May 9, 2012. Get your book so you can listen to all 52 interviews!!
Andrea Waltz & Richard Fenton Radio Interview
DEB BIXLER: Welcome back to the CashFlowShowRadio.com. This is Deb Bixler and we are here on Direct Sales Radio Worldwide, talking with Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton about their brand new book, “Million Dollar Year.” Well, we’re glad you’re here, Richard and Andrea. Thank you for joining us again.
RICHARD FENTON: Thank you, Deb.
DEB BIXLER: So let’s see, where should we start here? The book sounds like it’s a really interesting read, and I know from looking at the site that it’s very affordable, a $12 investment. So we’re talking about the characters and the plot, who’s real, who’s not. What about the locations? Would it matter what’s real? How should we know?
ANDREA WALTZ: Well, yeah, it’s funny you should bring that up. We mentioned about who’s real and who’s not because actually we do mention that everybody is kind of a conglomeration of people that we met. We do mention by names specifically their portraits as themselves. I guess if this was a movie they would be played by themselves, so Art Jonak and Ann Jonak and Big Al. And actually it’s kind of funny, this may sound a little self-serving, but we threw ourselves into this cruise because on the past two cruises we gave a little “Go For No!” presentation. So we are actually in our own book doing a presentation on the cruise.
DEB BIXLER: Well, why not, right?
ANDREA WALTZ: Yeah, exactly! So those are the people that are real and then everyone else is…
The Million Dollar Year Book Is Real People
RICHARD FENTON: Right. And one of the tricky things, Deb, about the Million Dollar Year book is that there are so many wonderful people who have attended this cruise, on the cruises we’ve been on and in the past. So in some cases, we’re talking about people who have created their own “million dollar year.” They have earned a million dollars in a single year within the direct selling/network marketing MLM world. And it was impossible to keep up… we didn’t take notes of what everyone was saying as they were saying it. We weren’t recording the presentations. We were engaged and enjoying it, like everyone else in the room, talking with people casually at dinner at night. A lot of the learning on the MLM cruise takes place at the dinner table, and some of it takes place when you’re in a jeep on one of the excursions on one of the Caribbean islands. You’re just traveling around with someone you’ve never met before and people are sharing different ideas and different thoughts and strategies.
And what we didn’t want to do is to acknowledge some people for what they said and leave other people out, or to acknowledge somebody and then quote them incorrectly, or to have somebody say, “Oh, why did you use that lesson? I wish you would use this lesson instead.”
So what we did was sit back and said, “What are all the things that anyone has said to us on the cruise that we felt were valuable for people to hear?”
And then we said, “Who are the types of people we heard them from?” So when we say that there was a couple from Russia that was on the cruise—and I mean young; we’re talking about 23, 24 years of age—who had made a tremendous amount of money in the business already.
And we said, “Okay, great! We’ll create a couple from Russia and they can represent the fact that the cruise attracts a lot of people from foreign countries. And we’ll have somebody in this business and somebody in that business, and we created a Texas oilman and we just created different characters.
We took all of the lessons and all of these characters and then we intentionally mixed up the lessons, so that none of the lessons were actually coming from the person we learned it from.
So in essence, when we went on the cruise this year for the third year, we took the book and gave copies to some of the people and they read it well. They were on the cruise and everyone was trying to guess who’s who and who said what and where did that lesson come from and “I remember that but I don’t remember this.” And so it created a little fun even within the people who have been on the cruise because we weren’t trying to specifically identify people and what they said.
Direct Sales Networking Business Cruise
DEB BIXLER: Right. I went on a business networking cruise last January with a different organization and everyone was in direct sales or MLM, but what you said before about how your best lessons happen at the dinner table, it’s so true, and this kind of networking activities surrounded by cruises and fun. One of the things that I found—and just to get off track a little bit—is you think, “Well you’re out there working; why would you have a cruise?” But the ability to totally drop all your everyday life because, first of all, even your cell phone stops working.
| It becomes a whole different networking atmosphere when you don’t have all the technological distractions you would have if you went to, say, a hotel in Atlanta or a hotel in New York City to have your conference. It’s a really interesting environment. |
ANDREA WALTZ: Yeah, absolutely, it really is. And, you know, the other thing that’s kind of fascinating is because with our experience on the cruise, because there have been so many historically “big time, big money earners,” these people have really built huge, huge businesses and done really well, what you get to see at the dinner table or at the breakfast table or out, just walking the ship is that these are normal people, and you kind of learn—I think for the average direct seller or average network marketer—you learn that these people have the knowledge and the skills and yet they’re not so abnormally different from you and I that “I couldn’t do this myself in my own business,” if you know what I’m saying.
So there’s kind of a level of tapping in to their humanness and I think it helps your own belief in yourself because you see, “Wow, if they can do it and they’re normal just like me, then I can do it.”
DEB BIXLER: And that’s exactly the whole advantage of a direct seller going to, say, their national conference. When I first started in my party planning business, it was February and the conference was in July and I went. A lot of times you look at your upliner, your success stories, and you think that, “It’s them.
They’re great. I can’t do that.” But when you get there and you start talking to these people and they’re just normal everyday people who have problems in life too, then it creates that aspiration in the individuals. And when I became the top achiever, people in my own environment think, “Oh, that’s Deb. That’s Deb, we can’t do that.” But then when you get to a networking environment and you can see everybody’s everyday life weaknesses, you can relate and you realize anybody can do it.
ANDREA WALTZ: Exactly!
RICHARD FENTON: And Deb, that’s a really important point that you make there because I think it’s an average – or I shouldn’t say “average” – it’s a typical thing for people in any business, any industry, to look at the people who have achieved great things. In the world of writing, it would be the people who have the big New York Times bestsellers, and to think, “Oh my heavens! These people are so extraordinary.” But when you get to meet extraordinary people, you almost always are deflated because you expect something extraordinary. What you find out is that they’re ordinary; they’re not extraordinary. But what they do have that is extraordinary is that they take the simplest actions that are the building blocks of whether it’s writing a book or building a direct-selling business, whatever it happens to be, and they do them on a regular, consistent basis and they don’t miss. The consistency is the extraordinary thing.
I think a lot of times, we expect these people to be 9 feet tall and just somehow be these huge figures. They’re just like us but they’re doing the work, and I think that’s what makes them special.
DEB BIXLER: Right, and that’s probably one of the big lessons of the book: don’t put top achievers on a pedestal. So what are some of the other lessons and themes in the book?
ANDREA WALTZ: That is definitely one. And one of the things that we hit on earlier is that success in this business is ultimately not about testing, having a testing-the-waters or a give-it-a-shot/give-it-a-try type of attitude. One of the things that we have in the book is a quote from a great leadership trainer, Orrin Woodward, about deciding what you want, determining the price and paying it. And that is the truth.
And while I know that some people out there don’t want to focus on the fact that there’s some hard work involved, there is some hard work involved, and yet at the same time we can just determine what that work is and do that work you’re going to benefit so hugely from. But going back to this first piece, it’s trying to get people off that “Well, just see how it goes” thing.
DEB BIXLER: Right. And consistency is key. I often say the only way to fail in direct sales is to stop.
ANDREA WALTZ: Exactly.
RICHARD FENTON: Right, and one of the presentations that really stuck with me and—in this particular case I will say who it was—it’s our good friend, Todd Falcone. On the first cruise we attended he told the story of how he got involved in the world of direct selling in the first place. He responded to an ad and went for an interview. He found out that it was a direct selling organization.
MLM – Multilevel Marketing Decision
He had never even heard of MLM or multilevel marketing, he had no idea. He went home and he said, “That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.” He said, “Before I started, I made the decision that this is what I was going to do for the rest of my life.” Now he said, “Had I made the decision to try it, to test it, to see how it worked, to give it a shot, to commit for six months,” he said, “I never would have made it in the business, because it took me three years to get my legs under me.”
And further “The only reason I got to the three-year mark was that I was in it for a lifetime.” I think that’s one of the things that we would really love for people to get from this book is that quit giving this thing a try to see what happens. If you’re going to do it – do it; if you’re going to commit – commit; and then the magic can really happen for you.
DEB BIXLER: Right.
ANDREA WALTZ: And one of the other things that commitment leads to—and it’s somewhere that I think our character Peter finds himself in—is, since he hasn’t committed, he really doesn’t have a great belief in his ability. But when he finally decides, he really goes through a process and thinks: “I finally decided this is what I’m doing.” And once he finally commits, you can read how his thinking shifts and his belief in the fact that he can do it. And so one of the other messages in the book is, when you do commit, it’s then that the fact-belief piece usually kicks in. You don’t believe yourself when you’re not committed because that’s when you have the biggest out.
DEB BIXLER: Right, and so we need to go to another break. I know we have a lot of things to talk about. When Richard was talking, it made me think of one of my famous sayings—I have a lot of famous sayings—but “trying is lying; either do it or don’t, but for heaven’s sakes stop trying.”
RICHARD FENTON: Yeah.
ANDREA WALTZ: That’s great!
DEB BIXLER: But we’re going to take a break now. CashFlowShowRadio.com, please visit Andrea’s and Richard’s site and remember that Elite Club members get all the downloads within 48 hours of each show. Andrea what is your website again?
ANDREA WALTZ: Yeah, it is www.MillionDollarYearBook.com
DEB BIXLER: Okay, very good. We’ll be right back. Thank you
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The CashFlowShow Radio offered business training for direct sellers around the word. The transcribed series of radio interviews is a service that we offer to assist those in the industry who may be hearing impaired. Each interview is posted in 4 segment articles.
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