The Secret, Thoughts, and your bad habits!

When I was 18 I first got introduced to “The Secret” through a book called, “You Cannot Afford The Luxury of a Negative Thought”. 20 years later, I’m still using the same techniques I first learned (20 years ago), which was usually trying to avoid filling my mind with anything negative (my christian upbringing made this exercise fairly easy). Of course, I had to learn other techniques to control my obsession for nose candy, nicotine, women, and fast cars. I also had a huge problem with spending way more money than I had coming in and was bankrupt by the age of 27. Does this sound familiar? If so, I would love to hear of some of your struggles in terms of overcoming your addictive behaviors.

You are great!

I was thinking about it today when in conversation with a close friend - that we are all great. Unfortunately, most of us don't feel that way as we have been programmed for mediocrity since we were just little kids. Many from the day we were born. Our parents, siblings, churches, teachers, and even our spouses have told us false stories about who we really are.

We look at life based on who we think we are, or worse yet, who we are told we are. But that is not who you really are. You are much bigger than a piece of paper, your career, your education, and your bank account. One of my all time favorite quotes that I want to share with you is by a man who is now in his eighties, but a very very wise man. His name is Zig Ziglar, and If you haven't read his biography "ZIG", I highly encourage you to (this one book will change your mind). Here is the quote, "Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness." If you like that quote you might want to jot it down and keep it close to you - Because you are great. You really are. You may not be great at everything, but you are great at something. Find your passion, find your heart, find your everything, and be great!

Your friend in success,

John Lowery
Top Trainer & Social Media Expert
http://www.johnlowery.biz

All You Need is Love?

While attending a new moon ceremony this evening, I had a breakthrough moment. I realized that leadership isn't about looking good, or what you can get from others, but what we can give. Giving your time, energy, and expertise without expecting anything in return. Unfortunately, this is not the way that most operate in our world today, but if we could all make that shift, we would find greater peace in knowing that our future on this planet isn't about what we can get from others, but what we can give. Once we can see that we can affect many people through our thoughts, words, and actions, it allows us to move into a contagious space.

I personally have hurt a few individuals in the past and placed blame on others for my failures, but the truth is that Love is the one thing that all great leaders possess. I've seen it firsthand in politics, business, church, school, and family life.

"It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership."
Nelson Mandela

To your success!

Is Agel a scam?

Recently I came across a company for the 2nd time in my few years in the industry. I had to take another look since I started researching companies a few months ago. I am very impressed with Agel's "gel suspension technology". It's a category creator in our industry and sets a point of difference from the other types of products in our industry (juices, pills, and lotions). The leadership and culture look to be top notch with Eric Worre and industry icon Randy Gage leading the field. They have highly consumable products that appeal to the baby boomers & health minded indviduals, and they recently added a skin care line that would appeal more so to women. Let's face it, 70% of our industry are made up by women.

I checked the MLM Rankings and Agel is currently ranked #93 out of 600 Companies. This site ranks companies based on popularity.

The pros:

* Products that are easy to understand
* Gel suspension allows for immediate absorption (better than vitamins or powders)
* Easy to share samples
* Hybrid Binary type pay plan (spillover)
* Great Leaders
* Been around for close to 5 years
* Global
* Culture
* Products that appeal to both baby boomers & women
* minimum autoship $60 (good for those who just want to be customers)

The cons:

* only 2 levels to come in as a business builder $250 or $1000
* gel suspension may not be attractive to some

With only a few cons that I can find. I would seriously consider joining this company. They have already survived the first wave where 95% of most mlm companies go belly up. They have a nice product line with both the gel suspension (which includes an antioxidant line, weight loss, vitamins, and energy), they also have a full skin care line (wrinkles have been known to keep people awake at night). And they are global. As an online network marketer being global is essential for my success!

If you would like to partner with myself and some of the top network marketers in the industry feel free to drop me a line at john@sellingwithintegrity.net

Is Genewize a Scam?

I was fortunate enough yesterday to spend some time looking at a company out of Florida called Genewize. GeneWize is the newly formed marketing arm of a 12 year old, publicly traded company. The company is GeneLink inc., and they are a well respected genetic, biosciences company. The company is in the earliest stages, and is less than a year old on the network marketing side. I tried hard to gather information on company leadership, to no avail. They are home to some of the biggest names in online network marketing: Jonathan Budd & Katie Freiling are both affiliates with Genewize. I was fortunate enough to sit on a 30 minute webinar with my good friend Tara Wilson who is one of the top income earners in the company. I really liked her presentation, besides a few of the technical difficulties. During the presentation I learned about a very unique product that is designed to match your DNA. After examining your DNA, GeneWize will create your personalized formula for nutritional supplements and skin repair serum with 100% active ingredients individually selected to enhance or diminish the biological processes causing you to age. It's a pretty amazing product and I really enjoyed what I saw.

As for compensation, it looks like they have a good pay plan with a monthly bonus rewards so if you recruit 1 person into your business you get 10% off of your $129 monthly autoship, 2 people 20%, 3 people 50%, and 4 people 100%. So basically, if you bring in 4 people per month into your business as either customers or business builders your product is free. This doesn't take into account the monthly bonus pools, stock options, and of course their residual income on the back end (why we all do network mareketing). On the binary leg it appeared to be a hybrid with matching bonuses of 40% on the 1st level, 20% on the 2nd, and 10% on the 3rd. I can't really find anything wrong with their pay plan, it looks pretty strong.

Pros:

Great Product - Unique (don't know of too many products matching DNA?)
Low start up (less than $300)
Simple (only 2 products to date)
Compensation looks strong
timing (looks good, poised for growth w/less than 20,000 distributors)
top leaders already on board (that says alot)
12 years of research (Scientific Advisory Board Includes 4 MD's and 4 PHD's)

Cons:

minimum autoship is a bit high at $129 per month (could be tough to retain customers)
only in the US currently
Network Marketing Business less than a year old
Binary is a bit confusing to the average person
Product is so unique, may be difficult for people to understand


So here is the million dollar question, would I join Genewize? I certainly would consider, I think the only 2 things that would hold me back is I would want to learn more about the management team (as leaderships is critical). I want to know who the captain of my ship is. I'm not too fond of only being able to market in the USA. I think for someone who is going to build primarily in their own backyard this would be a great company. I mean if you live in Tampa Bay and your not an online marketer, your probably only going to build within 30 miles from where you live.

Massive Action will always produce mediocre results

Massive Action will always equal mediocre results without the proper mindset. This is why I used to always hit a ceiling in sales. I would become the top performer or have the best month ever, but never be able to stay on top for more than 6 - 12 months at a time. I used to blame those who were able to stay on top all the time. Looking back I realize, it wasn't so much that they were great salespeople or marketers, but that they had the million dollar mindset. Many people are just born with it, and others like myself have to do lots and lots of work to re-program our minds for greatness.

You are greater than you think?

Most everything in our world is energy and our minds are way more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Most of our beliefs are distorted viewpoints that we were taught at very young ages to comply with a very dysfunctional system to keep us weak, broke, and unable to achieve the greatness we all have within.

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Jesus of Nazareth

Is Evolv a good company?

There is a new company on the block Evolv Health out of Dallas, Texas. They are becoming one of the fastest growing newer direct selling companies and attracting some of the most well names in the direct selling industry: Robert Dean, Ken Dunn, Garrett McGrath, and most recently Mike Healy.

Why are these prominent leaders moving over to a start-up company that has only been in business for less than a year? I think it has a lot to do with the company owner Trey White. Trey is a billionaire businessman out of Dallas and he is investing his own money into flying these leaders into Dallas to meet with him personally. With the highest monthly check of 1.5 Million for one month in our industry, I doubt anyone can sit in a room with Trey White and even come close to his wealth. A Billion dollars is just 1 million over 999 Million, not many people have that sort of money in the world today. People in the business community respect Trey and those that get in front of him are obviously impressed.

The leadership team seems to be rock solid, although their CEO Brent Hicks who is leading the company has never been in network marketing as far as I can see. He has had lots of success in the mortgage industry. Their VP of sales Dr. Anne Bodak Smith does have a background in network marketing and her experience should be helpful to those in the field.

Their website and brand looks more like a Fortune 500 Company vs. a direct selling company. They even recently launched an I-phone application, so distributors can share and enroll on their I-phone. I'm sure many other companies will follow-up with an app like that if they are smart.

I've looked at their comp plan, which is a typical hybrid binary with a coded bonus on the back end. Can't complain about their comp plan apparently it was designed by the best comp designers in the industry. Hybrid binary pay plans are hot right now, and allow for everyone to build an organization as long as you get in a good position. If not, spillover is non-existent and you will be left building 2 legs, not just one.

Now the big problem with Evolv, which people should think long and hard about before joining. Their formula the Archaea Active which increases oxygen at a cellular level and is also an anti-inflammatory, is not cheap. With shipping and handling it cost about $2.80 per 17 ounce bottle. I've been told this is a marketers dream, but having a marketing background & degree in business I can say that perception is everything. People only see a $3 bottle of water. It may do great things for the body, but when you market a formula in spring water, the formula become secondary to the spring water. This is where the trouble begins, as the distributor than has to explain the story behind the formula, and try to convince his people to do the same. "It's like you see this bottle, well it looks like water, but it's not. We just put our formula in here as the delivery system." If your not a pro salesmen type it will be a bit challenging to move lots of Evolv.

If your online marketer like myself, let's just say Evolv will be a tough deal. Due to the perception is everything rule. You will really need to go belly to belly to make Evolv work. I would not recommend Evolv to any online network marketers, as you will find it difficult to have success with this product. This is one where you really have to become a good story teller to move product. It can be done over the net, as I have done it, but most all the money is being made by the old school networkers who build culture with Evolv.

Will Evolv be around for the long haul? I think Evolv will be around for awhile, but in order for them to have real success they might want to go with re-packaging their product into sample packs that cost about a 1/3rd the price. Since in marketing, perception is everything, Evolv would be smart to re-package their bottles, so they look more like a Fiji water or Perrier, so they can justify the cost and not have to explain so heavily why their bottled water cost 5 times as much as the water in the stores. Their website, and Iphone apps look so amazing, but their bottled water looks so cheap?