RV (00:00): So a few months back, I made some friends, Ray and Jessica Higden, who I have really grown to love. I mean, if you know anything about my story, you know, I was raised by a single mom who sold Mary Kay. I was in direct sales when I was in college. I went door to door for five years and, you know, just for really believe in direct sales and the power of direct sales and have been so warmly welcomed by network marketing companies and had the privilege of speaking at a lot of their events. And now at brand builders group, we see a, a growing number of you who are somehow involved with network marketing at, as either a side hustle or a portion of your business, or you’re, you know, maybe you’re a, you’re a fitness influencer, and you’re just recommending, you know, shakes or workout programs or whatever. RV (00:51): And so it made sense that we had to get Ray to come on the show. He is one of the world’s leading experts. I would say on network marketing and, and driving business for that. So he has a community called rank makers. He has about a half a million people, 500, almost 500,000 followers on social media. I met him and Jessica. They had a book that came out last year and the, the book came out from hay house. It’s called time, money, freedom. And the book is, and a bestseller and these guys have helped over 300,000 people generate more business, right. They grow their recruits, grow their business. And so anyways, we’re gonna talk about using your personal brand specifically to grow a network marketing direct sales business. So Ray, welcome to the show. RH (01:45): Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me man. Excited to be out here. RV (01:48): Did I say all that accurately? I mean, RH (01:51): Did I I’ll clear, I’ll clarify the last point. So RV (01:53): Clarify RH (01:54): In the last four years, we’ve helped network marketers bring in over 300,000 new customers, 71,000 new reps and achieve 14,000 rank advances. We actually track production of our, of our group. And so that that’s, that’s just the everything else was perfect, man. RV (02:11): Got it. So it’s that’s so it’s, it’s, it’s not 300,000 people you’ve helped your clients generate 300,000 customers recruit 71,000 team members. And then and then how many know the, how much show the rank advance RH (02:27): 14,000 over 14,000 rank advances. And we have you know, a little bit over 11,000 people in our group. So, you know, you can kind of look at that and in those numbers, but you know, we’re very proud of our rank makers. We give them a action step every single day and they show it big. RV (02:45): Yeah. So, you know, there’s kind of two parts of this because on the one hand I’m really curious. And how do you think personal branding drives a network marketing, you know, direct sales business, but also, you know, most of the people we have on this show, it’s, they’re telling us the story of how they built their personal brand. And so you’ve done that as well. So like in the means of helping all of these people use their personal brand to grow their business, you guys have built a pretty monster empire here in a very, you know, a niche vertical, which, you know, regardless if somebody’s in direct sales or not almost everybody listening, I mean, this is gonna be our advice to them is, is to find their uniqueness and really dominate a vertical. And like, you guys have done that as, as, as good as anybody. Hmm. RH (03:39): Thank, thank you. Yeah. You know, before we were, you know, coaching and training you know, we were the number one incomers of a network marketing company. So I know, I know what it’s like to be in the field. I know what it’s like to, you know, to grind it out. I also know what it’s like to fail, cuz I, I failed in my first quite a few attempts at network marketing, cuz there were, there were a few of things I just didn’t get about network marketing cuz it is, especially when it comes to branding, it is very different than almost everything else. You know, if you’re like here’s, here’s a brand you would like. So in Cape coral we used to my wife when she was pregnant, we took her to this very specific chiropractor that was chiropractic for pregnant. Women. RV (04:26): Love it, like RH (04:27): Very specific. And that guy was booked. I mean he was booked. And I said to him, one day, I’m like, that’s a, that’s a pretty good niche. He goes, yeah know man . And so, you know, he’s a chiropractic for pregnant women. He’s not other chiropractors how to be chiropractors for pregnant women. RV (04:44): Right. RH (04:44): The reason I, I bring that up is, you know, the realtor isn’t typically teaching everyone how to also be a realtor they’re selling houses, but a network marketer kind of revolves around, you know, that world of, of what you do. You want to also be able to share that other or people can do. So I’m, I’m very hardcore when it comes to being, you know, being duplicatable, but there’s also nuances there’s nuances and, and pieces of that, that, that I don’t think a lot of people know that the distinctions of, but we’ve been able to, you know, to navigate that. RV (05:19): Yeah. And I, so I wanna talk about this specific, like, so you mentioned that you guys were a top income or number one income earn at, at, at one of these network marketing companies. I feel like the whole issue of personal branding is a conflict. Like it’s, it’s, it’s like a big question mark for how does a network marketing company deal with? Because I, on the one hand you go, yes, as, as one of our dealers distributors, team members, whatever you want to call ambassadors, whatever you call ’em builds this hugely successful personal brand, it, you know, helps them sell more and recruit more. On the other hand, I feel like there’s a lot of conflicts of like, well then they’re doing their own thing. They’re not really doing the company thing. And also it gets a little weird when people start selling products like their own information products that they make to their downline, right. RV (06:19): Because you’re in a, your downline or organization, you have a lot of influence and you’re already incentivized to help those people succeed. You make money off of their success typically. So like how do you, how do you recommend people like direct sales companies navigate that or manage that? Or like, what are some of the philosophies either that you’re employing or companies you go, yeah, I think they’re kind of doing this well, cuz I, I honestly see both sides of it. Like I see going, Hey, the company has a brand to protect, we’ve dumped a bunch of money into creating this product and this reputation back in infrastructure. And then also being like, well yeah, well, you know, if you’re growing your social media following, like that’s your asset. So yeah. You know, not to start with the, not to start with the hard questions, but let’s start with the hard, hard ones. RH (07:04): Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. So I remember, so that company that, that we were the, the top income earns of in 2013, it merged into a larger company and that larger company, you know, like I, I had a lot of internet marketers. I mean, I, I had like, you know, in our space I had, probably the top like 40 internet marketers. I mean, Russell Brunson was in my team Cedric Carris, I mean just this big, long list of, of gangster or marketers that, that were in our, our team. And so, you know, I met with their compliance and I’m like, Hey, listen, I’m bringing a whole bunch of internet marketers over here. And, and this company was a big company, but it didn’t typically have a lot of internet marketers. And I’m just like, you know, I need to know that you guys are, are cool with this. RH (07:57): And they’re, they’re big thing was we just don’t want you using our logo or our name. And I’m like done, done deal. And, and I think that that is I think that that’s a smart approach, right? That’s a smart approach to say, don’t use the company name, don’t use, you know, the logo. And I mean, at the time I, I don’t know what it’s like now at the time, I mean, I was getting more traffic than, than their site and it’s like, look, look, I’m not gonna use your name because if I do it actually hurts me because I’m, I’m attracting all these other people in other, in other companies. And so here’s something that most people don’t think about when they enter this discussion is what if you brought in a Brian, Tracy, how you, how you gonna handle that? Are you gonna tell Brian Trey, say, Hey, stop selling your courses and books, bro. RH (08:45): No, you’re gonna be like, yay. We got Brian Tracy, right? If you brought in you know, some guru, of course they’re gonna continue to sell their stuff. And so if you can allow that, then how can you not allow, you know, this over here? And so there’s, you know, for, for me personally, when I started selling courses, I didn’t market ’em to my team. If someone came to me when we started offering coaching, if someone in team came to me and said, you know, Hey, I wanna hire you as a coach. If they wanted to learn prospecting team, building leadership, duplication closing, you know, the standard kind of stuff of, of network marketing. I’m not gonna charge ’em I, I’m not gonna, you know, hit ’em with some big coaching fee. But if they’re wanting to learn blogging, podcasting, brand, all these things, to me that falls outside the realm of what a network marketing leader should be teaching. RH (09:41): And, and so that was a little bit different story. I had a, you know, a few people on my team that, that hired us as, as coaches, but it’s cuz they wanted something that you wouldn’t typically get in network marketing leadership. I think one of the, if, if you look at, at what companies are red hot, I mean red hot these are the companies that are the most flexible they just are. And you know, there’s a lot of you know, we’re not in the eighties where there’s, you can just put hedges up big enough. So no one can, you know, see outside of the company opportunities at every, you know, every second of the day you’re presented with a new opportunity. So the influencer has a lot of options. And, and so I, I think it’s a mistake. If, if companies are saying don’t you dare build a personal brand, but I also think it’s a mistake. RH (10:28): If an influencer says you must build a personal brand. So, you know, for example, there’s a lot of, and, and I know I, I go crazy on over here. For example, we, a lot of influencers they’ll bash cold, cold market messaging, right? And so, you know, we teach people how to send, you know, simple messages to people that they don’t know and, and actually get results because some people don’t wanna build a brand. Some people don’t wanna, you know, do all the attraction marketing stuff, they just wanna and get in and get out. Well, one of our students, Christina, Danielle, she’s the number one recruiter in her company. It’s for a pet supplies company which she doesn’t even have a pet. And she does it a hundred percent through cold messaging. That’s someone she doesn’t care to have a brand doesn’t want a brand doesn’t wanna build a traction marketing. She’s the one to get in. She’s the, the number one recruiter in that company. And so there’s a, there’s a lot of things that, that work in network marketing. I think the mistake is saying, this is the only way don’t you dare build a personal brand or you have to build a personal brand. RV (11:29): Hmm. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting too, because like back in 2013 you know, that would, that, that makes sense to me to go yeah. Blogging, podcasting, you know, funnel, social media, definitely not part of the mainstream of what you would teach for network marketing, but today it probably is right. Like to go man, like social media, like a lot of these companies thrive or maybe I, I mean, I don’t know, like I’m not as much into it. I mean, I keynote at some of the events, but like, you know, it sure seems like leveraging social media. I mean, you tell me like leveraging social media to grow your business is a, is a, is one way to do it. Like I very, I hear you’re saying you can do it cold, which I believe in, I mean, I was knocking on doors in 2006. Yeah. When people had the internet and people are going, no one is gonna buy books. People have the internet. And yet I made more money than I, than I had any of the previous summers. Like people will always buy from cold calling. It’s not the easiest most glamor, but it totally works. So RH (12:38): Here here’s, here’s the difference like you know, for example, way back when, when I first started social media was bashed by every guru and network marketing. So 2009, every guru that is now all for it was like, oh, that doesn’t duplicate, that’s too complicated. I remember going to a conference and you know, a leader, one of the leaders in the company came up to me and said, Hey you’re the guy that recruits a lot of people on Facebook. Right. And I’m like, oh yeah, you know. Yeah, sure. And he said, well, I prefer duplication. And then I’m like, okay, like I, I love that kind of stuff. And so, you know, five months later when I was the number one incomer in the company, I kind of, you know, waved home a little bit. And so like, I I’ve been through all of that. RH (13:23): Right now you, of course, should be teaching your team social media for sure. To me, there’s a distinction between teaching how to properly use Instagram, Facebook. How, how do you do reels even TikTok? Like all of those are free platforms. It’s when, to me, it’s when you start to get one level above that, an email list podcast blogging that requires specific knowledge and, and tools. I think you, you should be teaching social media to your team, you know, period that should, that should be part of, of the deal. So even now, if I was running a team, which we retired from building a team in 2016, if I was running a team right now and someone wanted to learn social media from me, I, I would teach ’em I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t charge ’em for that if they were in my organization. RV (14:08): Yeah. Let’s talk about that for a second. So like, what are, what are some of the things that you should be doing, you know, and, and for those of you listening, like I just wanna highlight and go network marketing is really just marketing. Like direct sales is really just sales. Like whether you happen to be, you know, selling a supplement and there’s some type of override or whatever, or you’re, you’re running a local donut shop. Like there’s not a lot of the, to a lot of the principles apply. They don’t always, but, so just kind of keep that in mind, but like talking specifically about network marketing, Ray, like if somebody was just starting out today and they just signed with, you know, whatever, pick, pick your, pick your marketing company, what, what should they be doing on social media slash with their personal brand to immediately drive like revenue for their business, new customers? RH (15:05): Yeah. And for first, just regarding like, you know, Hey, sales is sales, marketing is marketing the it’s, it’s smarter to think like a franchise, you know, there there’s a line in Michael Gerber’s E MIF book that says the reason McDonald’s franchises rarely fail is because they were designed to be ran by the person with the lowest level of skill. And so that’s how we think about all, all of our training. Can the person with no skill, no influence, no business or sales background, can they do this thing that we’re teaching? And if it requires those things, then that’s not good network. To me, that’s not good network marketing teaching. And so as far as social media, there’s, you know, there’s a few, there’s a few factors. I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s are factors to, will you succeed in network marketing or not pipeline, which is number of people you reach out to follow up with set appointments, with send samples to if that’s what your company does position understanding the position of the prospect when you’re in a conversation, right? RH (16:08): So if they havet express any interest, you have no knowledge. Then you have to see if they’re open first, not try to close. ’em See if they’re open three posture, are you easily affected by the opinions of others? Are you to believe in what you have regardless of external acceptance or approval and number four perspective, which is your, your mindset. So how does that translate to social media? Well, you have two categories, prospecting market, right? And so marketing the top of the marketing food chain right now, without question, there is no doubt is the short video we’re in the short video phenomenon, it’s unlike anything any marketer has ever seen. You know, like I was, you know, the last hot trend and marketing in my opinion was way back in, you know, late two thousands, which was Google AdWords and that’s, you know, advertising, but that was red hot. RH (17:01): You know, I was taught by a guy that was dropping $30,000 a day, but he was making profit $30,000 a day. And, you know, and it’s, that was crazy. There’s so many people making money on that. The difference now is you now have, have a way to reach more people that don’t know you than ever before and for free. And so, you know, we have students, we, we have one student, she’s got a video, it’s got 15 million views and she didn’t spend a dime on it. And that’s more than who watched the Olympics. wow. And so like, you’ve never had that kind of a bit because the algorithm would always, you know, throttle how, how much reach you would have. You don’t have that now. And so now it’s just a, it’s just a game, right? It’s a game of how many times you’re gonna roll the Dias, cuz there are no losers there’s you can always, you can only stumble upon winners when it comes to Facebook reels, Instagram reels and TikTok. RH (17:53): So if I was starting right now and I had, let’s just assume big goals, I would have a a prospecting number and I would have a marketing metric of at least three reels a day. So I’d be doing three reels a day. And this is, you know, just adjust if your goals are smaller. But if you, you have big goals, you wanna hit six, seven figures. I would be doing three reels a day and I would have a prospecting goal. And that, that is whatever you have the time for. You know, like when I, when I was serious about becoming the number one income earn, I set a goal of 20 nos a day. So I had to hear 20 nos that day, every day I did that for, for six months. That’s what helped me, you know, get to, you know, you know, become the number one income earn. RH (18:36): So have a number of how many human beings am I asking if they’re open to my product service or opportunity per day. And that is the key question. Not how many comments am I dropping? Not how many friend requests am I sending? Not how many, you know, anything else, how are you today? Right? None of those I’m I’m saying how many people are you asking? Are you open to my product service or opportunity per day? You combine that with, you know, two, three reels a day optimal, you’re going to build a business and you know, it’s, it’s simple, not easy. And, and I found the no number, one reason that, that people aren’t consistent has nothing to do with tactical or nothing to do with routines or, or anything like that. And we can, we can talk about that if you would like, or if you have more questions. RV (19:21): Well, yeah, like I, I think that’s a good, that is good to talk about. I mean, when I, like when I was in college and I was knocking on doors, that was the whole thing was, was you have to do 30 demos in a day. Like you gotta just, you just gotta show this to 30 people who meet the basic criteria qualifications. And it was, you know, it was always, it’s not the theory of averages. It’s the law of averages. And if you show this to 30 people, one to two will buy it. Like no matter how bad you are, right. One to two people are gonna buy it just because they, they need it. And it’s, you know, hopefully it’s a good, it’s a good product. So like I, I do want to hear about the mental side of it. That one thing that I wanna highlight though, that you said that I really love is like, when most people teach marketing that are gonna teach likes followers, comments, shares, engagement, et cetera. RV (20:15): But when you said the focus is do three reels a day, which is totally in your control. Yes. And, and focusing on, or like the thing you can control. And it’s like, I don’t know how many views that’ll be. I don’t know how many followers I’ll get. I don’t know how many comments will show up, but like I’m gonna commit to three reels. Every single day is a hugely powerful shift. Just, you know, tactically mentally, even spiritually to go focus, focus on that. So I would like to hear more about why aren’t people consistent, cuz my guess is it has more to do with that perspective as you say that like mindset component. Yeah. RH (20:58): You know, I’ve cuz I I’m, I’m a, I’m a consistent guy. I mean I did, you know, I did a video a day every day for 12 years straight because I’m, I’m a lunatic and, and so people have asked me over the years, Hey, what’s your daily routine or how are you so consistent? And so I was, I was a little slow at learning this admittedly looking back, but for the first like five or six years, I would just teach years. My routine and people are like, oh man, that’s awesome. Thank you so much. Then they wouldn’t do it. And so like I’m, I’m like pulling my students. I’m like, Hey, who is anyone doing this? Nobody was doing it. And so I’m, I’m teaching. I’m like, okay, I gotta up my game. I gotta be a better teacher. And so I started asking myself, okay, why do I do it? RH (21:40): I’m like, okay. A vision, a vision of who I want to become. So I started teaching that probably five to 8% of people started doing it. And I’m like, okay, there’s gotta be another answer. And what I realized is that there’s two categories of people. There’s, there’s the people that are borderline workaholics. Like I was that are hustling, grinding and to talk about consistency is like that. They’re confused. Right? Why do people, why do do you mean cuz they’re, we’re just, we’re we’re just designed for this stuff and for me, and a lot of, of people that I’ve now coached that’s actually a coping mechanism. It’s actually a coping mechanism with not wanting to spend time with yourself or actually having low self-esteem, which, you know, I grew up in a very abusive home and I didn’t think that that was of affecting me anymore, but it was, it was due to some of those issues of why I struggled to be present with people, why I struggled to have great relationships, but I was always consistent at working the other 95% of people that aren’t consistent. RH (22:45): I have found 100% of the time. It is they’ve drawn the wrong conclusion to success based on an observation they made as a kid. Hmm. A hundred percent of the time. So if you had a a parent who was really, really successful and then lost it, all a program was most likely created in you that made you really scared of being ridiculed and never wanting to have a big fall. So if you are afraid of climbing the, of falling off the mountain, just don’t ever climb it. And so what’ll happen is people will get to this, this certain level. And then they’ll just find themselves either distracted, they’ll join a different company or they’ll just not be motivated anymore because past the level is danger. And so the program is there not to hurt you, but to prevent you from feeling a way that really scares you or becoming someone you don’t wanna become, if your parents were really successful and they ignored you, you very likely drew the conclusion that successful parent means ignore a kid. RH (23:50): And I don’t want my kids to feel that way. So I don’t know why I can’t get past this level. And you know, I remember I, I coached a lady Tara this was on clubhouse and she like so many people that I’ve I’ve, you know, coached sense. She would go into a company and just rock it up to the top, just crush it, just make it rain break records. And then she would find something wrong and, and leave. And everyone’s like, wait, she left. what the heck? And so she would go, she’d start another company go up there. And right. So this was her, her career, a bunch of rocket ships and then she would find something wrong. And so I asked her, I said, you know, what, what was your relationship like with your, with your parents? And, and she said oh, they’re perfect. RH (24:37): No drama, no trauma, no abuse, nothing. And you know, they’re awesome. They’re perfect. I’m like, Hmm. Okay. And I know that at programs, often block memories. And so I said, Hey, it’s okay if we don’t, if we don’t, you know, figure it out today. And she’s like, and she remembers catching her mom cheating on her dad. Now five minutes before she said they were perfect. And I know, I know what’s going on, but she’s like, well, what does I have to do with my career? Everything as a kid, she was out of control. She had this perfect scenario was feeling really good about life. And then something happened outside of her control and her reality was crashed. So every time she starts feeling really good about something, she knows that she was about to. So she makes the choice with awareness of that program. She no longer has that program. So now she’s been able to rocket in her, the current company that she’s with. But that’s one example of, of hundreds of different examples. I’ve seen where something happened in the past. Like if we have time, I’ll give one, you know, one more example, you know, when people struggle with motivation, RV (25:51): I wanna hear this. I just wanna make sure I’m, I’m, I’m hearing you correctly. That basically you’re saying the reason that people don’t perform is because there is some underlying program that was written perhaps and likely subconsciously yes. From the time they were young yes. That they carry with them. It operates in the background and it basically sabotages them because they there’s this kind of underlying program that’s running in the background. RH (26:27): Yes, absolutely. And it’ll disguise it so off as overthinking perfectionism procrastination, or just lack of, of motivation like mine. The one that I discovered I’ve discovered, you know, several is when I was a kid in that house of abuse, some of the relatives knew that no one did anything about it. And so a program was created of, I’m not a priority that program you know, up until this last year, year and a half, I didn’t realize it. But I was that into every relationship I ever had, including the one with my wife. So I would locate and verify how I was in a priority. And that’s why I really struggled with relationships. And if you struggle with relationships, there’s, there’s gonna be a cap to how much impact you can possibly have. And, and so, you know, by me discovering my programs, I’ve been able, a lot of people discover theirs. RV (27:26): Yeah. And so you’re, and, and so that’s always there. I mean, all of us have something. I mean, there’s some, there’s something on the hard drive, right. So the you were gonna use one other, you were gonna tell one other example. RH (27:39): Yeah. so I was coaching a lady maybe a few months ago and she said, you know, I, I, I get to a certain level and then I’m just like, you know, I’m just not, I’m just not motivated. I know I could do more, but I’m just not motivated. And, and I asked her this very, you know, specific question I said, at what point in your childhood did you figure out that trying hard really didn’t matter. And she’s like, oh, you know, I remember this one day I used my easy bake oven to make these cookies for my dad. And I spent all day making ’em and I decorated ’em. I had ’em all perfect and everything. And when he came home, he yelled at me for using the, the kitchen materials. And man, I think that’s the last time I really tried hard in my life. RH (28:28): And so, you know, we’re that, that program is trying to prevent you from feeling that feeling again, it’s not is it’s, it’s trying to keep you safe. It thinks that it’s serving you and it doesn’t want you to figure it out. And so you, you have to do some pretty intense work to, to figure this kind of stuff out. And, but if you’re are not consistent, I guarantee you now, I can’t say that of everyone, but if you’re watching this, if you’re listening to this then, and you’re not consistent, it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s because you’ve drawn the wrong conclusion to getting higher than you currently are. Whatever that means, money impact following success, you know, whatever that means, but you’ve drawn a bad conclusion. There’s something wrong with you stepping it up. It’s something wrong with the next level for you? RV (29:14): How do you spot it? RH (29:18): The key is one not easy to do by yourself. The, the real key is patterns. Cause you, the decisions that you’ve made have been driven by have been driven by this, these programs, because before you’re aware, you’re on autopilot, right? You’re the puppet on a string. And, and so you’re just you knowing around the cliff, you’re going up and down and you’re making these decisions, thinking that you’re making the decisions, the program’s making the decisions, the program’s making, you see things in a certain light to keep you nice and safe. And so when you become aware, you can, you can become defiant to them. Right? So, you know, like the first time I really confronted my program of me not being a priority. It was a very tough time. My mind, I felt like I was under attack. I mean, my mind was going nuts. RH (30:12): And I just thought I was in a, you know, little argument with my wife and I, it came up. I, you’re not a priority, but it’s still a good relationship. That’s what my mind said. And I said, no, I don’t wanna feel that way anymore. I don’t wanna think that anymore. Cuz that’s not true. And , and it was, you know, it’s what some call a dark night of the soul and couldn’t sleep that night. And it was just, it was, it was just a bad night, but it was there to help me eliminate that, that, that addiction that I had to that emotion RV (30:44): Mm-Hmm yeah. I mean that’s, how long do you, how many over, how many years do you think that pattern emerges? I mean, it’s typically like every three to five years or something. You see the same thing over and over again. RH (30:57): I mean, that’s, that’s gonna vary based on, you know, based on your life, you know, that’s gonna vary on what, what you’re doing and, and what, you know, what it’s all about. Like, you know, for me, I can now once you become aware of it, you can kind of look backwards and, and, and, you know, like Steve jobs said connect the dots. Right. And and I can see that I’ve, I’ve, I’ve had that program my whole life I’ve had in every friendship, in every business relationship and every personal, I mean, in every relationship I was, I was seeking to prove that I was not a priority and I always verified it because we always verified what we’re seeking. RV (31:36): Mm-Hmm . Yeah. RH (31:39): So I know we kind of went from network mark. I mean, to deep, deep stuff, here RV (31:43): You go. We’re marketing to social media to sort of like limiting beliefs. But the, I mean, I, I think this applies a lot, right? Because a lot of people, I mean, people have the same programs about personal branding or social media, right? Social media is stupid. Social media is a waste of time, social media, whatever. And it’s like, well, there’s a reason why it’s not working for you. Right? Like that’s what you, that’s what you think about it. And it, it’s not the only it’s by, by no means the only way to succeed. But like those underlying programs I think are really, really, you know, they’re, they are really critical. And I think it, you know, tying back to my very first question about like, how do network marketing companies deal with how much flexibility or control they try to extend over the personal brands? RV (32:30): There is this old school thought of, I think that is for the most part, been pretty pervasive, which is control. Like we have to, we have to put a fence around our people and, and sort of like shelter them from the rest of the world. And that is really a conflict with like a whole world of decentralization where things are blowing up. Everyone has access to everything. We all see what’s going on in other people’s lives. We can talk to anyone around the world and it’s like, that’s a really big, you know, conflict that we’re, we’re, we’re wrestling with. RH (33:06): I, I just, I don’t, I, I just don’t see, you know, and we, I mean, we coach a lot of different leaders work with a lot of different students in different companies. I just don’t see the mega control growing nearly at the pace of some of the more freer companies. And, you know, we’re just, you know, it used to be like, okay, maybe you’re in, you know, whatever you’re in Alabama. And, and there’s only one company that you know of in your area right. Then, okay. You can kind of be controlling, but as soon as you start to ask your show, the question of what if I bring in a big doctor, what if I bring in an author? What if I bring in an influencer, as soon as you bring that up, it’s kind of like, well, well, we gotta accommodate them. Like, well, how can we, how can we say, okay, if you’re successful already, you can keep doing that stuff, but don’t, you dare try to, it just doesn’t make sense. Does RV (33:58): That happen? I mean, does that, I mean, I, I know that like oh, RH (34:01): All the time RV (34:02): Happen all the time, RH (34:04): All the time. I mean, so, I mean, I saw, I mean, we recruited one of the top I think like top 10 orthopedic surgeons in the country here in Naples, Florida, I recruited Ron LaGrand. You may know that name. I mean, he ran a, he still, I haven’t stayed in touch with him, but he runs a, a big real estate investment, you know, education company. I think they were doing 20 million a year. We brought in quite a few doctors actually brought in different authors, brought in different speakers for sure. And, and that’s something that a lot of these influencers, you know, they, they, they make money, but most of ’em don’t have residual income. So I, I, I think it’s actually very smart for an influencer if done, right. To have a network marketing thing on, on the background, on the back end, they don’t talk about it every, you know, real or every, you know, post, but to have one in the, in the background so that they can start to build more residual income, cuz most people don’t have that most business owners don’t have that. RV (35:09): No, but I think you, I think y’all one, one of the things I’ve been surprised is, you know, at brand builders group, we end up seeing a lot of clients that come to us. You have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers. And they’re going all wanna write a book or build my speaking career, whatever. And we come to find out that somewhere in their back end, they have a, they have a network marketing and that like that a lot of their money comes from the, the, the thing that’s really financing the growth of their personal brand in many cases is more of the network, the network marketing backend. It’s not so much that they’re making money from their personal brand, it’s that they’re using their personal brand and they’re driving people to something on the backend. Like I’ve been shocked at how common that is RH (35:54): Very, very common. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a natural thing of if you, if you gain success and you feel that limelight in a network marketing company, cuz network marketing companies are amazing at edification, making people feel good, feel appreciated. And so you, you, you know, you get a taste of that and you know, you, you may get a taste and you’re at a point where to get bigger taste is a really big leap or you’ve already tasted all the limelight you can, you know, possibly get and you still want to grow. You wanna stretch out. And so it goes from being the person, you know, signing autographs in your company to getting people outside of your company, to know you, which is actually beneficial for the company. And that’s, that’s where, you know, some companies I think misunderstand think that they’re going away, they’re actually, you know, going out into foreign lands and, and, you know, informing more people about that company, if they’re treated right. If they’re not treated right, then a lot of times that influencer’s gonna make a different decision. RV (36:52): Yeah. Well, and I, you know, the thing I’ve always, the thing I’ve never been able to understand about. This is one thing that I find to be pretty consistently true about most humans is they don’t walk away from easy money. And if you just help them make more money, like they’re not gonna leave. Like they’re they want like it’s in their best interest as it is in your best interest for that personal brand to grow in whatever way it may be. Right. Because if nothing else it’s like, Hey, this, this person is ours. But I also understand the dilemma of, you know, you’re working with a new person and you’re trying to get them to follow a schedule and do something duplicatable and, and go well, yeah, but the top people are doing this. And so it’s like, why would I need to follow this track? And the top people are actually doing something different. Like I see that conflict. RH (37:45): That, that’s a, that’s a great point. So when a new person would come to me and say, Hey, I wanna do blogging. I wanna do podcasting or whatever, I’d say, okay. You know, I, you, you certainly can now just understand it’s more expense of, and it takes longer when, starting than if you just follow the system. And so, you know, and, and nine times outta 10, I would talk ’em outta that fame because they think that’s simple, fast and easy. And, and it’s not, you know, it’s not simple, fast and easy build a YouTube channel or, or a huge following or a blog or, or a podcast. And so like, you know, I would always give, you know, the freedom of choice. Hey, you can, might take you a little bit longer than if you do it this way. And if they’re looking for speed, that’s really good advice because you doing the, you doing the basics of, of prospecting and, and, you know, basic marketing, you’re gonna get faster results than building out, you know, infrastructures. And, and so, you know, it, it is a good point. What a lot of, of, of influencers do is not what they did to reach the top. You know, a lot of them, you know, did you know, did the work prospecting, marketing the basics, reach the top then became an influencer and most, but most people don’t understand that. So you, you do need to teach that. RV (39:05): Yeah, no, it’s, it’s really similar to like, you know, people we’re really big on find your uniqueness, figure out the one thing that you can do in the world better than anyone else. And that that’s really how you break through the wall. Not by trying to talk about lots of things and lots of places to lots of different people and people go, well, what about Gary Vaynerchuck? And we say, Gary’s actually the perfect example, because he does talk about everything now. But in the beginning he talked about wine on just YouTube. And that was how he broke through the wall, right? Like in the beginning, the rock was just a wrestler in the beginning, Ellen DeGeneres was just a comedian. Like it, they, they, they all break through on the one thing it’s really similar to, to this conversation. And people need to be taught. Don’t do what they’re doing now, do what they did to get there. RH (39:53): Right. And, and here’s the thing about dub, how you generate a lead is not what has to be duplicatable, because if that were true, then you couldn’t, you couldn’t recruit an influencer, an author, you couldn’t recruit a doctor. You RV (40:09): Say that again, RH (40:10): The way you generate a lead does not have to be duplicatable. What you do with the lead that’s what has to be duplicatable. So if you’re relying on your, so however you generate a lead that does not have to be duplicatable because I know people you don’t, and that doctor knows has clients, and I’m not gonna tell ’em don’t you dare talk to your clients, cuz not everyone has clients like that would make no sense. It’s what you do with the lead. So if the doctor has a pamphlet in their, in their you know, office and people say, Hey doc, you know, you know, here, let’s just say opportunity. Hey doc, it says right here, I can make some, you know, extra money you know, is this something I should do? If the doctor says, yes, I highly recommend it. That’s not duplicatable. RH (40:56): If the doctor says, you know what? We have a short video and this is the video that will tell you if it’s a fit for you or not. And by the way, if you ever wanna tell other people, you’d use this same video, watch this video, see if it’s a fit for you. That’s duplicatable now is how he generated the lead duplicatable. No, and it doesn’t need to be, it’s what you do with the lead. So when I would have people come to me after building a brand and say, Hey man, I wanna work with you. I don’t know what company you’re in, but I’m gonna give you my credit card. I would, I would have that happen. And I’d say, Hey, I really appreciate that. That is awesome. Thank you so very much. But you know what? Let’s make sure this thing’s a fit for you. I’m gonna send your short video, watch this video. And the cool thing is that’s the same video that you’ll use. Okay. That’s duplicatable. It says, oh, oh, I must watch a video before I join this thing to kind of get the gist of it. Got it. And it’s the same tool that I would use if I rely on personality, charisma or influence, that’s not duplicatable. And so it’s not how I generate the lead. It’s what I do with the lead. Once they’re in the conversation, once we’re having that communication, RV (41:55): Mm-Hmm yeah. Well, fascinating stuff. I like I guess Ray, where do you, where do you want people to go if they want to like learn about you and kind of plug in to, to rank makers and some of the other stuff you guys have going on. RH (42:12): Yeah. You know, if you’re a, you know, like a lifelong learner, like, like me, I mean I do self development every single day and I have for forever if you’re a lifelong learner then and you’re looking for, what should I be doing on a daily basis then rank makers, you know, might be something that you take a look at and that’s just rank makers.com. If you’re someone that’s more of a, Hey, I need to solve this particular problem. And, and you’re not, you know, you’re not like tuning in daily to self development then. I mean, you could, you could really Google Ray Higdon and whatever your problem is. And I’m sure I got a video out there. RV (42:50): That’s that’s I mean, if you made a video every single day for what did you say? 12 years. 13 RH (42:56): Years. Yeah. I, so from Ja July 15th, 2009 to July of 2021, I made a, at least one video a day. And the only reason I stopped is I was in a meditation retreat. I’m just like, eh, I’m not gonna do it. RV (43:09): Yeah, that’s funny. I, RH (43:10): But then I picked it back up the next week. RV (43:14): Yeah. Well, I, I think you know, this is interesting Ray and I, I think to me, there is, there is the world of network marketing and affiliate marketing and info marketing and digital marketing all seem to sort of like be colliding, like as, as the tools are available to everybody and the lifestyle is available to everybody and people are more interested in freedom and, you know, time what’s, what’s your book, time, time, freedom, money, right? RH (43:48): Yeah. time, time, money, freedom, time, RV (43:51): Money, freedom RH (43:52): By hay house. Yep. That’s my wife and I wrote this and it’s you know, this is not specific to network marketing. It’s you know, 10 simple rules to redefine what’s possible and radically reshape your life. It’s basically what what I, I did to get out of foreclosure and, and build a, you know, a business and it’s what Jess did to get away from the makeup counter. And and so, you know, it’s helped lot of people inside and outside network marketing. RV (44:19): Yeah. Well, super thought provoking, man. Always great to connect with you. Thank you so much for your time and keep helping, helping people make rank, man. You’re you’re you’re doing it. RH (44:30): My pleasure, man. Thanks for having me.