Today’s episode is a little different. It’s an interview I was honored to do with the hosts of MLM You Decide - a podcast dedicated to providing clarity around the business model and helping us all discern facts from fiction.
If you’ve read Flip Flop CEO, you’ll recognize one of the hosts, Janine Finney. She’s been a friend for quite a few years and I LOVE what she’s doing with this podcast! Her partner Laura Evans is a powerhouse leader in the industry and has been on the corporate side and in the field.
Honestly, I don’t hear much negativity around the Network Marketing business model any longer but then again I no longer attract the negative conversations. In this interview, we’ll be talking about how to educate vs. convince!
So, today we’ll be talking about
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Behavior rewarded is repeated and to reward the kind of behavior and give attention to the kind of things that I want to see happen more often, but to not reward the things that like in my boundaries. And you know what, when you are a people pleaser, because I have a tendency to be that way too. And I do believe that women as nurturers tend to be that way too. We tend to want to answer this little thing or help this person with that thing and not maintain our boundaries.
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Welcome to you're not the boss of me. If you are determined to break glass ceilings and build it your way, this show is for you. I'm your host Beth graves. And I am obsessed with helping you to not just dream it, but make the plan, connect the dots and create what you crave. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hey, Hey, my friends. Welcome back today. We are having a calmer
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First station with, have you read, have you ever read the book flip flop CEO? So that was one of the first books I read that opened my eyes to network marketing. And I connected with my friend Janine Finney. And she recently has partnered with a super power network. Marketer has worked on both sides of the industry and as, as an owner in corporate, as well as someone who has been and is in the field and they host a podcast called MLM, you decide. So what I love about their mission is they're advocates for clarity because making a decision with only half, the information could be the most expensive decision you could make. So they are bringing you all of the truths, the truths, and the real story of different network, marketers, different opportunities, different parts about the business. And I want to share a little bit about Janine.
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She spent her first 30 years of her career in sales and corporate America. And at the age of 50, she embarked on a new endeavor, which was network marketing. And you know that she and her daughter, Lori, if you have followed the flip-flop CEO, wrote the book flip flop CEO, and they started to build a business of freedom. And because of the strong opposing views about the topic of network marketing, they have put their book out into the world. The next person that we have on the show is that's interviewing me as Laura Evans. And Oh my gosh, she has worked for J crew Disney president of, of a few MLM industry companies. I said owner, but precedent and has worked with billion dollar companies. And she's such an advocate for the ethics and education of the MLM industry. She sits on the board of directors of the direct sellers association and she equips men and women 50 plus to design and pursue with passion, their Encore career, which I completely love.
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I do want to also talk to you about her big mission, which is called learn from her story.com. And this is a foundation that she has set up for sexually abused children. And she has a story that you'll w she shares parts of it during the podcast, but please go and support learn from her story.com and Laura Evans is so, so passionate about the mental wellness space and getting help for children that have experienced sexual abuse. So we have this conversation today on MLM. You decide in this episode, they're actually interviewing me. I want to bring them back and have you hear their stories, but we are going to hop into our recording. And I want you to share some feedback with me, send me, put this up in your stories, tag MLM. You decide, let me know when you found clarity and the network marketing space, and also questions that you might have, that you would like Janine and Laura to cover for you because their podcast is all about giving clarity. So they love to have you come and say, well, this person said this, or this is the struggle that I'm having, and they will bring that clarity into the world of podcasting for you. So here we go with MLM, you decided,
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Well, I am so happy today to be talking to a friend. I love that the three of us are all with different companies. And the best thing to me about this profession are the people that we meet. And it is my pleasure today to have Beth graves as our guest on read her bio. Beth is a wife, mom, and halfway empty nester has been an entrepreneur since she was 11 years old. She has partnered and built multiple businesses throughout her life. She and her husband built an insurance business around their passion for horses. When they sold that business, Beth decided she wanted to build the team and legacy within the network marketing model. She says that with a sprinkle of luck and a PhD in mindset, marketing, branding, high-performance habits and automation, she has been able to build a team of more than 15,000 distributors earned over $2 million in commissions.
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And most importantly created a success path for thousands of families that believes that too many women are struggling. Like she was feeling like they have to show up as a Stepford wife version of themselves on social media, it's become that's passion to help women create a business strategy with boundaries so they can build a yes life using network marketing as the vehicle that is also the, of the podcast. You're not the boss of me that ranks in the top 25 in female empowerment and entrepreneurial categories. Beth lives in Wellington, Florida with her husband. Welcome Beth, thank you so much for being with us and, and helping us to demystify this topic of network marketing. So why don't you start out, just tell us your story. How the heck did you end up here?
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I love that question. So I had watched many women successfully build businesses with network marketing and coming from the insurance background and understanding the power of renewal, residual income. I loved the idea, but I didn't love the coffee shop, flip charts, hotel meetings. That concept to me just didn't feel right. And also I wasn't in a space that I was, I was looking so I watched close friends, hit home runs and cheered for them always was the one that, Hey, I got this opportunity because I'm very social and always I'm the three-way chat for, if you want tacos. If Laura was coming to town and she wanted tacos and putting her on a three-way chat with my friend, Sheila, who has a restaurant, I didn't even know that was the thing to do. So once upon a time, I saw a Facebook post about a bracelet and she hit my points of passion.
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They were gathering together having a glass of wine. So there was community. And she said, I made some money just selling things that I love and having my friends over. So I was like, what's this all about? I was introduced to direct selling, did a little trunk show business and found that, that wasn't what I wanted, took a step away and then came back just by chance when we were in a transition and my friend Blair had reached out to me and said, I'm loving the vision. I love this product. And I thought, I'm going to give this 90 days, see where it goes. And that was in 2014. So I'm still here. I'm glad you are. Okay.
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That is wonderful. I love that. You're that you're a connector. You're a natural connector. So that's awesome. So tell us, what are some of your favorite things about network marketing and also, why do you enjoy, you know, we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, but share a little bit about what, what the sweet spot is of what you enjoy seeing as you're serving others.
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So the sweet spot for me of network marketing is that it's a business in a box, but someone can come in at any. Like I came in knowing that I wanted to go to the top rank of the company I wanted to, to run fast. I was, I was, I, I saw the vision and, and my family needed me to do that at the time. But what I loved was I didn't have to build a website. I didn't have to manufacture distribute products. I didn't have to have a social media following. I had 227 friends and an AOL account. I did not have to have any of the pieces that it would take to have a coaching business. And I didn't have to. The biggest thing was I didn't have to ship products for the post office. So it's an all-inclusive world and there's no discrimination based on education, based on race, based on background.
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The only thing that needs to happen as someone has to make a decision that they're committed to sharing the stories. And I also am a big advocate. And now we seem to be saying, you must build in this way. Everybody's using social media. Everybody, not everybody is. We just had a gentleman come in that said, I'm much more comfortable picking up the phone and having conversations. And he kicked, kicked the butts of some of my social media influencers, because he was connecting with their story of where, what transformation he wanted them to have financially, physically, whatever that is. So I would say you get to be the boss of how you build this business. And as long as you're staying compliant within your company's guidelines, my mission is to help women to be more crave, more, have more believe in themselves more at any age.
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So at 45 years old, being able to hop into an industry that I was a stranger, a nobody I can say, right. Enough stories. So my biggest tip that I tell people is as, as a network marketer, you have a blank. I love sketchpads and I love markers. And I just committed on that day. I didn't know anything about lead generation. I didn't know. I knew I knew about that for insurance, but I thought if I could take every page in this sketchpad and create a story, whether it's a customer, whether it's a helping someone to lead, whether it's even a story of disappointment, what could I, how can we learn and grow and connect and serve. And that is why I think I've been having that sprinkle of luck, because it's been about the stories being created. That's fantastic.
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And I, that is the rewarding part of this far beyond. I mean, you cannot put a price on that. And I love that you have this servant leadership, you know, vibe about it, that you're looking for, how you can help other people write their story. And it could be a different story and it's without limitation, but it's also without minimum requirements, kind of what you talked about. I love that, that you can do it however you want to. So that's wonderful. What do you run into as the biggest misconception about
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Network marketing? The biggest misconception, of course, we all hear, Oh, it's pyramid scheme. Nobody makes money. So I'm going to address nobody makes money. I've tried that it doesn't make money. And I have tried a lot of things, so not made money because I didn't commit to the compound effect of effort. So our statistics of people that will go and do what the three of us have done in our business. It's the same statistic as someone that's going to hit be the CEO of a billion dollar company, that there's a smaller statistic of people that will have that path and have the mindset and have the space and, and grow to that level. But the thing I love about network marketing it's available. I didn't, I not going to be a billion dollar CEO of a company. I am a teacher, but that my sister said who had her whole life in her career with texts and lots of education.
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She said like, you're out. You're, you're like outliving what I did because of the freedom. So the biggest thing I run into is it's not that people don't make money it's that they stop too soon, or they get in their own head about what other people are thinking about them. And they stopped before they found their groove. It's kind of like my dieting, Oh, I'll be keto this week. I'm going to do weight Watchers. Now I'm going to do intermittent fasting. I'm not getting any results because I haven't stayed with a path. So it's the compound effect of the daily effort, the compound effect of knowing as a network marketer, what the job actually is. I think we try to say, Oh, we just share it. Nope. If you want to do this, it's a business. And this is the biggest thing, as I say, you've got, if we're going to talk pyramid, you've got you at the top.
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You who you are, what you stand for, your values, your core mission. I had a bigger umbrella because I had moved a lot of times. I had a lot of connections when I started, I had a very nice warm market that trusted me and that helps, but a lot of people don't have that. So they might have to work harder at the beginning to develop that. And now I do that from the cold space, the cold market space. Then you've got your product, if your product. So for my audience, my product had a very different result than a young mom. So I had to speak and connect the stories because I look at it as I'm partnered with a company, but me I'm the CEO. And then I had the benefits of what did the company offer in terms of what made us stand out.
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But also beyond that, what did I offer in my leadership team? What did we stand for in our core values? And we stand for that's sacrificing time with family, which that's what we've talked about. So that means we leverage systems and people. And so I think that those pieces have to come into play. When you look at, what do I need to do is I need to get my first story. I need to understand. And I'll say to someone, I had to work on closing sales. I had to learn that I had to, I mean, I'm a Google, YouTube graduate of the world. I had to learn about vision boards. And start before you have the mindset. Like I was scarcity about. I was willing to scarcity in some places, but just knew if this chick over here is doing it. I certainly am. That was my whole beginning affirmation.
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That was like, it's, it's, it's evolved. So that's the biggest piece is thinking that I'm going to get lucky and talk to somebody and personal responsibility. It's not your leader's idea. It's not the company, personal responsibility. If somebody's having the success, it's available. There's belief. And then my last piece about earning money is I love to educate on the compound effect of what you earn. So is $300 a month, not a lot of money. Well, if we compound that you say, okay, I'm going to take that $300 a month. And I've got a business that I can have some home business write-offs, but I've got a 28 year old who I helped her with this. I said, what if you started investing that 300, cause it's extra into an IRA or into money that compounds not just buying a new pair of shoes. You have compounded now multiple six figures, if not seven figures, by the time you're at retirement age, to me, it's the best retirement plan in the book. So that was a long answer. I like to talk.
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I agree with so many things. Oh my gosh, she touched upon so many important things. I think I love that you talked about the gentleman that came in that is not into social media and that, and that we get to bring ourselves into this. And you know, I don't think anybody's journey looks exactly the same as someone else's, um, which is what I love about this. As long as you stay within the parameters of your company's policies and procedures, you get to bring yourself into it. So having said that, and everybody's journey journey looks different. What is your experience been of? What would you say is the common denominator for people that really achieved success in this business versus those that don't
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Consistency and showing up? Because there will be days that I could say that it's a hundred and it's it's consistency, but also that just belief that it's available. And I had, I don't know why this time, I'm sure it was divine intervention, but I had no hesitation. There was not a bone in my body that did not believe that I would hit the top rank of the company. In the first six months. There was not a bone in my body that didn't believe that I would, because I knew I had the plan. If I had an, if I helped enough people hit their goals, then that goal happen. And then the biggest piece of that is, is creating a community that people want to stay a part of. So it's not just about, what's your next goal. You're not checking in with your team on, did you get that sale?
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It's creating a community that feels like if I, if I show up at church after not being at church summit, this is not my IP. Someone said this for 22 weeks and they're like, listen, you weren't, you weren't here. I went, they're like, welcome. We're so happy to see you. And so it's having room at the table and creating that culture of one of my favorite things is my book of stories is every single person that I communicate with from my team. And I have had to create a lot of boundaries around time with us, but I will always know the names of their kids. I want to know, like, what is their big picture goal? Like B odd paying off debt. If who would you help? What I was asked, if you could donate a million dollars or start a movement, start some sort of foundation, what would that look like?
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So I know what's in their heart. And then I also know when, like, what does support look like for you? And how will I know that you need me to see you? What does that look like for you? Do you start to hide? Will you, how do I know that you need me to knock on your door and what spurs you on? Like I know on the tennis court, I need somebody to be like, when the ball's short, my tennis partner Weatherly has to say go cause I have to be spurred on, but other people that makes the mat. So I always want to know their, their love language. That's basically it.
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I love that. I love that. I ask people that, but they don't always tell me. So you get good results when you ask people to let you know how you're going to know.
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Yes. Because I'll say what most people have attempted and not had success with another company. And I'll say, well, but I always put on it. I don't want to hear who or what was responsible. I want to hear from you what you could have done or wanted to do, or would you differently this time if it was all in your hands? Because I don't want it to be, I needed it. My leader didn't show up because we all know there's people that have made it to the billion dollar Mark in any business that have not had a mentor, an upline, a good upline. I mean, let's face it. It's personal responsibility. And then learning that, how to duplicate that.
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Yeah. So what do you wish that you had known when you got started in this business now that you can look at it from this perspective,
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Time management of priorities? I wish I would have having a daughter that was 15. And I talk about glass balls a lot. I wish I would have understood boundaries and time management because it's very easy to get sucked in to be in the things and understanding here are my income producing activities. I'm blocking it here. Having more conversations with my family around this is my 90 day run, choosing the nights as a family that I would work and not work because she was 15. And I, and although I was building a freedom based business, I'll never forget when she said, I just wish you could go back to not having this business because we were watching, we'd watched TV together and you weren't holding your phone. I'll get teary eyed saying this. And so that's what I wish I would have known is that you can build this with boundaries and having someone say, do you want to be remembered for holding a hand or holding your phone?
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You don't have to be on every zoom meeting. You don't have to be in every Facebook group. So I wish I had known that I would have modeled that. I think I, I think in the beginning, a lot of people didn't want to do what I was doing because I was everywhere because that was ego. And when I learned that it's not about me, it's about leveraging people's superhero powers. I can make suggestions, but it's their business ultimately, and I'm not responsible for somebody else's success. So really, you know, you hear the stories of she's earned $2 million. She's done this, she's done that. But what many people are afraid to say is I dropped a lot of freaking balls on my way up. And I thank goodness for COVID. I got 16 weeks with my 20 year old daughter and I D we watched so many episodes of dance moms, and I tripled my income because of leveraging and really learning.
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And this is the piece that I know that you all speak to is we've got to, and Laura, this is your thing. We've got to be better at having the conversations around self care. And self-care, isn't a bubble bath. Self-care is checking in and people pleasing. And you know, it, it's not my responsibility to answer a 7:00 AM texts on a Sunday, because when you answer it, it feeds the dog, the chicken from the container. So they always come to the kitchen when you open the refrigerator. So that was a painful part of the journey for me. That's such a great answer.
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Oh my gosh. I am so thankful Beth, that you were candid and vulnerable about that. People need to hear that. And you said it so well. And I feel like any parent listening to you feels that, and either they feel that with their job, because in this day and age, the job spills over into your, all your life. 24 seven with phone people can reach you at all times. And my husband has always reminded me behavior rewarded is repeated. And if I was writing that down, gave you're rewarded is repeated and to reward the kind of behavior and give attention to the kind of things that I want to see happen more often, but to not reward the things that like in my boundaries. And you know what, when you are a people pleaser, because I have a tendency to be that way too. And I do believe that women as nurturers tend to be that way, too.
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We tend to want to answer this little thing or help this person with that thing and not maintain our boundaries. And I too have been exercising more of that discipline of my boundaries. You know, I am an empty nester for the most part, and I've got one younger child, adult child around, but you know, he's gone within another year. And that becomes very precious that for those of you that are in the thick of it right now, and you've got children and crawling all over you and wanting your attention at all times, there is the possibility to have a balance. There is the possibility to give the time to them that they need and carve out time for you to work the business. And you don't have to do this all of the time at every waking hour in order to succeed. In fact, the more that you can show others to have their own independence on how to do this and their own motivation, like the storyboards that you're working with with folks and that connection that you're building with them, then the stronger leaders they're going to be.
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I mean, I always notice my strongest leaders or the ones that lived the furthest away from me now. Why is that? That, I mean, it used to be, you know, prior to this past crazy year that we had, it used to be the ones that were closest to me, I was mother hinting too much. I was, you know, caretaking too much and doing too much for them. And the ones that live the furthest away from me kind of had to figure it out themselves. And they had me as a lifeline, but they weren't dependent on me. So I'm so glad you went there. And that we talked about this because I think it's a valuable lesson for people to learn. And we wrap up usually with a couple of fun questions. So we want to know, tell us a tip on something that's making your life easy or simple or fun. These days. It could be a book. It could be a gadget, it could be a device or, you know, whatever. What is something that you are really loving these days? That's bringing a little bit of easiness to you.
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Oh, I'm sure you've had this, but my Peloton, I mean, it's just, I get out of bed. I do my journaling, my meditation, the Peloton, and my Dyson air wrap. That's giving me I can dice it air at my hair after the Peloton. So having that piece, and then another thing that I'm loving for businesses, boxer, because walkie talkie, but having boxer access for certain people on your team who are at a certain level that need that access. So it's taking it off of that communication channel. So boxer, Slack for business, a sauna, all those things have come into my play for 20, 21, 2020, but my Peloton and my Dyson era,
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I love it. You're a girl after my own heart. I love my Peloton. We're going to have to follow each other and find out I'd love to know who your favorite instructors are. I have not invested in the Dyson hair wrap yet, but my daughters love it. It's a special like hair drying and curling device that does it at the same time.
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Just watch a YouTube video. It's so it's, so it's such an extravagant purchase, but literally anybody that's purchased it, my friend, Michelle, who will be listening, I posted about it. That's network marketing. Right. And she said, I've never even invested in anything for myself. She said, it's changed everything. Cause she's, she got a whole live video series and she's so confident with her hair. Now it's the saves time and I'll never get another professional blow out again.
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Yeah, that's fantastic. And that's fantastic. And I love boxer too. Um, the walkie-talkie calls, uh, to be able to quickly chat with people back and forth is awesome. So one of the, one of the last things we ask and you went there and talked about this too, which is super important to me. I resonate more with being a six-figure giver than being a six-figure earner. I like to create six figure earners, but money doesn't mesmerize me as much as what money can do and what I can do and giving it away. And we have a couple of foundations that are near and dear to our family. And we always we'd love to feature that folks that are in this industry, we're in a people business and we are generous in this industry. So we love to hear from our guests, what are you giving back to these days? What's important to you?
(28:38):
Black girls code is a really important organization for me right now. Really what I'm giving back to is helping with systemic racism and under-resourced schools and looking for how we can elevate the young women in those communities too. And so giving back is there's a lot of different organizations. And what we do I do is I choose one monthly that I can do a percentage of my commissions and even social media. When I have engagement, I think I was able to, I can't even remember the amount, but even on the birdy mean day, anybody that posted a Bernie meme, that then I, then I'm able to educate on the things that are important to me right now. And so after Megan Markel's interview, I know what I'll be doing next month. And having, having a family member that has, who is with us today because she was seen and she was heard, and we understood the value of open communication around mental health. So I love using my platform to
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Almost talk people into the education cause everybody wanted to post a Bernie mean, but after they did it, I then was able to educate them on why this was an important donation for me and ask them to match it. So that's beautiful. That's beautiful, Beth. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to get to know you better and thank you for sharing your journey with us. Thanks for having me on today. And could you share just quickly how people find you follow you and learn from you on this podcast? Sure. And L M you decide. So, uh, we are tackling the good and the misunderstood about multi-level marketing and network marketing. And you can find us anywhere where podcasts R M L M you decide, you can also find us. We've got a website, MLM, you decide.com where our podcast and our YouTube channel is connected.
(30:40):
Everything on social media, MLM, you decide. I love it to connect with us and find us. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today with Janine and Laura, I cannot wait to have them on my podcast so that I can ask all the questions that I am wanting to ask to women who have been a part of the network marketing space. Well, Laura, for years and years, and years and years, and also someone who has been the president of billion dollar companies and has been in both shoes. I would love for you to tag us MLM. You decide, and you're not the boss of me or my Instagram account, Beth holding graves in your stories. And if you have questions that you would like the MLM decide hosts to talk with you about, because remember their mission is to bring clarity to network marketers.
(31:37):
So you have all the information you need to make decisions about your business. And many times it is a spouse, a family member, a friend that might need to hear the information about why you are so excited about building your business. And that is where Janine's book flip flop. CEO has been a game changer because there are chapters in there that I have literally handed the book to friends and said, read this chapter. You will understand what it is that I do. We'll also put a link to the book in the comments. I'll see you over in camp elevate. We have some great training planned this week, and I cannot wait for you to see I'm working on a free gift for you. That is going to show up this week as well. So you go out there and be all the things you want to be, and don't forget to pause, reflect and have gratitude,
(32:29):
Just be you bravely. And I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for hanging with me today on the podcast. And remember you can create what you, if you're looking for a supportive sisterhood, I would love to see you over in our free Facebook group. As most of you know, I love camp. It's part of, you're not the boss to me because when we're building this thing, we're doing this thing. We need a supportive sisterhood and I also crave more fun and more connection. Join us at camp over in the Facebook world, that camp elevate group.com or just click on the link below. And we will see you around our campfire and help you to create what you crave.