Janine Avila Network Marketing WAHM Interview

On this week’s show, I interview millionaire momma, Janine Avila. Janine has a great story, starting as the Tupperware lady, to corporate side of a network marketing company, and back to the field, where she has freedom and a MUCH higher income with no glass ceilings.

Janine is a good friend and we have shared the stage at several events and she is real, raw and authentic,

I love this interview because she shares some awesome insights into how she got involved, why she got involved, how she launched her business and what made a difference for her in the early days. Good insight for all of us, so grab your favorite beverage, and a pen and paper.

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Now, on to today’s show –

Janine started in Network Marketing out of almost desperation as A single mother of 7 growing children, 5 natural and 2 adopted, Janine searched for a way to create financial security for her growing family-without missing out on their lives.

As a result, Janine developed simple and effective systems for team building and time management which she credits with her meteoric rise to the top recruiter spot among more than 500,000 Tupperware managers around the world.

In her private life Janine has overcome seemingly impossible obstacles such as a stroke that robbed her of her ability to speak. In the coming months Janine worked tirelessly to teach herself to speak once again, with great success.

Her story is timeless, inspiring and a true – against all odds – success story!

ACTION ITEMS:

Get clear on your why. Write it down.

Create your vision and take the time to right it down.

Get more things on your calendar for success in your business!

Let go of excuses, they only hold you down, not anyone else in the profession!

RESOURCES:

JanineAvila.com – put Jackie Ulmer in your order and get 2 for $25. BARGAIN!

Donnie Walker – Show 60, gives a review on iTunes.

Questions for the podcast? Ask them here!

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Jackie: So Janine, thank you so much for taking time, I know you’re a busy lady on the road a lot. Thanks so much for taking some time to be on the show today and wow our listeners with your amazing story and knowledge.

Janine: Well, I am excited to do it and I, you know, I just love you Jackie and I love, any time I can get a chance to chat it up with you, whether it’s in front of a bunch of people or just you and I, I’m happy to do it.

Jackie: Well, we have some fun and we’re still going to make that Tom Petty concert, I just know it. I’ve got my eyes out, so when I see when come on, you and I are going, so…

Janine: Alright, I’m there.

Jackie: Well, tell us a little bit, you’ve had great success in network marketing. It’s been a great career for you as a mom and as a single mom, and now as a single woman, a powerhouse out there in the world to be reckoned with for sure, but, share a little bit of your background before network marketing, a little of your career, you know, what you did for employment, I know you’re a mom. Share a little bit of that with us.

Janine: Well, that’s what so interesting when I was thinking about this today, when my mind went back there, I was like “Wow, it seemed like so long ago,” but, you know, Jackie, as a young mom, I really never wanted to work. I just, I used to have this idea that I was going to be the Donna Reed show, for those that remember that show back in the day. The opening scene of that show the kids and the husband are all going off to work and she’s there in the house.

That was what I wanted for my life and that’s what I thought it was going to be, and when I, so I got married young and I started having a lot kids. I started out down that path and then, unfortunately, I ended up a single mom. That really wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, so I was trying to figure it out and I, you know, I went out and I first got a job and I was an office manager for Exxon, here in Santa Fe, California. There was a plant they had here and they needed somebody to run their office so I was doing that. I liked it a little bit but I just hated leaving my kids at home.

I only had two kids then, and actually, so I was still married when I got my job at Exxon by the way, just for clarity but, so I went and got that job and I was just trying to help make ends meet and you know, our family was struggling and I just had to put my 18 month old daughter, Amy in daycare and my son Brian was at school. I was pregnant with my third child, and I’m working this job and I was just, it was heartbreaking leaving Amy at the daycare but I showed up one day at daycare and it was not a good daycare. There was some stuff going on there that shouldn’t have been happening. Anyway, long story short, I reported it, city of Santa Cruz said why don’t you do daycare yourself? And, so, I decided that would be a great way for me to be home with my kids and make money.

So, I quit my job at Exxon and was a daycare provider, a licensed daycare provider. I ended up getting a license to have a little pre-school and that’s what I thought was going to be my future, and then the bottom fell out of my life and, my husband left and I’m like, “Wow I have to raise five kids and then I’m a single mom and I need money and blah, blah.” So, anyway, I was running my daycare and trying to figure out how to do everything and only…

I went to a Tupperware party back in 1983 to buy Tupperware for the daycare, and that’s what, the reason I went, and that was my first introduction to direct sales, network marketing and I really, only did it then because the lady that recruited me was trying to get a car, so she just told me I’d be really good at this and that I could have six parties and quit and I could keep this tip. So, I was like, I can do that, I have six friends and, that was my introduction into network marketing.

I know that it’s kind of a long answer to a short question, but, when I think about it, I think of it fondly because that decision to go to that Tupperware party that night altered the course of my life because I didn’t really understand the industry of network marketing and I was only trying to get you know, some Tupperware for my daycare. By trying to solve the problem of, I wanted to be home with my kids and make money. So, I don’t know if you want me to take a breath here, if there’s anything you want to ask or interject where I’m at so far.

Jackie: No, that’s great and it leads me to some questions. So, you went to a Tupperware party with, I’m guessing, no thought in your mind whatsoever that you would come out a Tupperware representative.

Janine: Absolutely not. In fact, I remember the drive there and thinking how I am not going to book a party. I never would have thought of becoming a Tupperware representative but I went there, like, in my head saying, “I’m not going to book a party, I’m not going to book a party,” because I’m one of the people that will book a party. And so, I was convincing myself not to because I had a lot on my plate, certainly not to become a rep.

Jackie: Yeah. Did something happen, in the presentation? Did the consultant, go into the business opportunity? What shifted for you, either there at the party or later, that made you go, “Okay, well, I can possibly do this, or at the very least can do this because I want the kit.” Was it more motivated by wanting the kit or was money motivating you at all? Tell us about that.

Janine: Well, yeah, that’s such a good question because I went to the party and what happened was, I actually really loved Tupperware and was using it a lot. I actually went to the party of a lady I didn’t even know. She owns a storage locker where I had some stuff in storage and she invited me. I didn’t know anybody at the party, which is kind of unusual. Usually when you invite people like that they don’t come, but I went because I like Tupperware so much and I wanted some.

So, when I got there what happened was, the Tupperware lady wasn’t knowledgeable as I thought she should have been about some of the products, so, she would talk about the products and I was kind of, I guess, being her amen section. I was like, well you know what else you can do with that, and, blah, blah, blah, this is what I do. It was just natural enthusiasm. I was just sharing with the other ladies some of the things I did. So, she was very smart because at the end of the party, she didn’t talk about the business except that she was trying to get a car.

At the end of the party, she approached me, one on one, and here’s the lesson for all the party planning people. She approached me one on one and she came up to and she said, “I just want to tell you that with your personality, you’d be really good at doing this.” Have you ever thought of doing something like this?

And I of course, immediately said, “No.” I said, “No, no, no, I have no time. I’m a single mom, my story, right, I run a fulltime daycare, I have zero time and I’m not going to book a party and I don’t have time.” She said, “Well, I just want you to know, I want to show you something, and she showed me the orders. I still remember this.

I talked about this, they, it was a pie taker they sold and I had given like four ideas how you can use it for cupcakes, I use it for tortillas. I just gave a, like, five things I did with it. She said, “I want to show you something,” and she showed me all the orders for this tortilla, pie taker, because the thing I talked about and something else I’d talked about was the Popsicle thing they had.

Everybody remembers those. I talked about what I did with those at my daycare and she showed me all the orders she got for that, and she said I just want to show you something.

What you talked about is what I sold and, I made, I think she said she made $63 that night. This was 1983 and she said, “I made this money tonight and if you want to try it, you could make a little money and all you have to do is host six parties.” If you don’t like it, you can quit and keep the kit and then you’ll have Tupperware for your family.

So, it was very smart, the way she did it. I actually still said no, and I said, no no, I still was all in my, I don’t have time. She complimented me again when I left and she said, your personality is exactly the kind of person that can make money with this and you know, I know you’re really busy but you should just think about it and she handed like a recruiting brochure, she handed it to me when I went out the door.

I thought about it when I drove home and I still thought no, and then, the next day, she called me on the three way call with her manager. We all know how those go, right, and asked me if I had 15 minutes, because they were going to be in my area to show me the facts.

They sat down and showed me the facts and I decided I would go in but only, and I mean only, for six parties, and that was it and then I was going to quit and I never did, eventually, like eight years later. And then I thought I’ll just do it until I run out of parties. I just, I loved the social aspect of it. I liked talking to adults. I liked the fact that I was making money and I just enjoyed the people I was around.

Jackie: Oh that’s awesome. You know that’s funny Janine, since I know you, I can totally see you sitting there at the party like, “Oh, by the way…”

Janine: You know there are some cool nuggets in there for everybody. I don’t care if you’re party planning, network marketing or what. You don’t know what is in someone’s heart, what could be drawn out of them. You don’t know who you’re inviting and where they are and, you know, what little thing, how you could truly change someone’s life through that invitation. Think about that, a random person at your storage thing invites you and look at how she changed your life.

Jackie: Yeah. That’s amazing.

Janine: It gives me goose bumps when I think about those little whole, serendipitous things that come through our lives that, you know, that sometimes we turn our backs, we miss those little signs and we don’t look at those and go, “Wow, what if there’s a possibility there?” I know I’m thinking no but what if there’s a little possibility there?

Jackie: So, in the three way call, was it a typical three way call where they were both on the phone and they tag-teamed you?

Janine: No, first she called me and then she asked me if it was okay if she got her and I was like, you know, I really don’t have time. I was still saying no and she said, well I just wanted, I told her how nice you were and blah, blah, so, notice how much she complimented me? She’s like, I told her how much I sold, and she just wants to talk to you and I said, okay. So, then she, you know, actually, I think no, it wasn’t a three way call.

She called me, they were there, I didn’t even, I don’t think three way calling, I think she put her on the phone because I haven’t thought about this in a really long time but she just handed her the phone. That’s what it was and then, they came over, like, in a little while. So, later I learned that they weren’t really going to be in my area unless I said, yes. So, anyway, they came over and they just started showing me what I could get and that I could get a discount.

So, I could buy those toys I wanted for my daycare and I could get this kit and then blah, blah. So, it’s no hard feelings if I quit after six parties and, then they tagged the last thing in, it will really help Carmen because she needs one more person so she can get a car. She’ll get a car, they’ll tie a nice bow around it, she’ll get a car, you’ll get a kit, you can quit, you know, have a little fun six times. You just have to go out, because I was like I don’t even know who’s going to watch my kids and this kind of timing in my life was tough. So, anyway, that’s how I ended up saying yes and going in.

Jackie: I love that, that story is so great. So, then there you were. You had, you know, you had to do those six parties and get that kit. So, what did you do to launch your business and what were those first six months like? What did they look like?

Janine: Well, the thing that was kind of funny was, I went to my first party, which was my next door neighbor across the street, and she, you know, those people who will just do anything. I just was like, I need six people to do something that I asked them to. I told them all I wasn’t going to do was sell Tupperware, but I am going to have six parties, so I need you to help me and just have this and then I’ll be off your back.

So, I did and those are the six people, and, I, my first party, what happened was, my up, like, up line, up line in Tupperware, called me, Rosemary, who became my life mentor, and she just called to wish me well, which I thought was really, she was so nice. She said to me, don’t forget, it was called dating a party back then, dating a party with everybody there. She said that to me so when I hung up, this is like, the ignorance on fire, I’m like, oh, okay. So, I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. There were ten people at the party and I booked nine parties that night.

I was just excited about it, I was doing it, like, I even forgot that I wasn’t going to do this long term and then I remembered that night thinking, well I’ll just quit when I run out of parties because, I thought I was going to quit. But then, Rosemary called me the next day and asked me how I did and I said, well I didn’t do very good, I didn’t get all of them. There was 10 people there but I booked nine.

She’s like, “You got nine bookings last night?” I said yes, and she goes, you poor child. I remember her asking me three different ways, did you mean you booked parties, like, you have parties in your book, nine of them, you got them last night? And I said yeah, you said to get, because I couldn’t get the other one. She’s like, oh my gosh. And that was the beginning. So I, because of that, I didn’t know that that was uncommon.

So, I kind of just launched off that way and I really liked it, and I liked having the party so I just ran around on the predominant energy I was selling, was fun. Like, it’s fun. This is fun. We’re going to have a fun Tupperware party, and I was like, goofing off and making people laugh and, sharing my experience and, you know, just, I was off to the races. And then, they were like, bugging me to come to rally on Monday. I’m like, I cannot do that, do not ever ask me to go to that thing again, I cannot go. I have a daycare. I have to run my daycare.

I mean, talk about the absolute no. I’m like, I cannot do it. I won’t, I will not even do this if I have to do that. They’re like, okay, okay, you don’t have to do it. And then, Rosemary, here she comes again, you just have to go to one and if you could find a way, if there’s someone that, you know, maybe sit at your daycare, from like, just about 3 hours or 4 hours, so you can come and to see what it’s like and then you never have to come again but if you come to one, then you’ll know what it is and then as, you know, you can tell other people. I was like,

I ended up saying yes. I’m like okay. So, I found a friend to come over and stay at my daycare and it was hard to do because I had to get somebody with a license, but I did it and I went to that one rally, Jackie, and I had never been to anything like that in my life.

I was hooked.

They were playing music, and people were happy and they were like, talking about their sales and there were prizes and people were getting recognition. I had never seen that environment in my life and that’s why I’m a strong, advocate to drive people to event’s because I, like me, I didn’t have a frame of reference for what that was and I thank God that Rosemary didn’t give up on me and she helped me find a way to get there.

She just gave me a lot of different ideas and with love and not pushy but it’s a fun, encouraging energy and she let me off the hook, ‘you never have to come again if you come to one’ and that was it. Boy, after that, I found somebody to watch my daycare on Mondays and I would go and I would take a car full of people and we, within three months, I was a Tupperware manager driving my own station wagon. I was remodeling my garage back at the time to be a daycare center because I was going to expand and get a license for 20 because I had a license for 12 and that was in the middle of remodeling it and I turned the brakes on that.

It became a Tupperware rally room for my team here in Santa Cruz and I ended up hiring out the daycare until I finally found another daycare and I kept a couple of the kids that I’d had since they were little and then finally you know, hired off all the daycare kids to other daycare providers and went full force into Tupperware.

Jackie: At the point, had you really identified your why, because we know that’s a big part of it but it’s like you said, you may never want to do the business, you wanted the free kit, and then you kind of just bumbled along and you know, kept going with things. So, I’m sure that really identifying a why to begin with wasn’t clear. So, at what point would you say it became clearer? I mean, you’re hugely successful within three months, where does the why in all that fit in for you in this part of your story?

Janine: You know, it’s kind of interesting because I never identified the why until after I left Tupperware. It’s such an interesting question, that’s why I love doing interviews with you Jackie, you really make me think about stuff I haven’t thought about for a long time but, when I was building my business in Tupperware, what drove me was the fun I was having and the freedom that I had to be able to go on field trips and I was room mother, all the things I wanted to do that I still couldn’t do. I thought that I was going to be able to be home with my kids and do all those things but at daycare, it had me so locked in I couldn’t even go to a rally, right?

So, when I realized that, how tied in I was, so, it was, my why was freedom, but I never articulated it even to myself. What really drove me was that I was able to run around and be free and I liked that. As much as I never, I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense but I didn’t think about it that much, but, another thing, and I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but, it’s true, so I have to, was that the recognition. I had never had that kind of recognition and I had grown up in a, you know, kind of a Portuguese-Catholic home, an household with my family where you didn’t talk about yourself and it was, you know, don’t brag about yourself.

We were taught to not really think about what we want or we didn’t get a lot of recognition and then I had kind of a tough marriage and I didn’t get any recognition there. I had all these kids and I never had recognition like that. I got some in high school for different things I did, cheerleading and things, but here I was being recognition, and they were, making speeches about me. I had seen my name in print and that was what was causing me to RUN (in her business) because I loved it. I was like, what’s better than this? I used to get in trouble for talking, now I get paid for it.

They were putting my name in big print and they’re writing stories about me, people were making speeches about what I did, how good it was and I’m getting to make other people happy. So, the whole thing that I love about the industry, being able to contribute to people’s lives, I was helping moms to be able to be home with their kids and I cared so much about that.

So, I don’t know if it’s because I was so busy with my, you know, being a single mom with five kids was a very busy. I was active, I was active in their schools and I was having five Tupperware parties a week and I was making recruits. I was burning myself out and I know we’ll probably talk about some of that other stuff later, but, I had to go through tons of personal development down the road so I could do better.

I was driven by the fun I was having and recognition and I never, nobody ever said you have to figure out why you’re doing this. I learned all that later when I started really getting involved with more the, the MLM network marketing industry side of it when I went corporate. That’s when I started to work with trainers and that’s when I learned more about it and Tupperware, I was just running around for the fun and the money and the recognition and it was working for me.

Jackie: I am so glad that you were willing to be a little embarrassed and share that recognition piece because I think that’s so important. Before we actually started this, you and I talked a little bit about being women and being moms and putting ourselves last all the time and then, all of a sudden, breaking into this “Oh wow, here I am.” I’ve arrived and now my kids are gone and I can do a lot of things like that.” But I think you bring up a really, really good point with the recognition piece in a couple of ways.

How important it is for us as leaders to realize how important that is, just even the little things so to speak, little successes, getting a customer, signing up the first distributor, attending a training event, just all those kinds of things, anything that we can do to provide recognition because you know, it’s like you say you grew up in a family that didn’t really hold that as a value. You were married to a man who didn’t either. You know in the corporate world, for the most part, we don’t get that, and so I think it’s an important thing to remember that as leaders but I think it is also important for us to feel okay with acknowledging how good that feels for us too to get recognition.

Janine: As I was talking to you about it, you really helped me to sort of uncover that because I really realized it just in this conversation but that first Tupperware rally I went to was a silly thing but it isn’t. They had a chair back it was called. It was just a piece of cloth, like a horizontal piece of cloth, and it went over the back of the chair and it said, “top new distributor” and the other one said “top new manager”.

And the girl who got all this recognition and they were saying their name into the microphone, then the music. Then everybody was clapping, and then she got this chair back and she had it on her chair. As silly as that seems, I wanted that. I wanted one of those. I’m like, “I want that.

What did she have to do to get that? I want to be the one.” I wanted that and I got it. The little things like that, sometimes like we don’t know what’s inside a person or what they have had or haven’t had. It was those silly things when I look back at the pictures now and I see myself with these little crowns and sashes and the different things, but it was what I needed and it fed me, and it fed my family. It was okay for me to get recognized for doing good in the lives of others and helping them.

When they would say my name, I remember just crying. It was that kind of recognition that I got from the company, but then there was the recognition when the people would stand up and say, “And then Janine said this and then now I got a car, now I got to quit my job or I was able to buy my kids this or that.” I remember still every day because I never left the industry. Well, I did for a short time, but that never left me, that feeling. That’s the kind of recognition that as you grow, your name as Jim Rohn said, their story, there’s nothing better than that.

Jackie: That’s so cool. Well, it would be easy to look at that and go, “Wow, three months and you’re driving a car, everything’s groovy, but I’m going to guess that like most of us, you had some challenges and pitfalls along the way. You’ve mentioned already how you had to work on personal growth and that sort of thing. So, talk to us a little about what some of those challenges and obstacles were that you dealt with personally and even in an organization because we know organizations are fluid, which means they’re shifting and moving all the time even in network marketing, so it’s not always sunshine and roses, even if it starts out that way.

Janine: Oh Gosh, no. And what I learned was the better you are at recruiting, the more work you create for yourself and I was so disorganized and just a few things happened to me that I hope this can be a cautionary tale for some people. First of all, and it really hurt me, to lay it out there, I got all caught up in the recognition. I was just caught up in the whole thing, and I remember I got it between the eyes.

When I went to my daughter’s back to school night, and I walked in and they had all drawn pictures of their families and it said, “my family.” Amy was in like the third or fourth grade, and I wish I still had this picture, but I don’t. I walked in and I was looking for our family. I see it right away because there is a mom and there is no dad in the picture and there are all these kids. So, I knew that was going to be me so I walked up to the picture and what I see is the mom holding a telephone…

Jackie: Right between the eyes, man, right in the heart.

Janine: I was like “Oh my gosh!” I said, am I on the phone?” And she goes, “Yeah, mom because you’re always on the phone.” And I was like yikes! But what I did was I guess one of my greatest strengths is I try to learn from all that stuff, and I called Rosemary the next day and I said what any good mother would say, “I have to quit.”

When I think about Rosemary, her poise and her posture, and she was like “What?” And so I was telling her, and she said, “Oh no, you don’t have to quit, you just have to adjust that.” Then she gave me really great coaching and she was like, that’s a good sign, you’re on the phone too much.

Talk to your kids, and she said you need to block some time where you’re not on the phone and this was before cellphones. You can only imagine how much I was on the phone. And we had an answering machine for those who remember those. She was like turn down the sound on your answering machine and don’t even be tempted and block time. Rosemary started shifting me and helping me figure out that it isn’t the business, it’s how you’re doing it and so she just started helping me. I went through this shift.

I remember going to the library and checking out all these books on time management and how to get organized when you don’t have the time and stuff like that. And that’s why a lot of my training programs that I sell are around that. My success program that’s on my website, it’s all about how to set up your office and your time because I regret the time that I spent like that. I was so disorganized, I was crying. I was feeling like a bad mom, and now I want to quit and I started thinking that I ruined everybody’s lives on my team because I created this.

Rosemary so brilliantly pointed out to me, it wasn’t the business, it was how I was doing it. I had to adjust all of that and learn and I started to do that. Rosemary said something to me that I’ve never forgotten. I have quoted off still to this day all the time to people is “Do the things only you can do and hire people to do the things anybody can do.”

She pointed it out to me, I was carrying a big load at that time. Then I adopted my two kids. My oldest son had a best friend who was in a foster home. Here, I am a single mom, but because I was at the top of my game in Tupperware in sales and income, I was able to convince the county of Santa Cruz to give me two more kids.

I would have probably committed the woman to a nuthouse, but I’m like why does a single mom with five kids, but it worked out. It was the right thing to do. It wasn’t a plan, like I was trying to adopt kids or anything like that. It just was my son’s best friend, and then we found out he had a brother. Anyway, so I was taking on even more so I had to keep adjusting and growing and learning how to manage a lot of priorities, so that I didn’t take something that was really good and just kind of abuse it like the freedom and the responsibility.

So, I guess that that is where I really dialed in how being more organized and being more focused. I hired people to do the things like the first time I got somebody, back to my humble beginnings, you cleaned your own house. But no, that way, I spent my time at field trips with my kids and talking to my kids and going to the movies and doing pizza nights and the things that I love to do, and putting stamps on envelopes and deliveries, we used to do deliveries back then, writing out invitations and all of this stuff where I had spent a lot of my time.

Again, Rosemary was such a problem solver for me because I said I can’t afford to hire anybody right now. She said well, train people for product and traded people and so I did things. And she said to me, “Janine, you have to get better at problem solving.” And so I did. I remember high school, some of these people are still very good friends of mine like high school girls I hired and traded for things. They’d want rides, and I’d give them a ride. I’d say can you come in and address these envelopes? I just got very creative about how I was going to get it all done.

Jackie: That was true resourcefulness, it’s amazing. Then you ultimately left Tupperware and you transitioned out. Talk to us a little bit about that phase in your life and what was next.

Janine: It was a hard time for me because some things just went on at corporate that I didn’t agree with and I just wanted to leave the industry. And I felt badly about that; it was almost like a divorce for me. It was a hard time, and I left Tupperware and the company and the things that happened back then for me. I realized that I just wanted to leave the industry, I was tired. I had been a top recruiter in the nation. I have to look it up and see what year it was, but I think it was 1985. I put more people in station wagons than anybody in the nation.

I mean, I was breaking all their records so you can only imagine what my life has been like. Some things took place that were just hard for me, and I left. It was a huge decision, it was like a second divorce, and I mean, I changed my phone number, I moved out of town. It was tough for me, but I went to work in the Central Valley, California, my brother’s trucking company, and I was just like I don’t want anything to do with this industry again but it wasn’t right thinking but it was what I felt and I know a lot of people go through stuff like that.

Then the president of another network marketing company based in Santa Cruz contacted me to come to work corporate. He said he had heard of my Tupperware success and blah, blah, blah and that he wanted to know they were looking for a vice president of field support. Of course, I said no as I always did.

I don’t want to come back in it. I said to him some things happened that hurt people that I put in the business so I don’t want to do it anymore. He said if you were corporate you could be a part of the team that makes sure stuff like that doesn’t happen. So, that’s how I went corporate. I ended up saying yes. I missed living in Santa Cruz, I moved back here for a while to work there, and then that company was sold to a company in Dallas, another network marketing company.

So, for the next ten to fifteen years, Jackie, I was a corporate vice president of three different network marketing companies. I started speaking at the DSA.

I was doing what I loved and building the business and teaching people how to recruit and train and build and all of the things that I loved, working with people and it ended up with Richard Brooke who had been a long time friend of mine and went up to be vice president in his company in Idaho. I loved the industry so much and the people and what it represents. I learned, and learned, and learned along my path but a couple of years ago I just realized there was a huge missing piece for me and that was the residual income and freedom because I felt like a hypocrite because I was working corporate and telling everybody about how they can get free and I wasn’t.

I was ready to leave my, which is kind of an interesting thing, you know, people talk about shattering the glass ceiling. So, I left my job as a corporate vice president with the corner office and all the fancy 401 K’s and the trimmings and even though it was a network marketing for me, again, being totally honest, I felt like I was hiding out at my corporate job. I didn’t feel like I was in my true passion of being free and being able to be take my grandson to the movie in the middle of the day and not have to ask anybody if I wanted time off. So, I left and went back into the field for the first time since my early beginnings three years ago, and I am so happy I did that.

Jackie: That’s a great story. You’ve been through a lot and you’ve seen both sides of it definitely from party planning and getting started to network marketing corporate to now network marketing field leader. What would you say, if you have to name three primary skills that a person needs to develop, and I always like to say develop because you’ve shared your story and certainly my own story and many people I have talked to, most of these are skills that we have to develop. We don’t come into this profession with all the skills that we need typically to be successful. So, what would you say would be those three primary skills that a person needs to focus on developing to become successful?

Janine: Well, I would say one of them is obviously going to be prioritizing your time. Just for me, I guess because that was something I struggled with and I still have to work with, with people and myself all the time because when you have all this freedom, you have from the options and things you can do, so you have to figure out what you really want.

As I’m sitting here in my office talking to you, I’m looking at my lists. Every day, I make a list of the top seven things that I need to get done. Those are my core seven, and I’m staring at it because I have to put it in front of my face because I’m so visual and like a little fun heart. I’ll run out the door if somebody gives me a better idea, but I have to promise myself that I’ll do those seven things. I can do everything else as long as those seven things happen.

I wasn’t that way before, and I had a lot of lost business, a lot of people who showed up in somebody else’s business or at somebody else’s party because I just never followed up. I spent a lot of time with people mad at me because I wouldn’t follow up or I wouldn’t call them back, and I wanted to, I intended to, but I would completely forget and then I would blame my busy life and stuff. So anyway, I guess number one is to really have a good system and the discipline to organize your time and your priorities and to track yourself and hold yourself accountable. I just think that’s huge in what we do.

Jackie: Yes. That’s a great one definitely. I think that’s so important.

Janine: The second one I think is to really, I don’t know if this is a skill so redirect me if I’m going on the wrong track. One of the things when Margie Aliprandi interviewed me for her last book, one of the things that really got me thinking about was to really be able to study your business and what you want to do, to really be able to understand your business, whatever it is, and how you make money and how it works.

There were people like the early Janine who was just running around on fun and recognition drive that don’t really plug in and understand how money is made and what the business is, there’s things you need to know. Like if you’re going to get your real estate broker’s license there are things you need to know. You have to study it. If you’re going to pass the SAT’s or whatever you’re trying to do to be a contractor of any type, you have to know things.

I think because our business is easy for people to get into with some money, oftentimes, probably most of the time, they don’t know the things they need to know, because they haven’t developed the skill of focus and of being able to sit down and say all right, I’ve got to look at my back office and see where things are and let me understand. You can make money without understanding the compensation plan, but you can make a lot more of it and not lose money and not leave money on the table, if you understand how you get paid and when you get paid and what the rules are.

I just think that part of being a winner in anything is understanding the boundaries and the rules of the game. So, for me, that’s something I’ve really tried to help people learn and focus on is that. I mean, take it seriously. If people want to be paid professionally, but they don’t want to act professionally, they want to treat it like a hobby, this is not new. A lot of people say this but that’s probably something I wished I had done earlier. I’m talking from my own experience. I lost a lot of time and money. I lost a big screen TV once by 57 points because I wasn’t paying attention to the points and just flying around by the seat of my pants.

So, just really saying I’m serious, and serious does not have to mean not fun, I’m all about fun, but when it comes to my business and how I get paid and how other people get paid, I’m serious because I take my word very seriously. If I tell somebody you can come in this and you can make a certain amount of money, I have to be prepared to professionally explain that to them and make sure that they know how to do it. Now, I don’t take responsibility for them doing it or not, but I do my part. I make sure that I know the answers, where to get the answers, how I get paid and what my schedule is and what I can reasonably do, then I can call myself a professional. Does that make sense?

Jackie: Yes, it makes total sense, I love it. Do you have a third?

Janine: Yes. The third is not really a skill, but it came to me is, really what we talked about a little bit earlier is resourcefulness and creative problem solving because there will be things that you’ll want to do in this business… I come across it all the time, people want to go to events and I think, “Man, people just aren’t good enough out there in general at solving their own problems and combining that with resilience I guess.” It’s just being able to figure out how to get to an event and how to put the money together and can you really do it and how to put together what you need to put together and how to carve out the time and how to set up an office.

A huge part of what I teach people all the time is how to set up an office so they can work especially now. It’s harder than ever. It sounds like an old lady, but these kids, I mean 30-year olds but all they have is their iPhones. I mean, “Where do you work?” And they don’t have a committed area in their home, they are trying to work everything off this iPhone. You can do that for some things but if you want to get paid a six-figure income, you know, I’m very mobile so I believe in a mobile printer and my laptop, and I have a certain bag. I can have my office space set up wherever I am, but there are just certain things you’ve got to have and do.

So, I guess, it’s just figuring out how to make your business work wherever you are and how you want it to be but really making it work. I see people want to quit and give up because they can’t figure out how to get what they want, and I say “Just keep figuring it out, you know. Keep trying.”

Jackie: Very good, I think that was a very good answer. Okay, you know what you know it is anyway Janine different things with people and different times you know and for someone that message is going to be dead on.

Janine: Yeah, you know but it’s how it usually is.

Jackie: So, talk to me about vision…

Janine: You know about business, Jackie, I just thought of something else that I think is …

Jackie: Yeah.

Janine: It’s being coachable. Being trusting or finding a good mentor, may not be your immediate sponsor, but finding a good mentor in your company and being willing to really listen to what they say and to take a look because we all have a gap. we all have things about our self that we can’t see. When you find some good mentors and you surround yourself with them, they help you point out these things, that’s the secret to like really growth in this business because it just…

For me, you know I have a few people like that I’ve listened to my mentors Rosemary, certainly Richard Brooke and just your friends that has been able to point out things to me along the way and the lessons I’ve learned. If I had, in the early days, I was more coachable then I just got were I was just trying really hard to trying to get in, survival. You’re trying to do everything yourself. When you really listen to other mentors and really say “Okay where can I do better at and how did I do?” I think your coach ability is a very important piece to developing our self.

Jackie: I think you’re right. So that’s perfectly explained vision then because I know you’re really big on that and you do work with Richard Brooke and he certainly wrote a book on vision. So, talk to us a little bit about the importance of that place. I think also its how it’s different than your why.

Janine: Yeah, and that’s a really good question because when Richard first asked me to come to his vision workshop, I was like, this is going to sound awful too but I’m being all like. You’re like Barbara Walters, you’re like can get me to say anything. I was like “Oh my gosh! How many of these things am I going to go to in my lifetime?” Like I’ve been to all you know, all the seminars and all of these kinds of stuff, personal development and all this kind of stuff but out of respect for Richard, I went.

His vision workshop was so different because he talked about family values, imposed values and core values, all these things I’ve never thought about and I thought and I thought it was in a landmark form. You know, Tony Robbins and Jim Carey, Wayne Dyer and all these, you know what I mean, everything. So, I get over here and I was like “I’ve never heard this stuff before.” I knew what my “why” was, it was that I wanted freedom, I knew that. I finally figured that out, I went around and told people with what their “why” because I was questioning them and then I was like “Oh I don’t know what mine is.” So, that’s why I said I thought about that later with the vision.

Richard, the way he had you write out your vision of what you want your life to look like and he describes it like you’re kind of writing the screens of your life. He makes you, let me tell you because if you don’t and you said you need some help to fix it, you write it as if it’s already happening.

Some of that almost seem a little bit like ‘hocus pocus’ to me at the beginning like “I don’t know” then I’m like “Just do it” that’s why it worked. Figures of thinking about coach-ability and I’m like “Just do it” and attending the vision workshop and hearing the stories about people like Jim Carey who wrote himself a check for a million dollar way before it ever happened and stuff like that.

We’ve all heard a lot of those stories but for me to tap myself off from all the crazy distractions of my life and to go into that vision workshop and think about Janine, which is always been like “I was all with my kids, team, my family and my distributor” you know just everything. I’ve always been one because I love people so much to think about everybody else that I learned through the vision workshop that I had not ever really thought about a design, a blueprint for what I want for my life to be like. I thought about my business and things like that. I can write a business plan like that and it’s nobody’s business but the Janine plan, was not being worked on.

So, the first time I ever wrote a vision, it was really hard for me not to write like all the back baggage of my past and I’m no… So, Richard’s part, I always had a tough, one of his toughest cases because he had to keep kicking it back to me. I was so stuck in the past, and I never even knew I was stuck until I was trying to write this vision. So, then I did and I wrote the vision for my life and it caused me to feel hope for my future. It was really exciting for me, it was fun, then reading it and rereading it. Also, what I learned was that I’ve changed as I’ve grown as a person.

I’m actually rewriting my vision because I’m growing. I’ve changed, I tried some things that I have written in my vision, like I shared an example with you when we were talking earlier. I had a vision for living on this big ranch out in the foothills and I got that. I started doing it but when I wrote about it in the vision, then I got it, then when I was doing it, I realized I wasn’t happy with all that solitude that seems like I was going to have. So, I just rewrote my vision again because I moved back to Santa Cruz and now I have a different view of what I want in my life.

I’ve learned that when you are carefully writing a vision, so you know what you want and subconscious mind knows it so you’re actively working on it and you’re reminding yourself and you’re growing, things change in life and situations change. So, rewriting that vision is a huge part for me of keeping myself going forward all the time and not kind of just stuck in the past. It’s something I do that builds my confidence, it builds my self-esteem and it really gives me hope for my future.

Jackie: You know I love it when you say that. It’s kind of funny if you’re sharing that about you know getting out there and all the solitude and then going “Well heck, this isn’t what I really wanted.”

Janine: Way back when I first discovered the internet and got so excited about the tools to expand my reach and meet more people and go to global business and stuff, I kind of drew a picture out of them. I think it was fast company magazine and this was probably back in 2001, and I put it in my dream book and it said “You have 1,093 emails.” I can tell you that back in 2000 or 2001 that sounded really exciting because I thought that was going to mean all emails that said “You’ve sponsored a new team member” or “Your volume is growing” or whatever, instead, mostly was a bunch of spam and things that I don’t want but it’s kind of funny, believe me.

Janine: Right.

Jackie: Once I went back and looked at it, I ripped it out of my dream book so fast it would make your head spin.

Janine: Right, right.

Janine: The reality of it’s not all it’s cracked up to be in your mind, right?

Jackie: Exactly, exactly oh I love that! Oh my gosh! Too funny too funny. Well, if you’re just getting started today with the knowledge that you have now, what would your first love in business look like? Like, what would you do to build fast and get into action?

Janine: With the knowledge I have today, first definite thing that I would do is I would plan more presentations instead of more like study and like little fun events, just invitations, like inviting, inviting, inviting, but not following up as much. I think now, for me and with the systems we have in place with like tools and the technology we have that we didn’t have when I was first building, I would sit down and plan my time very carefully. Where am I going to go? How much of it I’m going to spend, like on the business.

Where am I going to get the business? And then I would plan that time for presenting, excuse me, I plan the time for inviting, presenting and following-up and put all that into my schedule and then just block the time for that and then just get out and do it.

That’s how I would start differently, before it was just like whatever happened, happened and I was running around and you know just kind of without a role plan in place. Now, I would start with a much more structured plan. Like I was saying, I’m all about fun and flexibility but what I know now, probably the biggest lesson I know now, that there is far more freedom and flexibility within structure than without it.

I know that sounds kind of like an oxymoron or something almost but it isn’t. I have a very structured schedule like very, my team knows this, my kids know this. The secret to getting me to one of their kids events is to you need to tell me. I have everything planned so I have a lot of structure, but that structure gives me freedom and flexibility because I’m in control of my schedule, I can change it. I just have to know and because I always know where I’m going to be, I always know because I carry a calendar and I use it like crazy and I know all of that.

So, I know what can’t be moved and what can be moved. If I start all over again, I would plan, and make money faster because I plan the inviting, the presenting and the follow-up and have it in the schedule of time for that and then the structure. That is again, I can move it but I always would know where I was going to be and that, to me, are the secrets of freedom.

Jackie: Very good. Well, tell us how we can learn more about you, Janine. I know you have a website and I think you have a special offer for everybody with some of your products. So, let us know what your website is and how can we learn more and take advantage of all your great knowledge.

Janine: Thank you! It’s JanineAvila.com and I don’t know if my name, if you know to spell it but its Janine it’s J-A-N-I-N-E. My nickname is J nine J-A-N-I-N-E Avila, that’s A-V-I-L-A .com. I have a website on there and I have some products on there that I was talking about. So, first from Janine Avila’s Secret Success Formula, that’s the one that has two CDs.

The first CD is all about how to set up your home office and time organization and time management and corporate planner and highlighting with colors and just everything you can do, a lot about problem solving. I even tell people “If you don’t have a desk, use an ironing board.” I know you don’t use that, right.

There are different things you can do. The second one is kind of one of my favorite signature programs, R.I.T.A, Recruiting Is The Answer, about how to recruit and then they are a little generic and then there’s a little work book in the middle of that one that helps you figure out just kind of your own “why,” what you’re good at, what you want to do.

I put them on sale on my website for $25 because I am trying to move to that packaging because I have lost like a 100 pounds and I want to put these pictures, more current looking stuff on there. The material is all very timeless, it all works. Anybody on this call, you go to my website and you order any of those and if you type

Jackie Ulmer’s

name in the comment, you will get the fun of having 2 for 1. So, anything you will buy you’ll get 2 for 1. That’s on any of the products. The other one, 22 Ways to Get Energy, that is all about habits and attitude and who you surround yourself with.

People are always asking me how I get high energy and so I just kind of do 25 to be honest with you. I was speaking somewhere and I ended up only getting 22, so that’s why there’s 22. Those are two of my favorite programs and they are 2 for 1 for anybody that writes Jackie Ulmer in the box. I’m on Facebook and I’m on Twitter and if you go to my website, you can find all of that stuff. I’m thrilled and honored that you had me on this show today Jackie because I just love just talking to you in general but the way you get me to think about my life is a gift. Thank you!

Jackie: Thank you so much for sharing that and I always love interviewing you and hearing your story and your energy is always fun and amazing. I know it’s inspiring for everybody else too, so, any final thoughts before we close out?

Janine: I think probably I wanted to say my final thought and my best advice to people is to just stay plugged in to your team and your company and surround yourself with the right people because that’s what builds your belief because this is really the greatest opportunity there is for personal freedom and to be fully self-expressed and to be the person you want to be.

I think I’m the poster girl, Jackie if I can do this anybody can with all my challenges and my heavy caps and my kids and my, I was a disaster. You know today, I’m happy to say that this business made me into a person of contribution and joy and I’m really happy for that. Stay plugged into people, that’s what I want to say.

Jackie: That’s excellent. We’re happy that you did and that you are here to continue spreading that out into the world and doing great things. So, Janine thanks so much for being here. I so appreciate it!

Janine: You’re welcome!

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Also, if you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes and write a brief review.

And, on Stitcher!

That would help immensely in getting the word out! Thanks.

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EXPECT Success!

Jackie Ulmer